Once A Month

Like super sized

like club

sandwich

double layered

self

four eyes split brained

fork devil tongue

scooping

nasty

out at people

like waking up

half hanging

out of your own mouth

and swollen, gory

being too big to fit

back in

a panic of being seen

like zoo limbs

like cages

every flesh beneath transparent

matters

cavities

it seems to the eye

but like rock like elephants

balancing for circus

on every motion

even words

which are featherweight

with liqueur

laurels on other peoples shoulders

and bouldering

unshifting

days later

apologies don’t have the brawn

to shift that

like the World

to be anti-gravity

and weightless

like everyone else

to be moving over and around

you

a litter

a turd

in the street

in the bed

in the inbox

like you

the physicality of brain dead

like sleep memory

like waking

remembering

a man paying you

for bursting his flesh

squeezing him like a pimple

a horror chorus

of slimy dove

a dream a dream thank fuck a dream

you realise upon pillow

exhausted

before the day

is even clothed

like strangled time

like mime

a sign-language synopsis

spat out by the brain

in ill-humored

epithets

that promises to rest

once the body

has spat out the blood

and booed

at you enough

to be finally

done

Ex-Easter Island Head, Wolstenholme Creative Space, 22.01.10

The bizarro brilliant brain-child of that bloke who plays guitar with Balloons - Mr. Ben Duvall - and also featuring the talents of George Maund from Indica Ritual, Ex-Easter Island Head is a totally fucking awesome example of stepping outside the fucking box, pissing all over it, filling it with dogshit, setting fire to it and then leaving the stinking thing on the front porch of Jo-Whiley’s indie boy-band twat factory.

Set up as three de-tuned guitars, all featuring a limited amount of strings, and balanced incongruously atop of three optimistic looking keyboard stands, Ben and George perform an ambient, percussive victory of grumbling, exquisite, exorcised noise accomplished with only a tense amount of extreme concentration and drum mallets hammering against strings and guitar faces.

Simplistic in it’s lack of vocals, the momentum is carried by slow build up’s of rhythm and repetition which chime discordantly like bells announcing a lost hour to a an already lost World. The whole piece is incredibly percussive of time and of hidden dimensions between time - like a momento-mori in which the skull beats against it’s own life-span.

The performance is terse and breathless, it has a delicate, tribal, dystopia to it - at their first gig supporting The Portico Orchestra in The Kazimier, there was an intensity which no-one dared breathe against. One slip of timing or misjudgment of rhythm and the whole piece is fucked. Thankfully, the piece never reaches this point - and instead pummels itself on flawless and mesmeric.

Ex-Easter Island Head are, in fact, the soundtrack of Alice In Wonderland’s clock watching rabbit. Thumping, paw-pound Earth and watch tapping, the chimes of time, purpose and urgency shaking the fur from the brain outwards. None of it makes sense, per se, but follow it like Alice and you’ll be granted a half hours sweet, distracting release from your own tempered existence.

Promise.

Albummm Revuuue: Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM

Charlotte Gainsbourg is one of those impossibly perfect women. The kind of woman whom, if you were to be exposed to their presence for more than an hour would no doubt break any merit of self-esteem you once held for yourself.

Stunningly beautiful as well as being an insanely talented actress (did you see her in Anti-Christ? I’m Not There? Fucking hell...) and musician, it’s enough to make you want to stay in the bed for the next week and take stock of your under-achieving, slacker life thus far.

IRM then is another trophy for the Charlotte Gainsbourg shelf of awesomeness. Named, interestingly, after the french designation of the MRI machine which bounced soundwaves off her cerebral tissue following a brain haemorrhage three years ago, the album is stunningly low-key and somehow also dreamily epic by the same turns. It’s a truly gorgeous achievement that manages to be eerie, cheery and heartfelt and uncompromising in it’s desire heavy, breathy production.

