Showing posts with label Stars Of Aviation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stars Of Aviation. Show all posts
Monday, 3 December 2007
Saturday, 13 October 2007
Twee As Fuck: The Felt Tips, The Just Joans, Stars of Aviation - The MacBeth
Last Night From Glasgow,
Finally The Just Joans have come back to London. Early doors I hand over the CD's I've been making up for them all week and point out Thorsten Sideboard to Dave the lead singer, I'd introduce them, but other than backlinks and awkward eye contact I don't know the guy.
I'm in the chippy next door to the venue and I spy Row Plimp and Katie the backing singers. Cracking chop suey.
So people turn up, huge swaths of the London internet indie royalty, hungry for the album but I've suddenly lost Dave.
First band on are The Felt Tips who shared minibus duties with the Joanses. I'd heard them on the NQRS podcast and they're really nice but tonight they're plsaying as a three piece, acoustic, electric and bass guitars, no drums, they're on top form. Songs about relationships, not so much wholesome as my uncley advice.
We're stood right at the front, with photofolk and it sounds beautiful, gentle even. Between songs the crowd are restless. Their banter big ups the Joanses, which kinda puts them unde pressue.
The Just Joans grasp it well, the last time I saw them as documented here, they were a smaller rawer act, but now they've blossomed into a great big sexy gritty fruit. Whereby if they were a movie, Ken Loach would direct,
They have this magical ability to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. They hit the pressure point to turn my legs to jelly every time. I look around and wonder. Do you feel the same thing, do you remember the times. Oh god, I'm sorry, why did it turn out this way.
Its always been a really personal thing to me, the Just Joanses, some car journey many months ago just me at midnight playing the tape Adam gave me for the first time, somewhere on southside of Glasgow, I don't remember who. How many other people here feel the same. On the door they're actually selling copies of the Just Joans cassette tape.
The song Bellshill Station is about yer boyfriend moving away from glasfgow to London, and I've always become a pool of mush before I find out how it ends. I broke up with my Glasgow last week. Its still raw.
At the back of the room I catch a glimpse of "Helen", not her real name, its Holly, she was the girl in Glasgow's best mate, who's now just moved to London, we're all fans of the Just Joans and it good to see her. I'm surrounded by friends and relics tonight. If I wasn't made of jagged stone I'd be in tears.
But Helen's here and we're sharing memories. The Just Joan's are the perfect soundtrack as I glance around.
Katie and Row's vocals catch the room off guard, people staring at the stage enraptured, different memories, but the same emotions.
Helen's quite drunk, or seems quite drunk and the Stars of Aviation take to the stage. I've been talking them up to Helen with their singalong songs and talking in Frenchy goodness and so many instruments on stage and all the goodness. But time passes and we've had three of four drinks and the Helen is getting strangely affectionate which is so inappropriate and I'm just wanting to hide in a familiar corner and scribble about bands, invisible and epic.
Time passes and I stagger to the door to chat to Uma Thurman about album sales and where the Joanses are staying tonight, Helen wanders off and a few minutes later a girl wanders over and asks me,
"Were you here with a girl in a red dress?"
"Yeah"
"erm, she's kind of fallen over"
So I wander back in and find a small crowd of people around Helen, feeding her water and keeping her from slumpuing onto the floor.
The guy holding her head looking at me and after a few seconds asked if I was on Bowlie.
My teeth gnash and grind, I snarl a little. There's mixed bag of feeling for that internet messageboard and despite this site, the phenominal success of my nuddy art site, the record label, the video webcasts of yesteryear, the third place and Glasgow, tonight feelings run fresh and raw. How much more successful could the Just Joanses be if I could have brought them to London last year, if the fans who follow them now caught them a year earlier, and the shot in the foot was Bowlie and me being banned from there...
"yes"
Ben, recognising me from the Bowlie Alldayer 2004, as mentioned recently elsewhere.
Ben is a hero not just an alias. Whilst I am a suspect for spiking Helen's drink in their heids, he's got her student card and is tracking down an address hwe can get her to in safe hands.
