The Like

Glasgow King Tuts

01 September 2010

Welcome to extreme rock makeovers! For the last few years The Like have been trading in a quietLOUD grunge-rock thing with some Blondie-like sass thrown in for good measure. more… “The Like”

Hallogallo 2010

Edinburgh HMV Picture House

Tuesday 17 August

Or to give it its proper name “Michael Rother and friends perform the top pop hits of Neu!”. Or something like that. There are lots of folk that care about these things would have been very unhappy had Rother been allowed to bill these gigs Neu! I can’t help thinking that if the rest of the band are dead you should be allowed to reform them on your own. Or, if commercial success has eluded you for so long – despite being one of those artists whose influence can be found just about everywhere today – you should be cut some slack in trying to get retirement package sorted out.

Welcomed like a god, we get an extended introduction to the eponymous reworking. There’s a few uneasy looks as the over digital set-up seems to have stripped any real warmth from the tune. Then Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley pounds in with the signature motorik beats and everything seems alright. For once, the notoriously muddy sound of the Picture House working to the band’s advantage.

And, that’s kinda how it goes on for the rest of the set. The often “my first mutli-fx pedal” guitar countermanded by just how driving and thumping it gets. It’s minor quibbles, because the peaks are just so high, and there’s more of them. At its best it’s a big groovy juggernaut with every hipster favourite caught in the headlights and shown no mercy.

Short set, one encore. Left us wanting more, I suppose. But, not necessarily in the way they intended.

[Part of The Edge festival]

Nick Harper

Classic Grand

Wednesday 3rd March 2010

With a new album, The Last Guitar, released it’s time to go see Nick Harper again. Something we always welcome.

For those unfamiliar, Harper is a modern day troubadour: A man that with a guitar and songs that can melt your heart. But, from a simple rock ‘n’ roll perspective he’s one of the most astounding and inventive guitar players you are ever likely to see. Were it not for the resulting noises, there’sd be laws against how he treats that guitar. It’s truly astounding.  Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker is the near spit of the man.  And, once realising this, his character’s intensity and obsession takes on a completely different emphasis.

There must be something in the water in Shropshire. This lad seems to be walking a similar neo-pagan path as near-neighbour Julian Cope. Just without the self-mythologising and posturing. And, we’ll let him off with the occasional near hippy lyric as the underlying message is about another way. He tells us he’s not on the left, not on the right, but way out there.

There’s a very bizarre interlude when someone who may or may not be the promoter – she has kept his wine glass gladly charged throughout – indulges in some very get-a-room flirtation. As with everything Harper does it is handled with great grace, humility and a lot of humour.

“They seem to have pigeonholed me as Folk” he opines “so, I wrote a folk song” and he gives us Fields Of The Cloth Of Gold in which he shows the folkies how it really should be done. (I had one of those arguments with a friend about this when they first saw him doing it. Y’know the one: Look it’s an original.) And, he’s right. Not only does Harpic not deserve pigeonholing, but he’s far more rock than most of the so-called rock bands about at the moment. At his most epic you could swear you were listening to Muse. Except it’s just one guy with an acoustic guitar. This is a good thing.

By the close a slightly withdrawn audience are baying for more. He’s near carried shoulder high in triumph.

Haste ye back, sir. And, next time, you lot come see. I’m almost tempted to offer you a money-back guarantee.

Music From The Penguin Cafe/Spiro

Old Fruitmarket

26 January 2010

Despite the utter chaos of programming that seemed to dog this year’s Celtic Connections (the only mention of gigs being from the artists themselves on the day – c’mon this is what your website is for) one of the dates we had penciled in right from the first announcements was this inspired partnering.

Bristol’s Spiro come with about the best endorsements you can get in roots music from that end of the country. Signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World and lauded by members of Portishead. Current album Lightbox is a rather interesting folky cyclical thing. Y’know when the players take a theme and riff on it round and round changing all the time? Kinda like anti-jazz no real solos, just waves? Live, freed from the restrictions of Real Studios they are a gloriously warm, rich creature doing that same thing. Only in 3D. Hypnotic lovely stuff. When they coming back?

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra were a strange beast.  As punk was being born, Simon Jeffes decided he wanted to make louche continental music.  He succeeded and has basically left (after an early death) a body of work that filled documentaries and Sunday supplements while Elbow was just a cute word from that Jack Lemmon film.  There was something unpinnable about PCO. But, ultimately, they were all about melody. When they seemed arch, no – they were just being tuneful.

Now, Jeffes’ son Arthur is keeping the name going with Music From The Penguin Cafe who openly do “reworked material and their own compositions”. And, that love of the melody is what’s central here. Jeffes Jr’s troupe (including some former pop stars – just like his dad did) take the original and give us stunning versions. They also play with the original and give us stunning versions. We get new material that sits beautifully in there.

It’s amazing.  Melody may be a devalued commodity these days, but it still has its power. At it’s best you could call it ‘frivolous’. Still it touches something deep and emotional. Frivolity as emotional experience, that’s what Jeffes Sr had mastered. Dad would be proud.