Dick Venom & the Terrortones, X Ray Cat Trio and Black Moth @ Milo, 28th October 2011

Reeling from the stench of some girl's privates

Tonight I got drunk and went to see Black Moth play at Milo with my good friend "Chris", if that is his real name. The moment we pulled up at the bar the floor was taken by a group of 4, the lead singer dressed as a bloody bride, his waxed up mohawk cradled by dried beans, the bassist wearing flexy shiney black stretch pants and a guitar that seemed to be made out of futuristic dildos, a lankey guitarist painted up like a monochrome scarecrow and a drummer dressed as a normal person. We couldn't have asked for a better way to start the night. I don't know the name of the band, and I don't think I ever will, but they still killed it. The singer was all over the place, leaning into people, sticking his head up girl's crotches.. he was a real pioneer. The chaotic sloppiness of their sound greatly complimented my level of drunkenness, if not heightening it a little. I just checked the internet; the band was called Dick Venom and the Terrortones. Explains a lot… especially the bass guitar.

Boner vision

Me and "Chris" went around the corner and bought some cheap beers, sat and discussed some shit, then proceeded to check out the second band, evidently called X Ray Cat Trio. Their sound was very rockabilly, and when I noticed the guy going wild on a double bass my enthusiasm exploded. Their sound made me want to get up and hoe down, so thats what I did. For some of their songs anyway. I was buzzing at this point so a fast snare drum and jumping bassline was fuckin perfect, along with some semi-serious sideburns. One thing that came to grow on me about the venue was the closeness between the audience and band, we were on exactly the same level, and the space was so cramped that they were literally playing/singing in our faces. They played a cover of a sam barrett song which went down so well, it fit the vibe well, and it was awesome to sing that particular song at the running pace set by the drums and bass. I was busting to piss by the last song, apparently it was amazing and included a ridiculous bass solo but I missed it as I was too busy releasing urine from my bladder.

XRCT et al., 2011

I have to mention, during XRCT’s set a cop van pulled up outside to cart away a crazed shirtless dude who according to a friend is a local to many rock shows here in leeds and is often one to get in insane fights, so to pass the time whilst Black Moth set up I imagined how fucked up I would get were I to pick a fight with him. It was pretty one-sided, and picturing the image of his over-tensed neck tendons, intimidating tattoos and bulging eyeballs kind of scared me into submission from the beginning. It wasn’t that great of a daydream to be honest. Part of the fun of that night was watching him approach girls, first grabbing their asses and then when they turn around simply staring at them with his tongue lolling out. That guy's got serious guts! I bet when he does pull a girl its like WWE wrestling but naked, and with better intro music.

Black Moth came on with that song I've heard them play before which always gets me in the mood; the chorus is so intense, the bass and guitar fall down down down downnn, and her singing catches it delicately and then flings it back down again, deep into the chasm of mothy darkness. Black Moth girl was seductive as usual, and judging by the guys at the front checking her out I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt this way. I was bummed about the speaker setup though as I couldn't hear her singing very well over the instruments. The solos and riffs were all on point as usual, really dark and menacing. These guys always kill it in the instrumental department, I just fucking wish I could've jumped around as much as in Santiago's a while back...

This is what English girls look like without fake-tan

Despite the distortion of her voice I still got the gist of every song, and they still managed to get me moving a decent amount. All I wanted was to sway around and get people shoving and jumping, maybe feel the refreshing swash of beer down my neck as I bump into the unsuspecting girlfriend of a bystander, but the venue wasn't right for it. The band space was right at the door, so people were constantly passing back and forth, and it was quite a narrow space to move around in. But then again, I was being a bit of a pussy that night so that’s mainly to blame. On the plus side, I did get a nice old tap on the shoulder and a condescending warning not to move around too much so all in all I would consider it a success.

But she's still hot

"Hallow be thy ween"

Chris's Corner: Emmy the Great @ The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 9th October 2011.

