David Karsten Daniels & Fight The Big Bull – I Mean To Live Here Still

David Karsten Daniels & Fight The Big Bull - I Mean To Live Here Still

I have to confess, when I read “9-piece jazz ensemble” I was a little worried about my latest assignment. However, as David Karsten Daniels has been on the fabulous FatCat label since his solo debut in 2007, I was more than willing to give his collaboration with Fight The Big Bull on I Mean To Live Here Still the benefit of the doubt, particularly after discovering he had worked on Frightened Rabbit’s Christmas single a couple of years ago. So, would all of this turn out to be a sign of a glorious new timbre to titillate a previously ignorant new audience, or a bit of an indulgent mishmash of genres? … Continue Reading

2000Trees Festival – Cider Smiles

2000trees

A bloody good festival, is what you might call 2000Trees. Two stages with tremendous lineups in the delightful Gloucestershire countryside and 2000-ish festivalees provides, it turns out, all you need to truly enjoy a the art of listening to music in a field. That and a whole load of seven per cent cider, which may or may not be eponymous. Now in it’s third year and having enjoyed many an accolade (see first sentence) the event has provided many a fantastic band a much smaller crowd than they may be expecting when asked “would you like to headline our festival?”

Their knack for asking/persuading just the right people to do this though has been key to their success. This year, maybe it’s a sign of an ageing Muso, the lineup seemed generally less well known, less awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping. No sign of Beans On Toast or his good friend who has yet to earn a mention (until Thursday at the After Party), Future Of The Left and Art Brut from last year. A couple of big names stepped up, but if it was Cider Smiles providing the much needed proof of the organiser’s pre-event pudding. No, not an aptly entitled musical troupe, but the official take-it-home-and-keep musical accompaniment to 2000Trees. … Continue Reading

Fanfarlo – Reservoir

Fanfarlo - Reservoir

This starts out as a very sedate affair, albeit with a big bang on the bass drum, ‘I’m A Pilot’ sounding not dissimilar to Mystery Jets, with a song title that would not look out of place amongst theirs. It sways gently back and forth, building up to something like a crescendo without being too big to really surprise anybody. Some chuggy guitars every now and then, a few handclaps and our time’s up. Not an overwhelming album opener but its unlikely to make you want to turn it off, if you’ve noticed it’s still going you may well say “That’s nice,” and hang around for some more.

If you did do that you’re rewarded with some promising funky sounding guitars and appropriately ethereal aaahi-ing on ‘Ghosts’. The vocal doesn’t seem to have changed but by now you might be dancing as that bass line just doesn’t quit. There might be some pretty profound lyrics going on here, I picked up “The sky is so shallow” which may mean something in context, but on the whole the voice kind of gets lost in its own insipidness. It doesn’t really match the poppy backdrop. It continues in a similar vein, they seem to have noticed the issue by ‘Luna’ as they put some reverb on it and throw some backing vocals on to add a little bit of something, a bit of “wow, they really pressed that button”. Synthy keyboards mixed with thoughtful noise give a bit of interest but it all cools down by the end, the effects seem to have been dropped as it turns into just another song that starts all full of bluster, then calms down and then oh, yep, it’s getting louder again. … Continue Reading

Black Lips, Bristol Fleece

Black Lips

February 16th, 2009

… Continue Reading

The Gaslight Anthem, Bristol Academy

The Gaslight Anthem

February 5th, 2009

… Continue Reading

Sam Dufton’s meaning of soul

Arctic Circle – That Fuzzy Feeling

Arctic Circle - That Fuzzy Feeling

Christmas is well and truly here. I heard it in my ears. Whilst this modern lifestyle with all it’s economic trials disguised as global warming preventing initiatives seem to have sapped some of those wonderfully overblown city-sized Christmas trees this year, at least we have Arctic Circle to shoehorn this wonderful set of festivities into our headphones. It doesn’t take an awful lot to make me overjoyed at this time of year, but I do count myself a connoiseur of Christmas cacophony; there’s a lot of dross out there, lazy covers and distressing cash-ins, so a well earned huzzah once more for these folks. … Continue Reading

Jay Jay Pistolet in conversation

Jay Jay Pistolet

With the release of his new EP on 17th November, Jay Jay Pistolet found himself in the unusual position (for him) of looking forward to its release:

“Everything I’ve done since I picked up a guitar has been documented in some shape or form - I’ve publicly made mistakes,” although he admits that this is “only cos I’m so impatient.”

As such, his previous release, ‘We Are Free’, was, in his eyes, not quite the finished product hoped for, with lyrics the artist found embarassing and a little naive. Not so with this though:

“Songwise, I’m really happy with it. I’m already capable of better, this is a fair representation of where I am now… Without blowing my own trumpet, I’m really happy with it,” and rightfully so.

With a little help from his friends, Justin Hayward-Young has put together four love songs on his ‘Happy Birthday You EP’ capable of touching the coldest of hearts without sounding overtly soft. The support he has had in creating this is something for which he is proud and grateful, but he is also quick to point out the dangerous ignorance of being labelled as just another part of the same engine:

“If you’re being mentioned in the same sentence as other respected acts obviously that’s helpful, but only to a certain extent.” There have been many instances of popular acts paving the way for soundalikes who are encouraged by a lazy media, as well as a few genuinely talented people who have been waiting for their opportunity, and “when you start lumping people into a scene, one or maybe two acts survive and everyone else sort of sinks, where as if you let people get on with what they’re doing I don’t think that happens as much.”

