Music blog to accompany the paper fanzine The All Thrills No Frills Music Bill. Personal thoughts on music, with no particular agenda other than being true to ourselves and being passionate.
Tonight at The Lexington, Brix's entrance was dramatic, she sparkled from head to foot in shining headdress, glittering eye make up, twinkling gold guitar strap, and (hopefully faux !) fur coat. I have to admit to feeling emotional, even tearful - I think it was feeling overwhelmed and glad to be bestowed a female heroine, centre stage, at last. Decades of gig-going, but back in my teens and the most part of my 20s, what I would have given to have a rock goddess of a frontwoman/role model...! Chrissie Hynde has had a similarly powerful effect, in my 30s, and [I wrote about that here]
The songs and Brix's singing are so powerful. The strength of her voice, so commanding. There were only two moments where Brix lent a slower, quieter quality to her voice (as heard in The Adult Net). Primarily, Brix is unafraid to be loud and insistent, and to sing in a talking punk or rap style, and deliver everything with intent, dead serious. At one point, in a new song, she was pointing, and reaching out to the audience from lowdown, in-your-face, in a 70s punk style: confrontational, or just wanting to demand a direct communication with the audience, on our level.
With Steve Hanley's expert bass, we've obviously got another legend of The Fall. The full band sound is huge and rhythmically spectacular. Hearing songs like 2 X 4 - that rockabilly influence was one of the key things to draw me to The Fall. I'd play along, in my bedroom, with newly bought electric guitar, frantically, inspired. Now I'm dancing along, propelled in awe.
Big New Prinz is the pinnacle of the night, once again. But this time it is epic. We're led in with a slow, swirling intro, wondering what's coming next - Brix whispers the words, and we're taken aback when the song suddenly explodes into action. Winding and grinding on, hypnotic trance effect successful, the song then plays out to its end with every band member leaving one by one. First, it's Brix, and I have to smile that it's her walking out of a song a bit early and not Mark in his trademark nonchalant style. Then the instrumental chords and rhythms dwell magically, before guitar is gone... leaving only that monumental bass with drums. I think we could listen to that legendary sound all night, but soon it slows to an end, and we're left transfixed.
Watching Brix perform, again and again, as I have done, I come away feeling blessed by her confidence, self-assurance. She may be singing songs she wrote in her time in The Fall where Mark E Smith tyrannically ran the show, but now she's the frontperson, she's centre-stage. She's the star.
My last spate of gigs was dominated by bands with women leading or involved: Brix and The Extricated, Flatmates, Colour Me Wednesday, Fear of Men, Poetic Pilgrimage, Belly, Honeyblood, Chorus Girl, Dream Nails. And my future live plans all look predominantly female too: Brix and The Extricated, Popguns, Honeyblood, Allo Darlin, and (with luck) The Pretenders... It's damned exciting times for music. Much of this is serendipity. A new wave of female-centric bands has arisen, and I'm grateful. It's not that I'd ever consciously shun male music (impossible), as that would make no sense - it's just that it seems like there is a new mood, new opportunities, new vision.
Things feel creative for women. Music is so disparate now, music-press-invented movements are not really an option anymore. Homegrown/DIY is where it's at - which is necessary. There feels more space, more voice for women. The internet has offered more of a platform for women's issues to be highlighted and taken seriously (Everyday Sexism, Safe Gigs For Women, both excellent, vital campaigns). Fanzines/zines are being picked up by a new generation, giving new voice and spreading the word about important issues like never before. The closure of so many small venues, the erosion of corporate music media voices has left room for lots of incredible, community-instigated projects to crop up:DIY Space For London, and gigs in similarly autonomously spirited/run places; benefit gigs are back (the Conservative government are crushing funding for women's refuges, for example and projects like Loud Women gigs are raising funds).
All of this is for celebration.
'Nobody's telling me I can't Nobody's telling me I shan't No one to say "you're doing it wrong" I'm at my best I'm Where I Belong''
One of the best new indie-pop bands to come from Fortuna Pop, and of recent times. I am hooked on the bright and melodic, chorus-pedal-laden brilliance of Chorusgirl, and glad of their being around right now.
This was a free gig, which also introduced me to Dream Nails, who were bouncy, giddy fun - the kind of female-gang, punk-pop we took for granted in the mid 90s. I've just been reading about their feministic drive and zine-making, which makes me love them even more.
Better known as Prince Buster, Cecil Bustamente Campbell was a pioneer of bluebeat, ska and rock steady.