Here we go shitheads! Probably one of the best show reviews I've ever read: adding a master of a piece to his growing collection, homie Chris recollects a "nice" night out at the Brudenell featuring Emmy The Great:

We were sat in the cafe at the end of our street listening to avante garde jazz played by fantastic musicians in white turtlenecks when we decided to go and see Emmy the Great. Rachna had been umming and ahhing because she wanted to go and see another gig next week and couldn’t afford both, but she decided to come with me. We put the chess sets and dominoes away and slinked out as best we could, trying not to catch anyone on the waiting staffs eye due to guilt about having sat there for an hour without ordering anything. Ben and Serbia headed into town, and Rachna and I started off for the Brudenell, discussing whether we’d rather be stabbed multiple times by a smelly old man and then pissed upon till we croaked, or die peacefully asleep in bed one sunny Sunday morn but live five years fewer. It was a real philosophical debate I can tell you and it kept us occupied with hypotheticals and pontifications all the way there.
 

I had sort of wanted to see Emmy the Great play since I saw she was coming to Leeds a few weeks ago, but I had harboured a small doubt that she might be disappointing, and that £12.50 was a little too much to gamble in order to find out. I mean, if she was a horse, the odds wouldn’t be favourable. I’d put two pounds each way maybe. Anyway, the girl at the entrance asked for £15. Fuck! I looked at Rachna and I think I muttered something about it being ‘rather expensive’ that made me sound like an old man, but we paid our money and went inside. I had to buy a beer to get over the damage to my wallet. I had given the girl twenty quid and she hadn’t even had the decency to pay me back a fiver, just five heavy pound coins, each one sitting in my pocket and weighing me down, having a good time at my expense. 

Then we went and found a place to stand by the edge of the stage. There was quite a lot of people to be honest: ranked out of all the times I’ve been to the Brudenell it was up there in a category I call ‘fairly busy’. There was a bit of sound-checking, and then Emmy stepped on stage, by herself. I knew she was good looking before but wow, if I was from London then I would describe her as ‘buff ting’ or ‘peng’ or something appropriate like that. She was pretty much beautiful. She looked around the room a bit, finger picked a C chord for a few seconds on a large glittery hollow-body electric, fiddled with a few knobs and then began. She has a great voice and I know she writes lyrics which are shockingly good at times, but I couldn’t really connect with this first song. Halfway through, in a break in the singing she looked around the crowd and definitely looked at me for about three quarters of a second, maybe more! The look she gave me was probably more disdain than desire, but it set my imagination of down a chain of events where she comes back to my place and has a threesome with me and my guitar. I didn’t even realise the first song was over, I was too busy inspecting her flawless jaw line and wondering how much further forward I might have to shuffle in order to get a glimpse up her skirt.

 In all seriousness the lyrics were a little too distant for me to relate to in that first song. Something about shivah, and an elephants head got mentioned too. Then her band came onstage, and they played about eight or nine songs, the majority of which were off her second album which I haven’t heard. To be honest, it was all a bit nice and poppy-folky. The drum beat and bass gave a great rhythm to the songs that led to me finding myself just nodding my head and not paying much attention to the words that were being sung. It was easy listening, and it always sounded good, but it was just a bit bland and lacking in edge for me. The lyrics and solo acoustic guitar work were what I had really wanted to hear. 

Then the guitarist and drummer left the stage and they announced the last song which involved Emmy singing while accompanied by emotional keyboard and a bit of sporadic bass. It was nice but it meant nothing to me. Then they left, and after a few shouts for encore Emmy came back on and started taking requests. This was by far the best bit of the evening. We got to hear four more songs, among them ‘Canopies and Drapes’ featuring lyrics like:

 Later on me and a bottle will hook up to have some fun
Then I'll call your house at twelve to let you know that I'm drunk
Say I'm sorry Mr C, I was just looking for your son
How are you, incidentally, do you know if he's out alone?
There is this book he lent to me something like seven months ago
I'm gonna burn it in the street be so kind as let him know

So overall, it was nice, but I think that words sums it up entirely. It was only nice and not much else. It was like having a chocolate hobnob and a cup of tea whilst checking your emails and putting on your favourite pair of socks; nice, yet plainly lacking.

Brudenell take heed: I feel that instead of £15, £7 would be a fair price to pay if I was to consider attending another of her gigs and eye fucking her again.

