Spoon - 11 February 2015

Spoon

Deep Sea Arcade

The Forum

Wednesday 11 February 2015

$65

Lovin’ Spoonful

It took me awhile to come around to Spoon. Not because of anything to do with their music, which is a pretty good mix of pure rock riffs, catchy pop melodies, scuzzy distorted guitars, post punk dissonance and driving rhythmic structures, but because of their name. Spoon!

Is it a drug reference? Do they see themselves as the implement that stirs together these disparate musical elements into a nourishing whole? Is it based on some notion that their music is the utensil through which we are fed cultural sustenance? Or am I perhaps overthinking it?

The name just doesn’t make any sense to me, which may seem odd given that one of my favourite bands is called Echo & the Bunnymen. But I am nothing if not image obsessed, so perhaps I just struggle to see the artistic qualities in a band named after such a utilitarian implement. In any case, with Knife Party touring Australia at the same time, all we needed was American folk quartet Twin Forks to turn up and we’d have the whole cutlery drawer here at once.

Deep Sea Arcade

I was at the Forum with John, Manny and Robbo for this gig, making up our standard music-going foursome. We wandered in just as support act, Deep Sea Arcade, were commencing. None of us were familiar with the band but a brief Wikipedia review told us that Deep Sea Arcade hailed from Sydney. It also informed us that they are a psychedelic band, a fact more eloquently expressed perhaps through the paisley shirts that at least two of their members were wearing.

Deep Sea Arcade sounded okay, although it is always difficult for a support act to achieve consistent sound when the venue is only half full. From where I was standing their set suffered from the usual echo that results when the tide of music swells to fill the yawning void left by the lack of people in the room. If there was any space in their songs, it was soon filled by the backwash of echo and reverb flowing through the venue, drowning out any subtlety they might have worked into their material.

Also, the four of us had a looming football season to discuss as well as the recent Liberal Party leadership spill and Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s ‘near death experience.’ So perhaps our attention wasn’t fully focused on the jangly guitars and neo-psychelic stylings of Deep Sea Arcade.

I subsequently listened to their album Outlands and thought it was excellent, full of delightful pop melodies, running rhythms and subtle instrumentation. Not unlike Spoon in many ways. I wished I’d paid more attention on the night, but I made a mental note to try and catch them in a venue more suited to their sound, once I’ve dug out a paisley shirt that is.

Spoon

The signal that the main band is about to emerge is when the background music is suddenly foregrounded. In this case it was AC/DC's Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap) - an Aussie anthem that provoked a few in the crowd to raise their fists in time to the 'Oi Oi Oi' refrain. As Manny observed, you want to be pretty good if you're coming on following AC/DC. 

Spoon managed to skirt this problem with two solid minutes of loud feedback buzz reverberating throughout the room before they wandered on stage – anything they played after this was going to sound dynamic and melodic. As the band members plugged in leads and took up their positions, the buzz morphed into the opening of Rent I Pay, the lead-off track from most recent album They Want My Soul, with band leader, Britt Daniel - whose ginger mop makes him looks a bit like a young Jim Courier - out front and in fine voice. 

Alex Fischel is the latest addition to the band, fleshing the live unit out to five members. He inhabits the music in the same way as Jack Black in The School of Rock, banging his head, jerking his body and generally rocking out to every nuance of noise. For the live sound he supplies much of the jagged dissonance that has long been part of Spoon’s sound. He doesn't play his instruments so much as wring music out of them. Rather than strumming guitar he swats at it, and even playing the keyboard, as he did during Small Stakes, the second song of the night, he bashed away at the keys in such a way as to emphasise that the piano is part of the percussion family. Even the guitars were treated as percussion instruments in some tracks.

After an extended intro to Small Stakes, an older track from 2002's Kill the Moonlight - we also got an extended mid verse break when the mic dropped out and Britt waited for the onstage tech guys to fix it, while the band continued to hammer away at the incessant staccato soundscape of the song. 

