Redword, Ex-Wives, Pappygold - 13th Note

Stumbled into the 'Note around 10pm, after having Bob moan at me for hours in Coopers on the other side of town. "I was there, I know it was okay".
So here, on stage, the band are really loud...

"If yer writing a review, I want in it," says Clair, somewhat threateningly. Sure, here's her myspace profile, website and Livejournal, I hope she reciprocates with links to this site. Seconds later I'm being jumped on by one of the Drive Carefully Records promotery people, muttering something about me writing a bad review.

Ah, fuck this shit.

Adam Plimp has his fingers in his ears as he tries to sell copies of Kharki Shorts, its the final issue of the legendary Glasgow underground comic. And he appears to be drawing the gig. What us this? Some new fashion? All the cool kids doing it now, writing reviews not good enough? Well, I hope some of the pictures end up online, bigger audience and all that.

So, the band, I'm not sure who they are, but they're pretty good. Overwealmingly loud; guitar, bass, drums and barked vocals, a neat tapestry of sounds mixes from the hard rock/metal pallet. Bass player with fluffy angel wings. A poor man's answer to the mighty Dananananaykroyd?

Kind of jarring compared with what Drive Carefully usually have on, whoever booked them seems to be showing contempt for the regulars. It could have been some crazy attempt to keep the punters on their toes, or get a new crowd in. Looks like the band brought a load of their friends along, so its paid off.

Its a kind of deep grinding music, with some bounce to it. Some of the lyrics sounds like Adam's ad libs, "My girlfriend left me for a horse..."

Ooh, free CDs.

Apparently they were the Ex-Wives, but I didn't recognise any of them (pun).

Gill and Stoo play some MP3s, I go for a wander. And vaguely get introduced to someone off of the internet in real life!! For a few brief seconds it was like "Hey!!" "Hey!!" and it was kind of cool, we read each other's blogs from time to time. But alas, thats about as far as it needs to go.

Next on stage is some laptop gentleman, laptop and keyboard, possibly called Pappygold, and for the first songs possibly playing MP3s and a game of Solitair, or judging by the mousepad action, it could be FreeCell.

For the third song, a microphone is involved, could be glitch-pop, fast drums and cathedral sounds.

Ceylan say "Yeah, I like it," hmm, double enthusiasm there. She adds "He's interesting and far more enjoyable than the rest" a similar opinion to Adam and Steff, who earlier thought that the first act were better than the second. I almost wish I hadn't missed the first act, Redword, prog laptop stuff apparently. But alas, if I hadn't been in Coopers I'd have been at the Laurison.

So, this girl just tried to get in on the guestlist. I'd taken a seat at the door, next to the money tin and Ceylan with the stamp. She came in, looked awkward and smiled with these dimpley cheeks and stripey top under a baggy glittery jumper, cute nose and smiled again. Ceylan stared back. I think the stand off lasted about twelve minutes of unblinking before the interloper broke off and asked promoter Billy to let her in.

Right, next gig on the Last Night From Glasgow Indie Eyespy callendar is The Parsonage playing in Kelvingrove Park at 3pm today.
I love the Parsonage, never seen them play live though, they're a thirty strong choir who do covers of contemporary hits by artists such as Johnny Cash and Funboy Three, and by a startling coincidence, I went to school with one of them, worked with another of them, happen to be sitting next to another and wrote a review of yet another only two days ago. I had you hooked with the promise Johnny Cash covers.

Photies
here

The Just Joans, Babybones, 18 Wheels - Drive Carefully Records - 13th Note

The Just Joans were really good apparently, better than last night. I was trudging my way across town, missing them, arriving in time to catch the second band setting up.

Babybones. Shouty shouty, Joy Joy and discussions about how the shouty girl's hair has changed since last time they played a Drive Carefully night. She'd had it curlier and tied back tightly, now it bares a striking resemblance to a girl I knew in Sweden.

Oop, an ex-flatmate is here, she still owes me about seventy quid from a phonebill from 2001.

