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Gig Reviews -
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Gig Reviews
(top)
STOKES BAY FESTIVAL, GOSPORT – SUNDAY
AUGUST 3
 I’m
only going to give a fleeting impression of my experience of the festival,
catching a few acts on the last day, before leaving my friend Martin Sirl to
review a couple of acts in detail below. My first impression was – what a great
site! My second impression, well organized, as you would expect from any
festival Peter Chegwyn is involved in. And thirdly, a great idea to invite
Cirque de Normandy who had their own big top, where they entertained adults and
children alike over the four days. A great half-hour show featuring jugglers,
clowns, a trapeze artist and more – thoroughly enjoyable and the kids were
enchanted.
What music I did see was also impressive – Lauren MacColl, Rachel Hair and Maeve
Mackinnon played a great set, followed by The New Rope String Band and 3 Daft
Monkeys. It was the first time I had seen the latter band – no wonder they are
getting so many bookings – they played a storming set.
Time for Martin Sirl to give his impressions of two acts who appeared later in
the day:
BELLOWHEAD
Depending on your point of view Bellowhead are either thumbing their noses at a
glorious segment of British culture, or earnestly attempting to make traditional
music accessible to an audience whose exposure to folk music ends with Mike
Oldfield's Portsmouth. Either way, to those attending a slightly damp Wickham &
Stokes Bay Festival the band's motives hardly seemed to matter. Bellowhead's
infectious funked up folk did wonders to perk up a crowd beginning to flounder
after three days in a windswept field. Veering wildly between reels that would
do credit to The Albion Band and something resembling a bizarre mix of Fairport
Convention and the Average White Band, this soon-to-be-huge 11-piece won
festival goers over within minutes of opening up with an irreverent their
version of Led Zeppelin's Gallows Tree. With every section of the band taking
centre stage in turn it is clear that Bellowhead are one seriously talented
bunch, as one might expect from any band assembled by musicians with the
pedigree of Spiers and Boden. While Rigs Of The Time may not have prompted the
mass sing-along that singer Boden had hoped for there was plenty here to both
win a whole bunch a new followers and send existing ones away delighted, the
sweetly melodic Jordan being a particular highlight and Fakenham Fair, from the
forthcoming Matachin album already becoming a lynchpin of Bellowhead's live set
and hinting that there is a whole lot more still to come from this lot.
PHIL JUPITUS & THE BLOCKHEADS
It's easy to be cynical when you see a name like The Blockheads on a festival
bill and I'm pretty sure Ian Dury was the last person who would have taken any
pleasure in seeing a dead horse flogged. But make no mistake: they might be a
little longer in the tooth but this incarnation of north London's finest are the
real deal. Davey Payne may be missed but the nucleus of Chas Jankel, Mickey
Gallagher, Norman Watt-Roy and John Turnball remain, while Derek The Jaw, Dury's
former minder is perfectly suited to the front man's role. He may look like a
Steve Coogan caricature of an old rocker but the man has the voice and, more
importantly, the attitude and dark humour of the great man himself. Jupitus'
presence on stage is almost incidental, save to inject the occasional spot of
humour and to remind us, if we ever needed it, of just how great these guys
really are. Always one of the tightest bands on the circuit The Blockheads
remain so and from the opening bars of Sex And Drugs And Rock'n'Roll this was a
million miles from any lame tribute act. What A Waste, Clever Trevor, The
Inbetweenies and Reasons To Be Cheerful all followed in quick time, while Sweet
Gene Vincent is still as heart-wrenching as ever, only this time it wasn't the
Be-Bop-A-Lula man we were mourning. Predictably the set climaxed with a buoyant
Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, though at least one encore would surely have been
forthcoming had the tight festival schedule permitted it as there are so many
more great songs in the Blockheads archive. Phil Jupitus & The Blockheads: a
first class festival act but well worth catching in their own right.
CD Album Reviews
(top)
BATMAN – THE DARK KNIGHT – SOUNDTRACK –
WARNER RECORDS
 Composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard and played by a massive
orchestra with added electronic beats, this album is a dark, brooding affair,
almost Wagnerian at times. I listened to it on a journey from Hampshire to the
other side of Dorset and it proved an intriguing listen.
Full of recurring
riffs, angry percussion and staccato violins, it has been described in another
review as “urban-industrial opera,” and I would go along with that. It opens
with a piece called “Why So Serious,” the introduction of The Joker’s theme,
which goes on for nearly ten minutes. In fact the album goes on for over an
hour, but is never boring and frequently inspiring. I have no intention of going
to see the film, but this intense soundscape conjures up an evocative world of
mystery and heroics, and should appeal to true Batman fans.
The Stoop by Little Jackie
 Somewhere in Brooklyn there is a young lady sitting on her front step watching
the world pass by and making a load of mental notes. That lady’s name is Imani
Coppola. Add Boston-born multi-instrumentalist Adam Pallin and you have Little
Jackie, one of the brightest new hip hop acts around.
