Ubiquity

In which there’s a band you can’t avoid

Written by Forest Pines; published at 7:56 am on January 14th, 2010.
Filed under: Media Addict.

If there’s one band that was ubiquitous in everyone’s best-of-2009 lists the other months, it must have been Florence And The Machine. Everyone, pretty much, loved their debut album, Lungs, and every review couldn’t stop raving about it. We got a copy; and it was, I have to say, pretty decent. I was impressed.

This post isn’t a review of the album, though. This post is a complaint that now, if you turn the telly on, you can’t get away from that album. Over and over again, tracks from that Florence And The Machine album are being used as background music on trailer after trailer. I’ve heard it used to advertise everything from Slumdog Millionaire to The Hairy Bikers to Lard Rise To Candleford,* and more than once I’ve heard successive trailers, back-to-back, with songs from that same album in the background.

The end-of-year lists might well be at fault. After all, the album was released back in the summer, but this wasn’t happening back in October or November. All at once, though, at some point in December, every sound-editing person across the entire TV world seems to have picked up a copy of Lungs and started plastering its tracks all over their output. All channels seem to have had the same idea, all at the same time. It was a good album, but now, you can’t get away from it. Sometimes too much is too much.

* I prefer the typo there to the actual programme.

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Keyword noise: Florence And The Machine, Lungs, music, pop, pop music, song, sound, television, telly, tv

List Post Of The Week

In which we list some bands

Written by Forest Pines; published at 11:07 pm on September 14th, 2009.
Filed under: Artistic, Dear Diary, Media Addict.

This week’s List Post Of The Week: bands scheduled to perform at this year’s End Of The Road Festival, just completed, on the borders of Dorset and Wiltshire:*

The Acorn; Alela Dian; Iain Archer; Sam Baker; Archie Bronson Outfit; Au; Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo; Bear Driver; Blitzen Trapper; The Boy Least Likely To; Brakes; Peter Broderick; Broken Family Band; David Thomas Broughton; Neko Case; Dirty Projectors; The Dodos; The Duke & The King; Steve Earle; Efterklang; Jess Elva; Esben and the Witch; Explosions In The Sky; First Aid Kit; Fleet Foxes; Get The Blessing; Laura Gibson; Joe Gideon and The Shark; The Hand; The Heavy; Darren Hayman; Herman Dune**; The Hold Steady; The Horrors; Beth Jeans Houghton; Huw M; Lay Low; The Leisure Society; Bob Lind; Bob Log III; Loney Dear; The Low Anthem; Magic Arm; Magnolia Electric Co; Dent May & His Magnificent Ukelele; Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards; Malcolm Middleton; Motel Motel; Mumford & Sons; The Mummers; Ohbiju; Okkervil River; The Pack AD; Charlie Parr; Josh T Pearson; Quack Quack; Richmond Fontaine; Alasdair Roberts; Dan Sartain; She Keeps Bees; Shearwater; The Sliding Rule; Soy Un Caballo; Sparrow & The Workshop; Spokes; Stardeath and White Dwarfs; Stars Of Sunday League; T-Model Ford; The Tallest Man On Earth; The Tenebrous Liar; This Frontier Needs Heroes; Holly Throsby; J Tillman; Tiny Vipers; The Travelling Band; Treecreeper; Twi The Humble Feather; Vetiver; The Week That Was; Whispertown 2000; William Elliot Whitmore; Wildbirds & Peacedrums; Wye Oak; Zun Zun Egui

* Literally so: the gardens and main stage were in Wiltshire, the camp site and other stages in Dorset.

** Formerly “Herman Düne”, of course.

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Keyword noise: dorset, end of the road, end of the road festival, eotr, festival, larmer tree, larmer tree gardens, live music, music, wiltshire

Independent

In which we fill the weekend with music

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:38 pm on July 12th, 2009.
Filed under: Media Addict.

A bit of a musical weekend, this weekend. A bit of a busy one too: there’s always too much in this town to choose between.

It started off with Big Pink Cake. Or, at least, the Big Pink Cake Indiepop All-Weekender, starting off on Saturday at the Cube. It offered free cake, so really there was no choice. Plus, Dimitra is always saying that we should go and see Pete Green, largely because he’s one of the best stars of indiepop to emerge from Grimsby in recent years. He does things like: release songs to benefit the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway,* too.