Happily, that was the only technical glitch and the sound was uniformly excellent – not always the case at The Forum – with all instrumentalists shining. One thing I like about Spoon is that the individual members don’t all feel the need to be playing at once. The songs are marked by thoughtful arrangements that leave space for the listener to find their way into the song.

Not afraid to vary the tempo and mood, the band launched into the soul grooves of Don't You Evah, the laid-back shuffle of Who Makes Your Money and the blues of My Mathematical Mind, before revisiting the steady pulsing piano chords that propel The Ghost of You Lingers.

Memory Lane

I've been a casual listener to Spoon over the years, but long time fans were enjoying a set list that drew equally on material spanning more than 10 years and their past four or five albums. Indeed, it was several tracks in before they played another track from They Want My Soul, the album's rocker Rainy Taxi.   

 More of the newer material followed; the dancy New York Kiss, the punchy Do You and the sublime Inside Out, but these were intermixed with some of the riff heavy numbers from previous albums, including Don't Make Me a Target, The Beast and Dragon, Adored and Got Nuffin, before finishing their set with Black Like Me from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. 

Generally I'm not into lengthy encores and Spoon got it just about right, returning for a burst of four songs, starting with Outlier from the new album that chugs along with Rob Pope's rolling bass. Daniel said at this point that he'd been based in Melbourne for a few weeks and complimented us on our great city. It may have just been the legendary Texan manners at work, but if he had been staying in town, one thing he would have learnt about Melburnians is that we like nothing more than being told how great we are, so we lapped it up.

In a further nod to us locals the band then played a razor sharp cover of Eddy Current Suppression Ring's Memory Lane, before winding up the night with crowd favourites, You got Yr Cherry Bomb and their sing-a-long break-out hit, The Underdog, both from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.  

Live, Spoon are dynamic and tight. Britt Daniel is an energetic frontman whose wiry frame, frenetic guitar playing and powerfully frayed voice create a strong focal point.

I still don’t understand why they would call themselves Spoon, but to paraphrase Shakespeare, “What’s in a name? That which we call Spoon by any other name would sound as sweet.”

Setlist

Rent I Pay 

Small Stakes 

Don't You Evah 

Who Makes Your Money 

My Mathematical Mind 

The Ghost of You Lingers 

Rainy Taxi 

The Beast and Dragon, Adored

New York Kiss 

Satellite 

Don't Make Me a Target 

Do You 

I Summon You 

Inside Out 

I Turn My Camera On 

Got Nuffin 

Black Like Me 

- - - - - - - - - -

Outlier 

Memory Lane (Eddy Current Suppression Ring cover)

You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb 

The Underdog 

Encore: Accepting the ‘Album of the Year’ Grammy for Morning Phase this week, Beck had to face down one of Kanye’s now routine stage invasions. Kanye evidently thought that Beyonce should have won, so staged a ‘walk-by’ in protest. As with Taylor Swift before him, Beck can expect his popularity to skyrocket now that Kanye has questioned his credentials. Perhaps as a way of shoring up his own support, Tony Abbott should arrange for Kanye to challenge his leadership.

Parading - 10 May 2016

Parading

Ciggy Witch

The Icypoles

The Gasometer Hotel

Tuesday 10 May 2016

$10

The Other Keef  

Parading - in 'shoegaze' mode.
That's Keef far right.

From Moomba to Mardi Gras, and even the military, everyone loves a parade. I'm not sure where Melbourne band Parading fits into this spectrum, but they do have a couple of unique selling points; one is that they are the only band I can think of whose name is a present participle. I can’t even think of very many bands with a verb for a name – Ride, Pulp (depending on context) and possibly Blur are the only others.

Their other unique selling point is guitarist Keith Mason. As I watched the band setting up at the Gasometer Hotel on Tuesday night, he looked like an unassuming sort of chap. The other band members each exhibited one or two hallmarks of your traditional rock ‘n’ roller: the bass player sported rockabilly side burns, tight jeans and a leather jacket, the lead singer/guitarist had a black and white horizontal striped t-shirt, loose black jacket, unkempt black hair and ‘tude, and the drummer wore flared tan slacks teamed with a chocolate brown leather suit coat – more 70s porn pastiche than rock really, but unusual enough to qualify as counter culture couture. Mason meanwhile had tidy ginger hair and wore neat blue denim jeans turned up slightly at the ankle with a grey light knit crew neck jumper. He looked more like an accountant on casual Friday than a firebrand axeman, but as they say at most orgies worthy of the name, watch the quiet ones.

