Pulling Power

The first time we played Bombay Bicycle Club's debut album 'I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose' our initial reaction was of minor deflation, but it's a record which has built and built in our hearts as something treasurable. Central to the record's attraction is the other-wordly charms of 'Magnet', a song you can really get attached to, which is due for release in single format next month.



The BBC boys are on tour to support the release, and we definitely recommend the live experience.

Paris Is Yearning

Great songs about the French capital city are eifell-y rare but like Number 44 buses, when one comes along they tend to come in pairs (no anagram intended). So soon after Ladyhawke's fiery fave 'Paris Is Burning' this week's Single Of The Week from St. Albans' Friendly Fires is entitled simply 'Paris', a lush, plush promise of a tune that transcends the supposed limitations of their Klaxons-meet-The-Rapture template.

When we first encountered Friendly Fires live, it's fair to report we weren't entirely convinced, but having been lured to their debut self-titled album by the temptations of 'Jump In The Pool' we're coming round big time to their epic, seductive soundscapes, ably assisted on 'Paris' by the swooning harmonies of the girls of Au Revoir Simone (and you've gotta love the girls of Au Revoir Simone, right?).

Anyways, decided for yourselves by viewing the promo, which contains more morphing magnificence than a Tony Hart boxset. Not sure about the Nantes-y neckerchief, though.

Parallax View Gigs Of The Year 2007

What makes a great gig? The tunes, the chutzpah, the charisma, the company, or the ambience? Or maybe a combination of all those factors? But in 2007, many promoters hit upon a cunning ingredient: just let 'em eat cake...

1. BEESTUNG LIPS! @Supersonic, Custard Factory, Birmingham (July)
2. Rilo Kiley @Carling Academy 2, Birmingham (August)
3. Interpol @Carling Academy, Birmingham (August)
4. Los Campesinos!/Sky Larkin/Johnny Foreigner/Kate Goes @Barfly, Birmingham (March)
5. Mika Miko/No Age @Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham (June)
6. StrangeTime/Cellardoor/Sub Rosa @Actress & Bishop, Birmingham (October)
7. The Cribs @Carling Academy, Birmingham (October)
8. Monarch! @Supersonic, Custard Factory, Birmingham (July)
9. Emily Haines @Glee Club, Birmingham (June)
10. I'm From Barcelona @Carling Academy 2, Birmingham (September)
11. The School @Island Bar, Birmingham (November)
12. Kings Of Leon @Birmingham NIA (December)
13. Maps @Summer Sundae, Leicester (August)
14. The Fiery Furnaces @Barfly, Birmingham (November)
15. The Whip @Summer Sundae, Leicester (August)

Hissy Hit

It's been a while since we've introduced a new band to you here at Parallax View so please step forward Thomas Tantrum, all the way from Goattee Beach (?!) with the superior strop-pop that is forthcoming single 'Shake It! Shake It!' (released via Marquis Cha Cha on November 26).

With lyrics that appear to be some kind of dippy deconstruction of nightclub smalltalk half-sung half-spoken by vocalist Mega, it's another love-it-or-loathe-it proposition suitably impossible to ignore we make it Parallax View Single Of The Week. Whether you've got good hair or not.

Jeremy Gawp

Maps/Jeremy Warmsley, Carling Academy 2, Birmingham, Saturday October 6 2007, 7.30pm.

In what is becoming something of an increasingly self-referential Parallax View trend your chaotic correspondent arrives at the venue just as the first support act finish the last song of their set. All we can relate is that there are quite a few of them and they made a pleasing post-rock din but due to the on-the-go demands of the weekend (the gig is sandwiched in between the Villa v West Ham game and going to see the Ian Curtis biopic) don't get the chance to do the research to find out who they are. Parallax View is very, very sorry.

There's something naggingly familiar about the second act as he makes his meek but quietly assured way to the stage, and your hapless hack lets his face drop slightly on the realisation it's Jeremy Warmsley again, who we've seen twice before (at Summer Sundae and supporting I'm From Barcelona) in the last seven weeks. Now the problem with the fact that there's a sparse attendance so far at the venue is that you're a little exposed to the artist and embarrassingly Jez seems to clock my aghast expression and keeps a close eye on me for the rest of the show.

If this ensures your busted blogger remains on his best behaviour the same can't be said for a young man at the front who'd obviously started the pre-gig celebrations a little earlier than perhaps he should, and is sadly making a bit of a dickhead of himself. Warmsley asks him to behave himself and then heads to the barrier and has a quiet word in his ear while keeping an eagle eye on your studious scribe at the same time. We called on our lip-reading expertise and can advise with no degree of certainty whatsoever that what he said to the unfortunate young man in question was 'see that bloke over there, you're going to end up in his blog if you're not careful'. These wise words don't appear to do the trick, however, and Jez justifiably drops his calm reasonableness for a marvellously stroppy 'oh, just FUCK OFF!' instead, before finally security takes the matter out of his hands and escorts the nuisance off the premises.

