Capsule's 10th Anniversary
By: Liam Manley
‘It’s all just a journey’, I think they say, ‘but it’s not where you’re going, man, it’s where you’re from’. So, with that in mind, if life’s a motorway, then Coventry’s a service station and I’m a stale cheese ploughmans. In other words, welcome to The City Of Peace & Reconciliation – here’s what you can look forward to: summer, at best, is stuffy heat through grey gauze, while winter is just an excuse for more misery. We gave the world The Specials (not that we’d ever let you forget), but then we also gave the world Pete Waterman. We excel at second-tier disappointment football and have honours in alcohol-related violence. A recently exiled friend once described a large proportion of its inhabitants (both male and female) as binge drinkers with sailor tattoos. But, like parents who defend their precious children and yet know in their hearts that their offspring are shitnosed brats, there’s no way I’ll ever hear it badmouthed.
So what does Coventry have going for it? Well, according to a campaign a few years ago (entitled ‘CovenTry It’), the highlights were threefold: it’s an hour away from London by train; we have a large number of car parking spaces; it’s near Birmingham. Damned with faint praise doesn’t even begin to describe it. But they’re right about Birmingham; it’s roughly 20 minutes by train. They have two Premiership teams (both of which we hate, neither of which are the slightest bit concerned about us), they have Black Sabbath (first four LPs, people), and even a website called Birmingham: It’s Not Shit dedicated to highlighting the good work of its citizens. One such group are Capsule, a music promotions duo responsible for Supersonic Festival, who recently celebrated their 10th birthday with a series of gigs. In the spirit of neighbourly conduct, I decided to jump into their garden and go through their bins.
[MONOTONIX]
Monotonix/Bee Stung Lips/Esquillax/Cum Dogs – Vivid, Birmingham
I arrive early to interview Monotonix, so we decamp to a nearby pub and spend our time battling to hear ourselves above the TV commentary of Spurs vs Man Utd
Liam Manley: So, in Tel Aviv, where you’re from, what are the key influences on the city? From what I understand, you don’t feel part of the scene there…
Ami (vocals): “No, we are not part of anything there, because we don’t play in Israel. We are not active there. We don’t make music there, but we are part of Israel. But we are not part of the music community.”
LM: So, do you feel Israel has influenced you in any way?
A: “Yeah, of course. Everything. The energy. The way we think, the way we act – everything. The attitude…
LM: The spirit?
A: “Sure. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you do, the spirit is the most important thing. I mean, English people, American people, it doesn’t matter; whether it’s rock, folk or metal… or funk… they have their own country’s spirit.”
LM: So, you guys don’t play in Tel Aviv anymore – was there some kind of controversy?
A: “Well…… er…. (laughter)……….. not a lot of things happen there. It’s small. You can’t really expand there. There’s people that play in a few clubs.”
H: “It’s small, but you can go out (inaudible – drowned out by Sky Sports commentary). But it’s funny, when punk came to Israel… It’s funny if you compare it to when punk happened here, it was completely different.”
LM: Perhaps, but punk’s very political and Israel is a very small country, but one with large political repercussions – how does that effect music in Israel?
A: “I don’t know… I think the political issue is so real and so big that people don’t have the energy to deal with it through music or art, because you’re dealing with it every day. Maybe here in the UK or in the US there’s not so much trouble like in Israel, I mean not real trouble… perhaps with integration, but you’ve got the energy to deal with it in your music – this your way to say “things are wrong here”. In Israel, it’s your reality every day, right here in front of your face, so when you’re doing music or you want to play a show, you don’t want to deal with it."
LM: Do you think the humid weather has an impact, also?
A&H: “Yeah!”
A: “You can’t play fast and hard!”
[BEESTUNG LIPS]
With that, we head back into Vivid, having missed Cum Dogs opening set. This gives me time to walk around the venue, a white walled gallery in a former industrial space, decorated tonight with the posters and flyers of previous Capsule events. While Esquillax bring the one-man screaming white noise terror, I stare at the huge timeline that spans the back wall; charting the dates and artists for each show curated, thinking: what the f**k was I doing to not be at all these shows? I’m still trying to resolve this when Bee Stung Lips take the stage. I’d seen the lead singer, Biff, marching about earlier, dressed like an S&M Nazi chauffeur. Now he was onstage, sweaty and almost shirtless, looking like Midge Ure channelling Henry Rollins and dangling the microphone away at arms-length like a cum-filled sock. When he does turn it towards his mouth, he hollers and rants, while the other Lips plough and muscle their way through taut, economic Albini-esque patterns with scant regard for fatigue. Unfortunately, things overrun to the extent that I have to leave to get my train home, so I only have time to say goodbye to Monotonix, who are just changing into their Fabulous Freak Brothers FC stage wear. I’m genuinely upset to not see them, but there’re always other times, and there’s more fun to come.
