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Sunday 20 October 2019

The Murder Capital

It's been a shit year in some ways, politically, MFC, my general health (though I soldier on) etc. but what has been notable is the amount of great new music.  I've managed to get my arse into gear actively listening to new stuff and I've been to 2 very good festivals.  My beloved EOTR at the end of August and Twisterella  which I reviewed (no less) a few days ago.  Interesting (to me anyway) factoid - both have been nominated for the Independent Festivals In At The Ground Floor award.  Fair play, great category to be nominated in.

EOTR is of course my first love with lots of Americana/Country/Alt folk I'm generally well in my comfort zone but this years line up seemed to include a load of young shouty punk bands. Normally ouch but a couple of them were really good,  Fontaines DC and The Murder Capital, both from Dublin (not sure how that's going to pan out in the UK, post Alexander Boris dePfeffel Brexit).

Maybe more later about Fontaines DC but I was particularly taken by The Murder Capital.  The rock'n'roll thing has of course all been done time and time again but The Murder Capital were a bit different, visually at least.  Their live show was well choreographed and theatrical.  They'd clearly taken time to put it together and it was well worth the effort.  It had an intense gangland theme and they had quite a swagger.  One of my picks of the festival.

I've got the album now and after a more considered listen I'm still going with my initial instinct that they give a clear nod to Joy Division musically, especially with the bass line melodies and drum sound/patters.  Thinking of Life, Green and Blue and the brilliant Twisted Ground with a classic beautiful Hooky type bass line.  Still, very good and in truth imo preferable them to Joy Division.

The benefit of having a low readership is that there'll be no death threats for me making that comment.


On Twisted Ground - The Murder Capital



Wednesday 16 October 2019

Twisterella 2019

Very nice review of Twisterella2019 in The Morning Star.  Hail!  I never get sick of reading stuff like "Middlesbrough as a town is buzzing. It feels like something is happening".  I wish I could agree mind. 

I last attended Twisterella in 2016  when I thought I'd been permanently deafened by a band called Foreignfox.   It's too late to repair my permanent tinnitus but I'm going to try protecting what hearing I have left.

As the Morning Star says this year's festival was a great Boro day.  I did a fair bit of pre-festival swotting up on Spotify (it's the only way).  Fail to prepare and prepare to fail and all that and it came good.  I had a big list, cut a few and then cut it some more during the day.  I then missed a couple chit chatting but I think I still saw about 10 bands/artists. It was mostly ok, some of it very good and some it was bordering on fantastic

What I really like about festivals like this though is that bands other than the headliners are limited to 30 minutes sets.  I've seen many bands over the years who I' ve enjoyed for 30 minutes, started getting weary of them by 45 minutes and then started hating when they've gone over the hour. Too much filler over thriller.

The best of the day?

I really enjoyed enjoyed local band Nel Unlit.  The club type venue (Town House) was far from perfect for them and the sound engineer must have took a deep breath when he saw them slope up with (from memory) 2 drummers, guitars, bass, saxophone/clarinet, cello, violin, a keyboard an accordion and 4 vocalists but they were still great.

I know I should change the record but it's still is all about the songs and how they are executed for me.  I love great melodies/multi vocalists/strings/lots of space/surprises and Nel Unlit deliver .  Have a listen to their last 2 singles Firefly and Apple.  They stand up alongside anything I've heard over the last couple of years both in terms of originality and musicality.  Looking forward to more and hopefully some physical releases.



Also really enjoyed hip-hop/rapper from Newcastle, Kay Greyson.  It's hard to believe it's nearly 40 years since  Grandmaster Flash and all the Sugarhill Gang stuff came out and even harder to believe the genre has remained popular pretty much ever since. It's not something I'd normally go for but I really liked "Give It All" on Spotify so I had a gentle jog the 60 feet or so along from the Town House to TSone where she'd just started her set.



What can I say?  It was rap with a little bit of Ragga "Sweet Rum Punch" was brill.  It was just the right time  for me and it felt quite refreshing, I'll definitely watch out for her playing on Teesside again.

Micah Erenberg is an artist smack bang in the middle of my comfort zone.  Canadian, a bit zany,alternative folk stylee, sort of Jeffrey Lewis (without the comics)/Langhorne Slim.  What's not to love?  He seemed genuinely surprised and thrilled with the enthusiastic largish late afternoon  audience (apparently he played at Cockermouth to about 10 people the previous night).



TheWestgarth 2 crowd certainly did the town proud and we didn't need much encouragement to join in with his choruses.  It's no wonder everybody loves playing the Boro (it's true).  Best audience I saw all day.

Special mention for Hartlepool's MT Misery who joined Micah for the second half of the set "rocking" up the sound (in a good way) as they played some very good powerful pop music including a raucous finish.  Bravo, great show!