But there is plenty more to Little Jackie than that. The Stoop is a marvellously
complete debut and offers everything from sweet Motown-inspired pop to the kind
of modern diva soul that has made Amy Winehouse such hot property. Opening with
the title track, featuring a wealth of wry observations on Brooklyn street life,
this album provides a glorious backdrop to summer in the city, 2008 style. The
fun continues: The World Should Revolve Around Me, a track selected for single
release, is self-explanatory and displays the kind of youthful self-confidence
that would make Lily Allen proud, while Guys Like When Girls Kiss is as shrewd
an analysis of the male psyche as anything I’ve heard recently. The lyrics here
are particular clever, as Coppola sings “Men come from Mars, girls are from
Venus, we think with our brains, they think it’s all meanness”. Other highlights
here include LOL, which offers a timely warning on the perils of dating by SMS,
Cryin’ For The Queen, which is so darn bitchy it almost reaches out from the
speakers and slaps you on the face, and the aurally addictive Black Barbie,
which pokes fun at the ionisation of celebrities like Paris and Britney. Easy
targets they may be but let’s face it, someone has to do it and as a black New
Yorker Coppola is wonderfully placed to take up the challenge.
The Stoop is pop with attitude; Holland-Dozier-Holland transported through time
and dumped on a street corner in present day New York, the end result proving
something very likeable indeed. Review by Martin Sarl
267d Cranmore Boulevard by Rain
It’s hard to knock the idea. A couple of middle-aged session musicians team up
with a professional lawyer to record an album for fun, then offer it for
download with the promise of donating all subscriptions to childrens’ charities.
Frankly any in-depth critical appraisal would be churlish. But, for the record,
this is the kind of the music your dads would make. Smooth, soft-rock in the
style of Moody Blues or latterday Dire Straits without a rough edge in sight.
This album stands up OK musically but falls down somewhat in the lyric
department. When lawyer/singer Alan ‘Bulldog’ Sinnett croons ‘Floating away like
a man lost in space…Colours so bright they grip my heart like a vice’ on one of
the album’s better tracks (Juice, you pretty much know that Morrissey won’t be
losing any sleep. But what the hell. This isn’t going to win any Grammys but I
doubt Rain really care. A lot of people will like this enough to send some dosh,
which ultimately is the sole point of the exercise. Review
by Martin Sarl
CD Single Reviews
(top)
BY MARTIN SIRL
Bring You Down by Attic Lights
Bring You Down by name but certainly not by nature. On this showing it’s not
hard to see why Island Records fought so hard to win last year’s bidding war to
sign Attic Lights because this Scottish 5-piece clearly have what it takes to
reach the top of their respective indie-pop tree. This song basically has it
all: neat hooks, a catchy chorus and bags of sugary harmonies, all topped off by
Kevin Sherry’s impressive vocalsThe whole thing adds up to something not a
million miles from Aztec Camera at their tuneful best.
Grow Fins by The Brute Chorus
Bluesy type number from a Camden-based band who are beginning to make a few
waves (sorry) on the pub circuit. Nothing fishy here (sorry again), just good
honest pop from a group clearly adept at taking a distinctly American formula
and adding their own touch of cheeky chappy cockiness to proceedings. Neat,
refreshing and wonderfully easy to listen to, this might just be one to keep an
eye on over those wet and warm summer months.
Fireworks by Jake Flowers
Lilting ballad from from a man scheduled to appear Southampton’s very own Hobbit
very soon. Fireworks is simple, understated folk; a charming love story set,
bizarrely, against an explosion in a fireworks factory. The remaining songs on
this EP are more intricate, Sticks And Stones in particular displaying a
versatility and inventiveness reminiscent of mid-seventies Roy Harper. If your
tastes are more Oysterband than Oasis then Jake Flowers may well be worth
checking out if you’re in or around the city on 11th July.
So Sexy by Young Don
Son of Smiley Culture and cousin of Ms Dynamite, Young Don is being touted as a
UK rap artist truly capable of competing with his US counterparts. That this
release is stylishly produced and arranged cannot be disputed. What lets this
down is Young Don himself. Not only do his lyrics at times veer perilously
towards dodgy (“God gonna bless you for all the good things you do…you’re like
the honey that’s sweeter than Winnie The Pooh”) but in truth his vocal delivery
has little to distinguish it from a hundred other Jay Z copycats. With such a
pedigree Young Don can surely do a whole lot better than this.
Salt, Pepa and Spinderalla by Johnny
Foreigner
Despite promising much this is, in the end, strangely unsatisfying indie pop.
It's an odd mix of guitar thrash, synth and chat which owes more than a little
to bands like Carter USM without ever quite reaching the same lofty heights. The
more experimental sounding remixes are at least somewhat different, though never
really what you might describe as compelling. Inessential listening from the
young Birmingham threesome.
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