Tunng/Six Organs Of Admittance/Lightning Dust/Bela Emerson – Town Hall, Birmingham
Upon meeting Ben Chasny, Six Organs Of Admittance’s main man, he immediately suggests conducting the interview in his dressing room shower. Sadly, he’s only pissing around – just as I thought I’d stumbled upon a new angle for the article. Instead we wander around the maze of backstage corridors, in search of a more suitable spot. ‘God, it’s like The Shining’, says Ben. Before it gets a little too Lookout Hotel, we settle for sitting on some coffin-like freezer units.
[SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE]
LM: So, I’m trying to get an idea about hometowns and environments… where are you from?
Ben Chasny: “Well, I live in Seattle now, but that’s only for the last year. Basically, I’ve been based in California.”
LM: I find that American musicians are much more itinerant and constantly shifting around…
BC: “Yeah, I guess they do. There’s a lot of places to go and explore. So, [sometimes] you go on tour and you end up liking a place and end up moving there.”
LM: So, weather aside, how do California and Seattle compare?
BC: “Weather’s a big part of it actually – it rains so much in Seattle. It’s like… yeah, it’s cheaper for us: we were living in San Francisco, and it, in our particular part of San Francisco… in order to live in san Francisco or the Bay Area, you have to live in really kind of violent places, at least if you’re not making a lot of money. And it got just too violent, too expensive, so we kinda high-tailed it out. But we’re looking for places… I live with Elisa [Ambrogio – Magik Markers and current SOoA touring member], and we’re looking for places to go back to California, because I grew up there. It’s kind of my home and I miss it. But there’s a lot of great musicians in Seattle. It’s crazy, moving up there. So people who have great bands that don’t really tour, they’re kind of secret bands, that just only play Seattle. People were like, ‘oh, you’ve got to see this band, this band…’ and they don’t put out many records, just everybody knows them, they’ve been playing for 10 or 15 years and it’s nothing like what your idea of Seattle music was or anything to do with grunge. Like, the Sun City Girls – do you know Sun City Girls?”
LM: Oh yeah, I saw one of their last shows.
BC: “So, those guys all live up there and it’s a really great scene. Between the guys in Sun City Girls and the guys in Earth, they form all these different bands that play up there. Like, there’s this great band called The Diminished Men, kind of like a surf-noir – somewhere between Dick Dale and the soundtrack to Twin Peaks – really loud, really great, just creepy and eerie, and the guitar player’s amazing. You just don’t hear about them, and friends are like ‘you gotta go see them’. They just released an album, actually, on the Sun City Girls label, Abduction. I’m pretty impressed by the music up there. I mean, it’s like a lot of places, people talk a lot, but they don’t do a lot, you know? They have their MySpace page and they do a bunch of stuff, but like Seattle’s the opposite – they don’t talk a lot, they just do a bunch of music. So, it’s been pretty cool living there.”
[LIGHTNING DUST]
We’re interrupted by an announcement over the PA that Bela Emerson is due onstage, so we say goodbye, wish each other luck and try to find a way back. I pass Lightning Dust’s Joshua Wells in the corridor, who, mimicking the PA, announces: “Ladies and gentlemen, Lightning Dust are really stoned right now!” Later, after Emerson’s bewitching solo looped cello set, Wells will impart to the audience that the Town Hall is “probably the poshest place we’ve played on tour”. That’s as may be, but the concert hall via Trust House Forte vibe feels a little sterile. Regardless, Lightning Dust adapt as best they can, with their simple arrangements of honey-lit sunset country allowing Amber Webber’s tremulous voice to captivate.