The imprint of album producer and co-writer, Beck is undeniable on the album with many songs, in particular ‘Heaven Can Wait’ and ‘Time Of The Assassins’ on which he shares vocal duties, as well as the electro-drone of ‘Trick Pony’. But it’s still irrefutably Gainsbourg’s album - if just in terms in terms of substance and lyricism, despite the immediately identifiable Beck arrangements.

Having said all that though, the album is still something of an awkward fugue between the delicate, haunting folk and dream pop of it’s first half and the onslaught of genre confused songs which litter the later tracks, skipping between Kills-esque electro, country and dark experimentalism.

The album works best when it’s at it’s most simplistic - confessional and explorative of darkness - allowing itself to delight with a brooding and thoughtful set of arrangements punctuated with soft vocals, strings, percussion and piano. The song’s ‘La Collectionneuse’ and ‘In The End’ are especially exquisite, and daringly bare.

It’s a shame that IRM is somewhat blighted by the songs of it’s latter half - song’s which actually, when stood alone, are enjoyable enough - they just don’t work within the context of the album, which is fantastic for it’s strength of storytelling. The story is spilt open and totally interrupted by the intrusion of electro, which feels abrasive and ill-timed. But in the power of storytelling, perhaps this is exactly what Gainsbourg wants - after all, this is a woman unafraid to shock and push boundaries as fucking far as she needs to in order to get the story told.

Inconsistant or not - the album is utterly sumptious anyway despite it's odd failings, and could become a definite nightcap favourite in no time at all.

Official Website: http://www.charlottegainsbourg.com/

IRM is released 25.01.10 and can be bought here: http://tinyurl.com/yl6srrj

Henry Rollins live @ Liverpool O2 Academy, 20.01.10

Henry Rollins is a man who easily divides opinion. For every legion of die-hard Rollins disciple, there’s also a legion of die-hard haters, banging their heads against tables in sheer revulsion to a man they see as nothing but a self-indulgent, wide necked pillock.

Nonetheless, whichever side of the Rollins border you stand, there’s no denying that he’s an incredibly engaging and passionate bloke with a helluva tale to tell. I mean, come on, the man fronted Black Flag for a good five years, counts Ian ‘Fugazi / Minor Threat’ Mackaye AND William fucking Shatner as close friends and has probably done a great deal more advocacy for a number of human rights issues in the past ten years than braindead Bush even attempted to think about in his entire 8 years in clown office.

In short - there’s very few men who can hold the undivided attention of an entire venue of people for two and half hours by talking non-stop. No interval. Rollins doesn’t even take a sip of water, or a breath for the whole of that time. Most people zone out just hearing their other halves saying hello to them - nevermind a whole sermon.

The set is as you’d expect it to be. Full of cutting witticisms observing the constant fuckeries, idiocy and inadequacies of global politcs and personal anecdotes, all expressed with a candor of passion and warmth that is incredibly engaging.

He begins with a piece about freedom of speech, leading him into an anecdote about once having a book censored for writing something derogatory about Sting, concerning the droll self-important singers attempts to save Willie Mandela’s cat from a tree with fellow meat head, Bono.

He peppers the set with wonderfully personal anecdotes about spending Thanksgiving (i.e. ‘the fake holiday’) with The Shatners’, replete with a now customary Shatner impression, having a hall full of rowdy pepped-up graduates bust open their gowns to reveal Black Flag t-shirts following what sounded like the most motivational graduate speech in the World as well as the time him and Ian Mackaye forged fake ID’s to go see an early Bad Brains performance.

When Rollins isn’t going on about his personal life, odd turns of career and confusedly lusting after ‘beautiful, long legged drag queens’ during his cameo as guest host for Ru-Paul’s Drag Race, he’s delivering verbal pummeling’s towards some of politics most easily targeted villains. Most notable is his biting onslaught against Sarah Palin, describing the joyless, pump-pump-squirt boning between her and her husband in order to procreate ‘more white people’ - ‘why the fuck else would anyone think they NEED to have 5 children?’ he muses, wryly, pointing out that Palin is ‘constant, comedy gold’ for her constant idiocies.