I'm texting and calling the girl in Glasgow slightly too slowly. I find black hack taxis but none who'll take her in her drunken and spewing state. Ben and his friends are nursing Helen, holding her heid out of her pool of vomit. I'm making a mess of trying to get her to drink water, they find a way to a minicab place.
They keep her company in a taxi safely home. I'm staggering the streets about 3 hours away from where I stay, wondering what happened to the night that started so well, why night's like this always turn out badly and who I ought to be apologising to.
Finally The Just Joans have come back to London. Early doors I hand over the CD's I've been making up for them all week and point out Thorsten Sideboard to Dave the lead singer, I'd introduce them, but other than backlinks and awkward eye contact I don't know the guy.
I'm in the chippy next door to the venue and I spy Row Plimp and Katie the backing singers. Cracking chop suey.
So people turn up, huge swaths of the London internet indie royalty, hungry for the album but I've suddenly lost Dave.
First band on are The Felt Tips who shared minibus duties with the Joanses. I'd heard them on the NQRS podcast and they're really nice but tonight they're plsaying as a three piece, acoustic, electric and bass guitars, no drums, they're on top form. Songs about relationships, not so much wholesome as my uncley advice.
We're stood right at the front, with photofolk and it sounds beautiful, gentle even. Between songs the crowd are restless. Their banter big ups the Joanses, which kinda puts them unde pressue.
The Just Joans grasp it well, the last time I saw them as documented here, they were a smaller rawer act, but now they've blossomed into a great big sexy gritty fruit. Whereby if they were a movie, Ken Loach would direct,
They have this magical ability to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. They hit the pressure point to turn my legs to jelly every time. I look around and wonder. Do you feel the same thing, do you remember the times. Oh god, I'm sorry, why did it turn out this way.
Its always been a really personal thing to me, the Just Joanses, some car journey many months ago just me at midnight playing the tape Adam gave me for the first time, somewhere on southside of Glasgow, I don't remember who. How many other people here feel the same. On the door they're actually selling copies of the Just Joans cassette tape.
The song Bellshill Station is about yer boyfriend moving away from glasfgow to London, and I've always become a pool of mush before I find out how it ends. I broke up with my Glasgow last week. Its still raw.
At the back of the room I catch a glimpse of "Helen", not her real name, its Holly, she was the girl in Glasgow's best mate, who's now just moved to London, we're all fans of the Just Joans and it good to see her. I'm surrounded by friends and relics tonight. If I wasn't made of jagged stone I'd be in tears.
But Helen's here and we're sharing memories. The Just Joan's are the perfect soundtrack as I glance around.
Katie and Row's vocals catch the room off guard, people staring at the stage enraptured, different memories, but the same emotions.
Helen's quite drunk, or seems quite drunk and the Stars of Aviation take to the stage. I've been talking them up to Helen with their singalong songs and talking in Frenchy goodness and so many instruments on stage and all the goodness. But time passes and we've had three of four drinks and the Helen is getting strangely affectionate which is so inappropriate and I'm just wanting to hide in a familiar corner and scribble about bands, invisible and epic.
Time passes and I stagger to the door to chat to Uma Thurman about album sales and where the Joanses are staying tonight, Helen wanders off and a few minutes later a girl wanders over and asks me,
"Were you here with a girl in a red dress?"
"Yeah"
"erm, she's kind of fallen over"
So I wander back in and find a small crowd of people around Helen, feeding her water and keeping her from slumpuing onto the floor.
The guy holding her head looking at me and after a few seconds asked if I was on Bowlie.
My teeth gnash and grind, I snarl a little. There's mixed bag of feeling for that internet messageboard and despite this site, the phenominal success of my nuddy art site, the record label, the video webcasts of yesteryear, the third place and Glasgow, tonight feelings run fresh and raw. How much more successful could the Just Joanses be if I could have brought them to London last year, if the fans who follow them now caught them a year earlier, and the shot in the foot was Bowlie and me being banned from there...
"yes"
Ben, recognising me from the Bowlie Alldayer 2004, as mentioned recently elsewhere.
