Fuck Buttons - Surf Solar

I went and watched Fuck Buttons last night performing an in-store set at Rought Trade East.

A couple of points;

1. Why do I always get the tallest, biggest-and-smelliest-haired, head-bopping freak in the room standing right in front of me? About one minute before Fuck Buttons were due on I thought I was sitting pretty, and then this lanky great loser pushes in front of me (remember, we're in a record store, and despite the gig status you just don't expect this kind of jostling. Would you stand for that kind of behaviour at the Pick 'N' Mix in Woolworths?) and starts bopping his head all over the shop, continuing threatening to stick his filthy mop in my face with every swing. Most disconcerting. It's not even as though he was so taken with the music that he couldn't control himself; he kept stopping every minute or so to take a look around and check who was watching him and look at his mobile phone. What a cunt. "Oh, I can't possibly enjoy myself watching live music if I'm further than 3 metres from the stage, which is why I have to barge my way in and ponce about like I'm in Ibiza on a pills-and-cock binge."

2. IT WAS JUST WAY TOO LOUD. I know I am grumpier and olde-before-my time than most, but I still want to be going to gigs and listening to music when I'm 50, and this sort of din can do some serious damage. Uncomfortable.

Other than that the show was fine. There has been a lot of rhetoric put out there, mostly by ATP, about Fuck Buttons, which to me just doesn't ring true. Highlight of the set, 'Bright Tomorrow' is a fantastic track, building up swathes of vintage electronic sound to its glorious, screaming finale, but almost all the rest of their material last night seemed like a pale imitation of this song. Fuck Buttons are just too formulaic to hold my interest over the course of half an hour.

Of course, I couldn't resist picking up their new 7" with all its picture-disc goodness, even if the £4.99 price tag for two tracks seems a little hefty.

The A side is a 7" edit of 'Surf Solar' and is the first track taken from upcoming album Tarot Sport produced by Andrew Weatherall, whose name for some reason, I always confuse with Andrew Ridgeley. I'm not sure what Ridgeley is up to these days, but is it so hard to imagine him as the fat-cat producer of cutting edge indie/electro acts whilst George does community service and spunks up walls?

So, 'Surf Solar' follows the familiar pattern of being kind of interesting with some exciting sounds and textures, but never quite soars as high as 'Bright Tomorrow', nor reaches any kind of satisfying conclusion. I am hoping that it is merely the time constraints of the 7" format that have neutered this track and that the 10min-plus album version will be a revelation.

What do I like most about a new 7" single? A lovely bit of non-album sounds on the B-side. Here we have 'New Crossbow' which has a kind of non-intrusive tribally beat behind it, with a whooping, swooping sound and lots of glimmering, sparkling bits, and kind of meanders on its way to nowhere in particular for a few minutes. Quite nice, and a bit more interesting that the A-side, but I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to it.

The brilliant artwork comes from Benjamin John Power who may or may not be responsible for mid-to-late 90s British shitstorm of arse-drippings, Cast.

Tarot Sport is out next Monday 12th October.

Eels - My Timing is Off/Fresh Blood

Something is afoot. Something smells funny about the new Eels single.

Basically, this was initially released through iTunes to promote the upcoming Hombre Lobo album, Eels first full studio album since 2005. The tracks were 'Fresh Blood' and 'Devil's Dog'. Whilst I was glad to hear that Britain was getting an actual 7" release, I've been left scratching my head as to why someone has decided to make this a double A-side with 'My Timing is Off', effectively demoting 'Fresh Blood' to the B-side. Both of these tracks are on Hombre Lobo, whereas 'Devil's Dog' is not and now remains solely available as a download.

This record is quite telling of the current music sales market. The CD single has become a redundant format, losing out to the digital download. The thing the CD always had going for it was convenience and now that a more convenient format has come along the CD is going the way of the 8-track! For a tangible release the 7" has become the format of choice, having an inherent value missing from the CD; it's a desirable item for fans and adds a sort of underground kudos to a band's reputation. So, I reckon it could be that it was felt that fans would just buy this record whatever the track listing and that by leaving off 'Devil's Dog' they could entice fans to purchase both 7" and digital download. Sneaky. I'm not quite sure who this mysterious 'they' is, though. Surely not E.

Perhaps it was just felt that 'My Timing is Off' was a better lead single for the UK market? 'Fresh Blood' is pretty raucous and perhaps not fit for our frail British hearts and milky livers. The track (and video) find Eels leader E in the guise of 'Hombre Lobo'; the 'Dog-Faced Boy' all grown up and living a predatory existence on the fringes of a society that has snubbed him. As E says, "I wrote a song a few years ago called 'I Want to Protect You' that was about wanting to protect someone from the wolves. Now I am the wolf."

