awkwardkennethsmusicblog-blog

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The Excellent Crushed Beaks at The Lexington

A week ago the Crushed Beaks were just another vaguely indie ish, garage rock ish band that I’d played a handful of times on Soundcloud. Then an evening ready to go to waste coincided with a local gig of theirs, a launch party for their new single, ‘Tropes’. A spot of pre-gig youtube browsing left me baffled. Reprezent Radio’s ‘Indie Pizza Challenge’ shows frontman Matthew Poile telling viewers in a 4 minute long endurance test of awkwardness that, ‘I think… I think… I think... usually… you know… simple is… is better… I think people… you know… tend to want to cram too many things on.’ Was I letting myself in for the most painful between song chatter of all time? Or is this just what happens when you get someone to talk about pizza for 4 minutes? Then there’s a clip of an acoustic session in a chapel and the wonderfully edited video for their latest single ‘Tropes.’ There really is no comparison for this one.  It’s a psychedelic biology lesson. Archive natural world footage with Attenborough’s gentle tones supplanted by a rowdy garage rock band. There is no doing it justice.

Totem were first to take to the stage on the night. They began the show playing to about 3 of us, including the lass behind the bar and another bloke who looked rather lost, but half an hour later the venue was filling out nicely. Novella were next up with a set that included such wonderfully titled tracks as ‘Don’t believe Ayn Rand’, a song I later found they explained in their line of best fit interview as a criticism of the misrepresentation of the Russian-American essayist. At the time though, I’m afraid to say such nuances were lost in their scuzzy, guitar heavy sound.

As the Crushed Beaks took to the stage, it soon became clear that they weren’t here to mumble about the wrongs of over cramming pizza. Stoked! Instead they set about playing songs that with few exceptions were very, very good. Between the two of them there is a real flare for writing the less obvious song and playing with the less obvious sound. It’s interesting to listen to but equally importantly it’s fun to. Sadly the crowd was such that I never got past the head nodding stage. Perhaps I’m getting the genre all wrong, but this is music I could charge full pelt at strangers to.

And they seemed confident with decent stage presence as well. They didn’t do anything too outrageous. There was no manufactured charisma on show here. That wasn’t needed. I just got the aura that they felt far more at home here than, say, on an indie pizza challenge. They didn’t talk a huge deal between songs, save for an unnervingly calm threat of a hurled guitar from Mr Poile if we didn’t move towards the speakers. We did, and it was a good suggestion too. I can’t recommend cramming some Crushed Beaks in your ear hole enough. 

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Babyshambles New Album Review

 ‘The Sequel to the Prequel’ has been out on general sale for well over a week, but that isn’t the only reason why this review has little purpose beyond being a bit of practice for someone struggling to find proper work experience. I think you already know whether you’ll like the album or not.

  The Camden lock dwelling, trilby wearing prats parted with their hard earned pennies to watch Doherty’s very worst French film appearance so they were always going to greet the Sequel by doing whatever it is that they do when feeling jubilant. Writing a poem or something.

  On the other side, there are plenty looking for any scrap of evidence that Doherty is a washed up, greasy haired junky who’s been well passed sell by date since circa 2003 and has forearms to prove it. There’s plenty in this album to find. The lyrics feel a little sloppy in places, especially on the title track, and it feels like there are less of those glorious subtleties that characterised the first 2 Libertines albums. Doherty has always filled out his lyrics with references to the degenerate lifestyle he’s led for well over a decade. But here they are a little less subtle than they once were. Barely 30 seconds into opening track Fireman and he’s already professing ‘it’s breakfast time, have a pot of wine.’

  His critics may have a point. On the accompanying track commentary for Fireman, bassist Drew McConnell tells how he wants the opener to dispel any illusions that the Babyshambles have gone soft. In his view the lary guitars prove that it’s ‘the same old shambles’. But it isn’t quite the same old shambles. The old shambles, and to a greater extent the old Libertines, had a great talent at doing a real loud punky rock and roll song but keeping all the sleekness and intelligence of their most delicate acoustic number. It’s a good song but it’s not another ‘Time for Heroes’ or ‘8 Dead Boys.’ It’s not the same old shambles.

  For those of us who see Pete as a great talent only partially wasted, this is also the album we’d expect. The great songwriter he is shines through in places, such as on the single ‘Nothing comes to Nothing’, and there are a great many good tracks which could almost be passed off as the same old shambles. But they aren’t quite what they once were. It’s all a little less intelligent, a little less nuanced and a little less interesting to listen to.

