Tues Life

Just a brief bulletin to mention that Elbow won the Mercury Music Prize; introduce you to London's boy/girl arch-angular types Lux Lisbon; point you in the direction of Weebl and Bob destroying everything Ladytron touched in not safe for work adult animation (via Sweeping The Nation) and urge reading of RussL's spectacularly belated Supersonic 08 review.

Oh, and Anja's writing everyday now. You know what to do.

Still Smokin'

StrangeTime, The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham, Friday March 14 2008, 9pm.

This is your bashful blogger's first venture into The Rainbow since staggering in for some much needed grub during the Supersonic Festival back in 2005. It's a longer walk from New Street than remembered, so just as well there's long-suffering Toon Army trouper Ben along for company during the hefty stride to the venue. It's a big sprawling pub that's had something of a makeover in the intervening three years, and the bands play in what clearly used to be a backyard with a new roof, with an adjoining can bar and an open-plan kitchen area where burgers and other hot sundries are being cooked.

It is, of course, not just the beef patties and onion strips sizzling once Kate Finch and StrangeTime arrive on stage in bold, if slightly belated, fashion. Technical issues with distortion pedals are brushed to one side as they launch into 'Profile' (aka their 'MySpace song' with the lines 'so you've guessed/I'm self-obsessed') from their new ep, and yet as technically impressive as some of their new songs are, it's one of their oldest tunes, 'Ex-Boyfriend', given an extra roar of feeling tonight that someone's ears must be burning (and we don't mean from the barbecue smoke, either) that seems to get the neutrals right behind them. Our normally reliable source, the good General Hubbub, advises us the band have won quite a few new friends tonight with no prisoners taken (including John's drumstick at one point) during a feisty, fiery set.

Ben and your hurrying hack then need to make a fairly hasty exit to Wok'n'Roll, a cosy, boutique Chinese restaurant with a karaoke adjunct, to say a boisterous bon voyage to Alison who's escaping her role as occasional gig-going companion to your socially-challenged so-and-so for a new life in Bristol. We hope the local shops have had advance warning to stock up on Haribo!

Now we know what you're thinking, it's all very well for Dead Kenny to go on hobnobbing hi-jinks in intimate, fashionable ethnic eateries, but what about the other bands on the StrangeTime bill that we've casually left in the lurch of potential internet obscurity? Luckily then for your unreliable uberpundit the good Baron has swooped into view to review the whole fandangle and ensure the completists aren't hard up for comprehensive content. Huzzah!

Blast Off

Happy New Year to all Parallax View readers everywhere. Yeah, even you.

Out with the old and all that, so let's get this party started with a crudely ripped linkdump.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Robyn's back for another Wilder reunion with the internetwhatnot.

Here's something to put a lightbulb in your milkglass: Hitchcock Blonde. Writer/actress, yeah we know.

Live recordings from Supersonic 07 includes our pick of Gig Of The Year, Beestung Lips!

Kevin Greening RIP.

Steve Gerrard Rock Photographer. He shoots bands for three score.

Simon has again lovingly compiled the UK Blogger Poll of Polls for Albums of 2007. 7 of our top 10 made the 50.

Still feeling listless? The Top 10 Celebrity Sex Moments of 2007 are unsurprisingly NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

On a similar UNSAFE FOR WORK tip here's the list you've really been waiting for: The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2007 with pictures and movie clips attached to get your boss hot under the collar.

Another blog of note: Thomas Moronic.

And finally, the first of our music tips for 2008: Ida Maria a Swedish-based Norwegian with a distinctive rockchick rawr, who's playing a couple of gigs in London later this month.

Closely Observed Trains

iLiKETRAiNS/Shady Bard, Barfly, Birmingham, Monday September 17 2007, 8pm.

This isn't the first time Dead Kenny has seen the improbably capitalized iLiKETRAiNS but it *is* the first time your timetable-troubled tinker has ended up reviewing them. Saw them last year playing alongside London's The Early Years and Birmingham's own Grandscope and your wondering writer did start a review in his head along the lines of how the bands all sounded great but it couldn't be classed as a great gig because of the palpable lack of atmosphere and crowd interaction, musing further about whether this was due to a lacking from the bands or the audience's own shortcomings - to wit, do post-rock groups get the distant, aloof crowds they deserve? Sounds a bit pretentious, we guess, so perhaps it's just as well it never saw light of push-button publishing.

But anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves here, as there's the not inconsiderable matter of support band Shady Bard to contemplate. Due to scheduling difficulties your dopey diarist only managed to catch one of their songs at this year's Supersonic but it was enough to pique our interest, and knowing that they're a local band astutely guessed it wouldn't be too long before we'd get the chance to study them at greater length and closer detail. Just two months on we were proved right as here they are providing intense and intriguing support on the Barfly stage. The lead singer is a strange sort, oscillating wildly between cockiness and awkwardness, but with a deep rich voice not unlike the lead vox from the main act. The musical palette is much more varied, however, with SB being another project making fulsome use of classical instrumentation and folk-ish stylings, touches here and there recalling Arcade Fire, British Sea Power and Tindersticks, but the resulting mix proving suitably dark and distinctive. They could yet prove to be Best Midlands' most beguiling prospect.

A good year on from the release of 2006's often astonishing mini-LP 'Progress Reform' things seem to have derailed slightly for iLiKETRAiNS, despite the imminent release of their first full-length proper (out on Monday October 1st, record release fact fans). They're again technically impressive, mixing up material well between familiar stuff from 'Progress Reform' and tasters off the new record but it all leaves your chin-stroking correspondent strangely cold and uninvolved. The group have ditched their British Rail uniforms but do still provide a visual backdrop to their elegiac efforts as if in acknowledgement to the fact their earnest endeavours otherwise lack for visual spectacle, while the new songs all seem to have their moments but lack the hooks (on first listening, at least) to compel purchase of their latest offering.

So on the whole found the experience mildly depressing and decided I liked trains enough to catch the next one home rather than waiting for the encore.

So You Guessed I'm Self-Obsessed

StrangeTime/The Elements/Reverie, Artsfest, Birmingham, Saturday September 15 2007, 2pm.

We don't know much about Artsfest but this much we like: free culture in a city near us, so who's complaining? While there's justifiable grumbles about poor organisation and inadequate communications we do get a second chance to see Reverie on the Kerrang FM stage after getting our first taste of them supporting The Kissaway Trial in Shrewsbury back in July. Perhaps it's the sun on our backs but we enjoy their mellow take on acoustic folk with a classical twist much more this time, even though they do seem to be puzzling the tourists somewhat.

On to the Custard Factory to catch up with StrangeTime who are playing the main stage there. Every StrangeTime live experience appears to have a distinctive element and this is no exception with the swimming pool filled in post-Supersonic giving an added water feature. Add in the baking sun and sound guys who look like acid-fried casualties and we could almost be in Ibiza, with Kate Finch & Co. supplying the rocks. There's another cock-up start to the rather ace new song they debuted at the Barfly gig and a girl on the pool edge only just manages to get the lens cap off in time to get the video footage rolling. We also get a brand new song about narcissistic Mitherspace fiends which features the rather excellent couplet 'So you guessed/I'm self-obsessed' while 'Personality Disorder' manages the seemingly impossible by sounding even better than last time we heard it.

Hang around a bit afterwards to glug Guinness and cappuccinos while chatting to Kate, John, Chris, Sarah Accident from Violet Beauregarde and aspiring stand-up comedian/poet Henry while listening to The Elements' slightly-better-than-competent-but-slightly-less-than-exciting back-to-basics Britpop. Also learn a valuable lesson in post-gig ligging - never volunteer for helping shift the band's kit, you'll always end up lugging the most awkward bag, but we get our reward with a pint in Scruffy's and the discovery that your correspondent's beloved Hammers have whelped the 'Boro 3-0 to register our first home victory of the season!

Related links:
RussL delivers his in-depth Artsfest verdict.
Pete Ashton asks: How Was *Your* Artsfest?.

How Are Things In The West Mids?

Interpol, Carling Academy, Birmingham, Monday August 20 2007.

With the autumn of 2007 nibbling at our ankles and chafing our necks, it's perhaps time for those of us with nothing more productive to do to consider who is likeliest to emerge as the finest rock band of the decade. In which case, looking further than Interpol may prove futile. Almost exactly five years on from when their debut was released in the UK, they have now released three albums unrivalled by contemporaries in terms of dark, rich musical textures and lyrical loopiness combining to compelling, addictive effect.

