Category: General

It’s hard keeping up with the youngsters, the older you get. I used to pride myself in being fairly up-to-date with music, but latterly I have found myself slipping behind. Nowadays, festival line-ups read like Thai restaurant menus. Fortunately, I have a couple of musical daughters in their twenties, and they drip feed me with suggestions. Occasionally, they are successful, and I reap the rewards of tapping into a rich seam of new music.

So Medieval (Blue Bendy)

First off, I finally got to hear the new debut album by one of my recent favourite bands Blue Bendy, who I saw playing in Bristol last year (supporting Squid — result!). I loved their Motorbike EP, and I was looking forward to more of the same.

That wasn’t what I got though. They have clearly moved onwards and upwards since Motorbike. Their Cloudy single from the previous year was more of an indication of where they went next, with a broader range of compositions, styles and dynamics. It’s an interesting album of 21st century progressive indie, and I guess that this is what you get from six creative people pulling in different directions and then pulling together. No one idea is over-used, no song is any longer than necessary.

Tangk (Idles)

I probably wouldn’t have liked Idles if it wan’t for a series of random events. I’d heard them a few years back and moved on quite quickly, dismissing them as a shouty racket band. I’d heard Pop Pop Pop early this year in a random playlist, and it got stuck in my subconscious. So, when I saw the music video for the single, I realised that there was something cool going on here, and got hold of the album called, strangely, Tangk.

Tangk was co-produced by Nigel Godrich, otherwise known as the 6th member of Radiohead, and you can clearly hear the influence. Idles have been pushed to a new level of creativity and performance. Vocalist front man Joe Talbot actually sings as well as shouts, the guitars’ sounds are richer and more complex, we hear atmospheric keyboards, rumbling off-kilter bass lines and the drums crack with almost inhuman power. I soon realised that Idles hit the same pleasure centre in my brain that was inhabited by Killing Joke in the 1980s.

You’ll Have to Lose Something (Spirit of the Beehive)

The last album by Spirit of the Beehive (Entertainment, Death) was one of my most played albums last year (late to the party again). I love the way their music morphs throughout a song, changing form from one minute to the next. When I heard that their new “sweeter” album You’ll Have to Lose Something was coming out, I was actually worried it wouldn’t be as good. On first play, I thought maybe they had tried to make a softer, more accessible album, but like most good records, I discovered there were more layers waiting to be uncovered.

Despite the romantic break up of the longest serving core members (Zack Schwartz and Rivka Ravede) almost ending the band a couple of years ago, they instead changed and embraced the drama, writing about love and relationships in a new band dynamic, which continues their taste for sampling, chaos, morphing grooves, and adds delicate passages of subtle electronica and even classical instruments. This band has been on fire since the addition of Corey Wichlin five years ago. Long may they burn!

If a tree falls in in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Despite the length of time I have spent on Earth, this philosophical question has only just become relevant to me. Let me explain…

When I joined what was to become known as Crimson Creatures in 2021, there was always the aspiration that the band would gig, if all went well. I was nervous about the prospect, not having played in front of an audience since the 1980s, but nerves are normal and, sure enough, just before our first gig, they left me, and I was raring to go.

3 gigs later, and I am no longer in the band. The gigs were successful, in that we played well and sounded good. Did I enjoy the experience? Hmm. Yes, and no. I mostly enjoyed the 45–60 minutes I was on stage, but the rest of it?

I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to do any more gigs. The lead up to each gig was filled with repetitive rehearsals, gear prep, and a nagging apprehension that something might go wrong on the night. The next gig was always lurking in the back of my mind.

The gigs involved lugging gear up and down stairs from badly parked cars, solving equipment problems, sound checks and fighting sound systems, playing to half empty rooms, and packing up late at night. I was sober in a room full of well-oiled people, before a long drive home, when I really could have done with relaxing. You can keep your Rock ‘n’ Roll lifestyle.

Now, when friends ask about my musical activity, I tell them that I’m concentrating on writing and recording. They will inevitably ask when I’m gigging again, to which I reply that I’m not keen, and it may not be for a long time, if ever. The reaction is always the same — total dumbfoundment. It’s as if there’s no point making music, unless I’m playing it live, probably in a bar near to them. This is where the philosophical falling tree comes in…

What is the point of making music, or being in a band, unless there are gigs and the performance? I’ve thought about this a lot recently.

Listening

I’ve been listening to and collecting music since the 1970s. I can’t usually remember what I ate for lunch, but I can tell you in what year Band X made their 2nd album and who played on it. There’s no feeling like discovering and going through the honeymoon listening phase of a great album.

Once I learned to play an instrument and how to record and mix, it was natural to want to make something vaguely resembling the amazing stuff I loved. So, by the age of 17, I’d made my first album and played in front of a big audience.

To be clear, those first gigs were playing covers of popular songs to crowds which were coming anyway. We were the entertainment, and we were appreciated. It was great. We later introduced our own songs, with limited success, and realised that the public wasn’t ready for our stuff. Still, a crowd is a crowd, and memories were made.

