Too Orangey for Crows: SB6, Mike TV & Gecko
Posted by jamie on Jul 22, 2010
Sonic Boom Six, Moral Dilemma, Mike TV, Gecko
Borderline, London
16th July 2010
Jamie
It’d be rude, I suppose, to look a gift horse in the mouth. When Craig out of Moral Dilemma paused during their set to thank the Sonic Boom Six for having them play this show, he summed up the mood in the Borderline so succinctly, so eloquently, that he effectively wrote my opening paragraph for me. That’s a privilege usually reserved for Josh Waters Rudge, but we’ll make an exception for Craig, seeing as he hit the proverbial nail so squarely on the head.
I think his exact words were:
“It’s great to be here tonight, on a bill where every single band is completely different and somehow representative of tonight’s headliners Sonic Boom Six.. give it up for Sonic Boom Six”
It’s difficult to elaborate on that without repeating exactly what he’s said, really, but the sheer quality throughout tonight’s bill is worthy of a mention. Scratch that, it’s worthy of two minutes’ silence in awe and reverence. This day has been marked in my diary, literally and figuratively, ever since Barney mentioned it almost as an aside in a note to the SB6 email list. “oh, and support comes from Gecko, Mike TV and Moral Dilemma. Should be a good’un.” Or something.
Yes, Barnyard, it should, and no mistake. I can’t have been the only one counting the days for this one.
Gecko opened at 19:15, sparking a mad rush amongst the Bananatown crew. We’re mad keen on this lot, and would’ve been gutted to miss them. As it was, we lucked out and legged it down the stairs just as they played the first bars of What You Gonna Do?.
The Borderline is another strangely appropriate venue, very Gecko. I’m sure it’s been done up recently, and, again our pet sophisticates take the stage in front of the apparently customary red velvet curtain. There’s an easy going, summery vibe in the room early on, and Gecko’s laid back yet uplifting acoustic ska-pop is the perfect sound track to the start of the evening: it’s refreshingly clear and sounds stunning over the big PA. The band are clearly in confident form and totally slay the early crowd, and it is a crowd, with their unique and innovative tunes and witty, incisive lyrics.
Again it’s noticeable how people discovering them for the first time react to some of the more amusing lines, like “go to the bookshop” in The Library, or “makes me fly like a kestrel” in the bonkers yet ridiculously charming Guanabana Juice. A quick glance around the room and you’ll always see smiling faces crack in to a surprised laugh at these moments. I recommend it – it’s always fun to watch that. Gecko’s cover of OutKast’s Miss Jackson is well received again, and the whole set is a refreshing tonic after a frenetic week and panicked sprint from bus stop to cash point to venue. Arriving just in time for their set was an absolute highlight, and they’re on stunning form.
New Leaf is a treat, and, by the time Gecko play I Got Time and The Library, there’s a floor-wide, shoulders-down, smiling, relaxed skank going on. The speed can turn up and down, but the mood remains the same: that uplifting, calming happiness that accompanies them everywhere.
It’s a while since I’ve had the pleasure of watching Mike TV, but it is still an absolute joy. The cheeky-chappie pop-punkers amble on to stage and introduce themselves in a brash, confident manner before suddenly confessing to being extremely hung over, admitting they’re at a loss for things to say and deciding they’ll just play songs. As enjoyable as their tunes are, that would take something away from the charm of watching these lads in concert, but, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t happen: they’re full of chat, and packed with jokes. There’s the predictable sex banter from Jhon*, which ends up being directed at one young lad in particular and descends, as you’d expect, in to a crossfire of nob-gags between the guys and a fistful of wiseguys at the very front. It’s entertaining stuff and keeps the evening moving along nicely. Perhaps the funniest gag, though, goes undetected by many because it’s delivered quickly and totally deadpan. “thank you to You Me At Six. They’re nice guys and we haven’t played with them in a while.” Read it again and see if you notice. Genius, no?