Ben is a hero not just an alias. Whilst I am a suspect for spiking Helen's drink in their heids, he's got her student card and is tracking down an address hwe can get her to in safe hands.
I'm texting and calling the girl in Glasgow slightly too slowly. I find black hack taxis but none who'll take her in her drunken and spewing state. Ben and his friends are nursing Helen, holding her heid out of her pool of vomit. I'm making a mess of trying to get her to drink water, they find a way to a minicab place.
They keep her company in a taxi safely home. I'm staggering the streets about 3 hours away from where I stay, wondering what happened to the night that started so well, why night's like this always turn out badly and who I ought to be apologising to.
Sunday, 27 May 2007
Stars Of Aviation, With The Owls, Pocketbooks, Pete Green, Maia Hirasawa - Buffalo Bar
The reason given for me being at this gig tonight is "I was just passing and it looked interesting," followed by "oh, I'm not staying," and if pushed, some quote from xkcd about having adventures for the sake of it rather than same old same old.
Drive 400 miles for some gig, some bands I've never heard of? you bet.
This adventure in London is less alcohol fuelled than the last time and more measured. I'm on my way to Liverpool see, for Saturady night's Plimptons gig, part of the International Pop Overthrow Festival.
And that, your honour, is why I'm standing in a quiet corner of the bar in the Buffalo Bar in Highbury for something to do with Fortuna Pop.
Crikey, as the place fills up there's a chap here who looks just like MJ Hibbett, truly there's no escape from LNFG. Seconds after being spotted he come over and says hello, jolly nice chap. Hmm, more people saying hi, this is awkward, taking about twenty seconds too long to recognise people off of the internet in real life.
First on stage is a troubador called Pete Green, was the guy in Fleetwood Mac also the same name? Its not the same chap. Rather jolly songs, Similar to Hibbett I reckon, but seen through a different looking glass. Songs like "I haven't got a MySpace, cos MySpace fucking sucks" and "Share your kit" about snotty hipster bands with all the gear and no idea. Jolly stuff.
Pocketbooks are on next, oop, the guitarist noodles the lead line from Fleetwood Mac's The Chain, Maybe it was that Pete Green. Please imagine I came up with a snide comment about the band. They were really good, a fourpiece, two keyboards, glokenspiel, guiatar, drums, bass, instrument swapping. Belle and Seb-esque boy/girl harmonies, really tight drumming, almost drum machine-ish. The girl had the neatest bob hair I've seen since Bis.
An acquaintance, Paul points out people in the crowd, someone from the Duloks, Maia from Hello Saferide, various promoters I ought to know and folk from Amelia Fletcher bands, she ought to do something about bank charges.
The first two acts were promoting new singles released on Atomic Beat Records, Paul bought them on seven inch and seemed jolly impressed.
On stage next are a dapper two piece, called The Owls, swapping guitar and bass between each other.
A wee bit dour, and rather jarring dischordant guitar.
When the Pocketbooks were on the crowd seemed restless between songs, but with the owls they did even get that courtesy.
A girl walks by who bares a striking resemblance to Natasha Smith from school, or more honestly, Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction.
So, looking at posters advertising other gigs here... bands I've never heard of sponsored by corporate entities such as Diesel, LaCoste and Cafe2U. Crikey.
Aw man, now there's hundreds of people on stage. The Stars of Aviation, sound like Aberfeldy, all of them seemed to be armed with egg-shakers and I'm convincedt the singing chap is called Eliot, but Paul assures me he simply cannot be, much like the end of American Psycho.
They spent a good ten minutes trying to get the audience to sing along to some song in French, that wasn't singing, that was just a load of drunk peopleshouting.
"A bit too... something" says Paul, maybe too twee indie. Some of the songs were nice and jaunty, but well, others were slow and sleepy and too easy listening.
Oop, as a secret bonus, that Maia girl, from Sweden, is going to play a set with her band and I snap my own photies. I love her dimples and her theatricalness and enthusiasm and the pleading in her voice with these really personal sounding songs about friends and MySpace. And the way she stomps, rocks and reels.
