So, whilst the first half of 2010 was relatively quiet on the live music front, August was absolute mayhem. And as the dust settles on another festival period, and we try to assess the physical and financial damage in a calm and orderly fashion, it doesn’t look like things are slowing down on the gig radar. Which I’m rather pleased about.

Monday 6^th September 2010: Miaoux Miaoux and Wounded Knee at Electric Circus. Bart’s House. Sneaky Pete’s.

The rather talented Justin Corrie – not content in being in one third of indie popsters Maple Leave – brings his solo electronic project to Edinburgh. Also I’ll be intrigued to see how Wounded Knee’s looped folk meanderings go down amongst the glitz and glamour of Electric Circus.

Tuesday 7^th September 2010: Super Adventure Club, Luis Franscesco Arena and Hopwood & Black at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’ve no idea about the other two, but Super Adventure Club are brilliant in a really mental way. Or maybe mental in a really brilliant way.

Tuesday 7^th September 2010: Kath Bloom, This Frontier Needs Heroes, Woodpigeon and eagleowl at the Roxy Room.

Basically, an End of the Road warm up gig. And I may be biased, but I think this is one of the most interesting line-ups the cities seen in a while – an incredible coup for first time promoters Powan Presents. This Frontier Needs Heroes will be playing their own set before joining the legendary Kath Bloom as her backing band, just as eagleowl will do the same before swelling the ranks of Woodpigeon. So basically one big old alt.folk love-in.

Thursday 9^th September 2010: Panda Su, The Occasional Flickers and The Last of Private’s Balladeers at Sneaky Pete’s.

The Occasional Flickers will be playing a stripped down set for their first show in a  long while.

Friday 10^th September 2010: The Buzzcocks at The Liquid Rooms.

The Buzzcocks are one of only three good bands that have ever come out of Manchester. Discuss.

Friday 10^th September 2010: Francois & The Atlas Mountains at The Roxy.

Francois & the Atlas Mountains pretty much single handedly turned this year’s Homegame from a really nice community folk festival into an all out weekend dance party. And I’ll love them forever because of that.

Friday 10^th September 2010: Come on Gang!, FOUND and Jesus h. Foxx at The Caves.

Come on Gang! Single launch, featuring support from two of the most exciting and interesting bands in Edinburgh. You can’t go wrong, really.

I volunteered to write this review for a few reasons.

Firstly, this was my first taste of the full Broken Records experience, my only other encounter with the band in a live environment being the Toad Session a few months back. Secondly, Matthew is currently up to his hips in a flood of digital media which he’s trying to collate into variously: the Meursault Toad Session, the Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session and his personal take on the great American road movie after his adventures stateside. And lastly if I write this; I get to blame him for leaving my Zoom H4 digital recorder at his house, which we we’d planned to plug in to the sound desk and record the gig with. (If Matthew were to write this, I’d get the blame, don’t you worry!)

So, on to business. This gig was unofficially Broken Records’ triumphant homecoming after a summer of record label schmoozing in London and slaying the unwashed hordes in fields and farms across the land. As Jamie put it approvingly before he took to the stage: “Festivals, man!”

The Liquid Room had closed the venue’s balcony level for the show, but that didn’t stop Matthew and I sneaking up anyway after we decided the balcony offered the best angle for filming and taking photos. We were also far too hungover to stand in the middle of a sweaty crowd after Sparrow & The Workshop had kept us up drinking til 4am the night before.

It has to be said it was an impressively large and receptive sweaty crowd, too. Broken Records seem to building a properly devoted fanbase, judging by the number of people singing along that we could see from our elevated vantage point. During the more intimate moments, there were even a few dozen couples doing the official boy-and-girl-at-gig-together romantic dance thing. (You know; where the guy stands behind with the girl in front, kind of holding her around the shoulders and copping a crafty feel while they both sway in time to the music.)

And a properly devoted fanbase is no more than Broken Records deserve judging by the quality of this evening’s performance. Jamie’s voice seems to have matured after the band’s busy summer. Somehow he sounds even more assured in front of the mic than on the records and the Toad Session day – and that’s not to suggest there was anything shabby to be heard before.

The band are as tight and adventurous as one of Beth Ditto’s lycra catsuits, swapping instruments around with gay abandon, and with each change every member showing a confidence and proficiency to match the instrument that went before. I think five different people sat at the piano during the evening, at least three picked up the big Fender Precision bass, and they were each completely at home during their respective turns.

This is a band ticking all the boxes. The fans packing the Liquid Rooms were entranced, the tunes are spot on, the guys in the band seem to be delighted with the progress they’ve made this year. You can feel a palpable buzz around them. They say they’re struggling to find a single, but I heard a clutch of strong candidates for singles on Sunday night. There were a number of tracks where the crowd couldn’t help but dance and sing along – arms aloft and ecstatic. Perhaps Broken Records should use that as a guide.

I don’t know if any of the video we caught of the show will make it online, depends on the sound quality I suppose. (If only Matthew hadn’t forgotten that digital recorder!)