18 Wheels, fronted by a gentleman whos a cross between Eddie Izzard and Oliver Reed, lurging around the stage self-assuredly. The Deep Fried Wolfknuckles should aim for him.

Rather fast guitar garage rock with mumbled rambling lyrics. Cool lead guitar, nice use of effects there. The Rhythm guitar, a beat up acoustic with pickups taped on, played round the guy's knees.

Guitarist and bassist leaning back on each other, forming a wee ho down tunnel, that the singer chuckled at and demolished.

"Goodnight Glasgow!"

I wrote off the debt years ago, after about six months of nagging, phonecalls and text messages. Doesn't mean I've forgotten or want to be like all friends with her and owt.

And so it was, tagging along with the Drive Carefully Crew to their traditional aftershow venue, the Barfly, colliding with the mighty Obscura aftershow entourage. Bless.

"Goodnight Glasgow"

Reviews
here

Photies
here

Court Lajoie, iamchemist, Rabies Nation, Ladder Coins - 13th Note

Some Canadian girl, Court Lajoie, alone on stage, standing with an acoustic guitar and a box of tricks pedal.

I arrived fifteen minutes into her set, this is what happens when the reviewer tries to be stylishly late. Apologies to the folk at Drive Carefully Records who put on this night.

She was good at singing and playing guitar at the same time, except for on a few songs where the guitar played itself, then she was just very good at singing.

She did a neat cover of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, carefully recording her own backing loop on stage, and stressing that there was a video of it on YouTube, if you search for her surname.

She had a CD for sale too, but my money was going on drinks. Paul the barman does pour very good pints, turning it into an artful with attention to detail in getting the head just right. Such craftsmanship should be applauded far more often than it does.

Next onstage was iamchemist (all one word and lower case). "He made my ears hurt" said one punter, who then added that she was "terribly sorry." He looked like a twitchy mini-me version of Green Day, what is it with eight year olds at the 13th Note with loads of synthy equipment? He was jolly good, vocoder microphone, backing tracks on a microscopic mp3 player and wee keyboard strung round his neck, doing the kind of ultra distorted cover versions that I haven't heard since Dsico or Adventure Kid. The Arctic Monkeys I bet you look good on the dancefloor and Pulp's Babies, which was odd cos I'd been talking about the Pulp song with a friend earlier in the day.

It was the debut gig for Rabies Nation. A bit too experimental for my tastes, but some of the tracks had a great beat. Its surprising what you can get out of a Tomy My First Tape Recorder and an upturned bar tray.

A highlight of the set was chucking their own brand of choccy biscuits to a hungry audience, not many band have their own brand of biscuity goodness.

It seemed very much like this was the first time the band members had met each other. Or maybe that's what they wanted us to think, and it had taken months of studious practise to appear so self-assured and shambolic.

The ubiquitous Cal was on drums and keyboard, Billy Electroluv on keyboards and drums, Steff from Drive Carefully Records on keboards and percussion and a Kirstin on keyboards and vocals. Now Cal's drumming was amazing, even compared to the other night's Hector's gig and Kirstin has been in many great bands, LipSick springs to mind, but Rabies Nation just didn't do it for me.

On the other hand, Ladder Coins, the evening's headliners, did. They were mind-blowing. Instrumental shoegazery guitar geniuses, with a girl on drums. Reminded me of Kaleidoscope-era Boo Radleys, but without the pussy vocals.

So there was this irrepressible onslaught of noise, strangely melodic and warm and fuzzy too. Brendan soundguy running to and fro tweaking the mixing desk to raise the sound to higher levels of perfection.

I found myself talking to a gentleman called Cameron, who was in a band who's name I missed, who similarly enjoyed the Ladder Coins, but was concerned that as an instrument act there was only so far they could go in terms of success. Nonsense, look at Mogwai. I don't think there's a Glaswegian who doesn't own at least one of their albums.

Other reviews:-
here