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By
Mary Chang on Tuesday, 22nd May 2012 at 4:00 pm
Stockholm band Niki and the Dove was one of the hottest commodities at the Great Escape this year and I’ll admit, I didn’t bother with the queue at Horatio’s on the pier on Thursday night because I figured I’d never get in. (Bad luck, as they ended up cancelling their appearance at Sound City due to illness.) But for me and anyone else who couldn’t be there at the Great Escape this year, we’ve got you covered.
The fine folks at Bands in Transit got the band to perform ‘The Drummer’ on the seafront. You can tell from the wet sidewalk that it was raining quite a bit in Brighton this year, but thankfully the rain held off for this taping. Enjoy it below.
By
Mary Chang on Tuesday, 22nd May 2012 at 11:00 am
The Crookes were a last minute addition to this year’s Great Escape playing shortly after 12 noon at the Hope on the Saturday (12 May) as part of a showcase put on by the Orchard. I was able to corner the band shortly after their set for a candid chat in the coffee bar at Brighton Komedia to ask them about the inspiration for new single ‘American Girls’ (come now, being American and a girl, I had to ask!), their PledgeMusic campaign for upcoming sophomore album ‘Hold Fast’ and various other bits and bobs. Watch the interview below.
By
Mary Chang on Tuesday, 22nd May 2012 at 9:00 am
Looking for something fun and worthwhile to spend your money on for Bank Holiday Monday on the 4th of June? Then consider FestiFeel, an all-day festival for charity taking place at London’s Queen of Hoxton that will be featuring an all-star line-up curated by 2012 Sony broadcasting gong winner and Radio1 presenter Fearne Cotton. All proceeds from ticket sales to this even will go towards CoppaFeel!, a campaign to encourage women to do self-examinations to help with the early detection of breast cancer. Makes a whole lot of sense that when women are given the right tools are armed with the right information, the higher the likelihood that they will do self-exams on a regular basis and thus be more likely to self-discover any abnormalities that might indicate breast cancer.
So far, among many others, TGTF favourites like Dog is Dead, Chew Lips and Slow Club have been announced for the festival, with more names to be added.
If you want to attend, tickets are just 20 quid each, with the charity directly benefiting from the total from ticket sales. Buy them here. But if you have read this far, you’re in luck: we have a pair of passes to the festival to give away to a lucky TGTF reader. Fancy your chances? Enter the contest below by providing us your name, your email address, and tell us why you deserve the pair of festival passes.The author of the winning entry as deemed by us and will be contacted by email. Please note that you are responsible for getting yourself to London in time for the event on the 4th of June, so do not enter unless you are sure you can attend. Entries must be submitted before noon on Sunday 27 May in order to be considered.
The current line-up as of today is available under the cut.
Continue reading WIN / Tickets to FestiFeel 2012 (one-day charity music festival event for CoppaFeel!)
It’s a much slower, hazier start in NW1 today – very much the morning after the night before. But as hard as the hangover may be, London gig-goers crawl on regardless. Sunday starts slightly later than the festivities taking place yesterday, but there’s still a wealth of new acts to discover without letting the on/off showers dampen spirits.
Yet again draught is being poured and shots slammed at the Wheelbarrow as the alternative rockers Tall Ships (pictured at top) take to the stage. There’s a certain buzz in the air as the pub is full from the front to the back before the Brighton trio play a single note…and then the party begins. Launching into a flurry of crunchy riffs, catchy choruses and colossal instrumentals, the indie-tinged three-piece turn one of the smallest venues on the Crawl into their own personal haven. Regardless of what comes out of the speakers during the next half hour, the crowd will lap it up purely based on the beautiful display of quality musicianship. No three chord songs for these boys, it’s a curious but wholly beneficial mash of grunge, post-rock and even a church organ that are played with such passionate gusto the audience are left captivated and enthralled with one of UK’s hottest prospects.
After John Kennedy’s offerings yesterday, XFM are again hosting bands at Koko (today curated by Ian Camfield) but the sound is much heavier. Sheffield’s mathy synth punks Rolo Tomassi enter the realm for a fury-fuelled barrage of screams, electronics and cymbal crashes. Don’t let the angelic demeanour of songstress Eva Spence fool you, though, as her vocal cords hide an unholy force. The guttural snarls and growls emanating from Spence’s tiny frame are just as mesmerising as they are terrifying. Throwing herself around the stage like a demented music box ballerina, the energy on stage can be felt up in the gods. Teasing in elements of doom with ‘Mr. Crowley’ style keys and a disjointed metal breakdown, it’s the beautifully chaotic ‘Party Wounds’ that lifts Rolo Tomassi up and beyond the ‘just another hardcore band’ tag. Stay tuned for the new album.