Blacklisters @ Nation, 1st October 2011

So I can safely say I finally experienced a pit at a Blacklisters show. Well… yeah fuck it, I would call it a pit. And to top it off I actually initiated it. Ignore any hints of self-centeredness in that sentence because I did it out of pure frustration. Normally I prefer to dance my own way and hope someone else has the balls to make that big jump into the mass to create the spark which lights up the pit for the rest of the show, but this time it wasn’t going to happen, and I just couldn't hack being surrounded by mannequins unwilling to lose a drop of their 3/4 full pints of beer. Although Billy (BL singer) did slop his way into the crowd a couple times whilst on his usual possessed ramblings, it didn't seem to be enough to get people REALLY moving, and as soon as he moved back onto the stage the shoving stopped. 

Talons presenting some crazy violin moshing

It was around 3 or 4 songs in, I think during OK47, when I decided to jump on the guy in the middle wearing a BL t-shirt - I figured he of all people would be most understanding of my actions. And fortunately, he was! The running basslines built the tension so fucking well, and when the screaming garbles of nothing are thrown on top it mixed with ejaculations of cymbal and screeching guitars it stirs something uncontrollable within me. At one stage there were about 4 of us tangled in a swaying bunch, tripping over the guitar pedals, smashing glasses and knocking shit over. It felt good, really really good. I was so sick of keeping things bottled in, I wanted to let it the fuck out and the music was so right for it. When we all fell on the ground I hit my head pretty hard but it didn't phase me, I kind of wanted more, so on the way home I picked fights with anyone who looked at me, especially girls in mini-skirts and stilettos (THEY LAV A GOOD FOIGHT!) and then I downed a couple of WKD’s and smashed the bottle over my eyeballs.  

It’s a shame BL doesn't get on the hardcore/punk circuit, I'd kill to see the band playing to an entire audience going ballistic, as I'm sure the band would too. I know for a fact that fans of BL really love the music, I just get the impression they are just too afraid to express it physically. Take what you will from that, but when I'm hearing Billy scream combined with those evil, twisted guitar/bass riffs and pounding drums I can't control myself anymore. And there's no way in fuck that I'm the only one there who feels that. No way. I think it’s mostly to do with the locations and nights they play at, take the Brudenell for example, most times I’ve seen them there the audience isn’t really a heavy, loud crowd so a pit never materialises. To be honest if I hadn't jumped into the front line like I did I don't think much else would have happened, call me egoistic but I know from past experiences it would've been tame as fuck. The only times people went uncontrollable were when I flung myself into them, there were even a couple of moments when I had the entire front space to myself. But despite my bitching I loved every moment of that show; the energy was there although it did need a little coaxing, and a certain few people really let some shit out. But hey, maybe I'm wrong and no-one out there wants to start a pit. If that’s the case, then all the more reason for BL to give the Leeds grind/hardcore/punk scene a shot. If you're unsure of what I'm talking about check out collective zine http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/cboard/.

And so they ended their set on trickfuck, always a good way to end it. Everyone at the front became one big sweaty orgy of yells, sweat and t-shirts, and my ears were still ringing 24 hours later.

Yes, you are just a trick fuck

The two other bands that played that night were really good too, normally I would write more but I've already written a load and can't really be fucked.. Check out their myspaces though: 

David's Lyre:

http://www.myspace.com/thisisdavidslyre

They were a nice and warm group with some solid drum beats and well blended guitar/synth riffs. The singer had a pretty resonating voice, and I had a pretty comfortable chair so I was loving it.

Talons:

http://www.myspace.com/gotalons

A group of what I assume to be students played some insanely theatrical instrumental madness, which at times reminded me of stuff like Children of Bodom, just less carcinogenic. The two violins were a really good addition, without them it wouldn't have sounded as impressive, and the fact that you could hear them through the ridiculously fast drumming and guitars was awesome. More props to the drummer, that guy was a serious machine. Haven't seen drumming that intense since the wildlife fest.

We destroyed that glass

And then the guitarist got mad at us and went home

Oh, and here's a link to some BL music: http://soundcloud.com/blacklisters/sets