
Blog: Archives: 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 About/Contact	Out Like The Sun Neil Jones on The Go! Team, Operator Please, Santa Dog, The National Orchestra of Wales and a week of South-West discovery The Pop dream has been met by a ghost from the recent past over the last few weeks. The re-emerged passion for classical music has demanded that I get out and see it live, and the Red Violin festival around Cardiff has provided the perfect chance. Not that I’m bored with indiepop of coarse, in fact it’s going from strength to strength in my eyes, and my passion for it I feel is becoming a little more informed, though I still feel like someone shouting about it from under a rock. Whatever, Cardiff is such a teeming city, with a big classical music arm which I think gets a little overlooked by the indie community, the Anthony Hopkins Centre that’s hidden in the magic enclosure of trees on the border of Bute Park housing an underbelly of hopeful musicians that I think we should make more of. It’s a journey that’s defined my past week, some further Pop revelations and the discovery of the many beauties of Bristol providing the metaphorical counterpoints! The Red Violin is a festival conceived by merited performer Madeleine Mitchell, setting out to celebrate the violin in it’s many forms and genres, and my introduction to the festival on Tuesday afternoon couldn’t be more profound. Classical music and the East has always had a profound relationship, and Jyotsna Srikanth is playing in the Millennium Centre foyer like an ancient apostle, a sweeter and more enchanting thing you wouldn’t find. I’m told the UK classical music scene is burdened by an educational obsession with form and technique, while the Indian playing has always relied on soulful intonation, and indeed this music takes me in with such a passionate, personal embrace. Srikanth is such a profound player, immersed in her instrument with that smile of the ancients, her drummer besides her consummating her melodies with an amazing rhythmic grace. It’s such a complex sound, Srikanth not merely reproducing old sounds but twisting them into new innovative forms, and the whole thing has that special, effortless glow of Eastern magic. After Srikanth and her drumming friend the idea of an NME-sponsored tour didn’t exactly glow with allure. It isn’t at the top of my list of places to go on a Thursday night for sure, but money at a premium and a weekend trip to Bristol just around the corner, an offer of free tickets is sufficient, and the line-up isn’t too bad considering it’s NME, Operator Please ("the Aussie Be your Own PET"), and The Go! Team who I’d heard a lot about piquing interest a little, so I drift inside like a cat into a dog kennel, and it’s on with the dance, as Roy Smeck said. The crowd is sparse for openers Operator Please, but their sound is interesting, a kind of piquant amalgam of alternative indie ambition and New Rave “style”, creaking at the seams and heading for the stars. I’ll state now that I hate Klaxons and the kind of empty clamour that generally follows the genre as it flirts with mainstream acclaim, but some of the bands it has spawned are admittedly an interesting bunch. Operator Please feature a violinist centre-stage, and she shoots her riffs in and out of the band’s sounds to give it a definite creative buzz. It’s superb at times, the singer’s voice a powerful thing, deep and quite mellifluous as she sprays vaguely rebellious couplets into the arena, a keyboardist stage-left adding a sprinkling of the Pop kind of cool to the proceedings, etching lines that are perfect foils for the violin riffs. She looks a little like a young Louise Wener, dark and fulsome features bouncing along to the songs, but I can’t help wishing the band in general would explode into the riot grrrl riot they threaten rather than simply keeping on threatening it. How great it could be. As for now it’s just good. A short walk about after Operator Please reveals the trademark NME imagery. As the temperature inside rises, the clusters of posters thrown onto the walls with careless abandon are beginning to come loose, and you get sites like the one pictured, which is a horrible thing, but as a troupe of kaleidoscopically coloured heroes take the stage we can forget for a moment the dark lords that are behind the gig. The Go! Team lift spirits with cartoon grandeur and mind-blowing Pop passion. They fly round the stage with the alacrity of bats, and the last time I saw anyone so into a gig was the Apples in Stereo at Clwb Ifor Bach last winter. The sound is great, a prolonged explosion of Pop awe with a raucous sprinkling of party rap. The Go! Team’s rapper takes centre-stage for the first few numbers before joining the drummer on a second drum set for a dual beat assault that drills outlandishness into our ears; the keyboardist stage-left becomes a melodica angel, a flute demon and a guitar hero in a matter of minutes; another girl takes over vocal duties for a while as the pace changes from raucous party hip hop Pop to a shimmering thing of humble restraint, and at the end we all walk out like we’ve been juggled by Durga. With Pop and Party still ringing in my ears, the next day I set off for Cardiff classical hotspot St David’s Hall, though judging by the posters and ads inside these days it’s more of a haunt for past-it (or never had it) rock stars and celebrity-infused pantomime (must catch Timmy Mallet in Cinderella). It’s still a hallowed arena though, and when the music starts it takes on a majestic serenity. The National Orchestra of Wales are a charmingly disparate bunch, young and old combining to etch 19th and 20th century music with a comforting awe and personal inspiration. A rendition of Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel is very special, the variegated bass section throwing down the anchor as the violinists etch soaring melodies that drip with melancholic wonder, the clarinet section at the back adding humble textures, and conductor Thierry Fischer feverishly waving his arms like a cartoon god. Together they make Eulenspiegel glow in all its outlandish romantic profundity. Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D is next, Latvian virtuoso Baiba Skride appearing like the world’s saviour centre-stage, and where the Strauss rendition shimmered with collective orchestral grace, this ebbs with virtuosic individuality. I’m glued to Skride’s play as she bows Stravinsky’s innovative lines, technique forever giving way to pure feeling and intonation as the master demanded. It’s a pleasure to see someone play such a piece so fluently, without once consulting her sheets, and as Skride is passed a huge bouquet of flowers at the end, we half expect her to pull a rabbit. Skride departs and we’re left with our friendly ensemble, bracing themselves for a run at Romeo and Juliet. It spurts into life, the brass section takes off, and a land of high drama lands in our laps. Everyone knows The Scene: The Street Awakens part of Romeo and Juliet – it goes “da da da da / da da da da” – and it brings a whiff of familiarity to proceedings whilst not coming across as clich・d at all. How many times the players must have parped those lines, but still they resonate with a superb spontaneity, fresh and exciting. The small movements follow in intense balletic grandeur, each swaying with the most magnificent nuances, alternately harrowing, grand, tragic and beautiful. The Orchestra are so disciplined and personally inspired, and after two hours in the hands of them and the old masters I feel totally exalted. It’s a quick rush down Queen Street in the hope of catching mountain-Pop heroes Lucky Delucci at Tommy’s Bar afterwards, but alas I’m too late, so settle down with a drink to watch a shy-looking man take the stage all alone bar for a guitar and samplers, and what a treat Pagan Wanderer Lu is. The place is quite full with people in various states of inebriation, and Lu plays with the brilliant air of a man who knows he might well be talking to himself, but doesn’t really care. His songs are great, affectionately crafted vignettes with some marvellous lyrical quirks and hooks, rhythmic guitar lines being repeatedly etched over carefully formatted backing music, the final effect a kind of innovative whirl of DiY magic. The next day takes us to Bristol for The Decemberists show that’s unfortunately cancelled due to one of the band members falling ill, but every cloud has a silver lining and it does allow us to explore Bristol a little. It’s a long walk up the big hill to the Anson Rooms to find out for definite if the show is cancelled, but there are so many things going on as we walk up and the whole place seems so vibrant. Our night freed up, we pop along to see the famous Theckla ship, sipping a beer on its roof as the band in the basement threaten to sink it without trace, before making our way up to our final alternative destination, The Croft. We’d browsed the events listings of the Bristol paper, where the familiar names of Wake the President and Santa Dog jumped out at us (both being of the inaugural Indietracks 2007 family), and we get there in time to see the former etching their intricate, Postcard-inspired Pop, shimmering with craftsmanship and melody. Wake the President have come down all the way from Glasgow, possibly the only place where indie remains indie, and they leave us with a fantastic sense of its humble magic. Rowena Dugdale from Bristol’s own Santa Dog has arranged this gig, and now she comes out like the sun in winter, radiating an immediate warmth that says we’re in for some Pop show. Dugdale has some stage presence, ebulliently bouncing through songs and weaving sultry Pop lines through her band's eloquent rhythms. I can’t help thinking of Sleeper at times, which is no bad thing of coarse, but there’s a humble commercial resignation to Santa Dog that’s typical of the modern underground Pop band, and it makes them ten times better. A new song that’s name I don’t get is possibly the Dog’s ‘Statuesque’, and by the time the gig comes to a halt the small Bristol back-street pub side-room is full to the brim, buzzing on the Pop drug and baying for more. Santa Dog are a a sultry, shimmering indiepop delight, and a fine way to end a week of diverse delights. © 2007 Neil Jones
© Miwsig