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One day, I’ll write about bands when they actually do something. I could write up gigs or new songs or whatever proper music journalists do. That, however, requires my lazy self to write an article and stick it on the blog before it passes its sell by date. So for now, I’m sticking to the arguably irrelevant. Here’s a new(ish) band I like. They’re called the Wytches. This is why I like ‘em.

  Reason 1: They’ve got an interesting sound. I’m always a sucker for bands that don’t fit neatly into the ringbinder file of this genre or that genre. In past interviews they’ve described their style as ‘surf doom’. As well as working well musically, I love the juxtaposition of the imagery: a big smelly slipknot hoody wearing mosher on a beach, surrounded by palm trees in New South Wales or Cape Town. Not that the Wytches are big smelly slipknot hoody wearing moshers. They’ve kept well and firmly away from everything shit about ‘doom’ and vice versa. The surfer music no longer sounds annoyingly jangly and irrelevant to wet old England (they’re originally from Peterborough) and the hard rock/ metal element is now more than listenable.

  Reason 2: Kristian Bell’s vocals. Strangled? Is that the correct cliché? Whatever. His occasionally hoarse voice on this acoustic version of Crying Clown (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWZATRI1Xsw ) makes it one of the best songs I’ve heard…I dunno…all week.

  Reason 3: They sound deranged, unhinged, straight out of your local mental asylum. Digsaw is especially dramatic: a psychopath’s mental breakdown in music form. ‘I’m not honest, I’m not honest, I’m so selfish, and dishonest’ Bell sings. It’s sheer drama for 3 minutes straight.

  Reason 4: They don’t put out any old rubbish. The second side of their Beehive Queen single is Crying Clown, a brilliant song. After a search beyond the realms of spotify and soundcloud, and into the rarely seen 3rd page of results on youtube, I still can’t find a song of theirs I don’t like.

  Reason 5: Apparently they’re good live. I haven’t been yet, but plenty of people have told me they are. They’re playing in London tonight and tomorrow night (supporting Japandroids at Dingwalls tonight and then in Tooting tomorrow) and if I can scrabble together a few pennies then a live review will hopefully be hitting you shortly.

Woodhead

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If I keep this blog up I’ll almost inevitably become a disillusioned bloke, bored of the world and bored of music, spending my free time slagging off young people having fun making music. So, as to give me room to regress, my first post is about Crushed Beaks, a London based duo on ASL records, and one of my favourite bands around right now. They’re probably best described as garage rock: loud with often indistinguishable vocals. They’ve got the right balance between a messy mayhem of a sound (I was surprised to find that there are just two of them) and neat well crafted tunes.

  My favourite of these is Horror Shorts, the B-side to their biggest single, Breakdown. The lone soundcloud annotation describes it as tasting ‘like a summers kiss’. Whilst I’d rather not phrase it like, for fear of sounding like a bell end, in hindsight that’s not a bad description. I managed to listen to this song throughout my A-Level summer. It reminds me of a wasted June spent learning the nuances of Disraeli’s 1876 Merchant Shipping Act, as sun poured through my window. But re-listening to it, post exam season, it sounds euphoric. Not tacky stadium rock euphoria. But genuine, messy, real life euphoria.

  It’s never easy to describe a sound well, so give them a listen. If any of the links aren’t working, give us a shout in the comments and I’ll try and get it sorted. I’m still getting used to this whole blogging thing. Crushed Beaks are around at various festivals/ gigs this summer. If you want it from the horses mouth follow them on twitter @CrushedBeaks and while you’re at it, follow us at @awkwardkenneth.

  Woodhead

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A Bit of an Intro

Alright everyone. I’m Louis Woodhead and I’ve decided to take a giants leap towards journalistic stardom by starting a blog. Given that this will most likely be read by 12 people tops, I’ll keep the intro brief. I’ve got time on my hands, I enjoy writing and I enjoy music: so here’s my blog. Hopefully one day something will come of it but I’m not getting my hopes up. I’ll write primarily about music I’m into, whether it was released yesterday or in the 60’s, although I’ll try and leave a little space to slag off the Tom Odell’s of this world. I’ve got quite broad tastes so hopefully there’ll be something of interest for most, but if your musical diet consists of nothing other than obscure metal bands then it might be best to jog on. Finally, if you want to contribute, just drop me a message on twitter (@awkwardkenneth) or facebook .