Where Rollins properly shines though, is when he really gets into his politics, touching topics usually made quite inaccessible to the masses for their sheer harrowing nature, and the heavy handed way with which they’re reported. Insightful and invigorating, his experiences lead into strikingly impassioned tales and rants ranging from the union carbide disaster of Bhopal in 1984 - the toxins of which still pollute the groundwater in the area, to this day - to the extreme inequalities of Sharia Law.

Engrossing, educational, often hilariously self-deprecating and deadpan, Rollins’ performance is one of rare substance, structure and intrigue. Catch him if you can - just make sure you take a good cushion along - two and half hours sat rapt on the edge of a very unforgivingly plastic chair is no holiday on the heiney. True story.

Official Website: http://21361.com/

Vivian Girls @ Korova 18.01.10

Seeing The Vivian Girls live is reminiscent of times past and possibly present/future, involving putting Dreamboat Annie by Heart on repeat, building a fort out of duvets and crawling inside to dreamily pine and suffer oneself for another lost loser love with a stupid haircut.

Sigh.

What a dreamboat.

They’re the sort of band that Daria - remember that show? The dry, deadpan, apathetic MTV generation’s answer to Bart fucking Simpson - would have creamed over.

Yes, the lyrics are for the most part like diary entries bemoaning the activities of mean, emotionally vapid young men and the shit dealt hand of being bloody female, but they’re delivered with a dreamscape cadence that makes it sound more like an echoing reminiscence than an actual present, immediate suffering.

And so it is that The Vivian Girls performance tonight comes with a veneer of teenage nostalgia -of having friends rally around you with a bottle of MD 20/20 and a Breeders mix tape to make the unbearable bearable.

It’s certainly a sentiment that seems contagious and apparent in the faces of the audience who beam with comforted adulation throughout the set.

TVG have a sweet, intimate presence on stage which is refreshingly bullshit free. Their onstage affectionate chemistry is beautiful and there’s a total deviation from the current trend of female performance which seems to require burying oneself beneath 15 layers of fancy dress apparel and 30 further layers of make up and just being vacantly weird for the bloody sake of it.

Songs Never See Me Again and Can’t Get Over You are supreme examples of their lo-fi, cutting confessional style, delivered with totally straight, near-deadpan vocals and blissfully disenchanted vocal harmonies.

Out For The Sun however showcases their prowess for furious near-prog ecstasy, with guitarist Cassie Ramone supplying jagged solo’s to drummer Ali Koehler’s simplistic but aggressively raw percussive style.

Bassist Kickball Katy really shines for this song though - providing a bass line so sumptuous that it could probably be packaged up and sold in sex shops as an arousal aid. She struts into the audience proudly, backing herself straight into people and grinning wide with total delight.

An Acapella rendition of The Chantels’ He’s Gone is another piece of absolute pure joy, made all the more endearing for their fuck ups - having to re-start the song for having gone out of tune and then having to finish the song early for the same reason - all garnished with a delicious fit of giggles which, frankly, you don’t see enough of at gigs. Especially on a sodding Monday when you well and truly need to witness people publicly fucking up in any way and just laughing it off.
It. Makes. Life. Better.

They’re quite amazing, actually, in their talent to swing between total effectual minimalism and raw, distorted noise. They have a great control live which never sees their vocals get overtly emotional or vulnerable, despite the confessional aspect of their music. Any emotion that was there is fed into distortion, the pound of a drum skin, a harmony, a repeated lyric, an echoed line.

Before I Start To Cry and Tension are perfect examples of TVG’s ability to denote their lyricism through dynamics - terse, low key verses spill into built up choruses and finales, with Before I Start To Cry seeing Katy donning a tambourine for the first part of the song, which is probably the most open we ever see the girls during the performance.

