Week Commencing: 17/5/04
By: Toby L
Hello Friends,
Well, the reactions have been piling in. The all-new rockfeedback is a week old and we're suffering the hangover after seven days of jubilations and ridiculous drinking to mark this event. Seriously, thank you greatly for all your encouragement, emails, bribes and warm wishes - we do appreciate and value it. It's only the start, we promise.
The Issue: This week, and to kick off our soon-to-be-regular reader-insights, we ask of you: are British festivals still about the music?. In an age where outdoor music-events are oft perceived as drenched in corporate sponsorship, reeking of undercooked meat and being pant-messingly overpriced (and tougher than ever to actually buy tickets for, due to ridiculous demand), how can love, peace and good aural accompaniment really collide to form a truly life-affirming weekend amidst such potentially sordid conditions? Or, have such factors helped to secure more variety, exclusivity or choice on festival-bills - after all, that wedge from any sponsors can help secure more of your faves on the line-up, right? Your thoughts: theissue@rockfeedback.com - random extracts from y'all will appear here next week.
Highlights for rockfeedback in the last seven days: wrestling a certain, floppy-haired rock-musician at 7:29am in a West London park after a tree-climbing session; impromptu breakdancing at a techno-soundtracked birthday-party that we weren't even invited to on Saturday night; impromptu breakdancing following Kill Kenada's vicious onslaught of a performance in dreary High Wycombe; seeing the glorious Distophia sock it to 'em at the Metro on Oxford Street (cheers for the song-dedication, fellas); Secret Machines deafening us within a transvestite-club, Madame Jo-Jo's, in a wonderfully intimate, moody, invite-only showing; watching a terrified Morrissey refrain from smacking Jonathan Ross in the gob on the latter's television-show during a painfully rigid interview; and witnessing Artrocker's night at the Buffalo Bar on Friday, complete with an impossibly noisy effort from dance-punkers The Chinese Stars... the drummer had some balls wearing those glasses, we can tell you.
Alt UK chart-action: ooh, sassy - the aforementioned Mozzer has scored a top-three hit with 'Irish Blood, English Heart', thus his biggest chart-placement to date (number 4 in the Billboard charts, USA-wise), while, most impressively, Kasabian have scored a top-20 entrance with the hammering 'Club Foot', one place ahead of Goldfrapp's reissue of 'Strict Machine'. Otherwise, The Modey Lemon burst into the top-75 at, er, 75, Peter Doherty's Babyshambles project goes in at 32 with a release of the same name, and veterans The Charlatans scrape a worrisomely lowly entry at 22 with their return-45, 'Up At The Lake'. Keane have savaged the album-charts, meanwhile, proving their stake as the nation's most popular band this week, entering as they have at number-one (and, yikes, just to think that we staged their smallest ever London headline just three months back at The Basement Club...), and The Streets have gone in at number-two with 'A Grand Don't Come For Free'.
Gigs this week, London: get your asses down to the Germanic avant-garde-pop thrills and shrills of Ladyfuzz at the Highbury Buffalo Bar (Wednesday 19th May; £5:00 on door); or, the same night, in the same area, examine Grassroots Xchange's first ever live-promotion at the Carling Islington Academy, with effervescent synth-punks Corporation:Blend and New Disease, amongst others, fitting the bill; again, the distorto-fuzzpots Secret Machines are socking it to 'em at the London Monarch (Monday 17th May; £6:00); and Agent Blue hit the Water Rats, Kings Cross on Thursday (20th May; £5:00 advance). Gotta love the toilet-circuit.
Current rockfeedback playlist: the disco-pop of Phoenix and their new LP 'Alphabetical'; Devendra Banhart's subtly intoxicating XL Recordings debut, 'Rejoicing In The Hands...'; Swedish eight-piece The Concretes' new, eponymous album; and demos from The Magic Numbers - we can't get enough of 'em.
Out now: the new record from Graham Coxon, 'Happiness In Magazines', plus 'You Are The Quarry', the long-awaited studio-return from a certain Mancunian, self-turned middle-class icon (for the love of God, another mention of Morrissey?), and a nicely massive double-LP of early works from Richard H Kirk, 'Earlier/Later' (speaking of trendy, scraping, '80s dance - anyone see the (temporarily) reformed Throbbing Gristle at the Astoria over the weekend? Brag - i_saw_throbbing_gristle_you_didnt@rockfeedback.com).
That'll do. See you next week, and - shy peeps - don't hesitate to write in and share some words. We don't bite.