So, we ambled down to The Cube on Saturday afternoon for the free c… I mean, for the first stage of the Big Pink Cake weekend. The first few bands, including Mr Green, were to appear in the bar, which is really rather cramped. We saw a stream of bands play to the small crowd: The Short Stories, Countryside, Secret Shine, and at least one other band that weren’t on the roster. The singer of said band held up their CD and said that anybody there could have a free copy; the audience carefully avoided eye contact. No Pete Green though. He’d been moved to today’s setlist. Ah well.

After nipping out for food at Café Kino, we returned for the evening bands, over in the cinema. Being a cinema, each band had picked a film to be screened behind them, their choices all rather interesting. There was: something black-and-white from late-50s Britain,*** chosen by French band Electrophönvintage; La Dolce Vita, chosen by The Westfield Mining Disaster; Convoy, picked by Amida, March Of The Penguins accompanying Santa Dog, and classic British film Les Bicyclettes de Belsize showing behind The Pocketbooks. That does, really, tell you more about each band than I could explain myself.**** We weren’t really impressed by the sound quality, though, or the way that the first song of each set turned into a sound check. I definitely wasn’t impressed by the rather rude people in The Pocketbooks’ entourage who got up and started dancing, getting in everyone’s way and being generally annoying and offensive.

The Big Pink Cake weekender did – being, you know, a weekender – extend through to today, with an afternoon of bands at the Mothers Ruin. The bill included Pete Green (moved from Saturday, apparently) and Tender Trap, a band beloved of all C86/Sarah tweecore fans and/or economics experts everywhere. However, we didn’t go along, because we’d left on the Saturday feeling relatively uninspired. As luck would have it, in our meal-break down at Café Kino, we spotted a poster for a rather better-sounding gig that was on at the same time. So, instead, we spent our Sunday afternoon at the Scout Hut down on Phoenix Wharf.

At the Scout Hut we saw Jam On Bread and Mat Riviere, in the middle of a joint tour, supported by local band Boxcar Aldous Huxley. I’ve seen Boxcar Aldous Huxley before, and they were very good then; they were very good again today, with tales of Francis Dashwood, the responsibilities of the free press, and messianic movements in 19th century Canada. They were followed by Mat Riviere, who performed kneeling on the floor with a variety of keyboards and samples; and Jam On Bread, who had both a ukelele and a beard, and played both brilliantly.

I was sitting listening to Jam On Bread’s***** set, and I couldn’t help thinking: you know, his accent sounds a bit, well, Grimsbyish. Not really northern but not really southern, a bit flat and dull but with the full complement of vowels.****** But, of course, he couldn’t be: it might be a small world, but there’s no way that two stars of pop music, both from Grimsby, would both be playing gigs in Bristol on the same afternoon. And then: his lyrics mentioned that he wasn’t Swedish, because he was born in Grimsby. Gosh.

We didn’t get time to speak to Jam On Bread after the gig, so I didn’t have time to confirm his Grimsbyness face-to-face; but the internet seems to think it’s true. So: we did get to see a top Grimsby-born indiepop star this weekend, after all. It just wasn’t the one we’d been expecting to see when the weekend started. I think we might well have seen the best one, though.

* one of the country’s shortest steam railways, and hence in need of the donations. It will, if ever finished, be notable for being the country’s straightest steam railway, a good ten miles long and with utterly no curves. At present it runs for about a quarter of a mile, but it does have a somersault signal, which is obviously a plus point.** I should point out that Pete Green’s song does largely blame Richard Beeching for the line’s original closure: in reality it didn’t shut down until 1970, whereas Beeching was sacked from the British Railways Board in ‘65.

** I believe they built it with spare parts bought from the Ffestiniog after the abandonment of that railway’s mechanical Tanygrisiau resignalling scheme, but I could be wrong. If any LWR or Ffestiniog people who know better read this, feel free to correct me.

*** easily dated from the railway carriages featured, if we’d got a better look at it

**** No, really, it does; although it would take rather more space to explain why. Maybe that will be a blog post for next week some time.