They announce themselves with the thoroughly enjoyable Count-In and Favourite Foe from their self-titled album. It’s a party-starting, pogo-making pop-punk, all harmonies and chunky guitar riffs. The sound, for the record, is bigger and stronger since the added Sally Gunnell as an extra guitarist, and she joins in on vocals too, so the harmonies are pimped out with four different voices and they sound properly mint. Dumbfuck, next, is the song that’s dedicated to the SB6, and Mike TV by now Mike TV are at the chipper, chirpy, entertaining best, bouncing around the stage to the cheering melodies in their joyous, poppiest-of-pop-punk tunes. Lie Low, Lilo, wryly topical now, of course, is a hit, and, like so many of their, songs, impossible not to love. Paperthin, one of my favourites, is up next, before the guys wrap up a short, but cheekily sweet set with Toodlepip and the punchy, riff packed When Push Comes to Shove, another perfect little song loaded with instantly lovable harmonies, perfectly executed, and punctuated with punchy little riffs. It’s even got a brilliantly full on breakdown, just in case there was anyone else not rocking out, and not grinning like a fool. On this form, it’s impossible to take your eyes off of Mike TV.
Moral Dilemma are a very good band, and they’re great at what they do, but they’re not my bag and it was baking downstairs. I went out for a cider and to hang with my friends.
Sufficiently cooled, I was at the top of a new pint when the Sonic Boom Six take the stage, but that cider disappeared pronto (in my mouth, and not on to the floor), as the opener, Arcade Perfect, became Bigger Than Punk Rock. We all ended up right at the front, actually and it was easy enough, but that must have happened in the nick of time, because, by the time Laila sang “and in the spaces between..” for the first time, there was a pit opening up right behind us: one that got bigger and messier through the course of the evening.
Pleasingly, though, just like the last time I saw the guys, it was only really aggressive for a few moments now and then. Considering the heat and how rammed it was, we coped well. During The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions , to be honest, there’s absolutely no room. It’s a good job I was with our crew, but we’re stacked as tight as you can get, chest to back and knee to knee, getting bounced up and down by someone out there somewhere and swapping sweat in the process. You know the thing: where it’s tough to get your hands up in the air and someone’s hair is stuck to your face by someone else’s sweat. For all that a quick breather and hello from the band were a welcome relief this, all the same, is surely the most fun it’s possible to have. Bang, bang, bang, bang!** comes next and there’s another pause and a mini-announcement.
This was announced beforehand, but, in case you missed it, Jimmy T Boom can play the trombone, and, for good measure, the Boom have borrowed Dave out of Kids Can’t Fly on sax. One of the most endearing things about these guys, after all, has always been that they invite and pay genuine heed to comments from their own fans. That Craufurd Arms gig was one of the best I’ve seen, yet still they’ve taken notice of comments telling them two things:
1. The absence of a horn section was a shame.
2. SB6 fans like hip hop.
Throughout, then, Dave is in on tenor sax, and the effect is mint. I’m scraping the barrel and I think it’s six years since I saw the SB6 play a full show with a saxophonist. It’s a woodwind instrument, after all, and it’s not the same as adding a trumpet, say, to the trombone. Well done all. It’s back to the album Arcade Perfect for Meanwhile, Back in the Real World and Sound of a Revolution, greedily gobbled up by a bonkers crowd. It was so much fun to chuck my body lengthways back in to that mess and just see where I ended up. Predictably, I guess, you get sent everywhere, and picked up and spun around and sent back again. Manic. The gentler, more skankable Through the Eyes of a Child at last lets some cold air in to our shins and feet, we have a talk, and then it’s time for something that surely noone could have expected. Barney apologises for having played it on CD over the speakers earlier on and then the Sonic Boom Six play Roots Manuva’s Witness the Fitness. You want hip hop? You got hip hop. To top it off, if anything, Don’t Say I Never Warned Ya was even unlikelier. The room goes nuts, bouncing, to a man, and then they do Monkey See Monkey Do and Piggy in the Middle. It was tough down there, I can tell you, but you can only love every second of watching this lot in concert. It always goes off, and it’s always good.
These days it’s kept interesting, of course, by the new faces, guests or permanent fixtures, in the band and the ever changing set list: tonight’s certainly had that, and also by the way they’ve had to select the tunes, adapting them where necessary, to fit a new line-up. It works really well, though, and is brilliant fun to watch.
