Column: Gordon Raphael #18, July 2004
By: Gordon Raphael, Gruff-Rhys / Graham Coxon
It's freezing, and it's raining - they call this summer festival Oxygen here in Dublin.
We woke at 3am to fly here and play in the New Bands Tent... that's us, Black-Light.
A psychedelic stew of mushrooms and buzzy guitar riffs, complemented with some sort of poetry and synth-noize. The festival just began, and already it's quite scary and hilarious. Kids are dressed in free, plastic ponchos embossed with the logo of some insurance company (how very rock). Non-descript Heineken logos replace what might have been original artwork and paintings at a creative exhibition, and scorched hot dogs mingle with the chilly black summer clouds. One boy looks grumpy and blank as he passes out on his rain-soaked girlfriend, his pills and vodka kicked in way too early (it's only noon) and he probably won't see any of the bands. (Highlights include The Cure, The Strokes, PJ Harvey and of course... us lot!). The lad's drifting off reminds me of how I was at my first ever indoor rock show; Black Sabbath it was, and some Strawberry Boone's Hill wine had me out cold by the middle of the first song.
Jordi, the fantastic singer for Satellites from Mallorca (now living in London!) is here with me and is nodding off to unconscious-ville too as he pretends to read an Alduos Huxley book (in English) with his eyes closed. I am grateful to The Strokes, not only for having me working on their next set of songs towards their 3rd album in NYC, but for inviting my rock band to perform here, tomorrow in Glasgow's T in the Park and at both V -
Festivals in England next month. Rock and roll Toni, my sweet and amazing Finnish guitarist has just checked the setlist, and we're on in less than an hour from now... The rehearsals have been epic and cool, and we are all super-psyched to be plying our magic on a crowd of real human-beings in the rain.
Black-Light has our first single '2-Track Mind' and its racy little video about to come out in the UK August 16th, in time to register some mystical punk-rock vibrations for the V-Fests. Yes it's coming out on Shoplifter (www.shoplifterrecords.co.uk) and our full length debut effort 'The White Album' follows in late September/early October following Regina Spektor's astounding and inspirational 'Soviet Kitsch' CD, and Satellites' (Mallorca) 3rd album, which by the way, is positively excellent.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, the new recording-studio (to replace the old Transporterraum NYC since we were evicted on distortion, noise and bad behaviour charges) sounds and feels like a throbbing, creative world, Quite comfortable and homey in a dark, moody way. Already The Strokes are serving up new visions of great music, new songs and an extraordinarily harmonious comraderie. Telefunken, EMI Beatles circuits, API (Pink Floyd machines), antique Amek channels, and Blakey-Boy Neve modules from Funky Junk London are all part of the sound-production tools there; as well as the unfamiliar presence of outer-space chirps and low rumblings of old analogue synthesizers. Working alongside of Julian, Albert, Nick, Nikolai and Fabrizio, while also focusing on Black-Light and Shoplifter Records will be my year... starting now! In between getting into bad trouble and taking lessons in Love and Lust, of course.
Positronic shout-outs to Toby L at rockfeedback, Peter Libertine who escaped from the poisonous monks of Thailand, Anna Mercedes and Andy Chatterley of the cryptic electro-orchestra Demeter, and, always, Satellites, bridging the sea between Mallorca and London. Big thank-you's to Mark Chung, Angie Sommerside and Tara Richardson at Sony SINE, for pushing the Shoplifter Records concept into a kicking reality. And thank you thank you to the Wiz Kid Management team - Ryan, Juliet, Esperanza and Matt for making my life smooth and work easy in New York City.
I saw two of the coolest bands ever last Thursday at Sean McClusky's night at On The Rocks. The Bisons from London, and Death From Above from Toronto (about to change their name...) with a new album 'Part Woman, Part Machine' on 679 Recordings. The Bisons surprised the hell out of me with a perfect blend of mechanical sounding pulses of Synth, interlocking warbly guitar + Marshall guitar and freaky Rickenbacker fuzz bass. In the midst of that (with a flawless live sound mix that night), note-perfect singing from Sara harmonizing with the vocals from the bassist. The energy of the music, melodic ingenuity and abrasive, though provoking nature of the song lyrix make this band quite lusted after by me to sign, and study further... The Toronto band were just bass and drums, with the bearded drummer singing. But the rhythms and sheer dazzling speed of the bass in that band, with its crazy blown out transistorized sound on 100 (speed = 5 light years per second) made me, and many others in the crowd, freak out rather nicely.