***** His real name is Steve Carlton, or at least, that’s what it says on the Internet

****** To be contrasted with the nearby Hull accent, which only uses one vowel. “E hed e slerce ef terst, smerked e feg, end went dern the rerd”

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Keyword noise: Amida, Big Pink Cake, Boxcar Aldous Huxley, Bristol, cake, countryside, Electrophonvintage, Grimsby, indiepop, Jam On Bread, Lincolnshire Wolds Railway, live music, Mat Riviere, music, Phoenix Wharf, pop, pop music, Redcliff, Redcliffe, Santa Dog, Scout Hut, Secret Shine, Steve Carlton, The Cube, The Pocketbooks, The Short Stories, The Westfield Mining Disaster

The Sound Of Music

In which we go to a festival, albeit a mud-free city centre one

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:04 pm on May 25th, 2009.
Filed under: Dear Diary, Media Addict.

As I keep, keep saying, it’s been busy, so busy. Not only was there that trip to Manchester; but also K’s been busy at work. And then, following it all up, we had visitors, and we had tickets to the Dot To Dot Festival, or, at least, the Bristol half of it. A long and tiring day of music, bands, and trips back and forth between various venues around the city centre; so many different bands that they start to blur together.

First up, we had planned to start with Marina And The Diamonds at The Louisiana; but, unfortunately, they were replaced with a local band, First Of The Giants. Who weren’t bad, just not what we wanted to listen to; still, we stayed through to the end. Before moving on: another venue, another band.

Tell the truth, we didn’t move straight on; we stopped off in The Centre for ice cream, before going on to The Academy for the main line-up. There, we started off with The Rogues, who wore leather jackets and sidled up to the mikes as if they were trying to be Pete Docherty.* They were solid and competant, though, and good performers. Maybe not a band we’d go to see, but a band we wouldn’t mind seeing again.

The Rogues were followed by Mumford & Sons, a rather good Americana band who turned out, when they stopped singing, to have American singing accents but British speaking voices. They’re coming back to Bristol in September, and we’ll make sure we catch them again. After the Mumfords came Cage The Elephant. The best think I can say about Cage The Elephant is that they were enthusiastic. They were also dull, pedestrian and tedious; and all their songs sounded the same. “He thinks he’s Jagger,” I overheard the people next to us saying, about the Elephant’s lead singer. “He’s fucked, and he thinks he’s Jagger.”**

The bookers of Dot To Dot certainly like contrast between their bands. Cage The Elephant were followed by Patrick Wolf, who was the real reason we’d come to the Academy. Entirely unlike Cage The Elephant, of course; but he rocked out a lot more than the last time we’d seen him, at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Then, he only had a single backing musician; at Dot To Dot, he brought a full band. He was dressed something like a glam-rock matador, with bright yellow quiff held in place with a lifetime supply of hair gel. He produced lively, sing-along music that still had meaningful lyrics, all expressed in his powerful, crisp and sharp-edged singing voice.

Next on was Ladyhawke, one of the best-known acts on the bill. Ladyhawke was a disappointment, and that was partly because of Patrick Wolf’s singing voice. Mr Wolf, we could hear every word and syllable of. Ladyhawke’s sound was all very mushy, not helped by a slightly mumbly voice.*** She was also a disappointment because there wasn’t much variation at all between her album tracks; we could clearly tell who in the audience had bought the album and who had only heard the singles. Personally, I can remember the ’80s the first time around; and we’re surprised that Chrissy Hynde hasn’t called Ladyhawke up and asked for her stance and hairstyle back.

We didn’t stay at the Academy to see the headliners, Friendly Fires. Instead we took a break, took in some unhealthy food,**** and popped over to the Thekla ready for Little Boots later in the evening. There was no queue, so we wandered straight in to the bar and came across the French band Naive New Beaters. We knew nothing about them, we didn’t plan to see them, and they turned out to be one of the best bands we saw all day. Certainly better than the band that followed them onstage, Pulled Apart By Horses, who thrashed about and rather suited their name. As the moshpit was between us and the exit, though, we were a bit trapped until their set finished. Looking out of the window porthole, we noticed that the Thekla had suddenly become the hot venue of the night, with a long, long queue stretching back almost all the way to Prince St.***** Possibly because the other venues had, by then, started to close. Almost certainly not because of all the people rushing to see Pulled Apart By Horses.