Perhaps it's the distracting circumstances making us more pre-disposed to giving Jezza a fair hearing, but we find ourselves enjoying his show a bit more at the third time of asking. He seems to get the balance right between the slower and jauntier numbers, but does frustrate us with telling us there's a good joke hidden in the lyrics of one of his songs, because your attention-deficited amateur just can't concentrate for long enough to get it.

Troubling eye contact isn't an issue with main act Maps as they make the sort of symphonies that induce your blissed-out blogger to close his eyes and wig-out to the pulsating waves of sonic splendour. There are people who get paid decent money for writing about music who'd have you believe that Maps can't cut it in the relatively uncharted uncharted territories of the live arena, but take it as read from this Parallax Viewer these idiots don't know what they're talking about. If tunes like 'Eloise' and 'It Will Find You' can inspire this unco-ordinated upstart to shake a limb then these rhythms are chancers that will prove that fortune always favours the brave. Top marks for the roadie wearing a Medium 21 t-shirt as well - further proof that not everything coming out of Northampton is cobblers.

Related Link: Sweeping The Nation's Friendly Chat With...Jeremy Warmsley from last year. He's had a haircut since then, mind.

Ouch! My Cribs!

The Cribs/Bobby Conn, Carling Academy, Birmingham, Friday October 5 2007, 7.30pm.

Hmm...we're having difficulty relating to The Cribs' audience. Here at Parallax View we're used to rough business, heck in our pugnacious youth we even occasionally started some, but it's the squealing, squabbling and tag-team stampeding up and down the staircases that's leaving your hassled hack yearning for the days when ADHD was just plain cheatin' at scrabble. So seek solace in support act Bobby Conn whose lively set of pseudo-glam stomp is entertaining without providing much in the way of memorable tunage. Instead it's their matching bleached-denim jackets and the female violinist (the delightfully-named Monica BouBou) who seems to have a smile for each and every one of the massed crowd which stick in the mind.

Don't mind admitting that, prior to 2007, Parallax View paid scant attention to Wakefield's The Cribs but triumphant third album 'Mens Needs, Womens Needs, Whatever' shrugged our ambivalence aside with its cocksure combination of catchy tunes, rough charm, US alt. influences and indie insularity sweeping all aside to be our favourite new album of the year at the half-term point. It seems like we've been waiting all our lives for a band to come along and confirm the previously-unspoken truth that the essence of evil is revealed in the continuing worldwide success of Razorlight.

For all their louche demeanour The Cribs put on a pretty tight set, getting on with the business of provoking the crowd to jump up and down as often and as quickly as possible, with 'I'm A Realist'; 'Moving Pictures' and an awesome 'Ancient History' particularly standing out on the night. Towards the end Ryan Jarman moves to the back of the stage, removes his shirt and then takes a huge running jump right over the barricades, launching himself like the loon he is into the moshing masses. Before you can say 'aw, that's gotta hurt!' the security staff are leading his limp, lifeless frame back stage, although somewhat predictably a mere minute later a lazarus-like recovery sees him back on stage for 'Shoot The Poets'. The bad news, then, is that Kate Nash is still taken...

Spanish I's Are Smiling

I'm From Barcelona, Carling Academy 2, Birmingham, Monday September 10 2007.

Maybe it's 'cos it's Monday, maybe it's 'cos your mardy mitherer is a misanthropist at heart, or maybe it's 'cos your late-running linkdumper's tragi-comic lack of organisational skills sees the last conceivably viable train streaked with the scrapings of the skin of his teeth, but your jaded jobsworth has definitely felt more up for a gig than tonight, despite our lingering love for last year's long-player 'Let Me Introduce My Friends'.

Wander into the venue in time to catch the last few numbers from Jeremy Warmsley but sadly we haven't warmed to his wannabe-Wainwright warblings any more than when we caught his show at Summer Sundae last month. It's all very technically proficient but leaves us colder than a frigid igloo, so it's lucky the half-empty venue means at least we can get served our beer much quicker than normal.

This might have just as much to do with the fact that many attending are clearly better prepared for the I'm From Barcelona live experience than your clueless correspondent, because from the moment the supernaturally splendid Swedes burst into 'Treehouse' on stage, the barrage of balloons and confetti released in the Academy is best enjoyed as 'hands-free' entertainment. Even a lithe leopard like your supple scribe struggles not to spill his beverage while flicking a balloon up with one foot and punching it into the air with his fist in a dizzying display of dexterity doomed to descend into dampness.

No such squibs on stage with your unusually curmudgeonly correspondent eventually bullied into bonhomie by the band's good-natured banter and stout-hearted harmonies. Ginger-bearded singer Emanuel Lundgren bemoans the fact that the Birmingham crowd are balloon-murderers but a look around at the grins and bouncing limbs of the crowd and it's clear that the burst vessels are more to do with the Academy's low roof than any murderous intent amongst the mild-mannered massive. Lundgren dedicates 'Oversleeping' to the next morning's hangover, there's a mirthful mosh to instant anthem 'We're From Barcelona' and an impromptu kazoo orchestra corralled on stage for the contagious 'Chicken Pox', all making for a memorable evening from initially less-than-promising circumstances.