As if I proof were needed of that versatility, While You Were Sleeping, Northern Skies and then the barmy Strange Transformations are played back to back. It’s almost over, alas, and there’s a club night here afterwards so we all have to get out (hate it when that happens) so there’s only time for two more. Puretone’s Addicted to Bass was a massive hit on the last tour, so that comes out as well, before The Rape of Punk to Come finishes off the night and, by the looks of it, half the room.
“I always know it’s been a good show”, Laila said later on, “when someone loses their voice. And you’re about the fourth person I’ve seen tonight who’s lost their voice”.
I could only croak in reply to that, standing massaging my neck as she kindly wrote her name on my ticket. As a unit of measurement, I guess a count of speechless fans is fairly reliable. Doubtless a few were just left stunned as well, and some of us, battered, soaked in sweat and shouted out of our voices, can vouch for the fitness, we’ve um. Nah, I can’t, it’s too cheesy. But you know what I mean. We’re proof of the incendiary quality of another stunning show and a great night all around.
As an aside, the Borderline is nice and central too, which means it’s easy for just about everyone to get to. So you get to see these shows with almost all of your friends. As if it needed improving.
Footnotes:
*I feel it worth mentioning, if not interrupting the serious business of reviewing the show, that Jhon’s twitter is one of the most entertaining things on the internet.
**Bang, bang, bang, bang mixes impossibly well with this song by the Vengaboys. Try it. Swap the bangs and booms.
New Riot: Riot.Sleep.Repeat
Posted by jamie on Jul 14, 2010
New Riot
Riot.Sleep.Repeat (self-released)
13th July 2010
Jamie
Soon after the Easter weekend I sat hunched up on the sofa to review Robb Blake’s latest record. A quick check says that that was the 5th of April, and, alarmingly I haven’t reviewed a full album since. There’s good and bad reasons for that: the arrival of a heatwave of scarily humungous proportions and a lot of excellent live shows to go to and write about have surely got in the way. All the same, that’s a freakishly long time. The silver lining is that I’ve had an extra long time to get familiar with one of the year’s hottest releases.
New Riot’s Riot.Sleep.Repeat is as refreshingly clean and clear on the ear as it is jagged and frustrating for your spell checker: it’s packed with party-starting tunes jammed with hooks, and so deliriously catchy it’ll slap a giant, stupid grin on your face and, in seconds, have your feet running in circles and your hands and arms flying around furiously.
So endearing in its refreshing, honest, unpretentious party-starting, this record is an absolute joy and a welcome return, in many ways to the days when liking ska and punk together was automatically cool and making good, honest party tunes for its own sake wasn’t some kind of crime that would have fashionably cynical scenesters moaning about people wanting to have fun.
It’s all too easy to pretend to like or to dislike something just to look hip, but, at the end of the day, you’re not a punk if you want to do that, so you’re probably in the wrong scene. If you’re still reading, Riot.Sleep.Repeat is the soundtrack to your summer. It’s been out for ages now, and most of you will have bought it, but, ever since I’ve had it, I’ve been hooked on this record. It’s stupidly addictive and never fails to slap a smile over my face.
It starts gently, Andy B picking out a Hoppus-style bassline that could have come from any of the most enjoyable pop-punk songs from back in the day. It lasts for all of fifteen seconds, guitars joining as we go, before the drums and Tommy T’s lead vocal crash in and kick the record off with a bang. Well, with a scream, actually. The opener, Feel the Burn, was on the band’s first EP, 2009’s Blood, Sweat and Beers, is an instant hit, loaded with gang vocals, horn riffs, and healthy portion of snare drum as well. It comes out at a million miles an hour sets the exhilarating pace that runs through the whole record.
It’s in Punk Radio, though that the record really comes in to its own. The pedigree these guys have, and the years they all spent playing in Fandangle long ago proved their undoubted ability to push all the right buttons when writing killer pit and party songs. In this song, though, it becomes clear that they have also clearly honed a loyalty to their own fans and an appreciation of what we like to get sweaty to.