With the sad news of his passing, I felt it was high time I wrote about my love of reggae (on this blog that's mainly about indie rock). It's a genre and a longstanding passion of mine that few of my friends and family are aware of, to be honest. I've been building up a small but precious collection over the years.
I know that my draw to reggae can be pinpointed back to the reggae pop hits of my teens in the early 90s - It Keeps Raining, as covered by Bitty McLean was one of the first singles I bought on tape. Baby I Love Your Way by Big Mountain was a massive smash hit song of one of the greatest summers of my teens, a song that my classmates used to sing by the swings at lunchtime. Shine by Aswad was another perfect August summer's day burst of pop. All this gloriously upbeat, warmth and all these lilting, bass-happy, love songs being around grounded me in my love of reggae.
Maybe what cemented it all, was years later, after turning to guitar music, getting into The Clash, feeling and appreciating reggae's influence and also their use of dub bass and reggae time signature in their punk songs. The Clash's cover of Pressure Drop was pivotal - and many of the songs on the band's first album too (particularly, their version of Police and Thieves - although I'm aware that this wasn't received well by Jnr Murvin and Lee Perry - and their own White Man in Hammersmith Palais. In their later catalogue, of course, the almighty Guns of Brixton, surely their pinnacle feat).
The legendary imprint, Trojan Records brought out some superb boxsets of compilation series, really accessible stuff suited to the curious beginner. There was Rock Steady, collections of Dub and so on. Those boxsets were 3 discs, and came cheap, between £6 and £12 in shops like Fopp and HMV. Island Records brought out a great compilation called Islands in the Sun, too. They've been my education - covering great breadth of artists and versions. 70s and 80s films like The Harder They Come and Babylon were also influential to me (I even had to track down one of the films on VHS from eBay as it was yet to come out on DVD).
One book I would recommend is: Young, Gifted and Black, The Story of Trojan Records, for setting the historic scene and naming the important figures and a look-back on the context for reggae's development. I've seen books like The Rough Guide series which look useful too, for learning your stuff.
I love digging around at record fairs, discovering specialist record shops - Soul Brother Records in Putney, Honest Johns in Kensal, and People's Sound on the once infamous All Saints Road in W11. I have a few albums on vinyl, but it's a costly genre as it sounds best on wax.
I thought it was long overdue that I write a music blog post about my all-time favourite reggae songs. Mostly, rock steady, as I've come to realise that along with dub, it's my favourite genre.
Pat Kelly: Somebody's Baby:
A song that can always raise me up - and I love the female power of it, and the use of patois - Queen of The World, by Lloyd & Claudette:
Of course, Pressure Drop by Toots and the Maytals:
I can't imagine a band as weird (and young) and experimental and exotic sounding as Gorky's Zygotic Mynci existing now. This band caught me off guard, in the mid 1990s, aged 15, enough to rabidly scrawl the band's name on the back of my homework book: spelled GORKY'S ZYGOTIC MONKEY, of course.
From haunting, childish ballads about picnic hampers, to unabashed, anthemic Welsh language jollity, to what sounded like acid trips in the woods, this band soundtracked my transition from GCSE revision to starting sixth form, and they were incredible.
I only tracked down the band's Lucy's Hamper EP in the last five years or so, as hopes of a provincial, commercial music shop selling it at the time were vaingloriously shallow... Getting hold of the band's Ankst Records releases at the time was a real coup, being where I was. I was yet to approve of my parents' record collections, so all this 70s style acid soaked folk mixed with xylophones, recorders, synths, and whatever else Gorky's felt like dabbling with literally blew my mind. Growing up when I did, I can't help but think that teens these days might not be quite so fazed (and dazed) in the here and now, what with all the accessible past. And yet, as I say, I can't imagine anyone dabbling like this, creating anything as imaginative as this. Times are so desperately drab. John Peel is surely running around kicking things over in disgust as he looks down...
The simplicity and stripped back experimentalism of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's early album, Tatay, has the sound of a bunch of young pals delighting in home recording. They've learnt their instruments, but the elements of fun and exuberance are so clear. The colours, the textures created are alive and wild.
Tatay, followed by Bwyd Time, were albums full of ludicrous songs. The band dressed as wizards in a forest on one CD sleeve served to stoke the sense of psychedelic. Cartoons of mystical elves and recruits from Puff the Magic Dragon adorned sleeves too, and I drank it all in soberly but wide eyed and keen, in disbelief.
The intro to the album Bwyd Time, of the same name, probably serves as a perfectly bizarre starting point:
As I listen to the album again, two songs in particular stand out still, and are still evocative of a wonderful summer of 18 years ago:
Miss Trudy, a wacky, dramatic, funny song about violin lessons and smashed up violins that's also a tribute in pretty ballad form.