However, TVG do work to a formula which, though perfect for listening to in your bedroom with, say, a pack of smokes and a feuding ex-lover, doesn’t quite hold the attention for the entirety of a live show. Instead the set deteriorates a little while before the final song with similar sentiments and styles blending many songs into an attention deficit strangle that lacks desperately needed energy.

But then again, if TVG are the musical equivalent of Daria Morgendorffer, then a lack of energy is exactly to be expected. And applauded!

Hail apathy!

Maybe this reviewers just a little peeved cos they didn’t play I Believe In Nothing. And the final bus came and went in the time it took to wait for it.

Sigh.

Ah well, time to crawl under the duvet fort and pine and bemoan the exemption of this song from the evening.

What a dreamboat.

Official Site: http://www.freewebs.com/viviangirls/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/viviangirlsnyc

Buy Everything Goes Wrong by the Vivian Girls: http://tinyurl.com/y9a8nte

Har Mar Superstar interview

...with yours truly.

Horror? Quite.

The Moral Of The Story

fucking

of it

is more fun

yourself

face

for the sake

than just punching

in the fucking

face

yourself

is more fun

of it fucking

in the fucking

than just punching

for the sake

Fucking

for the sake

of it

is more fun

than just punching

yourself

in the fucking

face.

A Man I Met In The Art Gallery Where I Supposedly Work

If I don’t take a break every now and then and talk to someone

I’ll die

that’s what he said

short stumpy nervously scraping

the scalp under his baseball cap at regular

intervals

tabloid rag rolled up into the breast

of his jacket like a spare limb a crutch a weapon

a page 3 tit

peeking

out at me like a winking blind

man with an infection

me fuckin social worker Rob - I call him nob-head like -

tried to teach me how to use a fucking

diary fucking gobshite fucking silver spoon

21 year old shitbag

he said

21 fresh out of daddys wallet he can fuck off the cunt

I nod. he probably is a cunt.

and then doctor nob-head - he’s even fucking worse

you wanna talk about cunts - he was doctor cunt

that one right gobshite gave me a fucking notebook

to write down all me fucking fears and fanny-feelings in fuck off

doctor cunt - posh as anything he was - and a right nob-head

I tells him

IM NOT PUTTING NONE OF THAT FUCKING SHIT IN A BOOK FOR YOU TO HAVE A GOOD CHUCKLE

AT WHILST YOU'RE TAKIN A SHIT

I nod. Doctor cunt sounds like the type of person to do that.

He pulls his cap off.

A long deep canyon of a scar runs from his eyebrow to his scalp.

See this part of the ‘ead ‘ere love? He points at it. cold cold cold.

That’s where me brain popped there, love.

Oh, I say.

He’s whispering. The conversation feels illicit.

How did you pop your brain?

Don’t know. Doctor said it just happens. But see ‘ere, girl? He points

at it again. cold cold cold.

That’s the part of the brain that handles identity. Fucked, aint I?

I nod. I suppose he is.

Y’see girl, I’d like to write down me whole life story. I can tell yer what happened

when I was 4 and me mam left me in a trolley outside the supermarket, or when I was 8 and the nuns caned me hand so ‘ard that I bled all over me biro, but I couldn’t tell yer about me wedding day or where I went yesterdee mornin’, you understand.

I nod. I guess. I once got so drunk that I forgot an entire year.

Plus, I haven’t got the patience to write more than a page. Doctor cunt says thats a good thing. He says if I had more patience I’d probably want to do more and doing more might kill me huuhuuherrrr.

Fuck. Why don’t you write it as a haiku?

A haiku? Bloody hell love, I had a brain hemorrhage, not a cold.

He leaves.

I get back to work. Whatever that entails.

Moja, Kazimier, Liverpool, 05.01.10

Fucking global warming. You turn up for work in the morning thinking there’s only a small amount of pissing snow about the place, and before you know it it’s 3pm, the city centre is gridlocked to fuck, you can’t get home and the World quite possibly (and hopefully) is taking it’s final nose-dive into climax.