I don’t remember much at all about the final act we wanted to catch, Little Boots. I was starting to get a bit sleepy, and the festival’s timetable was slipping further and further. The band before Little Boots went offstage over half an hour late, and by the time Little Boots herself appeared, the schedule had slipped by another half-hour. The crowd were getting restless, very restless, and her first song was accompanied by loud boos. I was well out of the way; as the air conditioning had failed, I’d retreated to the back of the room because I felt that if I didn’t I’d probably faint. We heard Little Boots from a distance, and occasionally caught a glimpse of her through the crowd. I know she sounded pretty good, but I have no memory at all of exactly how she sounded. If she’d come onstage at her booked time, we’d probably have really enjoyed it; our slightly-more-hardcore friends, who had more stamina, certainly did.

Overall, it was a bit of a mixed day. Afterwards, we felt as if we’d need a long, long time to recover. It wasn’t all good; but we’d never heard of several of the bands before in any case, and didn’t know what we were going to find.****** Is it something we’d do again? Well, maybe: it would depend exactly on who’s going to be playing next. Enjoying the day with friends was more important, in the end, than the music we were listening to as we did it. And that, by any measure, was a success.

* when he looked slightly healthier than he does now.

** At least, that’s what I think I heard. The singer certainly was staggering about the stage as if he was about to fall over.

*** “You couldn’t even make out what she was saying between songs,” said K. “Because it was in ’strine?” I replied. “No, just because she couldn’t say anything without mumbling.”

**** except K, who had pitta bread with hummus and salad.

***** I’m exaggerating. But not by much.

****** The slightly-more-hardcore friends mentioned earlier are more engaged with the modern music scene than us, had done quite a lot more research, and planned out the itinerary

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Keyword noise: Bristol, Bristol Academy, Cage The Elephant, Dot To Dot, festival, First Of The Giants, gig, Ladyhawke, live music, Mumford & Sons, music, music festival, Naive New Beaters, Patrick Wolf, Pulled Apart By Horses, The Louisiana, The Rogues, Thekla

Trans-Europe Express

In which FP is out of step with Europe

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:06 am on May 17th, 2009.
Filed under: Media Addict.

The Eurovision Song Contest rolled round again, last night. We fell into watching it, mostly because we had nothing else to do on a Saturday night, but partly because we knew the UK wasn’t going to win and we wanted to see just how much we wouldn’t win by.

We couldn’t do as badly as last year, of course; well, at least, we couldn’t do any worse. We were surprised, though, just how well the UK did in the end. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a very good song. It was the sort of song that would fit in well at the end of the second act of a second-rate West End musical,* which I suppose isn’t that surprising given who wrote it. It didn’t have any rhythm to it, no memorable tune either, and the lyrics sounded as if they belonged elsewhere: as if we were hearing them entirely out of context.

Then again: I am no good at spotting why a song might win the Eurovision Song Contest. Graham Norton, commentating, seemed baffled why Britain had given Germany a relatively high vote; I was surprised it wasn’t higher, as I thought it was the sort of song that would go down well.** I don’t understand why Norway were a runaway success, but all the other songs with vaguely-folkish melodies and violins didn’t get very far. Next year, no doubt, the rest of the world will be watching and know where to get excited; and I’ll be watching feeling slightly bemused once more.

* assuming three acts in total. And the traditional sort of West End musical, not the lazy modern sort where someone tries to string already-popular songs together with a badly-fitting plot.

** Although I wasn’t sure why Dita von Teese was on stage, lounging around with a riding crop doing absolutely nothing, including appearing on camera.

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Keyword noise: Andew Lloyd Webber, Dita von Teese, Eurovision, Eurovision Song Contest, Jade Ewen, music, pop music, television, telly, tv

The Neighbourhood

In which we visit some neighbourhood artists

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:29 pm on May 15th, 2009.
Filed under: Artistic.