The song is in the vein of the hard-rocking Souljacker album - 'Teenage Witch' particularly springs to mind, although it is very different to anything already in the Eels repertoire. 'Fresh Blood' builds on the grimy, slow grumble of the bass to a hypnotic chorus full of intrigue courtesy of some creepy electronics and shuddering guitar work. Twinned with the video this a very noir affair.



The artwork for the record is a photo that looks like it may have been taken when they were shooting the video. E's beard is even bigger than in the Souljacker days and that's saying something!





'My Timing is Off' is a more typical Eels song: wistful and tender, but with an upbeat tempo. It's the kind of song you'd find on Daisies of the Galaxy, although it lacks the fragility of a lot of the material on that album and actually comes off more like a poor man's 'Numbered Days' or 'Somebody Loves You' from Shootenanny: both fine songs, but not that memorable. It's a nice enough song while it's on, but does little to differentiate itself from a dozen other similar Eels songs.

Anyway, 'Fresh Blood' has certainly done enough to whet my appetite for the new album. Hombre Lobo is out on Monday 1st June and the band's official website does a great job of keeping everyone up to date with developments, reviews and promotional appearances the band are doing. But don't go trying to follow them on Twitter:

3/25/2009- EELS TWEET:
Follow EELS on Twitter HERE.

4/24/2009- NO TWITTER FOR EELS:
EELS have abandoned their Twitter account. "The only tweeting I wanna hear is in my backyard. This shit is not for us," says EELS leader E.

I'm surprised they lasted that long on there, to be honest.

The Jesus Lizard - Inch

Well, I saw The Jesus Lizard playing last night at the Kentish Town Forum and it was awesome. Great setlist; 'Blockbuster,' 'Gladiator,' 'Boilermaker,' 'Then Comes Dudley,' 'One Evening,' 'Wheelchair Epidemic,' 'Puss,' 'Thumbscrews' and 'Fly On the Wall' were all played. David Yow did most of his crowd-pleasing tricks without it ever feeling forced or insincere, dove into the crowd about half a dozen times and rained down vitriol and manic terror upon London for 90-odd minutes against a backdrop of some of the tightest playing I've ever seen. Vocalist David Yow often takes most of the focus but the rest of the band are all excellent musicians and performers.

Duane Denison's taut and tense guitar is the perfect partner for Yow's vocals, adding anxiety and a heightening sense of alarm. David Sims' commanding stance on stage was a focal point, with the bassist hammering the neck of his guitar forward to deliver some bruising bass lines. Mac wore headphones and his precise, jazz-influenced drumming at times evoked the math rock that has become so prevalent in the intervening years since the band's split.

Not that you didn't already know all of that if you've ever heard a Jesus Lizard record.

Grails and Harvey Milk were the support, which was okay, but a bit disappointing since in an interview with Mark Prindle, David Yow suggested that if there were ever to be a Jesus Lizard reunion then Puss (all-girl Jesus Lizard covers group) and Jazzus Lizard (you can guess) would be the perfect support acts. For shame.

So, I thought it was about time I had a look at this Record Store 7" pack that came out for one day only a few weeks ago. The good news is that Touch and Go have included a download code, so I don't actually have to put these things on a turntable (not that I have a huge issue with that, but I honestly can't break these records out of their robust packaging). The pack is very cool - you can keep it all bundled up with its rubber band on a shelf or you can unfold it all and get a nice display of all the 7" covers to hang on your wall - either way it's a beauty.



So what have we got in here? Well, every 7" that the group released on Touch and Go, remastered by Bob Weston (of Shellac, who was an engineer on the original recordings) and repressed in an edition of 2,000. So, it's pretty much the Bang compilation without the bonus tracks. I think a lot, if not all, of these tracks will end up on the CD album reissues later this year. There's a couple of singles missing that were licensed by Touch and Go for release by other labels, but they're another story.