I was at the Gasometer Hotel for the first of a four-week Tuesday residency featuring acts from the Lost & Lonesome Record label. Fittingly perhaps, given the label name, I was there by myself. I’d been all set to catch Parading play at The Tote a couple of weeks previous, but as the downpour that had persisted all day continued into the evening, the idea of driving across town grew less and less attractive. I’m at an age where I look for reasons not to go out, rather than the opposite, so I thought I’d just take a rain check – literally – and wait for another opportunity to catch them.

This was another cold night, but at least it wasn’t raining and the drive there and back was a good chance for some alone time with the new Radiohead album that had just come out.

Ciggy Witch

I missed the first act, The Icypoles, but caught Ciggy Witch as they were starting their set. I took up a spot in the shadows at the back where the bulk of the small audience was loosely gathered. Despite there being several metres of empty space between me and the stage, a group of three people wandered in and stationed themselves right in front of me; so close that the brim of my trilby was actually touching the back of one guy’s head. Fine if we were in a packed moshpit at the Hilltop Hoods, but this was a largely empty room for a gentle indie pop band. I don’t know if this was some kind of passive-aggressive protest against me, or just people with no sense of personal space. However, rather than make a scene I just moved off to a stool on the side.

I’d never heard of Ciggy Witch, but it’s an evocative name and I recognised the girl on keyboards as the drummer from Totally Mild. Musically they were very accomplished with interesting multi-layered jangly guitar lines and intertwining melodies. There was even a slide guitarist perched on two upturned milk crates who managed to elicit something more musical than a country whine from his instrument.

The two guitarists who alternated singing duties offset this innate musicality with deliberately naïve lyrics and bland vocal delivery. I don't offer this as a criticism - these are distinctive characteristics of the ‘dolewave’ genre, a name that presumably derives from the employment status of the genre’s exponents rather than saying anything in particular about a shared fashion sensibility or general musical approach. Even so, expressionless vocal delivery does seem to be a thing with a certain type of band - Twerps, Dick Diver etc. 

Of course I don’t know for sure that this was a deliberate stylistic choice for Ciggy Witch. I only assume as much because when the bass player and Ashley Bundang, the keyboard player, contributed backing vocals, they injected a greater degree of tone and tunefulness into their singing. It might simply have been that the guitarists wrote the songs and wanted to sing them, regardless of the fact that there are others in the band more vocally adept. And fair enough too. In any case, musically they sounded pretty good.

Parading

There was only a small crowd of 40 or so people in the room and this diminished even further once Ciggy Witch finished. Normally the venue gets more crowded for the headline act, not less, but perhaps Ciggy Witch are at a stage in their career when their friends are still willing to venture out on a cold night to see them play. In fact the room was so sparsely populated that the barmaid correctly anticipated my order when I went to procure just my second drink.

Still there were enough of us in the room when Parading started strumming away at their opening instrumental piece, a dreamy, meandering drenching of guitar reverb. Lead singer – not that he’d done any of that to this point – Tom Coleman introduced it as Alexandra Pde, which seemed appropriate given that it was also the name of the busy thoroughfare that ran past the front door of the venue.

They followed this with a song called Riverside and then their new single, Butterfly, the only Parading song with which I was familiar going in. It is a dark, thrumming number that resembles Bowie’s Heroes for a few bars, before settling into something less grandiose, but nonetheless compelling. The band was joined on stage for this song and the next by a guest vocalist. Coleman introduced her in a mumbling slur, so I missed the name, but it was possibly Alana West, who sings on the single and fronts label stablemates Hideous Towns. Whoever it was, she took her cue from Coleman and delivered her vocal contribution with a deadpan expression while staring fixedly into the middle distance.