As summer comes in, it seems as if every weekend there’s something artistic or creative to do. Last weekend it was the Bristol Comic Con (which we missed), and the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail, which we didn’t miss; or, at least, didn’t miss all of. The Southbank Bristol Arts Trail, in short, is a weekend event where creative people around Southville throw open their doors and turn their houses and/or gardens into galleries for everyone to visit. And it was the weather for it: we toiled around the hills of Southville, trail maps in hand, all the time seeing other people doing the same.

We didn’t see all of the venues, nothing like all of them; there were 51 listed on the map, scattered over a pretty wide area. Off the top of my head, they tend to blur into each other, especially nearly a week afterwards. We definitely saw: the Wonkey House on Mount Pleasant Terrace; people from Number 40 at, erm, 40 Mount Pleasant Terrace; textile designs* on Allington Road; paintings by Terry Williams on Birch Road; and lots of other wildly artistic open houses whose owners’ names passed me by. We finally ended up at a second house on Birch Road where we saw various bands and performers play. Rachael Dadd served us tea, and her band The Hand played, along with The Wraiths and The Fingerless Hoodlum. We relaxed in the sunshine, the warmth of the garden, and K caught a sunburn.

Like everything else, we walked home wanting to do more ourselves; wanting to create things; wanting to have things to show ourselves. There are so many local art events, I wonder how people have time to make art in-between them sometimes.** We walked home, and then straight away started planning to go out once more. Because, we’d been told: “those people over there are in a really good band, and they’re playing tonight – you should come along, you’ll love it.” That’s another story, though, for another blog post.

* some a bit like the “crochet bomb” which I keep telling you I’m making

** the next one I’m currently aware of is the Easton Arts Trail, coming up in about a month’s time

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Keyword noise: Allington Road, art, artists, arts trail, Birch Road, Bristol, folk, gig, live music, Mount Pleasant Terrace, music, painting, Rachael Dadd, Southbank Bristol Arts Trail, Southville, Terry Williams, textiles, The Fingerless Hoodlum, The Hand, The Wonkey House, The Wraiths

Sound and music

In which we go to see The Boy Least Likely To

Written by Forest Pines; published at 4:56 pm on March 25th, 2009.
Filed under: Media Addict.

As soon as we get home, we’re out again. To a gig, at the Louisiana, to see The Boy Least Likely To, hard at work promoting their new album that’s just been released. We were slightly confused when we arrived, to see that according to the posters the gig was on Monday, March 24th, and we’d turned up on a Tuesday. After checking our calendars, we went in. Inside, there’s not much room in the Louisiana. It’s quite a cosy place, so cosy that we quickly spotted that a good chunk of the pub was taken up by support band The School tucking into their tea.

The first band that came on were The Fox And The Bramble, an electric/acoustic duo who dashed about the stage swapping instruments, and made slightly-twee twinkly sounds with children’s toys. I spent a while wondering which one was Fox and which Bramble; the internet says the name comes from Aesop, though.

They were followed by The School, as I mentioned. We’ve seen The School before, so we knew what to expect; but we were slightly disappointed. They didn’t seem as good as they did in November. The sound didn’t seem to be mixed quite right, with keyboard and vocals overpowering the rest of the band.

The Boy Least Likely To had sound troubles of their own. “Violin isn’t plugged in,” one of them shouted, after the first song. “Too much violin,” he shouted after the second. They are apparently only a duo normally, but on-stage they mysteriously expand to a full band, like one of those toys for dropping in water. I have to admit to not knowing very much about them; but the gig left me wanting to find out more.* Their frontman smiled broadly, and flicked balloons back and forth with the audience in a genial way, never missing a beat.

* they do have a blog, and they’ve already written about last night’s gig on it.

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Keyword noise: Bristol, concert, gig, indie, indiepop, live music, music, pop, review, The Boy Least Likely To, The Fox And The Bramble, The Louisiana, The School

A Medley

In which we discuss local things, and eat pancakes

Written by Forest Pines; published at 12:55 pm on February 26th, 2009.
Filed under: Dear Diary, Media Addict, Political.

A few different things on my mind today, none of which are worthy really of a full post.