Well, we go onstage now, watch out New Bands Stage!! I'll give you a rundown of our performance after the fact. PEACE, and hopefully summer sun: G.R.
ADDENDUM: Well, it went OK. There were 1,000 kids watching us and it seemed to me that our music was creating a 'vibe' for sure. The onstage sound was funny/not-so-cool, as the Fender amp the festival gave me to use was far, far inferior to the gorgeous specimen of a 1070's Twin that i regularly play through, that gives a tremendously warm and aggressive tone, making me feel like gawd-head when i play through it. And the no-soundcheck ordeal they stick to young bands like us ensures a comedic scramble for sonic survival once the first song starts.
Later in the day we encountered some shitty luck at the Dublin airport as Ryan-Air had misbooked one plane to two different destinations. We were bumped off our flight to Glasgow, and had to sleep rough-style on a filthy airport floor in bitter cold, with bright fluorescent white lights and noise galore. And indeed for the next day too, we were missing connections to our hotels, and just grabbing any old sleep that we could on long bus-rides and on two other airport floors. Like jet-age bums, we were. When i finally took my pointy silver shoes off after three days of having them strapped on, my feet were shaped slightly differently.
In an unwashed and slightly comatose state we all arrived in Glasgow for T in the Park Festival, featuring N.E.R.D., Kings Of Leon, PJ Harvey and The Strokes. For the first 2.5 hours we were marched unceremoniously around the fairgrounds in a harsh and almost comical way. As Black-Light were booked to play The T Break stage, the security guards, parking lot attendants and guest-list staff all had a go at us - shoving their pent-up disrespect and bottled up aggression in our faces. In our sleep-deprived state it was all a bit cruel. Finally, Steve, one of the festival's top promoters came to our rescue, just as my grumpiness level was escalating to a wild rage. He totally sorted us out with amazing meals and entrance to the Rock-Star encampment where all the mega-musicians and top-billed bands were hanging out, having fun. That was our turning-point on Sunday. Well fed, but still hallucinating from lack of sleep, Black-Light stormed the T Break Stage and we performed an excellent set, with our man Nick Abbott crafting the perfect mix all the way through.
Redeemed and very happy, we then saw The Strokes give one of the best shows I've ever seen them do in front of a sea of very happy fans. People stretched out as far as the eye could see, and even the dark foreboding clouds stepped back to show a bright and moody sky. I was a-moovin and a-groovin on the side of their stage with Jordi Satellite, Drew Barrymore (the nicest lady in rock!), Amanda Decadenet (tied for first place in her sweetness), Wiz Kid king Ryan Gentles, Booking Agent supreme Russell Warby, and the Rough Trade family James Endeacott and Kelly Kiley. The clouds became ice cream castles and The Strokes set to blow everyone right out of this world.
Incidentally, I spied Mr. Pharrell Williams of N.E.R.D, backstage. He is a producer so legendary and talented that I can only dream! The Captain of my record label, Paul Harrison (from Liverpool) gently prodded me until I went up and introduced myself to Pharrell. We want to show him the music of Char Johnson, a fabulous new singer/artist that Shoplifter hopes to sign. She is most definitely worthy of Pharrell's attention and ability, we believe, and I shall describe her music in detail in my next article. Suffice it to say that I feel that the Musical Mojo of the Universe has once again directed me to an important new force in the form of Char and her band, based in New Paltz, New York.
Pharrell Williams was very friendly and open towards me and I was quite pleased that he likes The Strokes records... Out in the glorious countryside of Scotland, the distant planets and star-filled night sky seemed to quiver and dance.
View Gordon's Quicktime photo-diary of the festival trips here.