Younger Than Yesterday: Music in 2012

After a gap of over six weeks, during which time I didn’t get to see any live music, November proved to be a veritable feast of gig going, which was allied to several purchases of CDs, making it a busy musical month. As the calendar flips over on to December, it seems very unlikely I’ll get to see any more gigs or buy any CDs before Hogmanay, so I’ll take the opportunity of using this Blog to round up my live and recorded experiences in November and the year of 2012 as a whole.

The Wedding Present play Seamonsters: 02 Academy, November 10^th.

The worst part about David Gedge’s regular appearances on Tyneside are that he tends to play the worst, most soulless, corporate, bland venue in the city. Add to that, the last two gigs up here (tonight and December 2010’s Bizarro) were both Saturday nights, meaning a tea time start, which resulted in me missing this evening’s support Tocquai while quality testing real ales in The Bodega and Tilley’s and house lights on by 9.45 to allow the venue’s real money maker, the club night, conspires to create an ambience that is about as far away from the spirit of C86 you can get. Even worse, the upstairs venue was hosting a Guns & Roses tribute act that seemed to have attracted a crowd of mentally ill mackem hooligan wannabes. Good job I was able to ensconce myself against the barrier stage right to see the usual thunderous Weddoes set.

In some ways, the band are in danger of finding themselves on the parody treadmill continuum; annual tours celebrating records released over 20 years ago to ageing crowds that know the words all off by heart. However, we accept this, as readily as we accept the ever evolving line-up is David Gedge with several hired hands; thus there is nothing to do but enjoy the wonderful music. This evening, with a slightly smaller crowd than last time, no doubt because of the more intense and less mainstream sound of Seamonsters compared to Bizarro, a 40 minute set of other material included My Favourite Dress, of course, as well as a stupendous Sports Car, before the real business of the evening. Stand out tracks, as they were on the album back in 1991, were Suck, Corduroy, Heather and Octopussy, before a surprise final number of Click Click. Next year, there are dates scheduled abroad for Hit Parade 1 evenings; great news, but I’m looking forward to the Watusi, Mini and Saturnalia tours in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Half Man Half Biscuit: 02 Academy, November 15th

This was one of the most disappointing nights of the year for me; firstly because it cost me nigh on £22 to see them, including booking fees, which was simply unacceptable when the Weddoes were £15, Dirty Three £17 and Vic Godard a mere £7. Secondly, it saddened me to see a crowd of possibly 200 more than had been there for The Wedding Present on the Saturday before. Thirdly, it sickened me to see the kind of consciously whacky oddballs that HMHB attract; internet addicts in Dukla Prague away kits, Honved shirts and Hi-Viz jackets (but not £400 Hi-Viz jackets and designer socks of course; they go to on the peeve instead). This was the graduation ball for social inadequates from far and wide.

To me, Half Man Half Biscuit are not brilliantly articulate wordsmiths; they are whimsical no-trick ponies, addicted to bad puns in a Richard Stilgoe meets Jake Thackeray kind of fashion. Yes, they are that bad; almost beyond parody. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good night in the bar beforehand with my kind of people (40 something non-league fans in the main) and I was delighted to get a couple of copies of Dickie Davies Eyes on 7” for 50p a shot, but I was even more delighted the next night when my beloved MK Dons, the ultimate punk rock football club, beat Tranmere at Prenton Park.

Dirty Three: Sage Hall 2, November 26^th

A cold, wet Monday night, where the walk up sales are negligible and you even think twice about bothering yourself. Thank goodness you did though? Warren Ellis is perhaps the greatest showman in the world of low fi, post rock, instrumental music; not a difficult task admittedly. That said, his patter is genius (a story about how the name Paul is synonymous with Satan and how Coldplay have 666 tattooed on their heads was as offensive as it was meandering and hilarious) and his band are just the same. The immobile Mick Turner plays quiet, understated barre chords and the odd simple lead run, acting as the anchoring fulcrum around which the crazed Ellis splurges Hendrix style explosions on violin, while Jim White, perhaps as technically brilliant as Buddy Rich, uses brushes, sticks, percussion and what have you, without clashing the kit, to make astonishing soundscapes of brittle beauty and barbarous anger.

Each number is a minimum 10 minutes long, with certain pieces like the marvellous Everything is Fucked heading north of twice that length, with relentless fuzzbox streaked violin solos and squalls of monstrous feedback from Ellis as the metronymic Turner holds the lot together. Ellis is brilliant in The Bad Seeds, but in Dirty Three he is a genius and a man possessed. It’s been 7 years since they last played Newcastle, during which time his beard has grown more voluminous and Jim White’s hair ever more eccentric; roll on their massively anticipated return in 2019. I simply love this band.