Firstly, in serious local political news, the city council’s minority Labour administration has collapsed, to be replaced with a minority Lib Dem administration. Whether the change in cabinet will lead to any changes to or abandonment of the destructive and wasteful guided busway scheme, much blogged about here in the past few months, we will have to wait and see. For that matter, there may well be changes to the rather rushed scheme to pedestrianise half of Prince St Bridge, which some people think was part of the guided busway plans; but which I think was more likely to be some sort of council sop to transport charity SusTrans, whose main office overlooks the bridge.

Talking of things round the Harbourside, regular readers might remember me talking about Folk Tales, the monthly music-and-storytelling event at the Scout Hut on Phoenix Wharf. February’s Folk Tales was last night; however, me and K didn’t remember this until about half-seven last night, at which point we didn’t really feel like going out. Oh well: roll on the next one. I remembered, when noticing that people have been searching the internet for information about it (and finding me).

Another topical search term: “what happens to Annie in Being Human?” Episode 5 spoiler time: sharp-eyed viewers will have noticed that although Annie was on the verge of passing on to the next world, she hadn’t actually gone when the credits rolled, so will no doubt still be in the final episode. Highlight the preceding bit to read it.

Aside from that: we had plenty of pancakes on Tuesday night, as is only right and proper; and enjoyed them so much, we had more yesterday. Which is probably slightly going against the point of Shrove Tuesday, but never mind. More pancakes has to be a good thing.

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Keyword noise: Being Human, Bristol, BRT, bus, Bus Rapid Transit, city council, events, fantasy, folk music, Folk Tales, ghost, ghost stories, guided bus, guided busway, labour, Lib Dems, Liberal Democrats, local government, local politics, music, Pancake Day, pancakes, Phoenix Wharf, politics, Prince St Bridge, public transport, Redcliffe, Scout Hut, Shrove Tuesday, stories, storytelling, SusTrans, television, telly, transport, tv

Sound And Music

In which we are annoyed by an apparent mime

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:31 am on February 11th, 2009.
Filed under: Artistic.

A busy weekend for us: we had visitors. Well, one visitor, Stu, who came down to explore and discover the city for himself.

Stu’s into electro, somewhat, so we found something on Saturday night that we thought he’d like. “We Live Here”, at the Arnolfini, a live art weekend featuring a gig on the Saturday night. Thinking it might be interesting, we packed into the gallery’s rather crowded bar to see what was going to happen.

Unfortunately, we were a bit disappointed by the first act – in fact, by the first act’s first act, if you see what I mean. Magnús Scheving Magnus Spectrum,* a chap in an orange jumpsuit who bounced energetically around to laptop and keyboard-generated electrical noise, waving a Nintendo Wii controller as he did so, throwing himself about the performance space and almost into the audience. He shook his wrist, and the sound tremolo’d itself.

Now, if you search the net for Magnus Spectrum – which I did, to try to find out if he’s got a website** – you’ll find people saying that he uses the Wii controller as a synth, or as a midi controller, and so on. The Arnolfini’s own website says:

Magnus Spectrum makes physical noise music via Nintendo Wii controller and much leaping about

His Facebook page says: “he performs on synthesiser, using consumer goods as wireless controllers”.

So we stood watching him: me, K, and Stu, who is a big console-gaming fan. And Stu, being the expert, noticed something. According to him, at least, Magnus Spectrum’s Wii controller, with which he was apparently playing his synth, wasn’t actually switched on.***

I’d been a tad suspicious, just because, at some points, the chap appeared to be following the music, not quite on the beat; dancing on the beat is quite hard with arrhythmic music, after all. Stu, though, was adamant. Spectrum had performed once and stopped,**** and nobody else looked likely to be coming onstage any time soon; so we gave up and went for a drink at The Apple instead. Apologies to Freeze Puppy and Chew Magna, whose acts we missed, especially as Chew Magna do seem to be quite good.

Talking it over afterwards: there’s nothing wrong with playing electrical noise and bouncing around energetically to it like a loon. Magnus Spectrum’s dance style wasn’t too unlike my own empty-room crazed bouncing; and I’ve been known to wear orange jumpsuits in my time, too. There’s not even anything wrong with miming, in itself. We left because: there is something wrong with saying “I’m playing this live” when you’re not. Magnus Spectrum did, occasionally, nip over to his keyboard and press a chord. Stu might be wrong, and Magnus might have been using a slightly broken or modded Wii controller; or it might have been a cock-up of some sort. Overall, though, we ended up thinking that he was probably miming, at least as far as the Wii part went; so we decided there were better places to be.