However, this is Liverpool and a bit of pissing snow and a complete and utter lack of public transport doesn’t stop anyone from going out. Even the highly probable occurrence of sauntering arse over tit on black ice, and getting battered by snowball-packing local scallies (and they know how to pack em so it really fucking hurts) isn’t enough to stop us.

And thank Christ, because every bone breaking shiver and public humiliation on ice is worth it to have seen Moja live.

You’ll be forgiven for not knowing a single bloody thing about them, a two piece from Japan who’re only just beginning to create an audible buzz about them. But sweet Christ they’re good.

Drummer Masumi Sakurai, in particular, is a wild, feckless, she-devil on the skins. Her hair thrashing forward like a burst black cloud continuously throughout the slightly short-lived but intense set. Her arms move so fast they’re barely visible - it wouldn’t be unfair to suspect that she’s been exposed to some kind of gene modifying Space rock that’s mutated her body to levels of superhero stature. It’s quite the super power to have.

In many ways Sakurai feels a lot like the front of the band. There’s a deeper lyricism and potency to her performance than there is to fellow bandmate, bassist and vocalist Haruhiko Higuchi. He carries the set well, sure, and his skills on the bass are not to be sneered at, but its Sakurai that you can’t take your eyes of for a second.

The set is explosive and terse. The Kazimier is bloody freezing, and Moja are exactly what the joint needs in order to create enough audience kinesis to keep it above the minus temperature. A triumph of post-rock distortion that veers surreptitiously and subtly towards dance on occasion. There’s elements of drum solo jazz exquisiteness too that rails tunes beautifully off the path you expect them to go down.

Penultimate song ‘Hello’ is forgivably jarring at times, going on for at least 3 minutes longer than it needs to with a chorus that is horrifically similar in lyricism and anthemic repetition to that tune U2 had out a few years back. You know, the one that they used to advertise i-pods with and felt like getting fisted by Bono himself every time you heard it. But still, Moja are so endearing and fucking brilliant anyway that you couldn’t care. It’s just a pleasure to be in the audience witnessing them.

When the set ends, it’s all far too soon. Like a love affair that finishes in the same bed and evening that it all began. The cold’s outside waiting and the World didn’t end. If they could have played for even just half an hour more, the walk back home would have been made all that little bit more bearable. But nevermind.

In short, Moja are well worth getting involved in, and you should do it soon before the NME gets onto them and ruins the whole thing by labeling them up as the new Japanese White Stripes.

Moja on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/moja777

Buy their lovely new album: http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_results.lasso?search_type=advanced&search_terms=moja

In Sleep, Marrying The Sea

Heard

the birds chime

discordant decorative

as though hung

from trees the wind gasping

through their

open throats

Heard

the sand heavy petted

and virginal

obediently swallowed

by the sea

Heard

my own feet intimate

on grain like corpses

rattling on the trophy

stick of a hunter

slapping

the sand like a slavery

chant a torment

applause

Heard

the sea revolt

and perish

against within

within against

within upon

against

itself

a turgid

masturbation

kneading itself aggressive

to dry

still placid

rock

clawing the seams

of the beach

for support

Heard

the belching

tide greedy

bloated

a gorilla chest-pound

roar

of bloke idiom

powerless to resist

powerless to this

I will have you have you have

you

Heard

the heart faulty

mechanics

stereo to mono

fuse blown quick slick

dramatics

the drum roll

following a poor

joke

Heard

the choke and struggle

the chuckle

Heard

the limp limbs

and swollen brain

Heard

fluid

mesmeric move

Heard

bones cackle

and snap

Heard

cracked porcelain

and pirouettes

Heard momentary

Heard solid

Heard ellipses

Heard sweet chorus

silence

the ocean

licking at lungs

lips tongue toes

tits stomach sphincter

spine me-oh-mine-oh-

yours

frenched

fresh

sucked

off

Spat

me back

onshore

bored

breathless

like all love

songs

say

honey

moon

half

there

Spooning.