“Get on with it” definitely seems to be an important part of Jay Jay Pistolet’s vocabulary as he starts to achieve more and more. Whilst he has recently been seen playing to “the perfect crowds” on tour with Laura Marling, he had also been invited onto Katie Melua’s UK tour which culminated in a show at the O2 Arena last Friday, an event he found “incredible” and “pretty daunting.”

“When I play, I find it more intimidating playing to less people and it is more personal, and I kind of prefer playing to less people. It (the o2 arena) is definitely more impersonal, it’s more scary ‘cos you think “I’m really loud and if I f*** up then loads and loads of people are going to see me”, but because it’s not as personal you don’t feel personally responsible…”

Taking the headline slot at that kind of gig then isn’t an immediate aim, although as he points out, “People would be lying if they said they didn’t want to do that, but it’s so inconceivable that it doesn’t really enter my mind.” His view is one of a more incremental climb up the ladder, rather than just being dropped at the top. At the moment he is just happy that “people want to phone up and interview me… the more you achieve the more you want,” which seems to be a well grounded attitude that should set him in good stead to take a few more steps.

Perhaps his most public review came in song, a reference which has elsewhere been described as heavy hyperbole, all of which is taken in this young man’s stride. He graciously accepts the compliment and then concedes his critic is probably correct, but only for the time being. At only 21 there’s plenty of time to progress in his chosen industry, with many people “a lot older than you thought they were,” there’s no rush to take hazardous giant leaps forwards.

Jay Jay Pistolet’s plans don’t seem to stretch much further than a quiet Christmas; he intends “to write some more, demo some more, maybe do another EP, headline tour…” (probably no festive single, though). For new material he says he is “trying not to write so many love songs, but sometimes I can’t help myself,” as he admits he is “a bit of a romantic” (but not a poet).

Tomorrow then doesn’t seem of much concern,  and he’s pretty confident is he that making the right choices now that will set his future in good stead regardless of what happens around him: “I just want to be here to stay, to play to the right people… I’m not going anywhere.”

http://www.myspace.com/jayjaypistolet

The Walkmen – The Blue Route

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These folks have done some good things in the past, suffering for their own brilliance with a song that everyone wanted to hear all the time and, four years on, is still like to get many an airing in your local indie disco. Unfortunately they still seem trapped in ‘04, unable to follow it up with anything of equal magnitude; the rest of that album was very good, but didn’t quite match up. Even the press release for this new single mentions ‘The Rat’ in “you thought that was good,” kind of a way. It was only ever going to end in disappointment, a silly manoeuvre akin to The Strokes pretending to have bettered Is This It (twice). I did intend to ignore the comparison here, but they started it…

‘The Blue Route’ starts off with some jangly guitars and a slightly un-melancholy feel which is nice enough but takes too long to really do anything. Then it happens and you’re still waiting for something else. The repeat of “What happened to you?” seems prescient as you start to worry for the sanity of a band releasing this as a lead single for their new album. We were promised fun, more positive stuff but this is neither, it’s distressed boredom in sound format. The song opens with the lines “Keep replaying through the days/And it brought you to this place,” which by the end of the song sounds like a warning to other bands to at least keep up to your own standards, or you’ll end up on ‘The Blue Route’.

B side ‘Canadian Girl’ passes by pleasantly enough, but by now the damage is done. A look at the charts shows that, if you’re willing to forgo self respect, it is possible to at least sell lots of records by becoming a bad copy of your former glory. The Walkmen though have tried to retain their indie appeal to create a bland song that is hopefully just a bad choice of single rather than an accurate advert for their album.

 

Jay Jay Pistolet – Happy Birthday You EP

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After hearing this you will not be surprised to discover that Charlie Fink was involved with the production. Anyone with their ears open this summer will instantly pin this EP to his Noah and The Whale sound, and you would be a little bit correct. There are certainly worse collaborators, with the same man responsible for production on Laura Marling’s Mercury nominated album, but imitating another band so completely is a risky strategy; whilst reflected glory can be a useful way to start a career it is unlikely to last forever.

For now though what has been created is a short set of love songs with sweet young sentiments. The title track skiffles it’s way through, allowing the singer to show us what he can do with his quirky voice as he tells his girl just how darned special she deserves to be treated. ‘Bags of Gold’ begins sounding like Jay Jay’s going to get political (rhyming “shot” with “proletariat“) before escaping into wistful dreams of how to achieve his fortune. This fits much better, being lulled into activism with something as innocent sounding as this voice is hardly fair. You’d probably overthrow government with a teddy bear.

The record continues in the same vein, with some beautiful lines that everybody in love would wish to have written for their other: “Well I really miss the spring in my step/The one that I contracted from that bed in which we slept/When our hands first intertwined and our lips first met.” Thinking to write something like that is either complete heartbreak or an adoring mind, but being able to throw it away surreptitiously in the middle of a song without sounding embarrassingly quixotic is where his talent seems to lie.

Rumour on the internet is that Jay Jay Pistolet is the Justin referred to by Frank Turner as “the last great romantic poet”, he’s the only one among us who is ever going to make it,” and that’s good enough for me. If he can push beyond the lazy journalistic comparisons to other popular bands, he should do quite well for himself.