If Ciggy Witch can be classified as ‘dolewave,’ then Parading might be said to represent that other evocatively named indie genre, ‘shoegaze,’ a nomenclature that tells you as much about the band’s posture as it does about their music. And it was true to a degree, the band members generally looked intently downwards over their instruments as they played. Like forbears My Bloody Valentine, and Ride, Parading’s sound is dominated by heavily daubed layers of guitar reverb and a soporific vocal that doesn’t so much ride on top the music as blend in with the soundscape. Either that or the mix was just a bit muffled.

"More Keith"

Keith is a name already synonymous with great guitarists – along with other equally treasured aspects of rock ‘n’ roll life – and while I can’t speak to the private habits of Parading’s Keith Mason, his playing style was the highlight of the night.

Once strapped on, Mason wrestles with his guitar as if it is an octopus he is trying to dislodge. He twists and turns as he grasps the arm of his guitar with one hand, and doesn’t so much strum it as swipe furiously at it with the other, his forearm swinging on an axis so well-oiled that he threatens to punch himself in the chin on each upward thrust.

I’m not so conversant with the intricacies of playing that I could necessarily tell what noise was coming from Coleman’s amp and what from Keith’s, but where Coleman seemed to be adding the melody line, Mason was dipping into a palette of feedback and lathering on the noise in ever thicker, more dissonant daubs. It sounded great.

“More Keith” Coleman at one stage asked of the mixer, a cry which was taken up by a few stray members of the audience, and one with which I wholeheartedly concurred. ‘More Keith’ indeed.

Hilltop Hoods - 23 April 2016

Hilltop Hoods with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra -

Conducted by Hamish McKeich

Maverick Sabre

A.B Originals

Rod Laver Arena

Saturday 23 April 2016

$80

From The Nosebleed Section

The posse

There was a time when I considered that the prospect of my children growing up to like Australian hip hop would be nearly as bad as if they grew up to barrack for Essendon. I haven’t softened my stance on Essendon, and happily, both of my boys have joined me on the righteous path of following Hawthorn. But somewhere along the line, led by my eldest son Oscar, both boys have developed a taste for Aussie hip hop: Seth Sentry, Illy, Bliss ‘n Esso, but of course their favourite act is the Hilltop Hoods.

Either Australian hip hop has improved over the years or I’ve just gotten used to it, but not all of it is downright woeful and some of it is even pretty good. And I’m in a reasonable position to judge because it’s virtually all I ever hear in the car these days.

Two years ago I accompanied my eldest son Oscar and his friend Alex to see the Hilltop Hoods at Margaret Court Arena for the Cosby Sweater tour and it was fantatstic. As far as sheer energy and audience rapport goes, they’re one of the best live acts I’ve seen. Ever. As a result I promised my youngest son, Declan, that when they toured again, I would take him.

So when the Restrung tour was announced I was on my laptop for the pre-sale and picked up some good seats on the side near the stage. This was to be Declan’s first concert, so I wanted him to have good seats. The only problem was that the date of the Melbourne show coincided with Sarah Blasko’s show at The Forum, for which I already had tickets. I’ve been buying Sarah Blasko’s music since her first album and for a variety of reasons, I’ve never gotten around to seeing her live. So for this tour I got in early so that nothing else could get in the way. But I couldn’t go back on my promise to Declan, so once again I had to forego Sarah Blasko.

In the end I didn’t sit with Declan anyway. My band buddy John also bought tickets for him and his son Sebastian, so we gave the boys the good seats down the front and John and I sat together in the seats that he bought.

John must have been one of the last people to get tickets, because we found ourselves in the Upper section, row PP – the very back row, otherwise known as the ‘nosebleed section.’ While usually you wouldn’t want to sit in the back row, it was quite appropriate for a Hilltop Hoods gig, given that The Nosebleed Section is the name of their best-known song. In their case ‘the nosebleed section’ refers to the people in the front row who are getting bloodied by violent and aggressive moshing, but we were happy living out the more traditional definition.