There's to be DJs and music and dancing, so I leave.
An hour later, I feel regret, after the bands I could have chatted merrily from people from way back when, firming up viewer/creator relationships, offering my services as nationwide music distributor and Ivan Lendil Music head honcho. Shit, just engaging would do. Instead I bungled a hug and noddled farewell awkwardly before barging and my way out in terror.
400 miles, I have complete control over my actions, its my feelings that require more work.
Reviews
here
Photies
here
here
here
Drive 400 miles for some gig, some bands I've never heard of? you bet.
This adventure in London is less alcohol fuelled than the last time and more measured. I'm on my way to Liverpool see, for Saturady night's Plimptons gig, part of the International Pop Overthrow Festival.
And that, your honour, is why I'm standing in a quiet corner of the bar in the Buffalo Bar in Highbury for something to do with Fortuna Pop.
Crikey, as the place fills up there's a chap here who looks just like MJ Hibbett, truly there's no escape from LNFG. Seconds after being spotted he come over and says hello, jolly nice chap. Hmm, more people saying hi, this is awkward, taking about twenty seconds too long to recognise people off of the internet in real life.
First on stage is a troubador called Pete Green, was the guy in Fleetwood Mac also the same name? Its not the same chap. Rather jolly songs, Similar to Hibbett I reckon, but seen through a different looking glass. Songs like "I haven't got a MySpace, cos MySpace fucking sucks" and "Share your kit" about snotty hipster bands with all the gear and no idea. Jolly stuff.
Pocketbooks are on next, oop, the guitarist noodles the lead line from Fleetwood Mac's The Chain, Maybe it was that Pete Green. Please imagine I came up with a snide comment about the band. They were really good, a fourpiece, two keyboards, glokenspiel, guiatar, drums, bass, instrument swapping. Belle and Seb-esque boy/girl harmonies, really tight drumming, almost drum machine-ish. The girl had the neatest bob hair I've seen since Bis.
An acquaintance, Paul points out people in the crowd, someone from the Duloks, Maia from Hello Saferide, various promoters I ought to know and folk from Amelia Fletcher bands, she ought to do something about bank charges.
The first two acts were promoting new singles released on Atomic Beat Records, Paul bought them on seven inch and seemed jolly impressed.
On stage next are a dapper two piece, called The Owls, swapping guitar and bass between each other.
A wee bit dour, and rather jarring dischordant guitar.
When the Pocketbooks were on the crowd seemed restless between songs, but with the owls they did even get that courtesy.
A girl walks by who bares a striking resemblance to Natasha Smith from school, or more honestly, Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction.
So, looking at posters advertising other gigs here... bands I've never heard of sponsored by corporate entities such as Diesel, LaCoste and Cafe2U. Crikey.
Aw man, now there's hundreds of people on stage. The Stars of Aviation, sound like Aberfeldy, all of them seemed to be armed with egg-shakers and I'm convincedt the singing chap is called Eliot, but Paul assures me he simply cannot be, much like the end of American Psycho.
They spent a good ten minutes trying to get the audience to sing along to some song in French, that wasn't singing, that was just a load of drunk peopleshouting.
"A bit too... something" says Paul, maybe too twee indie. Some of the songs were nice and jaunty, but well, others were slow and sleepy and too easy listening.
Oop, as a secret bonus, that Maia girl, from Sweden, is going to play a set with her band and I snap my own photies. I love her dimples and her theatricalness and enthusiasm and the pleading in her voice with these really personal sounding songs about friends and MySpace. And the way she stomps, rocks and reels.
There's to be DJs and music and dancing, so I leave.
An hour later, I feel regret, after the bands I could have chatted merrily from people from way back when, firming up viewer/creator relationships, offering my services as nationwide music distributor and Ivan Lendil Music head honcho. Shit, just engaging would do. Instead I bungled a hug and noddled farewell awkwardly before barging and my way out in terror.
400 miles, I have complete control over my actions, its my feelings that require more work.
Reviews
here
Photies
here
here
here
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