So unless tonight support act The Maccabees decide to arrest their chemistry, Interpol look set to handcuff themselves to destiny and leave British contenders like Arctic Monkeys looking like feeble chancers in comparison. In defence of The Maccabees your chaotic correspondent arrives late in the venue and spends time chatting to the StrangeTime ensemble and Andrew from post-rock outfit Cellar Door rather than visually checking them out, but from what we hear their best songs sound like Interpol but just not quite as good, while their other songs rarely ascend above generic post-britpop indie. In further defence, however, the crowd seem to love 'em.

And what an assembled crowd it it is. Last time your hopeful hack saw Interpol at this very same venue some three years ago it was reasonably easy to get near-ish to the stage albeit from the sides but tonight we're rammed right at the back. Further away we may be, but it has to be said that the sound quality is much improved upon from that 2004 gig when the band finally hit the stage after what seems an interminable wait.

The set, when it comes, has a fairly even spread of material across the three albums, although the bulk of material from the debut is saved for the three closing songs. It's perhaps surprising that only five tracks from the newie 'Our Love To Admire' make the setlist (There's No I In Threesome, All Fired Up and Wrecking Ball all missing the cut), but this could be explained by the fact that it's effectively a warm-up gig before the Carling Festivals shows in Reading and Leeds this upcoming weekend.

What's left, however, sounds tremendous, from the tense opener 'Pioneer To The Falls' through the ominous coda of 'Mammoth' to the now-anthemic brace of 'Antics' favourites - 'Slow Hands'; 'Evil' and 'Not Even Jail'. It's slightly disconcerting to see these troubled and troubling songs being accompanied by a stunning striplight show and greeted with terrace-style chanting and partytime handclaps, and for sure if they continue at this rate of progress Interpol are heading for the (gulp) arena circuit for too long. Perhaps that's a fate befitting the decade's best rock band, however, and there's no doubt they're a group on top of their form right now, with a sound as hard, precise and powerful as titanium thunderbolts to the heart.

The effects of the show linger on long after the lights go up, as an hour later at New Street Station a radiant redhead fan is heard to gasp that her 'knickers are still wet'. Given that they apparently reduced Kate to tears the first time she saw them, it's clear that Carlos D & Co. have developed a surefire knack for distantly stimulating feminine fluids that your befuddled blogger and other mere mortals can only dream of.

FYI: Both Chris Maher from StrangeTime and Andrew from Cellar Door went to school with the bass player from Beestung Lips! (recently signed to Southern Recordings, no doubt encouraged by our rave review of their Supersonic show). So now Papa's Got A Brand New Gig Blag, just say on the door that you were in the same class as the Beestung Lips! bassist and you too will be able to enter the possibly sinister world of the Second City's secret musical society. Our investigations into these matters to be continued...

Jet Set Go!

Supersonic Festival, Custard Factory Complex, Digbeth, Birmingham, July 13th/14th 2007.

With the festival running until 3am both nights, a hotel stop is required for your decadent correspondent, and a good deal via laterooms secures a berth at the newly refurbished Paragon Hotel in Alcester Street. The room is small with a barely functioning toilet but has a funky 'boutique' feel, plasma TV, chocolate brown blankets, thick curtains and, most importantly, members of Wolf Eyes queueing behind your quaking hack at check-in. The devil is truly in the details.

Queue in the rain with Cardiff scenester Ben for about twenty minutes but get to The Medicine Bar just in time to catch the beginning of Monarch!'s reign. Their music builds slowly and intriguingly, interspersed with stunning surges of guitar squall and an elfin chanteuse releasing her demons with growls that seem to come from somebody else's body entirely. The result is as dramatic and startling a live performance as Dead Kenny has witnessed during his Parallax View years and a hell of a start to any festival.

Elsewhere on Friday, Fuck Buttons are let loose in The Kitchen, resulting in cacophany, samples, hiss and beats. Some of their songs seem to go on for way too long but they leave more of an impression than Kling Klang back at The Medicine Bar, who seem like Mogwai only less so. Feeling frazzled and sleepy-eyed by the time Wolf Eyes hit the stage, which may possibly account for the fact that your pooped penpusher finds them neither as scary or interesting as had been led to believe. There's a lot of noise, plenty of attitude, an overload of pantomime but an apparent loss of point now the novelty's worn off.