Oscar and Alex were there again with their friend May, but obviously at 16/17 years of age, they were way too cool or badasss to be going to concerts with a Dad.

Maverick Sabre

I missed the first act, A.B Originals, as John and I were enjoying a pre-show bevy on the terrace while Declan and Sebastian ransacked the merchandise stall. A.B Originals, I later discovered, are indigenous rappers Briggs and Trials. I was sorry I’d missed them becaue I saw Briggs perform at The Age Music Awards the previous October and he was very impressive.

We were in our seats for Maverick Sabre, an Irish singer who guests on the Hilltop Hoods’ Walking Under Stars album. He has an evocative name, which I presume is one he gave himself. He was performing with DJ3, who has a less impressive moniker (as May pointed out – DJ1 and 2 must have been taken), but he did have sparkly gold boots. In truth I don’t know what DJ3’s role was, other than to be Maverick’s ‘up’ man. He came on ahead of Sabre and tried to get the audience to do a Mexican wave, only realising after it started that with most of the arena in utter darkness, there was no way of knowing when it was your turn to stand. Hence it fizzled out somewhere near where the base line would be. So he tried again. Predictably it didn’t fare any better the second time. Thankfully Sabre came on stage at that point and DJ3 stuck to his mixing desk where between exhortations for the audience to put their hands in the air, he pressed the occasional button or flicked a switch. I couldn’t tell whether he was spinning any records.

Maverick Sabre is a purveyer of that particular style of soul singing that requires every vowel sound to be elongated to breaking point. His particular style meant that I’d lost interest in the lyrics before he got to the end of a word, let alone the end of a verse. As such I couldn’t tell whether he was singing heartfelt romantic ballads or delivering stinging politically charged barbs. He sounds good on the Hoods’ record, where his voice offers a melodic counterpoint to Suffa and Pressure’s strident rapping, but with the echo of Rod Laver Arena and the limited musical palette offered by DJ3, it all sounded a bit samey to me. I quite likedis voice is heard to best effect when it  Emotion (Ain’t Nobody) and his set got better the longer it went, but he obviously took his role of support act quite literally, for between every song he tried to get a “Hiiillltoooppp” call and response going with the crowd.

Hilltop Hoods

In the break between performers, the audience showed that they didn’t need anyone prompting them to get up a good ‘Hilltop’ chant. In a stadium that has known its moments of general crowd uproar, it’s unlikely that even Lleyton Hewitt or Pat Rafter have generated the same anticipatory roar as the Hoods. And certainly not Nick Kyrgios.

The ‘Hiiiiiilllttooop, Hiiiiiilllttooop’ chant filled the room, giving it a football crowd atmosphere. And with the lights down the first twinkle of smart phone torches flickered through the crowd. It began as a smattering of distant lights, but quickly grew until a whole galaxy of stars was lighting up the room like the Milky Way. We weren’t so much walking under stars, as sitting among them.

The Restrung tour was an ambitious undertaking by the Hilltop Hoods; having rearranged and remixed selected songs from their two most recent albums for orchestral accompaniment, they were travelling the country with conductor Hamish McKeich and playing with a different symphony orchestra for each show. A week gap between each show suggested a fairly intensive rehearsal schedule; either that or they were keen to fit in some sight seeing.

The rearranged tracks from the album Drinking From the Sun / Walking Under Stars Restrung retain all the urgency and passion of the originals, but I was interested to see whether the live show lost anything in the translation from hip hop beats to orchestral arrangements. Or would the soaring string section, brass fanfares and choral accompaniment add operatic grandeur to such gritty urban grooves as The Hard Road and Chase That Feeling.

the view from the back row

The curtains opened as the orchestra struck up an overture. DJ Debris was stationed up the back with the rhythm section that included a full drum kit. Suffa and Pressure came bounding on stage and ripped straight into recent hit, Higher followed by Chase That Feeling, setting an early highlight for those packed into the mosh pit. The audience was doing that cranking hip hop arm movement that is somewhere between patting an invisible balloon on a string and giving a Nazi salute.