But, isn’t that what being a musician is all about? Well, no. Music isn’t made to get a round of applause and a pat on the back — though it’s nice when that happens. Many people make music because they they want to create something great sounding, thought-provoking and rousing, that they can listen to and can be proud of. If other people like it too, fabulous, so much the better. It’s a huge buzz to add another great recording to your collection, especially if it’s been made by you.

Of course, people like to play music in front of a crowd too, because they want to share, perform and entertain, and that’s fine. But not all musicians are entertainers. And not everyone makes music for entertainment.

Keep Music Live

When recording studios really took off in the 1960s, until piracy became widespread, popular music was consumed voraciously in its recorded form. But, as artists lost revenue from falling sales, they had to hit the road to make a living from music. And now streamed music is king, and all but the biggest recording artists get very little income from streaming, nothing is set to change.

Digital technology has enabled anyone to become a recording artist. This is a double-edged sword, and there are more recordings being released now than ever before. It’s difficult to get noticed amongst the sea of music, unless you have any marketing skills or staff at your disposal.

So, musicians are expected to perform, whether they like it or not. “Keep music live,” they said. Well, music wasn’t always live.

Some said it couldn’t be done, but, finally, it has. Wire and The Stranglers both had a good stab at it in the late 70s. But, we are now seeing what happens when you cross-breed two seemingly incompatible musical genres.

It started in 2021 with Black Country, New Road‘s debut album For the First Time. It was a Post-Punk album with clever arrangements and striking contrasts. It was closely followed by Squid‘s debut album Bright Green Field. This was arguably more Post-Punk than Prog, but the extended instrumental sections begged to differ.

Black Midi, who had been getting a name for their blazing rapid-fire controlled explosive music and Mercury Prize nomination, finally harnessed their full potential, and dropped Hellfire! on an unsuspecting public.

Their third album is a dizzying whirlwind of genre-hopping, face-slapping, sprinting thrash-laden, crooning horror. It’s an eloquent, masterful album, with equal measures of raw power, Dadaist technical brilliance and Zappa-esque humour. The first time I played the album, I couldn’t listen to anything else for at least an hour, my senses had been so assaulted.

Struggling to follow this up in 2023, I eventually stumbled upon the Motorbike EP from 2022, by another young band called Blue Bendy. A bit less Post-Punk and a bit more Progressive, their music is bristling with ideas, condensing a huge array of sounds, rhythms and emotions into their songs.

Blue Bendy’s music is so dense, it might be a difficult listen for some people. But it is saved by their sweet and delicious sounds, which reward the listener with new layers with every play. I have played this at least once almost every day this year, making it a clear winner of my ‘album’ of the year, without either being an album, nor released this year.

When I joined Crimson Creatures in 2021, we talked a lot about the music. We talked a lot, full stop. We talked about writing songs, and recording them. Pretty soon we had 12 songs done. We also talked about the possibility of playing the songs live. And, as it became clear that we were able to do the songs justice as a live group, we stepped up the search for a drummer.

We struggled to get the right drummer, but, 8 months later, we finally managed it. After 4 months of rehearsals, we played our first gig, and it was largely a success. I say “largely” as there were some technical problems beyond our control, and some that were down to us. And the audience was small—many people being distracted by the other goings-on at the festival. But the main thing was that we played well and sounded good.

With another couple of gigs lined up, it seemed it was onwards and upwards. But, with the change of focus to live performance, Ego started to affect the band dynamics, and the ecosystem of the previous 18 months started to unravel.

I’d been quite nervous about playing live. In my last gig (with First Night With the Indians) I was almost 20. I’d had a 38 year hiatus from gigging. But, as I watched the band on before us, I realised I was raring to go. I was buzzing at the end of our set.

This all changed with the 2nd gig. From the outset, my reservations about the venue were realised. For 45 minutes on stage, I had to struggle with feedback, lack of space, and poor sound. On top of this, the Ego was bolder.

We finished the gig with different feelings. Half were pleased, half were disappointed. We’d been building up to this for months. And for what? An audience of maybe 20 people, one of whom was complimentary afterwards. We packed up without much talk that night.

Third time lucky though, eh! I brought along a big group of family and friends to gig number 3. We played our best chops, and the sound was spot on. I relaxed a bit, and enjoyed the intimate atmosphere. Unfortunately, the Ego had fully blossomed by this stage, and the evening was punctuated by a series of annoying incidents.

Fortunately, I’d thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I had lots of friends in the audience to distract me. But, after sleeping on it, I started to see more negatives than positives. Do I really want to be putting this much work into what is effectively just a hobby? Can I really stomach any more of the Ego? Are we destined to play these small gigs to small uninterested crowds for years? Why does no one else in the band share my concerns?

Of course, it’s always the last straw which breaks the camel’s back. A silly argument about something which shouldn’t reasonably need discussing was the tipping point for me. I’d had enough; I wanted to make it stop. And, all of a sudden, I quit the band.

So, the moral of the tale? You shouldn’t regret decisions to try new things, but be wary of changing circumstances affecting the delicate balance of something as simple as a rock band. And keep talking.