But don’t wait for that. Go see these guys the very next chance you get.

Buy their current singles here: Slow Parade & If the News Makes You Sad, Don’t Watch It.

Broken Records – Lies (Demo Version) This is also coming out on single in the next month or so – one of my favourite of their songs.
Broken Records – Wolves (BBC 6Music Session)

I would describe this as something of a quasi-religious experience for me, but there’s something so relentlessly normal about The Wedding Present that it wouldn’t seem right. Twenty five [D'oh! - see comments!] years since the release of their brilliant debut album George Best the Weddoes are on tour, playing the album in its entirety. Sort of the musical equivalent of the testimonial match footballers get after ten years of service.

To large extent The Wedding Present are a teenage boy’s band. If you’ve ever been a lad at that age, Gedge has an uncanny ability to nail every alienated, rejected and bewildered emotion you ever felt with no more than a few simple lines of almost uniquely conversational poetry. He just talks and it seems to come out in perfectly metered verse almost by accident, without any noticeable artifice whatsoever. Coupled with this is some of the most archetypal indie guitar you either have or ever will hear. ‘It’s just not natural to play a guitar that fast’ he quips rather exhaustedly after Brassneck.

Archetypal indie they are indeed. Ed, who was there too, points out that they were on that genre-defining C86 compilation which is generally described as being the big bang at the origin of the indie universe. After a quick trip through Gedge’s extensive back catalogue, the group settle into the meat of the gig – every song on George Best in order. At this point the heart of this band comes sharply into focus. A deliriously happy mosh pit of men in their late thirties bounces into existence: ageing indie kids – like Gedge himself – revelling in the music that made them who they are.

I am a Wedding Present neophyte in relative terms. It took university, and the relentless persistence of the legendary Mr. James Strath to open this particular door for me. I was aware of them by the time of Watusi, but Mini was the first record of theirs that I bought for myself. So watching the joy of this heady blast from the past was always going to be a bit of a spectator sport for me, but it was still a privilege to stand there, bouncing away happily to myself whilst classics like Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft, My Favourite Dress and, later, Kennedy rattled through the venue.

They are superb live – more passionate and more reckless than on albums, but nevertheless technically right on the money, as you might expect from such stalwarts. Hearing songs this good belted out with such expertise and yet such passion really throws the enthusiasm generated by virtually any of the new groups I write about into sharp perspective. There will be few bands who ever match what the Weddoes have achieved, in my view. You could put George Best, Watusi, Seamonsters, Bizarro and Saturnalia up against pretty much any album ever recorded and they would be highly unlikely to outshine them. A shuffling, unassuming indie kid he may be – perhaps the original shuffling indie kid – but David Gedge is one of the best there has been. And this gig was a chance for us all to acknowledge the fact.

The Wedding Present – My Favourite Dress
The Wedding Present – What Did Your Last Servant Die Of?
The Wedding Present – Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft

From Bizarro:

The Wedding Present – Brassneck
The Wedding Present – Kennedy

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My friend Morgan has decided that he is going to make it his mission to take me to gigs I am not going to like. Frankly you lot should be sponsoring him because anything that breaks my whining indie kid tunnel vision is surely going to be a benefit to your reading experience here at Song, by Toad.

Having treated me to the glorious experience of an hour spent gazing at Regina Spektor’s wonderful breasts last year, this year he has even more treats in mind, commencing with the sonic assault that is Battles. I may be new to this lot, but I imagine most of you aren’t, given they’ve been talked about in a rather breathless fashion by an assortment of music press for some time now.

Seeing them live, it’s easy to see why. To begin with one of them wanders on stage and begins casually twiddling knobs until he’s set up a slightly reverby guitar loop. One by one the other member of the band join him and so it grows and grows. By the time all four of them are playing you get this wall of sound being generated that you have to simply let wash over you as you bask in the noise.

There is no such thing as lyrics, as they use the voice pretty much just as if it were any other instrument, but it nonetheless brings some welcome variation to the intense atmosphere they create. If there’s one thing this kind of noodling needs however, it’s a solid base, and Battles certainly have that. In amongst the driving guitars, echoing loops and random punching of the keyboard they are anchored by their superlative drummer John Stanier. He is formerly of Helmet apparently – although this means little to me – but his stamina is amazing though, and it is his amazing performance that really impressed me most about the evening.

I have no technical knowledge, so I am in no position to judge talent or any of that, but I’d say it’s worth going to see these lads just for him. By the end of the show, much as I’d enjoyed it, I was losing my fascination with their relentlesly swirling ambiences, but watching him drum like a fiend was something I was happy to do all evening.

This isn’t pop music, this is experimental performance art – almost sonic theatre. As such it doesn’t make for an easily assimilated listening experience for those of us, like myself, who have become so habituated to the four minute pop song with a catchy chorus, but there’s no doubt these lads are good. So I won’t be buying their records, I don’t think, but what a phenomenal gig!

Battles – Atlas
Battles – Tonto

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