SWN Festival 2010 Diary: Thursday
Myself and the Marvel-flavoured music lover Critique attended all three days of Cardiff's SWN festival and we will attempt to bring you our coverage of it in the style of a day-by-day diary. As we discovered our opinions differ considerably (don't worry, we're all friends now) Critque- I still haven’t forgiven you for your hatred of Islet! but that is the beauty of music; it is entirely subjective. So, with this in mind, do not be angry if we insult your favourite band, it is not personal. Unless you’re a member of said band. Please comment to tell us why we're wrong. Especially if you’re from the band and I can tell you where you’re going wrong.
It all started on Thursday night, when we arrived at Clwb Ifor Bach for Sweet Baboo. They were great, their singer being not 'kooky’ in a band frontman way, but genuinely a little odd. Endearingly so! He did have rabbit-in-the-headlight eyes didn’t he? His voice was mournful and moving; sounding a little like a grieving dog (in its soulfulness) I am imagining him as Greyfriars Bobby now. They had a strong country flavour, with a few of their songs having that Johnny Cash baseline, and others having a stronger, Kings Of Leon guitar feel. Their lyrics were also fantastic - any song which references Evil Dead 2 is fine by me; ("Bruce Campbell was a man / with a chainsaw for a hand.")
It all started so calmly didn’t it? There we were slowly dipping our toes in the indie band infested waters, swaying to a song about how he wanted to squish his brain into other people’s brains to make super brains; as well as another about dancing moles. I love the line from I’m A Dancer; “can I scoop out your mind and mix it with mine”. I imagine Sylar would as well. His cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s Keep The Customer Satisfied was interesting but I wish I’d seen him do something totally out of the ball park; a soulful version of Just Dance perhaps? Imagine Johnny Cash covering Hit Me Baby One More Time or Tom Waits doing Love Me Tender. It could be terrible, it could be beautiful and I’d love to hear it! If you like Sweet Baboo then you’ll probably be pleased to hear he has collaborated with Euros Childs, Cate Le Bon and Richard James; they’re all very Sunday morning.
Next it was up the road to Dempsey's to see Right Hand Left Hand. I’ve been telling people to listen to Right Arm, Left Foot. This may explain the lack of Google pages Initially a little confused as to how I felt about their music, I can say for certain that we heard nothing else like them all weekend. It was electronic, jarring, unsettling, and to me some of the songs felt like a Nine Inch Nails film soundtrack. Others possibly could describe it as noise for its own sake and some songs tended to go nowhere for quite a lengthy period. All in all I have respect for their diversity and singularity, though I might not rush out to buy their music.
I actually have you quoted in my notepad as saying, “it was just noise”. Glad to see you changed your opinion! Yes it was noise; glorious, disjointed, synthesized stupendous noiZe- with a capital Z! Yes the one guy did look like Timmy Mallet, but if Tim could handle a loopstation like that then the childhood trauma is forgiven. And the best bit: when in a particularly fusioney piece I shouted “what this really needs is some Yazz Flute”, what did Tim do? Stuck some in of course. Baby making music should be the name of that track. Their debut album will be out soon. I would love to say stick it on at full volume and get the glow sticks out but what would the neighbours say? How jealous they are that you’re just that cool of course.
In The Red Cow we squeezed into a rammed venue, which was filled in every way by the band Tall Ships. Chock full of people, and once they began it felt as if their euphoric brand of music was pumping into every corner. Somewhere between the dance-rock of Bloc Party and the ambient electronic style of Moby, their songs seemed to blend into one very long song, which merged from mellow into harder stuff and back again.
There are more stringent health and safety rules for battery chickens than there were in The Red Cow that night. If I had actually been able to clap I would have but not too enthusiastically. Yes they could play their instruments but for me they were evocative of a poppy Interpol. All up beat but then the lyrics slowed everything down. If Interpol and Maximo Park had a baby band, then they could call it Tall Ships. It was far more amusing to watch the awkwardness when a man realized that what he thought was the table he was leaning against turned out to be another bloke's lap.
Tall Ships were followed in the Cow by Talons, another band the like of which we did not see again. Their selling point is the use of several violins, used in instrumental, pretty hard, rock songs. Their style of music, driven by drum and guitar riffs and with added violists really going for it, put me in mind of a gritty Bond theme, or maybe a rocked- up version of Lux Aeterna (Youtube it). Powerful stuff, however half an hour plus of this and it started to get a little samey.
If Vanessa Mae was thrown into a mosh pit it would probably sound like this. I agree about the Bond-ness. But not Bond, James Bond. Bond, the all female group who tried to bring classical music and pop together but rather like Andre Delambre's attempt at splicing things, it just doesn’t do it for me. Unfortunately, it’s the same for rock and strings: I like rock music, I like classical music. Thus I would have hoped they would be like chocolate and peanut butter; made for each other. Which is exactly what I thought when the first wave of strings and percussion hit me. I did find it very interesting and compelling. However, as with Reese’s Pieces, the sound soon became cloying and the lack of lyrics led each song to feel monotonous, which was a shame. Perhaps they are a treat to be pulled out and enjoyed with a balanced diet of music but for a gig experience, not the best. Added to this my nose was vibrating. Noses are not supposed to do that!
So that was our Thursday night of SWN action. Back soon with a fun-filled Friday report. Expect the beginnings of a falling out.
SWN Festival 2010 Diary: Friday
SWN Festival 2010 Diary: Saturday
1 Comment – Post a comment
Sam Sprout (Editor)
Commented 67 months ago - 28th October 2010 - 10:07am
Threatmantics were the best thing I saw on Thursday