Vic Godard with The Sexual Objects & Pauline Murray: Star & Shadow, November 30^th

With a line up like that, despite the Star & Shadow’s ability to take the 70s squat and co-operative ethos to the furthest extent, so that it can appear like we’re at a MIND fundraising jumble sale, it had to be a winner and it was. A punk hero, a post-punk hero and a punk heroine in the best venue in this city; what wasn’t there to love? Well, openers The Potato Four for a start; Pebbles era covers, allied to land fill post punk and extraneous guitar wankery. Next up was Pauline Murray, solo on acoustic guitar, playing 3 of her new self-penned numbers. Goodness she was nervous, but she pulled the thing off in front of a supportive crowd, many of whom have followed her, and Vic for that matter, for upwards of three and a half decades.

You’d never associate Davey Henderson with nerves; louche insouciance more like. The Sexual Objects were as languid, lazy and lovely as ever; in Merrie England and Here Come the Rubber Cops, we have their finest 2 moments. Ten minutes of drawling, brawling harmonies, harmonics and Burroughs meets Welsh lyrics. I love this band and I wish I could buy their stuff more easily. I love Vic too and he loves Newcastle; this was his fifth appearance since 2005, with the best band he’s had, ever; well, The Sexual Objects would make anyone sound brilliant. No new material this time round; just the old classics, with Ambition, Different Story and Chain Smoking being the real stand outs. It was an amazing night, hanging out with some late 40s and early 50s unreconstructed anti authority types (a lot of non-league fans, typically enough). To make it seem even more authentically 77, we had hassle from The Man on the way home, when my chauffeur Bill got pulled over by the Poliss and breathalysed. Like me, he’d had one cup of coffee during the gig, which shows how rock and roll we can be these days. Gig of the year? Very possibly.

On the same night as this gig, Pete Hook and some musical equivalents of scab labour played the Academy, doing a run through of Unknown Pleasures, which to me was the moral equivalent of prising open the lid of Ian Curtis’s coffin to see if there were any gold fillings to be scavenged. Personally, I’d not be able to live with myself if I’d legitimised such scandalous behaviour by attending such a repulsive charade. However, let’s now look at my recent CD purchases.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Psychedelic Pill

2012 has been such a nostalgic year; Fairport Convention are in 1969, Snowgoose in 1970 and The Wellgreens in 1976. Neil Young’s awesome double album could literally have been recorded the same time as 1977’s American Stars & Bars, 1979’s Rust Never Sleeps or 1990’s Ragged Glory; long, long songs (the opener Driftin’ Back clocks in at 32.18) with strong insistence on mid-paced, major chord, repetitive, guitar driven rock. This is the story of Bernard Shakey and absolutely marvellous it is too, with brilliantly anguished numbers such as Ramada Inn and Walk Like A Giant, both clocking in at over 16 minutes, with only the bemusing Christmas carol For The Love Of Man and the unnecessary phased vocals on the first mix of the title track that could have been left out of this 90 minute set. With Young you know what you’re going to get from the opening chords. The biggest regret of my musical life is that I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing him live.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

Never mind the Arab Spring; this is the second part of my Canadian autumn and I’m simply at a loss to describe just how wondrous an experience the Quebecois nonet have created, with two twenty minute ensemble pieces and two seven minute drone tracks. Put simply, Mladic is not song of the year; such a description is facile. It is the single musical experience of the year and it may be the most impressive thing I’ve ever heard, but it isn’t alone in its genius; Their Helicopters Sing and We Drift Like Worried Fire have beauty, anger, fear and euphoria combining to produce sheer adoration in the ear of the careful listener. I simply cannot praise this album too highly.

Swans: The Seer

The worst album I bought all year; a dull, punishing ordeal that is high on fury and anguish, but low on affection and introspection. This is sadly a dated, bombastic collection of overblown, relentless vignettes of despair and disappointment. Only the free jazz instrumental 93^rd Avenue Blues and the straight-faced country rock of Song for a Warrior remained on the ipod after a week. In fact, anyone leaving a comment on the Blog that includes a way of contacting them (email address for example), can have this for nothing.

So, finally; here are my lists for the year. I’ve not included every gig I attended, limiting myself to my 10 favourites -:

2012 Albums of the Year:

1.       Trembling Bells & Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Marble Downs

2.       Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

3.       Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill

4.       Lightships – Electric Cables

5.       Euros Childs – Summer Special
6.    The Wedding Present - Valentina

6.       Snowgoose – Harmony Springs

7.       Fairport Convention – By Popular Request

8.       Randolph’s Leap – Introducing

9.       The Wellgreen – Wellgreens

2012 Best Gigs of the Year:

1.       Vic Godard & Sexual Objects: Star & Shadow, November 30^th

2.       Trembling Bells: York Duchess, August 21^st

3.       Euros Childs: Star & Shadow,  September 8^th

4.       Dirty Three: Sage Hall 2, November 26^th

5.       The Fall: Hoults Yard, July 7^th

6.       The Wedding Present: 02 Academy, November 10^th

7.       Sexual Objects: Star & Shadow, March 16^th

8.       Christy Moore: City Hall, April 7^th

9.       Fairport Convention: Sage Hall 2, February 26^th

10.   Various; The Lady – A Tribute to Sandy Denny: Sage Hall 1, May 20^th