What The Hell Is Going On? #38: Concrete and Glass Week
By: Thomas Hannan
Hey mate.
I’m sure you’ll agree that there are a finite number of colours and sounds in the world, and this is a world which has been going a fair while. Quite predictably, we’re running out of interesting ways in which to combine and juxtapose things that tickle our sonic or visual artistic fancy. Bands, artists, anyone with any kind of creative endeavour driving their work – it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be different. It’s not that there’s no longer any fun to be had bashing out the same four chords or painting a particularly stirring, ahdunno, landscape or fruit bowl or something. It’s just sadly rare at the moment that anything knocks you off your feet with how peculiar it sounds, that combines those aforementioned sounds and colours in a way you haven’t thought about before.
It’s for this reason that we love Concrete and Glass so much – a festival combining weird paintings with weird performances, weird sculptures, weird music, weird films and anything else from the brains a group of likeminded individuals who are at least interested in the idea of doing something outside of the norm, and have to be roundly commended for giving it a bloody good go.
Rockfeedback TV was lucky enough to cover the first Concrete and Glass event for a Channel 4 series we made back in 2008. In celebration of the continuance of this year’s event, this week we give online premieres to both parts of the resulting documentary, the first airing today (HERE), with the second following it on Wednesday. Across the two episodes you can expect performances and interviews from the likes of TV On The Radio, The Big Pink, Bass Clef, Ludovico Einaudi, Errors, Holy Ghost Revival, Kid Harpoon, Little Boots, Micachu, The Oscillation, Kimmo Pohjonen, James Yuill, Vladislav Delay, Cibelle, Flashguns, Owl Project, Alog, Pens, Sweet Baboo, Teeth of the Sea, Threatmantics and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Thursday’s Rockfeedback TV action comes in the form of a special piece on O’Death shot at the same festival – and that’s where Concrete and Glass week ceases to be.
Friday, y’see, is the start of the weekend of The Drums. We shot a recent, Morrissey-attended gig at London’s teeny Old Blue Last and met up with the guys for a frank and witty chin wag after their set – the footage is a cacophonous beast that deserves a weekend to itself, so we’ll leave it on the telly player the whole of Friday, Saturday and Sunday for you to soak it up.
Never mind that, what are Rockfeedback Live up to this week? That’s what the kids are chanting in the playground of the school just down Penton Road, as far as I can tell by briefly sticking my head out the window. The answer? Lots, as bloody usual. There’s a gig going on tonight (Monday) we’re co-running with our friends at This Is Music. Crocodiles, Human Hair and Colours are going to be playing at it. It’s at The Stag’s Head in Dalston, and it’s completely free. There’s another show of ours on Thursday (20/5), when highlights of our SXSW trip Neon Indian get all chillwave on us at CAMP Basement in the vicinity of London’s Old Street. Support comes from Visions of Trees and Dam Mantle, and though very few tickets remain, you can be the proud owner of one that does by heading HERE and parting with a mere £7.50.
I’m excited because the Perfume Genius album’s just found its way in to my hands - potentially the debut of the year, if the demos are anything to go by. I’ll let you know...
Tom.x