First up is 'Chrome' from 1989. The track is a medley of two Chrome songs: 'TV as Eyes' and 'Abstract Nympho', both from the 1979 LP Half Machine Lip Moves, which has to be one of the weirdest album titles ever and possibly an influence on Melvins' song titles? (e.g. 'Heater Moves and Eyes'; 'In the Freaktose the Bugs Are Dying'). I actually got to see the Melvins covering 'Chrome' as an encore with David Yow as surprise guest singer. Yow ate a pack of cigarettes. Anyway, The Jesus Lizard make the song their own with a rambunctious and upbeat track that would fit nicely alongside anything on Head or Goat. The B-side is '7 vs. 8' from the Head album. It starts with mid-tempo tom work before kicking into some classic Denison escalating guitar playing that dizzies you before kicking into a noise assault, eventually dying back down into the laborious lurch of the verse. It's quite a nauseating track in the vein of 'Then Comes Dudley' and I mean that in the best possible way.

The second disc is 'Mouth Breather' which originally came out in 1990 just before Goat, from which it is taken. It has the iconic Mickey Mouse bomb cover that went on to become one of the best alternative rock T-shirt designs of the '90s.



This track isn't a favourite of mine as it zips by too fast without having done too much and there are far better tracks on the rests of Goat. However, it’s considered a bit of a classic for the band, so who am I to talk? The B-side is somewhat of an anomaly in the tJL back-catalogue; a cover of song by German Neue Deutshche Welle group Trio. I had a German friend who nearly kicked me out of his car for saying I didn't mind the NDW compilation that was playing on the stereo, such was his loathing of Trio. The song chugs along kind of uneventfully with a seriously understated vocal (a la 'Blockbuster'). It is pretty catchy, but it barely sounds like The Jesus Lizard at all. It’s a piece of new-wave fluff rendered strangely flat and ominous. Curiously enough a further Trio cover was put out on the Bang compilation. Sadly it wasn't 'Da Da Da'.

Next up is 'Puss' which was originally issued as a split single with Nirvana. So, instead of 'Oh, the Guilt' we get a nice B-side of silence. Did I mention this reached no. 12 in the UK charts in 1993? Wow. 'Puss' pretty much seems to be a song about domestic violence, but with no pretence to morality; in fact it's just a catalogue of brutal acts with some amazing double-tracked vocals that trade off each other, making it sound like you walked into a bar where two equally vile and drunken David Yows are jawing at each other, slurring and hurling broken bottles. Scary, compulsive and cool. This was the first song of theirs I heard so it holds a special place in my heart. If you listen to it on your Walkman as I did back in the day the two vocals come through separate headphones just to add to the chaos and terror. Nice touch, Steve Albini. Also, this disc has beautiful artwork courtesy of painter Malcolm Bucknall who also provided equally impressive artwork for Liar and Down.



Next is 'Wheelchair Epidemic', the original issue of which I already wrote about here.

The fifth record is the 'Gladiator' single, originally issued as a one-off giveaway to punters at a gig in London in September 1992 and was never commercially available as far as I'm aware. The photo on the cover is now in colour as opposed to black and white. Finally after all these years we can see what colour shirts the guys were wearing. Glad I didn't die before I got to see that.



'Gladiator' could be the ultimate tJL song; muscular, grinding, tense, demented, complex but with a catchy underlying groove. The finale is intense to say the least. It also has the line "You run the risk of conceiving a bastard." Bliss! If you don't know it you should get yourself a copy of the album Liar. The B-side of this single is a live version of 'Seasick' from the Brixton Academy show on 9th May 1992. The song really lives up to the title as it chugs and lurches away in lurid fashion, hitting you right in the stomach. The band is on top form in this live recording, but it's pretty faithful to the album version.

Discs 6, 7 and 8 cover the Lash EP which was originally released on CD and as a triple 7" pack as a stop-gap between the Liar and Down albums. The first 7" is fantastic as it has two proper non-album songs; 'Glamorous' and 'Deaf as a Bat,' both of which got an airing at last night's show. I always thought it would have faired better as a stand-alone single, so it's nice to have to have it here as a separate disc. Although 'Glamorous' has its moments, it's fairly pedestrian by tJL’s standards and something of a precursor for some of the more unspectacular moments on Down. 'Deaf as a Bat' is a short and fast little ditty, reminiscent of 'Tight 'n' Shiny' from their debut album, but with some garbled vocals on top. It has a nasty attitude, but is lacking teeth, so it doesn't really do it for me.

Discs 7 & 8 I have to say have disappointing artwork. Touch and Go have just taken the panels from the original gatefold sleeve and used them as the covers. Seriously, a few scratches in black paint does not constitute a good cover! The back covers are nicer with photos incorporated into the paintings. Shame there weren't any old Malcolm Bucknall cast-offs hanging around that could have been used!