* That isn’t some children’s-entertainment-based insult, by the way. I genuinely am having difficulty with the name “Magnus Spectrum”, because every time I try to think it, Scheving pops into my head instead.

** He’s got a Myspace page under his real name and a Facebook page as Magnus, if nothing else.

*** Stu knows enough about Wiis to know where the controller on-lamp is; he also knows enough to tell us that it was, apparently, an early model of Wii controller. Not that that matters, really.

**** After apparently accidentally shutting himself out of the building – the side door was set to let people out but not in again.

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Keyword noise: Arnolfini, art, Bristol, Chew Magna, dancing, electro, electropop, event, Freeze Puppy, live art, live music, Magnus Spectrum, mime, miming, music, Nintendo, performance, performance art, review, synth, synthesiser, We Live Here, Wii, Wii controller, Wii synth

Condiment Frenzy

In which we are delighted by music and storytelling

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:28 am on February 1st, 2009.
Filed under: Artistic.

Since we moved here, we’ve been promising ourselves that we’ll get Out And About, go to lots of local events, be actively artistic, and so on. And, well, we haven’t quite managed it. We’re doing better than we used to; we go to more things than we ever did before we moved; but the calendar still isn’t quite as full as we’d like.

As I’ve said before, though, one of the things I love about this city is that it doesn’t take long before you hear about a good-looking event.* For example: we quickly popped into Boston Tea Party at the weekend for tea and cake,** only to spot a poster on the wall that we quite liked the sound of. A regular event called Folk Tales, at the Scout Hut on Phoenix Wharf, on the last Wednesday of the month. So, we went along.

It turned out, as it happened, that one of the organisers of Folk Tales was one of the performers we saw on New Year’s Eve at the Cube; so we knew that things would probably turn out for the good. And any gig where the door-person, after taking your money, points you to the kitchen where you’re free to use the kettle, make yourself tea and help yourself to a biscuit,*** is going to be a good gig.

And, indeed, it was a good gig. Folk Tales is a mixture of folkish music and storytelling, as you might guess from the name; and the whole thing together made a rather good combination. I’m not really a fan of some “professional” storytelling, because I find it rather over-dramatic and stilted; I prefer a more naturalistic style of recounting. For that reason, I didn’t enjoy the storytelling as much as the music; but because of the mixture of performers, that wasn’t a problem. The storyteller closest to my taste – for that reason – was the aforementioned Jethro McDonald, who told us about a man who, after a kitchen accident, and ambulance delirium, became obsessed with falling. As I can just about remember a similar chunk of ambulance delirium myself, I could sympathise.

In-between the storytellers, came a selection of local musicians with a similar ambiance: quiet, thoughtful, and with stories to tell. My favourite was probably Shaun McCrindle, partly because of a coincidence: one of the stories in his songs was an anecdote in the David Crystal book I recently read and keep writing about; the others, though, both women playing ukeleles,**** sparkled just as much. Thoughtful songs, which raised wry smiles.

We’ll be going back to Folk Tales, and we’ll remember to get there early again next time, because the audience really had to pack themselves in tightly. We’re making sure we keep turning up in time to get a seat and a cup of tea; not to mention, making sure we can get in the door. If Folk Tales gets much more popular, people will be spilling out onto the quay outside. Understandably so, I’d say, because it’s a very good way to spend a weekday evening.

* and one of the other good things about this city is the converse: if you’re running an event, if you advertise, people will turn up. Putting random posters around the city does work.

** Why we say “let’s go for tea and cake” when we both rarely drink tea itself outside of the house is one of those eternal mysteries. I had coffee that day, for example, and K had hot chocolate; but we still referred to it as “tea and cake”.

*** Dark chocolate digestives, for the record. And we did indeed have tea, despite the previous footnote.

**** It wasn’t clear whether that was themed or coincidental, really.

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Keyword noise: Bristol, folk, folk music, Folk Tales, gig, Jet McDonald, Jetfly, Jethro McDonald, live music, music, review, Scout Hut, Shaun McCrindle, story, storytelling, tale