Monarch! having blown your woozy webslinger's socks off the night before, Saturday afternoon is spent trudging the streets of the suddenly sunny Second City for replenishments. A bumper pack from Gap or Next would have been sensible and good value, so inevitably end up in House of Fraser's sale emerging with a Paul Smith pair in West Ham colours instead. Perhaps, though, this indulgence is just reward for earlier escorting a visiting Japanese academic to New Street Station (yes, you're right, she was hot, your garrulous guide may be virtuous but he ain't dull...).

Retail therapy thus completed, head back to the Custard Factory where catch the last quarter-hour or so of Crippled Black Phoenix underneath The Arches, who sound like Mogwai playing tiddlywinks with mid-period Manic Streets Preachers, umpired in a slightly officious manner by Soundgarden, and the result is as intermittently interesting and bombastic as that sounds. Meet up with Ben again to watch Voice Of The Seven Woods who are a bit dull until your bored blogger says so out loud, at which point they buck their ideas up somewhat and start giving it some overdue bollocks.

Back in The Arches, three people are staring at their laptops in deadly seriousness to apparent disinterest from the audience. These are Migrant, who make some nice noises here and there, but perhaps need to lighten up. Back over at The Medicine Bar, Calvados Beam Trio contrive a brand of math-rock considerably less than the sum of their constituent influences, so your fickle furtler leaves Ben with his calculator to make acquaintance with a lovely lady with a harp, namely Serafina Steer who can be simplistically described as an entertaining collision between Kate Nash and Joanna Newsom, so we'll leave the intellectual descriptions to others with more time on their hands.

Back at The Medicine Bar, Beestung Lips are doing what had hoped Wolf Eyes might be capable of: they're tearing your discombobulated dimwit a new arsehole with their terrifying and genuinely confrontational brand of jagged-bottle-up-your-rear-end rock'n'roll. An excited young woman is pushing and pulling your stunned scribe as he tries to make some sense of it all. Little change there, then.

It's back to kids stuff over on the Main Stage as The Modified Toy Orchestra make like Hot Chip let loose in the kindergarten wearing Primark suits. Diverting enough, but the lure of Qui (a band recently joined by David Yow from The Jesus Lizard) underneath The Arches, not to mention the need for some nutritional supplement, pulls us away. Yow's lost his passport but none of his balls during an entertaining and uncompromising set which augurs well for the new album due out in stores imminently.

Chrome Hoof's novelty factor proves popular with the crowd, but strip away their party attitude, silver-foil costumes, erotic dancers and multi-genre fusion feel and you're left with a band who could be playing until Supersonic 2017 and they'd still never hit on anything remotely resembling a proper tune. Back out to The Arches, then, but find Om a bit um, so queue to get back in for Mogwai, watch Serafina Steer being interviewed in a room opposite and spectacularly fail to get her attention (stopping just short of singing 'Hey Serafina!' to the tune of Macarena) while everyone wants a piece of Qui's spaced out guitarist Matt Cronk who always seems to be lumbering nearby.

Headliners Mogwai were Mogwai and if they're not careful they could turn into Mog-why???!!!. The music is pretty enough in parts, but there's not enough genuine substance and epiphany to bolster a set of this length, leaving even hardcore fans feeling a little underwhelmed. Maybe, like Wolf Eyes, they're just a band that's run its course, ending not with a bang but a tinker. Do bump into Pete Ashton at this point, however, who is in engaging and informed form in his official blogging capacity and flickring presence, and advises of a rare prior sighting of the owner of the Russ L brand on the festival site.

It's now getting quite late, have bid Ben adieu, but it's not over until the mad French bloke stops banging the drums, so circle in on Duracell a one-man act who programs his drums to generate old-skool game beats in a brilliantly barmy fashion, sweaty lunatic bravado that deserves a hearty bravo! But it's now 3am, there's no sign of Eternal, so your dazed dunderhead heads his satiated way home...

Related links:

Parallax View at Supersonic 2005.
Pete Ashton-collated Supersonic 2007 Collective Memory.
Ben's Supersonic 2007 review.
Russ L's Supersonic 2007 experience.
The Fuck Buttons verdict.