(Front cover of the 'Bloody Mary' 7" and back cover of 'Lady Shoes' 7")

Anyway, the first of these has two tracks recorded live at a show in Boston in November 1990 (or December depending on which sleeve notes you believe). 'Lady Shoes' has to be one of the sickest songs I ever did hear and this was the version I knew way before I got around to listening to the album version. This totally blew my mind when I heard it. The music, managing to be both foreboding and rollicking plays second fiddle to a jaw-dropping performance by David Yow in which he presents a series of seemingly unrelated and deeply unpleasant and bizarre scenarios populated by a constantly revolving list of perverse characters ("There's a little girl playing a big piano while her mother gives her an enema...and then the Daddy comes in..."). This is littered with examples of David Yow's random shrieks, bellows and other unworldly noises that erupt at random to elicit genuine disgust, horror and morbid fascination. Never has a front man sounded more convincingly terrifying and insane.

Nothing could ever really follow that, but 'Killer McHann' makes a good stab of it (see what I did there. Pretty poor, wasn't it?) This kind of whizzes by in a torrent of reckless abandon and raging vocals, displaying a lot more energy and feeling than the studio version.

7" #8 has two live tracks from the same Brixton show as 'Seasick'. I always thought of 'Bloody Mary' as one of the most Scratch Acid-y songs that The Jesus Lizard did, with Yow adopting a harrowed and pleading vocal delivery on the melancholic verses, before the song explodes into a Big Black-esque pounding chorus. I guess the fact this was written when the group had a drum machine instead of a drummer influenced that. It’s nice to hear it performed by the whole band. The B-side is 'Monkey Trick' which features a seriously indecent bass line. It lumbers along leaving a bad taste in the mouth until the climactic ending with some truly feverish guitar work and Yow sounding like he's trying to cough up a ballcock.

The final record is '(Fly) On (the Wall)' and you've got to love those parentheses! Check out my thoughts on the original issue of this 7” here.

As is the way with many obsessive collectors, I’m not really a big audiophile, so the remastering is lost on me, but I’m loving the packaging! Maybe a few more repeat plays on something better than my mp3 player will shed some light on exactly what tweaking has gone on.

Pure, Head and Goat are all out in September, reissued with bonus tracks. Until then you can keep updated at The Jesus Lizard’s (Official!) Myspace or by checking out David Sims’ blog which has all kind of cool gubbins on it.

This Saturday is RECORD STORE DAY!

Sorry, Mum, but I'm cancelling your birthday...



Woah, I'm incredibly late with this one. I heard about this a while back, but I didn’t realise how big a deal it was or that it would be making its way out of America. Basically, this is a celebration of independent record stores and a lot of great record labels and artists are getting involved.

There are something like 100(!) records being especially released in very limited editions and it is mostly vinyl. These are to be sold exclusively through participating stores on Record Store Day and once they're gone, they're gone...onto eBay. Wouldn't it be a tragedy if you missed picking up the Flight of the Conchords 7” in the record shop and had to shell out twice as much on eBay for it and missed out on the lovely experience of browsing the aisles and flipping through all those beautiful records!? I'm going to be kicking myself on Saturday if I miss anything on my extensive-and-growing-by-the-minute shopping list! As if that isn’t enough of an impetus to get out there, there are going to be a slew of in-store signings and appearances. Graham Coxon, Partick Wolf and more will be appearing at Pure Groove in London and I expect there’ll be stuff going on at Rough Trade. I won’t go into the range of acts appearing across the U.S. as it’s just too large, but you can check it out on the Record Store Day website.

Some of the labels lining up special releases include Matador, Touch and Go, Sub Pop, Epitaph, Nonesuch and majors such as Sony, Warner Brothers, Capitol and a lot of reissues on Rhino.

Just a taste of some of the stuff being released:

Pavement – Live in Germany LP (2500 copies)
Jay Reatard/Sonic Youth split 7” (2500 copies)
Sonic Youth/Beck split 7” (2500 copies)
The Smiths – Headmaster Ritual (reissue of rare Dutch 7”)
The Decemberists – The Rake Song 7” (2000 copies)
Talking Heads – 77 (Remastered LP on 180gm)
Radiohead – vinyl EP reissues (everything from Drill to 2+2=5)
Flaming Lips/Black Keys split 7”
Depeche Mode – Wrong 7” (2000 copies)
Sony’s Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen 7”s in custom sleeves…
And…the Holy Grail of releases…The Jesus Lizard – Inch (but more about that next time!)

Anyway – go HERE for the complete list of releases and HERE to find out which shops are taking part and then get down to a record shop and buy records! Easy, really.