They're here and then they're not and now they're back! The return of some lost bands

When a band disappears, it can be hurtful, almost as hurtful as when you fall out of love or when a friendship you thought meant a lot, actually meant nothing. The only difference is that you have control of the latter two. Thankfully, these bands are back and thankfully THANKFULLY, I wasn’t born when they started out, so I didn’t have to deal with the trauma of them leaving the scene in the first place.

* The first one on my list is the wonderful Liquid Liquid now signed to Domino. After forming in New York in the early 80’s, they optimised uniqueness. With their post-punk/post-disco sound with a Brazilian, dance and reggae edge.

With their forward thinking sound in songs such as Optimo and Caven - which was sampled by Grand Master Flash for their epic White Lines song - Liquid Liquid are the type of band who influenced many, yet were not known for it.

I saw them play at Offset festival in Epping Forest last month and am now in love with them, with there bass driven groovy rock songs. The band consists of Scott Hartley, Richard McGuire, Salvatore Principato, Dennis Young. They have reissued their old stuff as they only released very few records back then. To get your hands on all of their songs, check out “Slip In and Out of the Phenomenon”.

* The second on my list is Pylon, a fantastic underground band who formed at art school in 70’s Georgia. The band consists of Vanessa Briscoe Hay on vocals, Randall Bewley on guitar, Michael Lachowski on bass, Curtis Crowe on drums.

From the Alt rock scene, Plyon have supported The Gang of Four, been named the best band around by R.E.M and won early support from the B52’s. I discovered them whilst at the Ritzy in Brixton and was struck by their amazing bass lines and the stunning voice of lead singer, Vanessa in the song Beep Beep. After asking the bar tender who they were, and subsequently googling them when I got home, I found out they were old and not a new cool band coming around the block now!

Now signed to DFA records which home to LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip, it’s good to know that someone has picked up on their genius. Their last album, “Chomp More” was out in 2009.

So?

Summer time is over, I've brought my winter slippers from Marks and Sparks, I've put my tortoise shell sun glasses in the bikini draw until next year and I've convinced myself that one should eat what one wants as I'll need to put on extra pounds for winter. But, what a summer it has been. I've been on holiday as you can see! June, July and August left no time to blog so in moody September, here's what I've been up to and the focus is Festivals, in order of greatness. I'm also going to keep this short or I'll be batting on for ages.

1) Glastonbury
Celebrating it's 40th anniversary, it was my first and my mates 40th! With a surprise burst of hot sunshine, a phenomenal atmosphere and offering so much more than a festival, this by far is the best event I've ever attended and it should be experienced by all. I can't really explain it's greatness, it is just GREAT. Highlights included - if I can put any few highlights together - Shangrala, the Green fields, Stevie Wonder, the array of excellent food, The Park area, Bombay Bicycle Club, Toots and the Maytals and soooo much more.

2) Melt!
Set in an old GDR mine, Melt! (with an exclamation mark, not an over hyper blogger), as a site is truly spectacular. Huge cranes with green lazers and bright neon lights shoot off from sterile pieces of metal. This festival is surrounded by an artificial lake in Germany, Ferropolis, about an hours drive from Berlin. Offering Dance and Indie music, highlights included, the site itself, Groove Armada, this fantastic Saxon German pizza bread, Ellen Allien and Massive Attack with their phenomenal art music show combination. Another great thing about this festival is that the Germans really know how to party, the festival gets started at about 7pm and goes on until about 11am and in some areas until 7pm, for the party to begin aaaalllll over again.

3) Standon Calling
This self proclaimed 'boutique festival' is held in Hertfordshire and has been going for 10 years, after starting off as a birthday party with thirty friends. It has now grown into a 3000 person festival with a very special feel. The music, dress up and smallness of it all is what makes it unique, as well as the up and coming bands it features. Highlights included Buena Vista Social Club, sock wrestling, Factory Floor, The Alcatraz tent, The Liars, a pop up cinema, the wonderful Steve Mason and a Pool.