The duo ran through a selection of older and newer material, all of it delivered while Suffa and Pressure walked, ran, skipped, jogged, jumped and bounded about. Their energy was relentless. They literally didn’t stand stil for a moment. Even when they were at the front delivering a rapid-fire rap, their arms were in constant motion providing regular exclamation points to the monologue.

Maverick Sabre joined the boys on stage to add his voice to Live and Let Go and Won’t Let You Down, the latter enticing a further 15,000 strong choir to join in. Anyone not entirely sold on his solo set now understood why he was on the bill.

On his way off stage Maverick Sabre tag teamed Montaigne who was there to contribute her distinctive vocal to current hit 1955. All of these guest performers not only speak to the Hoods’ understanding of their own vocal limitations, but also their sense of theatre and what makes a good show. It also highlighted their generosity as performers; they’re not afraid to let someone else take the lead.

Even when they introduced The Nosebleed Section as being a significant cultural moment in Australia, it wasn’t so much a statement of grandiose self regard, in the same way that Kanye might interpret his own achievements, but a way of acknowledging that while the song’s success was good for them, it was great for Australian hip hop. And the measure of this might have been the fact, announced on stage, that this was the biggest audience ever for an Australian hip hop show. Of course it might have just been the sheer number of people on stage that boosted the numbers over the previous benchmark, but it was still an impressive feat.

Amid the stars

For me the highlight of the show was Through The Dark, MC Pressure’s powerful and touching song about his son’s battle with leukemia. Regardless of whether or not you like hip hop, this is a great song and I tear up every time I hear it. Live it was made even more affecting by the orchestral and choral arrangement. The audience lent it extra poignancy with a celestial display of cellphone torches and even one or two cigarette lighters.

The orchestra sounded strong and clever arrangements added nuance to the familiar material, even a new layer of sadness to a track like I’m a Ghost. Particularly effective was the choral backing. From a theatrical view perhaps they could have done more to feature the orchestra, but then I suppose 15,000 people were there to hear the Hoods and wave one arm up and down with furious intent, not nod in appreciation of a plaintive violin solo. The orchestra featured in its own way by bringing out new layers of meaning in the material.

As always, DJ Debris took a back seat to his more exuberant frontmen, but he exerted himself with a mash-up of Fatboy Slim’s Praise You to introduce the final song, Shredding the Balloon. The song may have ended with Suffa declaring that “I’m over and out” but even as the curtain closed we knew there would be more.

When the curtains re-opened the orchestra’s string section picked out the pizzicato opening of Cosby Sweater that also featured fanfare brass, lilting flutes, vibraphone, timpani and of course scratching. Remi also skipped on stage to deliver a mid-song rap. This is the second time I’ve seen Remi – he did the same thing at Damon Albarn’s Palais concert a couple of years earlier, bouncing on to belt out the rap that features in the Gorillaz track Clint Eastwood. Just as on that night, he gave his brief cameo absolutely everything.

The show ended with Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom during which audience members were asked to remove an item of clothing and wave it above their heads in the air. I was minding Declan’s jacket so I gave it a cursory twirl, but from the back row, I felt that my contribution was somewhat minimal. Still, I was happy to be there and be involved, and despite professing a preference for Sarah Blasko on record, I can’t imagine that her live show was anywhere near as dynamic as that of the Hilltop Hoods.  

When we caught up with the rest of the crew after the show, they’d all loved it. Declan’s Instagram post declared it the ‘best concert ever’ and even though he was assessing it on a sample size of one, in his case at least, it was absolutely true.

From HTH Facebook

Setlist

Overture

Higher

Chase That Feeling

Drinking From the Sun

The Hard Road

Lights Out

I Love It

Live and Let Go – with Maverick Sabre

Won’t Let You Down – with Maverick Sabre

1955 – with Montaigne

Speaking in Tongues

The Nosebleed Section

Walking Under Stars

Through The Dark

I’m a Ghost

Shredding the Balloon

- - -  - - - -

Cosby Sweater – with Remi

Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom

Encore: R.I.P. Prince - the purple reign is over