LLL = Linda Live from London, a regular column of Linda's musical adventures in the city of London.Okay, so I had a bit of a slow week with only one gig, but still there’s plenty of other stuff going round to fill this little columny thing of mine with. And yes, I’ve once again failed to write this on Sunday: I blame that on the midnight price increase on cider. But honour where honour’s due: the live bit first.
Sleigh Bells/Visions of Trees/New Yoga @ White Heat/Madame Jojo’s
In the few months I’ve spend in London so far, ‘White Heat’ has become one of my favourite features. As a weekly happening set in a former brothel in the heart of Soho, the organisers are able to gather an impressive line-up of soon to become the new indie-darling-of-the-week bands almost every single week. The directions to get there will give you an excellent idea of what to expect from that particular area: from Leicester Square tube station walk towards ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ and turn left at ‘Jersey Boys’, past ‘G-A-Y’. When you hit the edible underwear store turn right and immediately left again and then it’s just across the street from ‘Snog’ (which surprisingly is a store selling frozen yoghurt).
As I’ve been to this little indie hipster night before, I thought I knew by what time I ought to get there in order to not look like that loner that has no friends or sense of door times but still be able to catch all the bands. Well, not so much. New Yoga just finishes his set the moment I descend the staircase into the dark realms that is Mme Jojo’s. Better luck with Visions of Trees: another English boy/girl duo. And yes, they’ve managed to find a niche that wasn’t yet occupied by a mixed gender duo with their electro/hip hop beat fuelled dream pop, but apart from having a somewhat original idea about what music should sound like, they sound rather bland. Singer Sarah does not have the most amazing voice, but they find ways to work around that. Lowlight is a song that goes by the name ‘Solid Rainboes’ (and I whish I had misspelled that), which is merrier than your average Kate Nash song, and anything that brings Kate Nash to mind should be banned. However, they do manage to close their set with a promising sounding track, of which I’ve unfortunately forgotten the name.
A name that you’re much more unlikely to forget after seeing them live is Sleigh Bells, who are, to put it in their own words, a little “up front”. As another boy/girl duo, again with a vaguely original idea, they manage what Visions of Trees cannot so far: be entertaining live. Vocalist Alexis (singer would be stretching it a bit too far) ‘owns’ the stage, as much as you could ever ‘own’ a stage. And yes, for this review I might have to reach a bit more into my urban vocabulary (and we’ll soon discover whether I even master such a thing as opposed to urban dance moves which I certainly do not), as urban is certainly a word I’d use to describe this musical partnership. Another way might be Crystal Castles meets American Apparel, as they combine the screaming lyrics and raging synths of CC with aggressive guitars and thumping hip hop beats straight of the streets of LA (or the American Apparel stores where I’ve based this theory of mine on).
As if the crowd wasn’t into it enough, Alexis decides to spice things up just a little bit more and descends into the pit of dancers at the forefront during ‘A/B Machines’, causing a mixture of excitement and fear with her aggressive appearance. The tracks that are featured in the set vary between killers (aforementioned ‘A/B Machines’, ‘Infinity Guitars’ and set closer ‘Crown on the Ground’) and a lot of fillers. Live they make up for this with sheer stage appearance alone, but how that will work out on an actual album remains to be seen.
Also nice: Benjamin John Power of Fuck Buttons DJ'd in between sets. Without his hat he appears to be virtually unrecognisable.
Save 6Music Protest @ Broadcasting House
I’m not sure whether you’ve heard anything about the plans of the BBC to axe 6Music, but here in London it is a very big issue. Due to possible cuts in the budget of the BBC in the future, the Beeb has decided it has to cut down its services. Those cuts include taking down half of the web content, axing BBC Asia network and, unfortunately, axing Radio 6.
As 6Music is the only radio station that can still claim any credibility when saying it gives new and exciting music a platform to gain listeners, there was quite some opposition to this idea, leading to a fierce Facebook campaign, online petitions and angry e-mails to the BBC Trust telling them to Save 6! All of this accumulated in a protest that was organised to take place at Broadcasting House last Saturday. As a regular 6Music listener (where would I be without my weekly portion of Jarvis Cocker on Sunday afternoon?) I of course couldn’t stay away (and was also secretly hoping that Jarvis himself might be there to support this good cause as well). And I wasn’t alone in that thought, as about 2,000 people turned up to stand in front of the building and stare at several persons shouting undecipherable things into a megaphone for about two hours, in the rain (or as Ilse described it: “God is angry as well”).
Results: so far some extra media coverage in the Guardian, as the BBC is blatantly ignoring all the criticism of its decision to axe its services. How’s that for being objective? The final decision on whether 6Music has a right to live will be taken somewhere in May, so there’ll probably be some more protests coming up.
St John Passion (by Johann Sebastian Bach) @ St Mary Abbots Church
Yup: classical music. With two flatmates at the Royal Academy of Music I’m broadening my musical horizon. And of course there’s also the part where I can get in for free to these things now, though I did have to pretend to be part of the orchestra to get actually get in.
I won’t pretend that I know anything about classical music that grants me the expertise to write anything sensible as a review on this particular piece; I can just say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the opening bit where the entire choir (yes there was a choir) backed the orchestra up. I was told by my expert flatmate that this was indeed the best bit of the over two hour piece, though the fact that it was sung in English rather than the original German did attenuate the enthusiasm of the crowd a bit. What I found most surprising was more of a personal experience: when I listen to ‘my’ kind of music, I tend to focus more on the instrumentation. I think that might have something to do with the fact that I play guitar and keys a bit myself. But in this setting, the vocals appeared to be the main attraction. Lowlight: sitting on a wooden bench for over two hours doesn’t do wonders for one’s bum.