Oraphis Yn Delphie is a fantastic instrumental song that follows Miss Trudy on the album. It's a swirling haze of brass and playful, sweet humming, simply like nothing else. Certainly not like Menswear or Supergrass!!!
After those albums came the single Patio Song, which was one of the most brilliant, vivid, lilting, alluringly tuneful singles a young teenager could hear. Totally at odds with all the brash 'Britpop' that had come before. Casually breaking into the Welsh language was a natural part of the song, and I only sang along to it more fiercely, even if I hadn't a clue what was being sung. There was no internet about then, so I can be forgiven for just going along with things, open minded, unable to decipher. Whatever it was, it was fucking amazing! Jools Holland saying of the Welsh language singing: 'That in itself deserves a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen', must have sounded like so much insulting bullshit to the band as they appeared on his show. Though it did feel revolutionary to English speakers, and exciting to me as a teenager, it was the band's mother tongue and it was more about our attitudes and our acceptance than offering a patronising 'Well done'!
Diamond Dew as a single was equally heartstopping, then I bought Young Girls and Happy Endings with its super pop catchiness, which was on the radio often. I helped both get into the top 50 of the charts.
The band delighted me so much, they were honestly a hugely pivotal part of why I chose to go and study at a university in Wales for a time.
I can't boast to have learned Welsh, but I do still carry massive amounts of fondness for Gorky's, and they remain truly creatively great.
Brix was a pivotal part
of many of The Fall's best creative periods. The thrill of her
returning to music, with intentions to publish an autobiography, is still reverberating. A moot point for some, but for me this club gig
with other former Fall members outstrips anything the Mark E Smith
group have done in a decade. While Kicker Conspiracy, CREEP, Hit The
North, Dr Faustus, LA, Big New Prinz, Totally Wired, Cruisers Creek
are songs that wouldn't fill up a usual Fall setlist nowadays, they
are played resoundingly powerfully tonight – and are all we could
wish for and more. It's not the hankering for the old, but hearing
these songs fronted by the almighty and wonderful Brix in such a
commanding manner.
Whilst Brix is clearly
reliving the glory of 80s and 90s Fall, and must have a lot of great
memories, she is also buoyant about the present moment, being
frontwoman, innovating a cracking set of songs. This is a new and
absorbing experience. Certain Fall fans faithful to Mark E Smith as
centrifugal overlord are wrongly wary. Questioning Brix's credentials
is not an option: she has nothing to prove. Hearing this batch of
songs and many more from those years, emphasises her imagination,
ideas, contributions through several crucial epochs of The Fall. In
the interim between her departure from the MES-led Fall and this
current venture, Brix had a pop career – Adult Net, a
sunny sounding rock act with gentle, lovely vocals that represent a
different side of her – now she's here playing her
favourite old Fall songs, and she's singing with more fierce force
and power than Mark E Smith. Her voice is deep and dark. The intent
in her delivery is full of sure-fire strength. Wilful ignorance or
gendered contempt from a certain kind of Fall fan is not to be
tolerated. Pining for MES ('it's not The Fall without Mark!') is
tiresome. How about instead opening your ears and mind to a positive
alternative from someone who was equally a key player in the finest
Fall achievements? Mark E Smith is a great, but it must be admitted
that the live shows have become poor: continual celebration of
frothy, drunk mutterings as spectacle becomes hollow and sad (Mark
can be sharper, and all the better for it).
Brix's confidence and
control show her seriousness of purpose. With the celebrated Hanley
brothers on bass and drums, and Fall Heads Roll era Steve Trafford on
guitar, this is no tribute: this is still the music of legend very
much alive. Lay of the Land is a surprise highlight of the set, and
that classic, crunching, tight, rhythmic sound so definitive of early
Fall kicks up a storm. Likewise, 2 X 4 is a surprise and heavyweight
addition. We are spoilt with Hit the North and Mr Pharmacist - and
Big New Prinz, possibly Brix's defining moment (from The Fall's most
overlooked LP, I Am Kurious Oranj), is the perfect closer to a
compelling gig. Brix shouting the lyric: 'He is not
appreciated!' seems at odds and feels poignant (she must be
appreciated!). This isn't about nostalgia because the new songs sound
beyond worthy in comparison, and the old stuff has been enlivened
anew. If Brix and The Extricated are to be a long-term concern, they
threaten to surpass current Fall standards by a long shot. These are
invigorating times.