Outside the heaven’s are contemplating opening but that doesn’t stop 100-ish people venturing to Camden Gardens to witness a band on the cusp of breaking the scene. Akin to Enter Shikari and ‘There Is A Hell…’ era Bring Me The Horizon, Crossfaith look and act the most rock ‘n’ roll of any band at the festival. Hurtling around at 100 mph with Cheshire cat smiles and constant air-grabbing, these Japanese noiseniks are so proficient at their craft it’s a wonder why other bands bother at all. It takes a metal cover of The Prodigy‘s ‘Omen’ to win over the doubters, but once Kenta Koie opens his lungs the focus is solely positive. Ending their metalcore-meets-synth set on ‘Stars Faded In Slow Motion’ the weary crowd is trapped in a crazed mess of windmilling, air-kicking and shape throwing as Crossfaith crowdsurf their way to victory, claiming yet more fans in a journey to mainstream success.
Back at the Wheelbarrow is a local hero. The some-time one man band Beans on Toast is serving up his irreverent social commentaries. In a stark contrast to festival tradition, Beans on Toast aka Jay arrives on stage 5 minutes early treating his loyal fanbase to his upbeat, acoustic tales. Currently in residence at the Wheelbarrow every Tuesday, the cramped pub is packed tighter than a rush hour tube with eager fans queueing out the door. Opening on the crowd-pleasing ‘MDMAmazing’ Jay’s positive stance on drugs is no secret, and neither is his dislike for the Conservative government. He begins ‘I Shot Tupac Shakur and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt’ (an anti-Cameron ode containing the words “Hug a fucking hoodie, and he’ll punch you in the face”) before stopping mid-way – a trait that continues throughout the set. In tribute to his favourite Beastie Boy MCA, Jay leads his band and the crowd in a rendition of ‘Fight For Your Right to Party’ that ends abruptly but keeps the mood high and smiles wide. After a much-craved encore of ‘Rainy Day’ the throngs of music lovers pour back into the streets of Camden for the home stretch of the Crawl.
Down at the bottom end of Camden High Street, the stage at the Purple Turtle is warm for bands at the heavier end of the spectrum. Leeds noisemongers Hawk Eyes are smashing their way through a metric fuckton of metal to a deafened crowd. Hawk Eyes however are an acquired taste (a girl wrote the word ‘Shit!’ on my notepad) and sadly, the crowd thins toward the end of the performance that sees the hardcore-tinged rockers lean on newer material including ‘Kiss This’ and ‘You Deserve A Medal’. Unfortunately despite a stellar performance that sees frontman Paul Astick set up his mic stand in the middle of the crowd and scream bloody murder, there’s a general feeling of ‘meh’ amongst the onlookers.
There’s a lonely mic stand in front of an empty ballroom. A prophetic image and one that can be used for the entire post-rock scene. Tonight, though, the Belfast bruisers And So I Watch You From Afar over half-fill the historic venue with their Mastodon meets This Will Destroy You instrumentals. The supercharged three-piece send wave after wave of hooks and grooves until Camden is drowning in sound. It’s heavy but wholly structured and nothing is out of place, even the tangential breakdowns are a rhythmical masterpiece. Calling on material from their debut LP and latest album ‘Gangs’ the mathy ‘BEAUTIFULUNIVERSEMASTERCHAMPION’ and ’7 Billion People All Alive at Once’ form the most magnificent soundscape of the entire weekend. Come back soon, boys.
Bringing this year’s Crawl to an end are the new masters of metal, Black Moth. Drawing on Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper for influence, the Leeds four-piece have received praise from the likes of Metal Hammer and Artrocker for their groove-laden rawk. Taking elements of Steppenwolf and Motörhead for a slight biker vibe, Black Moth are the new band in metal. It’s stripped back, dirgy, punky and there are no gimmicks. It’s just a four metalheads on stage in band tees and jeans playing some fantastic music that will see the Moth soar ever higher this year. Frontwoman Harriet Hyde stands firmly at the front with her Debbie Harry-esque vocals flowing out of the speakers and into the minds of the metal masses who have appeared out of nowhere.
As the feedback rings out into the Purple Turtle, Camden can rest easy until next year. There’s been over 100 performances in the space of 48 hours in a small corner of town and as the night buses start to fill with tired, drunk faces, the music capital of London has proved again that festivals aren’t about sitting in fields: they’re about music.
By
Mary Chang on Monday, 21st May 2012 at 11:00 am
We’re sure you’ll be hearing more about Melbourne band Husky a lot in the coming months and years, and it was my good luck that I was able to chat with frontman Husky Gawenda and keyboardist Gideon Preiss. We did the interview in the lobby of the Jubilee Library right off Jubilee Square, just steps from where the band had performed as part of the Sounds of Australia afternoon showcase on Thursday 10 May. Many thanks to the library for letting us film this!
Music is so deeply hewn in to the tapestry of Camden’s past that even if a rogue bulldozer were to somehow escape the Olympic park and flatten the lot, the Camden faithful would still gather on the detritus (like Kevin Costner in the film Field of Dreams) to watch the ghostly echo of gigs passed. Camden Crawl has managed to do away with wrestling the country/city festival debate that plagues the likes of Hard Rock Calling and SW4 – those who assume the hardware set up should remain universal – by setting up in the across the attics, backrooms and great halls of this cultural nucleus. Since 1995 this festival has showcased the best of the new alternative scene, and this year is set to kick off the festival season with more than 100 artists across 27 venues.
