Saturday 14 April 2007

The Hermit Crabs, Blood Music, Older and Faraway - Drunk at the Pulpit - RAFA

I need to be clear, first and foremost in this review, I did not go to the gig.

Sure, I intended to, and intent is important. I'd been plied for weeks with flyers, both in real life and on my various MySpace profiles. There was no way I could not know about or miss this gig.

First up were Older and Faraway, they've been reviewed on this site once or twice before. They probably sounded similar to other performances, but a bit tighter and better rehearsed, maybe caught off-guard and giving each other nervous looks as the realise, that latecomers to the gig will miss them and their magic.

Blood Music, travellers from Sweden, I know nothing of how their performance was, other than it might have sounded a little like the songs on their MySpace page. They're playing Anstruther tonight.

The Hermit Crabs, a band with a long heritage in this town, as previously reviewed here, sound a little like Camera Obscura, they're twee. At the gig they probably sounded much the same. But due to the large and willing crowd, there was probably better banter than last time. Starting off nervous, but then growing more relaxed. A friend who did make it to the gig sez "iit was ok"

I left the flat in plenty of time to get to the venue, its seventeen minutes walk away, I just had to meet a friend on the way. She hadn't eaten so we stopped off in a small cafe. Bjorn from Say Dirty was in with some friends and a selection of acoustic guitars. It was really relaxed, and nice.

On flyers it always says things like doors 8:30, but when you arrive on time, nothing really happens until an hour later, so I was chilling over my coffee and the music. It wasn't even a gig, just folk playing guitars together.

What's the difference between ethics and morality. I think morals are a personal thing, framed within one's own context, one's own frame of reference, the difference between right and wrong based on your own judgement. Whilst ethics is on a higher level, the analysis of morals from a broader context, and can compare different morals. Ethics aren't judgemental. In "The road to hell is paved by good intentions" the good intentions are moral choices, but only ethics can see the road leads to hell, but can't judge whether this is a good thing, judging whether one should take the road to hell is a moral choice again.

So what does unethical mean? If ethics had no sense of judgement. Does it just mean that the ethics haven't been considered or have been disregarded. Or is ethics just a cop out anyhow.

I was going to draw two pie charts, one showing gig of my lot (The Just Joans, The Plimptons, the Deep Fried Wolfknuckles) that members of the Hermit Crabs and Older and Faraway have attended, and one showing Hermit Crab and Older and Faraway gigs that my lot have attended. For the purposes of comparison. But I'm questioning the ethics of that.

So Bjorn was playing songs with other accompanying, and the girl wore this look of mortification, whispering to me, "My god doesn't he know he can't sing" and "How can he be so bad?" I thought it sounded okay myself. I've heard worse, I've heard warmer. Everyone in the room seemed to enjoy it, and the guy's record label who's currently stocking up shoping in Stockholm must have liked it too. The girl, she didn't. She has strange tastes, she'd love the Deep Fried Wolfknuckles if she ever made it to their gig. On the other had I'm pretty sure she'd hate the Drunk at the Pulpit gig.

The guys who ran the cafe were trying to close up, putting some Miles Davis on the muzak system and turning the lights down, but Bjorns mob just played louder and more raucously, venturing outside to busk and entertain passersby, before return to freshly cooked meatballs.

We needed to eascape and find a dictionary definition of morals and ethics.

Other reviews
here

Photies
here

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The pie charts would be interesting Chris, considering I've seen the Plimptons about 5 times over the last couple of years. The mighty Wolfknuckles and the IOMOPS just once each, likewise the Just Joans, although I'll be along again for more when I realise they're playing and I'm not working. I reckon the stats are probably similar for Stew and Marie of O&FA, although Caz hasn't seen the Plimptons (or many other bands) recently, and Kev lives in Edinburgh.

As for the Crabs, I haven't known them long enough to have a proper gauge on their gig-attendance habits, although I'm fairly sure that both Mel and Fergy were at the Just Joans Winchester gig, and I know for a fact that Ali has seen y'all a good few times.

What to make of that? Not a lot, it doesn't mean much. I've had good times seeing you and your bands regardless of whether or not they represent the kind of music I listen to out of preference (for reference: the Joans and IOMOPS do, the Plimps and 'Knuckles don't, but I like 'em anyway), and it would be wrong to conclude that we aren't grateful for your attendance at and kind words about our own efforts. I really hope that you don't come along out of some misplaced sense of obligation, I don't think that's a wise way to spend your time.