4) Reading
Now, if you're looking for a rock and roll festival, look no further as you all know. I am a big fan of Reading and have gone there a good few times and it never fails to disappoint. Ok, so crowd wise it is quite horrific, full of greasy food, annoying 15 year olds who burn tents and portaloos and the site truly feels like hell on earth, BUT, and there is a big but... The line up is amazing! Highlights included The Libertines with their epic comeback gig, Sub Focus, The Like, Queens of the Stone Age, Tame Impala and The Maccabees etc etc etc.

5) Offset Festival
Every September, Epping Forest in Essex is swamped by lots of cool kids and bloody hell, the coolness needs to be stressed, it's as if the whole of Shoreditch bop on the tube, down to celebrate. The music that plays here is all very alternative, left field and generally weird, which I am a big fan of. It also supports up and coming bands and is a very progressive forward thinking festival. Highlights include, Telepathe, Art Brut, cheap vintage clothing from up North and Batty Bass.

6) Secret Garden Party
Dozens of my friends were going so I couldn't give this a miss and actually, I was pretty curious. It was an interesting festival with good food, dress ups and the burning of a 'ship' in the lake, but sadly, that was not enough to make me love it like most of the crowd. I found the music mediocre to say the least and the atmosphere dull. This was all made worse as 99.9% of the crowd were off their nut, with me being in that 0.01% category. I was told it was better the smaller it was as it recently held 30,000 people but still, never again. Highlights included, bumping into friends, The Correspondents, The Jungle Tent and the odd little tents playing strange trippy music at every corner.

(I Married a) Monster from Outer Space. Charming.

Don't you just love friends? You know, friends who give you that feeling of a light bulb being turned on in your brain?

That happened to me the other day, me and my friend were messaging each other music we like and gigs we were going to. I said I was going to see The Fall and we compared favourite tracks, he then asked me if I'd heard of John Cooper Clarke, to which I answered no.

He sent me Beasley Street and I was completely blown away, obviously lyrically (with regards to the social blight during the Thatcher years) but also in his delivery and the sheer brilliance and accessibility poetically. Alright, alright! So maybe a lot of you have heard of him, but remember I was born in the late 80's so have a lot to catch up on.

A skinny man with brown mental hair, JCC is a cult hero from Salford. Now in his 60's, JCC has seen it all and supported the likes of Joy Division, Siouxsie And The Banshees and The Sex Pistols among others.

His political, social, cutting and humorous lyrics hit home at the time, and for me, now and here. It still does. It shows how things never change, ay? After supporting various bands, he started headlining on his own and was dubbed the punk poet or/and The Bard of Salford.

JCC recorded 6 albums (Où est la maison de fromage? in 1978, Disguise in Love in 1978, Walking Back to Happiness in 1979, Snap, Crackle & Bop in 1980, Me and My Big Mouth in 1981 and Zip Style Method in 1982), all a mix of live recordings, studio productions and demos. In that space of time and after 1982 he didn’t record any others. This was due to his self confessed unambitious personality and also his heroin addiction at the time. In an interview with The Culture Show, he said he is now ambitious and it shows in the amount of gigs he does.

Although he had limited success in mainstream music, he was still able to draw people to his shows. With tracks such as Majorca, Evidently Chickentown and (the highest rated chart single for him) Gimmix! Play Loud, JJC is iconic to say the least, a true English poet.

Usually performing his songs acappella, his records mainly centred around musical backing from The Invisible Girls, with percussion from Paul Burgess, bass guitar from Martin Hannett and keys by Steve Hopkins.

He starred in a 1982 film titled 'Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt', narrative between a film, music videos, and a documentary about the poet.

Still performing, check out his website for more information and his many many other fantastic poems and music.

Fav: Twat

Electro Swing swing swing swing.....

Last weekend the Book Club (100 Leonard St) hosted Electro Swing which is a club night gaining momentum at the new talked about venue.

The night has been running for a good few months and I've been going for three (it runs once a month). Doubling in attendance the more I go, last weekend was mental with way over a hundred people queuing outside. Costing a fiver after 9 and free before, The Book Club has two floors and various separate areas, with two being a very mini library and a ping pong area. Electro Swing is just that, a new and exciting genre mixing 1920’s and 30’s swing with dance beats. Not confined to Electro, swing is mixed with Hip Hop, Reggae and Dub Step.