Punk Radio starts out as big, dirty, rock song, guitars and drums building to a crescendo before a big, throaty grunt ushers in a different, more recognisably punk/ska sound, upstrokes, lyrics in rhyming couplets and answered by a cute little horn part that’s perfect for pointing your fingers in the air. Lyrically, the words are an anthem for a part of the punk scene that was massive not so log ago, and for that reason now feels relatively overlooked. The mood is defiant, and the rhymes, rhythms and all-around punch in the hooks on show mean it’s perfect for chanting along to, and, at the same time, affirming your identity. “Give it a twist with a little horny brass / All you scene kids can kiss my ass” is a particular favourite, but “We got reggae, we got fucking rap, but the ska punk boy’s on the fucking comeback” is all the more impassioned.
While I’m on it, a tribute to one of the scene’s most loyal fanbases is touching and very welcome. “And if you’re listening then thank you so much / If you like it, we will write it” is notably sincere, but just another example of a theme that stands out throughout the track and, to an extent, the record as a whole. To an extent, of course, the very existence of Riot.Sleep.Repeat is testament to the devotion that this band and their followers have for each other. Given all that’s meant to have happened, there must have been times when this might not have happened.
We move on, and Another Point of View, Guilty Pleasures and Nothing to Lose are gems, big, ballsy singalongs packed with uplifting horn parts and thoroughly skankable, catchy basslines underpinning riffs, power chords and upstrokes alike.
Title track Riot.Sleep.Repeat is not quite so quick, but just as much fun: it’s rhyming chorus barked, almost rapped, over the horn section and picked out nicely by the other lads on gang vocals.
Lucky Strike is also a little gentler, a love song, but still very much a pop song, and one with all the right ingredients. It’s a quiet moment, but a lovely, simple little song and nice and danceable. Devil Alive, that comes next, is probably the darkest track on the record: as a contrast to Lucky Strike, it’s also about a girl, but this one’s fake, and the tone is much angrier. The song is all guitars and lower, bluesy horn parts. Think of some of the jazz-influenced Sublime songs, and you’re pretty close. Tommy T takes on a Nowell-esque tone to his voice, even. It’s very close to Wrong Way, or Date Rape, for example, and has a great little guitar solo thrown in for good measure.
After this, How Long, is a giddy skip back to the up-tempo party songs we saw earlier on in the record. It’s short (1:48) and, a cute little sax solo aside, is based around one short, sweet, little hook. Days Like These goes the distance and climbs back to the giddy heights that we saw at the very start of the album and that are symptomatic of the record as a whole. It’s similar in style and has all the same ingredients: another sure-fire hit that’s great to party to. Like the last song, Break Free, it’s the sound of a very good band who know their sound and their fans very well, who write great pop songs, and who just want to have fun and know how to do it. There are variations on the usual theme, for sure, but Riot.Sleep.Repeat is essentially the sound of New Riot in hit-machine mode, writing party-starting tunes to keep their fans happy. And fair play to them for that.
Favourites:
Guilty Pleasures
Nothing to Lose
Lucky Strike
Devil Alive
How Long
Rufio: new album previewed
Posted by jamie on Jul 8, 2010
Rufio have posted a new track on their myspace. Little World is taken from their imminent full-length, Anybody Out There, the band’s first since The Comfort of Home in 2005.
Rufio split in 2007, but reunited this year to release an EP, The Loneliest , back in January.
Gecko: Zigfrid von Underbelly
Posted by jamie on Jul 1, 2010
Gecko
Zigfrid’s, Hoxton Square, London
30th June 2010
Jamie
Notification arrived, as is so often the case now, and so often the case with Gecko, via their facebook. In case anyone’s not seen Gecko before, it’s not an invitation to be passed up, so we mobilised pretty fast to get our crew over to Shoreditch, where this one was going down. Having sent enough texts in a short enough time to develop a new kind of cramp in my right thumb, the last one I received in reply was that my good friend, the Watford singer/songwriter Tom Craven (as opposed to the Yorkshure real estate salesperson of the same name) was playing at the Cross Kings.
Fortunately time and space conspired for the hardier among us to reach both shows. It’s hard to run too far in this heat, though, when you’re drinking vodka/cola from a large bottle at the same time, so we finished up catching only the second half of Tom’s set, for which he’d been missing a guitar string and had to change most of his songs to a lighter, more melodic set. We heard Chances, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Angels and I Fell For You (for which I’m in the video) as well as one new song, all delivered in classic Tom style, understated and wrapped up in casual, easy going, bubbly charm, and some enthusiastic thank yous to the other acts, his Mum and Dad, who had come down especially, and even to ourselves (thanks, Tom. Love you, man.)
