overlap

When is a free gig not a free gig? When it’s a free gig that costs the better part of twenty quid in transport costs, perhaps. I’m always a tiny bit on edge when I need to find my way to a new venue I’ve never been to before, and the free gig bit meant nobody was rushing to go overboard on the publicity end. Nevertheless I was in a back street pub in time to listen to The School (yep, them again) running through a couple of tunes in their soundcheck, and relax a little. I say relax, but with four bands for no ticket price, there was plenty to keep watching. The first band said they were losing half their line-up after this gig, and if they gave their name I didn’t catch it, but I’m not sure I’m missing much anyway. Next up were Little My. Yep, terrible name for a band, but kinda suitable. Suitable in the sense there’s nothing little about a band with eight people in, suitable that it appears to be a symptom of a collective hallucination based on one bear-man’s vision of pop idiocy. Whatever, the quirky novelty pop of Little My will definitely leave an impression on you if you happen to see them. And you really should make the effort to see them given the chance, comedy headgear and costumery notwithstanding. The third band was The Welcome Committee, a drums and acoustic guitar/vocals combo which suffered from technical difficulties throughout but seemed to have the right idea. Maybe the front guy could get away without the drummer, maybe there are more players in the band that were absent that night, I’ve no idea, but there was more than a hint of Jim Bob (a good thing) about the guitarist-vocalist. Thumbs up here too. Having considered whether I would leave this gig early for another one across town which I might have made had The School been on earlier, I’m happy to have stayed throughout. No, it’s no secret that I love The School and have posted on here to that effect before. The set was more or less the same as the one a few weeks prior, but this was the expanded seven piece line-up with the extra ooh-ooh backing vocals and the slightly warmer instrumentation with the addition of the fiddle, keyboards, brass etc. Harri didn’t show much sign of his bear-suit antics in Little My having dehydrated him, and the inevitable late start meant the set got cut a little short, but I got a ton of pictures and this time some video too. For handheld above my head, it’s relatively steady and it sounds ok too. This is but one reason why you should love The School or get your pop tastebuds booked in for a service pronto: The debut album by The School, Loveless Unbeliever, is out on Elefant records in a few weeks time. Yippee!

Labels: gigs, Little My, The School, The Welcome Committee

There’s a couple of ways it can go when you put a lot of effort into setting up a venue. You can go down the utilitarian route that means all you need to do is replace lightbulbs and sweep the floor. Or you can go to town and end up with a deliberately decorated art space. While the red neon WHAT THE FUCK’ has gained its own reputation, it’s the sign that says ‘Please don’t talk over the quieter bands’ that catches my eye on the way in. The walls are covered with mostly black and white posters of mostly thirty year old pictures, a mix of the New York of the Ramones, Blondie and Warhol with some rather less interesting pictures of women with minimal clothes from an older era. There’s a string of seven inch vinyl records hanging along the wall, the odd candle burning on a table top and enough colour in the red paint on walls and ceiling for it to be a pretty warm and friendly place. Your average identikit chain venue this isn’t. Going out on your own from a moderately successful, briefly charting band is always going to be easier than leaving a leviathan like U2. I loved the Pipettes’ manufactured indiepop far more than I’ve ever been excited by the choreography-led likes of Beyonce, but on your own any kind of show is going to be tricky. So it’s to Gwenno’s credit that she manages to combine playing her keyboard, using some sort of pedal to vary the sound and sing along with whatever sampled rhythm tracks she’s using, and also, er, pull a few shapes now and then. Where the peroxide crop looks like recovery Kylie, the net effect of the electronic sounds is more Pet Shop Boys, and while I can’t say I’ll be desperate to hear everything Gwenno does next, the overall it's more than pleasant enough. The School, on the other hand, is a band that I have been waiting to see again for more than year. There’s been a couple of gigs on inconvenient days, and one I even had a ticket for, but one way and another it hasn’t worked out. So I’m delighted to get to hear a few new songs as well as those that have become regulars on my mp3 player. This time it’s a five piece line-up on stage, and I can pay a bit more attention to who is who, not that it matters so much. What we get is the familiar sunshine pop tunes, and a few more new ones that are presumably on the forthcoming album, in the following sequence. Double-quotes mean I'm not certain of the title. I Want You Back "Gonna Be A Long Time" Valentine And Suddenly "Is It True?" "I Can’t Understand The Reason Why" "Hoping And Praying" Shoulder All I Wanna Do "Is It True?" includes a moment not unlike the 'she wrote upon it' part of Return to Sender, "Hoping and Praying" might possibly owe a tiny something to Bacharach & David's Wishin' and Hopin', as well as having a fabulous handclaps intro, and the familiarish moments of sweeping big 60s pop make the sound of The School at once retro and modern as the shuffling drums, the subtle guitar lines and the perfectly placed baby glock notes wrap around Liz's voice like a winter blanket. While I gather there's been some mildly critical suggestion that the album title isn't all glossy, shiny and happy, I reckon there's a lot to be said for the bittersweet mix of upbeat melodies and heartbreak songs to give that little bit of balance. And from where I'm sat, the distinct mix of instruments and voice/s is precisely what makes The School sound so special. School's in, as Alice Cooper never said. * Loveless Unbeliever is the title of The School's forthcoming album, available in February on Elefant records, and the title is taken from the lines 'loveless unbeliever/ better than the rest' from the song 'Let It Slip', which coincidentally is a perfect headline for lazy album reviewers everywhere to use when they describe The School's album! I stayed on to watch Lisa Milberg's band, and while it was fine for something totally unfamiliar to me, I'd run out of descriptive powers by this point. But y'know, The School's album - buy it, when it comes out.