Sleigh Bells/Visions of Trees/New Yoga @ White Heat/Madame Jojo’s
In the few months I’ve spend in London so far, ‘White Heat’ has become one of my favourite features. As a weekly happening set in a former brothel in the heart of Soho, the organisers are able to gather an impressive line-up of soon to become the new indie-darling-of-the-week bands almost every single week. The directions to get there will give you an excellent idea of what to expect from that particular area: from Leicester Square tube station walk towards ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ and turn left at ‘Jersey Boys’, past ‘G-A-Y’. When you hit the edible underwear store turn right and immediately left again and then it’s just across the street from ‘Snog’ (which surprisingly is a store selling frozen yoghurt).
As I’ve been to this little indie hipster night before, I thought I knew by what time I ought to get there in order to not look like that loner that has no friends or sense of door times but still be able to catch all the bands. Well, not so much. New Yoga just finishes his set the moment I descend the staircase into the dark realms that is Mme Jojo’s. Better luck with Visions of Trees: another English boy/girl duo. And yes, they’ve managed to find a niche that wasn’t yet occupied by a mixed gender duo with their electro/hip hop beat fuelled dream pop, but apart from having a somewhat original idea about what music should sound like, they sound rather bland. Singer Sarah does not have the most amazing voice, but they find ways to work around that. Lowlight is a song that goes by the name ‘Solid Rainboes’ (and I whish I had misspelled that), which is merrier than your average Kate Nash song, and anything that brings Kate Nash to mind should be banned. However, they do manage to close their set with a promising sounding track, of which I’ve unfortunately forgotten the name.
A name that you’re much more unlikely to forget after seeing them live is Sleigh Bells, who are, to put it in their own words, a little “up front”. As another boy/girl duo, again with a vaguely original idea, they manage what Visions of Trees cannot so far: be entertaining live. Vocalist Alexis (singer would be stretching it a bit too far) ‘owns’ the stage, as much as you could ever ‘own’ a stage. And yes, for this review I might have to reach a bit more into my urban vocabulary (and we’ll soon discover whether I even master such a thing as opposed to urban dance moves which I certainly do not), as urban is certainly a word I’d use to describe this musical partnership. Another way might be Crystal Castles meets American Apparel, as they combine the screaming lyrics and raging synths of CC with aggressive guitars and thumping hip hop beats straight of the streets of LA (or the American Apparel stores where I’ve based this theory of mine on).
As if the crowd wasn’t into it enough, Alexis decides to spice things up just a little bit more and descends into the pit of dancers at the forefront during ‘A/B Machines’, causing a mixture of excitement and fear with her aggressive appearance. The tracks that are featured in the set vary between killers (aforementioned ‘A/B Machines’, ‘Infinity Guitars’ and set closer ‘Crown on the Ground’) and a lot of fillers. Live they make up for this with sheer stage appearance alone, but how that will work out on an actual album remains to be seen.
Also nice: Benjamin John Power of Fuck Buttons DJ'd in between sets. Without his hat he appears to be virtually unrecognisable.
Save 6Music Protest @ Broadcasting House
I’m not sure whether you’ve heard anything about the plans of the BBC to axe 6Music, but here in London it is a very big issue. Due to possible cuts in the budget of the BBC in the future, the Beeb has decided it has to cut down its services. Those cuts include taking down half of the web content, axing BBC Asia network and, unfortunately, axing Radio 6.
As 6Music is the only radio station that can still claim any credibility when saying it gives new and exciting music a platform to gain listeners, there was quite some opposition to this idea, leading to a fierce Facebook campaign, online petitions and angry e-mails to the BBC Trust telling them to Save 6! All of this accumulated in a protest that was organised to take place at Broadcasting House last Saturday. As a regular 6Music listener (where would I be without my weekly portion of Jarvis Cocker on Sunday afternoon?) I of course couldn’t stay away (and was also secretly hoping that Jarvis himself might be there to support this good cause as well). And I wasn’t alone in that thought, as about 2,000 people turned up to stand in front of the building and stare at several persons shouting undecipherable things into a megaphone for about two hours, in the rain (or as Ilse described it: “God is angry as well”).
Results: so far some extra media coverage in the Guardian, as the BBC is blatantly ignoring all the criticism of its decision to axe its services. How’s that for being objective? The final decision on whether 6Music has a right to live will be taken somewhere in May, so there’ll probably be some more protests coming up.
St John Passion (by Johann Sebastian Bach) @ St Mary Abbots Church
Yup: classical music. With two flatmates at the Royal Academy of Music I’m broadening my musical horizon. And of course there’s also the part where I can get in for free to these things now, though I did have to pretend to be part of the orchestra to get actually get in.
I won’t pretend that I know anything about classical music that grants me the expertise to write anything sensible as a review on this particular piece; I can just say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the opening bit where the entire choir (yes there was a choir) backed the orchestra up. I was told by my expert flatmate that this was indeed the best bit of the over two hour piece, though the fact that it was sung in English rather than the original German did attenuate the enthusiasm of the crowd a bit. What I found most surprising was more of a personal experience: when I listen to ‘my’ kind of music, I tend to focus more on the instrumentation. I think that might have something to do with the fact that I play guitar and keys a bit myself. But in this setting, the vocals appeared to be the main attraction. Lowlight: sitting on a wooden bench for over two hours doesn’t do wonders for one’s bum.
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