Tea spoons are always

disappearing

you don’t realise their value

till

your coffee

sugarless and milk

ruined

settles wrong

or you pull

the tea bag

out bare fingered

and wrong

wrong wrong

people steal

spoons

people who understand

the value

of such things

creep

in

obviously

and take them one

at a time

they wouldn’t steal

your computer

or cd collection

or tv or anything you’d notice

just a single spoon

at a time just to fuck

with you

people are bastards

like that

they’re always

looking to take

things from you

little by little

right before you need

them and you roam

restless and fuming

wondering where the fuck

it went

and why you weren’t paying enough

attention

to notice

most people take

other things

sacred

things

wordless Godless

roaming lovely

fleshy sordid sacred

things

you happily platter

up

and lose

like charity monthly

debits

of living

or whatever

there’s a vacant

gaping holiday spot

somewhere

I’m sure

and I hope

to vacation there someday

where all these things live

listlessly

waiting

a beach of useless

items and love

and filth

and pining

and energy

and want

whistling

about like a draught

caught between the branches

of languished

trees

and instead of sand

the beach is made

up of all the spoons

I’ve been looking for

for the past

few fucking

years

things like that don’t rust

like you’d think

they would

they settle shiny

and unused

so plentiful

and grotesque

in their collective

size

that they lose all value

you can bet

there wouldn’t be a moment

where you’d need

or even want

a fucking

spoon

on a beach like that

Albummm Revuuue: Gay For Johnny Depp - Manthology

If, like the rest of us, Christmas and New Year has made a drunken, fear-ridden, post-abortive mess of your little brain, then the Gay For Johnny Depp retropsective Manthology comes highly recommended for some brain-bashing, cathartic power fisting fixer uppers.

Forming in New York in 2004, Gay For Johnny Depp have been a band worth following for the ever-delightful band name in itself as well as for their reliably snigger-trigger song titles. A selection of which include Sex In Your Mouth, Fucking Isn’t Cheating, Hey Fucked Up! (Punk Rock Can’t Exist In Countries With Good Social Services) and the beautiful To The Alcoholics: Life IS Depressing. We do love a band who realise the importance of word-play as a foreplay to the music.

But anyway, the album is a real fucking treat. A biting, jagged, sneering and jaunty little collection of post-hardcore ear busters. There’s enough variety here to keep the 31 songs from getting monotonous, including the pseudo-teen-metal-esque Delirium Approaches (Slut Dust), as well as Hey Sailor! A lo-fi, Daniel Johnston style ditty aggressively caterwauling for info on who a salior is blowing. There's also the tongue-in-cheek Mogwai-esque Godspeed You Black Mogwai which is a fittingly dreamy tribute to the beautiful but miserable scottish five piece.

Gorgeous.

There’s also the standard love pantheons to Johnny Depp - No Teeth Thumbs Up is an extra-special fanny-rouser of a song featuring the divine lyricisms of ‘I want to fuck you/ I want to fuck you/ I want to fuck you/ Johnny’, that I think we can all get on board with.

There’s chooooons a plenty here, basically. Lyrical, filthy, growlers of unfettered passive aggressive dreaminess. Storming guitars that drill dutifully and brashly into occasionally darling little riffs of Hell. Fucking. Yes. Please. The vocals too are consistently charming, character driven, brazen little furies.

If you happen to appreciate music that is consistently determined to berate and destroy our generations ‘culture’ or whatever, as well as telling everyone to fuck off in every song, then this comes highly recommended. It’s a goldmine of misanthropic witticisms and furious anti-culture, politicised apathy.

I can feel my hangover improving already. Recommended. Big time.

Official website: http://gayforjohnnydepp.com/

Download the awesomeness from here: http://tiny.cc/FQaFh