Labels: gigs, Gwenno, Liz Hunt, The School

It's been a very long time since I paid only £3 to get in to a gig. Obviously it helps to be watching a band who aren't big news, but if there's any justice in the world, this lot will be soon. At the end of yet another horribly wet day, as has been so typical this summer, I wasn't that desperate to go anywhere, but having missed two gigs the previous nights in favour of making just this one, I forced myself out, and lived to be rather glad I did. Zissou, support band number one, were rather interesting in a not quite fully formed but threatening development way. I'm listening to their myspace now to remind myself what reference points they hit. There's a hint of Jonn Penney's vocal styling, and there was a bit of Half Man, Half Biscuit in the occasional jerkiness of the music and a bit of Jim Noir's pop quirkiness, but whatever comparison they'd like, they impressed me enough that I'd make sure I got there to see them if I heard they were supporting somewhere else. The Ash & The Oak had me stroking my chin in exactly the manner that deserves derision and scorn. Partly because I couldn't work them out, and partly because I couldn't work out whether I was bothered. Rachel, who alternated between bass, melodica, baby glockenspiel and a couple of other things had a marvellous dress, accessorised with red belt and shoes, and was hard not to watch despite being sat down. The electric guitar (and sometimes bass) player was unobtrusive enough, and the drummer did what he needed, but the singer came across as the weak link. In a soundcheck-free, bass-heavy, live performance environment, the lead vocal needs a bit of strength, and delicate, keening vocals just get lost in the sound. Even that you could get away with with a bit of stage presence, or communication with the crowd, but it just wasn't happening for me. See if I'm being overly harsh here. Three bands at a quid a crack is nevertheless great vfm, but The School are more than worth the price of admission on their own, having got me rather excited when I first found their myspace from someone else's guidance on facebook. Despite their relative proximity, I'd never have come across them otherwise. Sure, I'm a sucker for a female vocal (except Sh*rl**n Spit***), and without Liz Hunt's dynamic vocals the band would have no focal point. The occasional clunky keyboard phrase (try the intro to Valentine) adds to the vaguely shambling charm, and All I Wanna Do brings to mind Kirsty MacColl's 'They Don't Know', which is exalted company as far as I'm concerned. In contrast to the preceding band, taking my eyes off Liz is difficult, and when I can it's because I never realised from listening to the myspace tracks how well the fiddle lines fit the songs. Indeed I'd barely recognised the presence of a fiddle, and the combination of two female musicians also brings to mind Aberfeldy, another band making simply beautiful, classically structured, girl meets boy pop music with singalong tunes, and with more to offer than the basic guitar/bass/drums combination. Fabulous. * "And Suddenly The World Is Full Of Sunshine" is the first line of the Left Banke song And Suddenly, as covered by The School, and I can't think of a single sentence that sums up their sound any better than that.

Labels: gigs, Liz Hunt, The Ash + The Oak, The School, Zissou