Six Organs, on the other hand, have no such regard for gentility, swiftly cranking up the psyche-rock explosion I didn’t know I needed. A guitar three-way between Chasny and Elisa Ambrogio’s squalling interplay, and Andrew Mitchell’s baritone a substitute for bass, displays both nimble flair and abandon. A perfect surprise. No time for Tunng, though, as I’ve got to head home, but not before I’ve picked up a copy of Six Organs’ The Sun Awakens. Later that night I drift away on ‘River of Transfiguration’ like Benjamin L. Willard, wondering if I’ll ever really execute my chosen Kurtz (Capsule), or if I’ll just end up as clueless as when I started.
[LIGHTNING BOLT]
Lightning Bolt/Tweak Bird/Pete Prescription – Vivid, Birmingham
After work, dinner and even a sprint to the station, I’m late again, missing Pete Prescription’s opening set. Bone- sodden from the rain, with wool shrinking and sticking to me like the fur of a dozen damp dogs, I stand before Tweak Bird. They have a gong. A massive gong, like somebody dared them to bring it. They giggle as they strike it and start into their southern-harmony soaked Sabbath boogie. The drums/guitar sibling duo, a not too distant branch from the Melvins/Big Business family tree, offer a portal to down-tuned distorto space-rock with good manners and acceptable levels of hirsutitude. At one point a third (unrelated) Tweaker pops up with a flute accompaniment and I somehow don’t hate it. He then puts down the pipe, picks up a sax and blows some welcome Funhouse skronk. The brothers beat the gong and all is well.
I see people putting their ear plugs in place, anticipating Lightning Bolt. I decide I’m going to experience this completely unprotected. I couldn’t get interview time with the masked duo, so I settle instead for having my head blown clear by their gonzoid clusterf**k. There’s no real way to prepare yourself for LB, so you just have to go with it, let every idiotic attempt at a slam pit just pass you by – you’re too busy trying to survive the onslaught; too busy keeping up; too busy trying to fucking breathe. Ted Nugent could well be hammering intensities in ten cities across my skull right now and I’d be blissfully unaware, safe, warm and content inside Lightning Bolt’s maelstrom. But then something does manage to engage – I need to go home (again). I swiftly run the length of Digbeth to the station, useless brains still pouring out of my ears.
Sunn O)))/Om – The Asylum, Birmingham
The first thing I notice is that there’s definitely something in the air. The lobby bar is pure hair metal, decked out in Slippery When Wet picture discs and the owners are lovely Saxondale sorts. The bar staff wear white lab coats and serve snakebite and black. There’s even talk of them serving pies upstairs. As I bear witness to the sea of metalheads gathered beneath the cattle shed roof of The Asylum, it dawns on me: there’s nothing hipster about this place.
[OM]
Last time I was watching Om’s Al Cisneros play, he was in the re-united Sleep, hammering me through Holy Mountain. That night the sound was so dense, so tangible that a friend thought he could scale up it. Tonight, the trick is a little subtler. Tonight, it’s just his rolling Rickenbacker bass, Emil Amos’ precise splashing and interjections from erstwhile 90 Day man Rob Lowe. The more considered approach allows room for Cisneros’ lyrical drone, his body bobbing, lurching and twitching with each rhythm and counter rhythm. I bob, lurch and vibrate along with them. Lowe, tagging along for the ride, cocks back his head, opens his mouth like Zoltar and emits a holy wail. The Lichens main man’s contribution is enough to suggest that he might be considered for a permanent position.
If Om were loud, my bones are almost calcified by the shattering Sunn O))) sound. Vision blurred by the quake of Gregg Anderson’s bass, I almost don’t believe what’s happening: Mayhem frontman Attilla Csihar is a tree. A tree surrounded by monks. The fire alarm’s going off too. Something in O’Malley’s smoke machine, reckon the staff. The dry ice seeps into the pores of the building, billowing out the plastic strips separating the building from the adjacent smoking yard. Csihar continues his incantations. As I once again begin the retreat back to the station for the last train home, Sunn O)))’s fog follows us down the street. I imagine it inhabiting the buildings and cars, soaking into the tarmac and brick, as though it was a spirit returning to its rightful home.
Photos by Katja Ogrin
Artists in this article: Om, Sunn O))), Lightning Bolt, Lightning Dust, Six Organs of Admittance, Monotonix, Beestung Lips, Esquilax, Tweak Bird