Attracting good types and not the OTT Hoxtons... yet! It's also not very rockabiliy so you won't feel a fool if you're not dressed in your old skool gladrags or cannot dance like you're one of the cast members of Grease. Acts who played included five times scratching world champion DJ Switch and The Correspondence. DJ Switch rocked the shop with his amazing technical and fast mix of hip hop and swing which quickly turned grimy. The Correspondence? Well, at first I though they were a joke as a skinny white boy wearing a tuxedo, purple spandex leggings and riding boots donned the staged to then MC! An I must say, he did it well and ended their set Mcin’ to DnB!

Electro Swing will be playing at The Hootananny in Brixton at The Ska VS Electro Swing night on the 7th of May. They'll also be doing The Book Club again in mid May so don't bloody miss it!

David Cameron: weak and irresolute

In this excellent, gentle destruction of David bleedin Cameron and his bullshitty "invitation to join the government" yesterday, David Hare says, "Cameron has charm." He then quotes Somerset Maugham: "Charming people are generally weak and irresolute, charm is the weapon nature gives them to cope with their disadvantages; I never could set much trust in anyone who had it." Exactly.

I'm not taking anything for granted, of course, but the number of Labour and Lib Dem posters up in my area (Islington) has made me feel quite hopeful that Cameron will not get in next month. Or maybe I just can't cope with imagining that grim possibility. (I grew up in the Thatcher years; they were shit.) The Labour party have royally pissed me off (Iraq, bankers) but they do care about the health service and education. I don't think David Cameron cares about anything except his posh mates and getting elected. Neither of these things is a good motive for running the country. Gordon Brown is a Decent Bloke; David Cameron is an Eton careerist. Ugh.

Sir Michael Caine... Give me a break

Ok, so Michael Caine grew up in a tough south London council estate, yes?

So that means he can talk about a whole new generation as if he was born there yesterday? In fact, he left in the 50's and obviously, is out of touch.

Yesterday, Sir Michael Caine came out in support of David Cameron being our next Prime minister. In a speech he used buzz words such as Britain's 'lost generation', it's as if he has been reading The Mail and taking it as gospel and then regurgitating it.

The Tories propose to divert £50million from anti-extremism funding to pay for voluntary three-week summer courses for 16-year-old's. Have you spotted the key word here? Voluntary. David Cameron's scheme will not be compulsory. The young kids who volunteer, volunteer, end of. The ones who are out there committing crimes don't want anything to do with the government and being seen to hob knob with a Tory inspired summer scheme is seen as lame (to use a tame word) to them.

Honest Folk

After completing a grave yard shift, I was dead to the world fast asleep at eight on a Friday night. I awoke at about half one to a sound on the radio and pure bliss passed through my ears, carefully crafted folk with heartfelt lyrics and beautiful instruments. By the time the song had finished, I had my pen and paper ready to jot down who made it.

Radio 3 announced a band called Musee Mecanique and the song was called ‘Under Glass’. The hypnotic lyrical delivery of ‘Under Glass’ is brought to life by the instrumental strings with co.

MM are Micah Rabwin (vox, guitar, musical saw, keyboards), Sean Ogilvie (vox, keyboard, guitar, accordion and melodica), Matt Berger (Drums, percussion, glockenspiel), Jeff Boyd (Bass, glockenspiel, cassett player) and Brian Perez (keyboards, lap steel, glockenspiel, melodica, percussion).

They define their genre as Indie, Folk Rock, Electronics, are from Portland Oregon, and are signed to Souterrain Transmissions.

Using an array of musical instruments including accordions, musical saws, a pedal steel, glockenspiels, pianos, synthesizers, trumpets, woodwinds and strings. Each song is layered with sound, sound that progresses with every beat.

Their A/B side singles ‘Sleeping In Our Clothes’ and 'Like Home' was released last month and has gained spot plays on BBC 6 Music. MM have shared the stage with Great Lake Swimmers, Wye Oak and Laura Gibson.

Their debut full-length album ‘Hold This Ghost’ was released on the 15th of February. For more information, check out their website.

Fav: Under Glass