The bus pitched us up in the heart of Hoxton’s fashionista territory, and we made a beeline for the absurdly named Zigfrid von Underbelly, which calls itself an “art bar” and spells sandwiches with a “t” -sandwitches- if you please, to arrive just in time, and descend a spiral staircase just as the band finished tuning up.
Hoxton is basically a place for scenesters who fancy themselves quite a lot and wear their trousers much too tight, and the sort of place where bars are called things like Zigfrid von Underbelly. In a place where a lot of folk and a lot of places like to think of themselves as somewhat cerebral and all arty and creative, it’s exciting to see an up and coming band, if you can still call Gecko that, who are genuinely innovative and very interesting and don’t think too much of themselves. In fact, their distinctive, idiosyncratic take on uplifting, acoustic ska-pop could have been made for this venue. We saw Gecko play the Troubadour in Earl’s Court, which is a similar venue, despite being in a wholly different part of London, in that it’s pretty upmarket, arty, and frequented by folk who like their jazz. That Gecko have managed to carve themselves a niche in a scene like this speaks volumes for the broad appeal of their sound and the quality of their songs, because they’re just at home at regular punk shows too, y’know. So, to the set. They step on to a round stage with a red velvet curtain behind them and another open, theatre style, at the front of the stage. Behind Si, on bass, there’s a large mirror in a giant gold Elizabethan-style picture frame. It’s a great setting, and so appropriate in so many ways.
With a trusty knot of loyal fans and some intrigued natives stopping in for a look, Gecko enter and wordlessly start straight in to Woke Up and What You Gonna Do? from their most recent EP, which, sadly, we’re told has now sold out. Still, I’ve got mine check that last link) and you can get it on iTunes. Tonight Gecko are a five piece, I saw Ben McKone play drums for them for the first time, and he’s actually very good. Will and Si are there of course, and Gabriel is in on keys. They’re always great live, but I do prefer them when Maisie joins in on vocals: the harmonies are excellent, really well conceived and perfectly executed, as ever, and the sound is that little bit rounder and warmer, which is ideal for the venue and the sultry, soggy warmth of a summer evening that’s desperate for an industrial sized thunderstorm.
The night starts off well the opening songs have all the feet tapping and the heads bobbing and the newbies are laughing along with us on the “jubilee line” and “frozen section” lyrics in What You Gonna Do?. Then comes the first gem: a cover that Will teases us to guess and then doesn’t announce its name. Will and Maisie share the vocals and as they hit the first vocal hook it’s one of those that dawns on you in a lightbulb-style all at once way and slaps a dirty great big grin on your face. It’s Ms Jackson by OutKast, and the cover’s as good as you’d think: the rhythm’s there, the bass is fat and it’s more than different enough to be exciting but still faithful enough to force you to sing it when they play it live. And Will nails the rap. Spot on.
I Got Time is followed by The Library from 2007’s Terrible Lizard and Too Much from 2008’s Songs in the Key of Lizard, neither of which I’ve heard live in a while and are the bonus in a relatively extended set tonight. The songs roll out with practices ease before the new song, which was just referred to as “the new song” for a while but is now called New Leaf, and features a wonderfully observed line about turning over a new leaf that says that it’s actually not a new leaf “it’s just the same leaf, but upside down”. Its genius is in its simplicity and the fact that the line is immediately so unarguably true, and it raises a big laugh. Falling Down and another older one, Daylight Done, follow as we all get slightly tipsy and start to sway a little in the dark and dense, sweaty heat, that isn’t from the pit or from anyone’s sweaty back or armpits, because there’s space on the dancefloor to roam around in, but just because, underground, even at eleven at night, it’s still an oven in this place. It’s a boozy, giddy, muggy, swayalong now, and Gecko wrap up, typically, with Guanabana Juice, though only when the sound guy insists that we absolutely can’t have another one. Will did try and wheedle another one, and the room really wanted it, but, in truth, we’re all pretty ready to flake out. The big sofas upstairs are unreally tempting. Phew.