I saw Newcastle's Martha Hill play in the Spooker Attic about a year ago (coincidentally supported by MT Misery's Andrew Smith) and was really looking forward to seeing her again at Twisterella.  Guitar/vocals backed with keyboard/cello/and drums all played sparingly is always music (excuse pun) to my ears.


Spiders, Let Me Down Easy and Blindfold are all great songs and the Boro lapped it up especially (and typically) when she announced she was going to have a pint and her first parmo after she'd finished.  I might try announcing that if I ever do the open mic again.

Just checked her Spotify and at the time of reading she has 1614 monthly listens to her songs.  Jeez, no justice.  If you get the chance to see her don't pass  I think she's got something.

I didn't fancy any of the headliners so I made  Bella Union's Pomo Poko (9pm upstairs in The Westgarth) from Norway my last band.  I'd seen them at this year's End of The Road festival, last month,ju where they were ok but just played too long for my taste (see above - probably about an hour but it felt more like 3).  Some of the songs were ok but it all was all a bit lost on the main Woods stage on a warm late Summer Sunday afternoon.

On the other hand 30 minutes in a sweaty club in Middlesbrough on a Saturday night in October was a date made in heaven.  50 somethings pogoing, doing that slamming into each other thing, somebody from the same group crowd surfing.  Oh dear!


I'm only joking, I'm not going to dis it.  It was all very entertaining ('with' rather than 'at') as were the band.  I've since had another listen to Pom Poko on Spotify.  Mmmmm. in fairness they were better live.  I enjoyed them but twice is probably enough.

So that was it.  Another super successful Twisterella  and long may the event continue.  Big shout out to the organisers/promoters/venues and the 1500 people that turned up.  And cheers to Morning Star for nice words about Boro.


Sunday 13 October 2019

So what's the word then - again?

Wrote my last post with trepidation.  Think I've actually forgotten how to write anything more than 280 characters.  In fairness I don't think I ever really worked out what or how much to tweet or when to like/reply/re-tweet etc.

I've just checked, I tweeted 203 times in about 3 and a half years.  Wish I'd stopped at 200.  Think I could have left it at that, I love round numbers and all that but 203?  I dunno...... as I said I'm off Twitter for now anyway.  I just hope my 68 followers will be ok without me.

By the time anybody joins me here it should all be running as sweet as a nut.  Just re-learning how to do all the sidebars and stuff.  I knacked it all up last year and couldn't work out how to put it right but I think I've sussed it all out.

Think that'll do for tonight.  Will just leave you with the Avett Brothers and We Americans from their  wonderful new album Closer Than Together.  I'm a sucker for truth and honesty.

 It's given me an idea about maybe writing a song about Captain Cook's exploits in New Zealand.  Might try it out at an open mic night or something.  Probably not in the Boro though.


Sh...........

What can I say?  That was quite a break but I'm back and I'm going to have little trial "writing stuff up" on my blog as part of a making better use of my "Twitter time".  I estimate (very roughly) I've been spending about 2 hours a day on Twitter (and increasing), most of which is non-productive.  I always start with the idea of picking up my latest news but then invariably meander into the comments which then leads to all the bickering/arguments/insults.  Anybody on Twitter (and if you don't fall into this trap you're a better man/woman than I) must know what I'm on about. It just brings the worst out in people including me to be honest.  I don't argue/bicker/throw insults but I'm sometimes only half a click away from doing so.   

Anyway, I've deleted the App from my phone and am going to delete it from my computers once my current conversations are over and I'm off Twitter until the end of the month.

So, 2019 eh?  Actually nearly 2020.  Jeez...  and nearly 14 years blogging!  Ha ha, hardly!  I hear anybody who's followed any of this drivel before.  Apart from the odd sojourn I haven't posted regularly for years but feel free to trawl through the archives on Blogger and Live Journal.   

I rarely look back myself.  The personal bits (from memory lots of it) just make me sad. I was relatively youthful and full of energy when I started blogging and precious people I talked about are now no longer with us.   That said, on the 3rd January 2006 as part of my new year's resolution I said, 

"Firstly, I thought I'd have a go at this journal thing. I don't think I'm a brilliant writer or anything but I do have interests, theories and opinions on plenty of subjects so I might as well write them down. If nothing else it will act as a record of my thoughts until I grow tired or become too lazy to fill it in."

So here I am in 2019 obviously older.
Wiser? - maybe.  
Have I still got interest, theories, opinions about everything?  - yep.  
Is it worth writing down?  I think it is.  
Can I be bothered?  Let's have a go and see, at least for a short while.  I can always pad it out with a few photos.

Laters