If there’s a better way to kick off a festival than staring down the barrel of two trombones and a trumpet, then I don’t want to know about it. North London eight piece ska punks Imperial Leisure bring a touch of Madness to the opening bout of Camden Crawl 2012 shoehorned, like jostling commuters, on to the wooden floorboards of the archetypal Wheelbarrow pub. As afro sporting singer Denis Smith leers over the baying home crowd, they blast through the likes of ‘Bitter and Twisted’, ‘Landlord’s Daughter’ and ‘Man on the Street’ at a frenetic pace and set an almost unsurpassable benchmark for interaction and tempo.
On the way through the assault course that is tourist dodging up Camden Road to the hallowed turf of the Roundhouse, Hip-Hop Shakespeare have taken to the stage in the cool blue oasis of the Jazz Cafe. With razor sharp wit and tongue, MCs and poets alike take to the stage with the house band to recite their works and challenge the stigma surrounding hip hop as an inferior art form.
At the Roundhouse, the enigmatic Sam Lee has taken charge of the mezzanine and roof space to claim in it in the name of folk for the day. He regales the cross legged crowd with old folk tales before introducing the quintessentially English but bright and almost painfully innocent melodies of Magic Lantern. He then returns with his own modest troupe of eclectic musicians to tell stories and sing, choral and otherwise, to the appreciative gathering. It is an achievement that all festivals should strive for, where for a moment or more people experience the universality of musical and social understanding.
The greyish afternoon sun begins to dip towards the rooftops behind the indoor stage as people are ushered out on to the terrace for Melodica, Melody and Me. Close your eyes and this could be the Champs-Élysées, with people milling and reclining on the steps as the melodica strikes up. Tracks like ‘Hold On’, ‘Ode to Victor Jara’ and ‘Plunge’ are lyrically modern but classic in style, given a Hawaiian twist with the omnipresent (so much so that I’ve already missed a few) ukulele, and despite the dropping temperatures the wax jacket parade has turned out in force.
Pint-size French synthpop three piece We Were Evergreen will surely be one to watch this summer and, having come on in place of Atlantics at the Wheelbarrow earlier in the day, anticipation was growing to see how they would manage a full set at the Roundhouse. Band members Fabienne, Michael and William work independently as masters of their instrument sets – be it guitar and vocal loops, ukulele and banjo, or synth and glockenspiel – to produce a sound with the same good time vibe as the Ting Tings on tracks such as ‘Baby Blue’ or the infectious ‘Eggs’.
Back in the centre of Camden at the Black Head, and Antlered Man are laying down their own crunching brand of hypnotic metal through a loudspeaker to a packed upstairs, whilst round the corner at Underworld post rock instrumentalists Brontide are nailing a precision piece of musical hardware to the largest and loudest crowd yet gathered. In this dingy basement layers build on loop pedals in time with a surge in energy levels, driven by the relentless crash of ex-La Roux drummer Will Bowerman’s sticks.
Hindsight is a wondrous thing, a precious commodity that is lacking as band of the moment Big Pink took to the stage as only second headliners under the shimmering beams of Koko’s mammoth mirror ball. The atmosphere has gained a synaesthetic sheen to match the soundscape of this peculiarly appropriate line up; now the sound has the power to reverberate through chest cavities, and there’s enough dry ice to Beadle’s About a house fire. It is their first time in London, and with material from their acclaimed debut ‘A Brief History of Love’, as well as tracks from 2012 release ‘Future This’ such as ‘Hit the Ground’ and ‘Rubbernecking’, had the audience blown away. And, while lead singer Robbie Furze intermittently sounds like Richard Ashcroft in space, floor filler ‘Dominos’ has every pair of hands up.
Rounding off Saturday of Camden Crawl 2012 are a band who stand out on the bill as somewhat mainstream, even slightly ‘one hit wonder’ for a headline slot. It is an absolute joy to find that the proverbial ‘tip of the iceberg’ saying rings true and that ‘Hounds of Love’ was merely a marketable peak the PR team let puncture the surface of the Futureheads’ (pictured at top) early career. Below is a hulking mass of traditional folk music done as nature intended, through multi-layered harmonies and classic acoustic instrumentation. There is the oldest song in the English language, ‘Sumer Is I’cumen In’ (the one Edward Woodward is chargrilled to in ‘The Wickerman’) and ‘The Machem’ before the crowd start to lose their nerve and begin an unfortunate smattering of boos and (ironically) a capella versions of ‘Hounds of Love’. But, with an a capella album of their very own to flog in the coming months, the Futureheads continue unperturbed and round off the Saturday admirably with a more inventive, acoustic version of their biggest hit. This appeases the now swaying crowd, who leave with both cheers, and murmurs of anticipation for what Sunday could hold.
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