Blog:

Archives:

2012

About/Contact

Out Like The Sun

Neil Jones on The Go! Team, Operator Please, Santa Dog, The National Orchestra of Wales and a week of South-West discovery

The Pop dream has been met by a ghost from the recent past over the last few weeks. The re-emerged passion for classical music has demanded that I get out and see it live, and the Red Violin festival around Cardiff has provided the perfect chance. Not that I’m bored with indiepop of coarse, in fact it’s going from strength to strength in my eyes, and my passion for it I feel is becoming a little more informed, though I still feel like someone shouting about it from under a rock. Whatever, Cardiff is such a teeming city, with a big classical music arm which I think gets a little overlooked by the indie community, the Anthony Hopkins Centre that’s hidden in the magic enclosure of trees on the border of Bute Park housing an underbelly of hopeful musicians that I think we should make more of.

It’s a journey that’s defined my past week, some further Pop revelations and the discovery of the many beauties of Bristol providing the metaphorical counterpoints! The Red Violin is a festival conceived by merited performer Madeleine Mitchell, setting out to celebrate the violin in it’s many forms and genres, and my introduction to the festival on Tuesday afternoon couldn’t be more profound. Classical music and the East has always had a profound relationship, and Jyotsna Srikanth is playing in the Millennium Centre foyer like an ancient apostle, a sweeter and more enchanting thing you wouldn’t find. I’m told the UK classical music scene is burdened by an educational obsession with form and technique, while the Indian playing has always relied on soulful intonation, and indeed this music takes me in with such a passionate, personal embrace. Srikanth is such a profound player, immersed in her instrument with that smile of the ancients, her drummer besides her consummating her melodies with an amazing rhythmic grace. It’s such a complex sound, Srikanth not merely reproducing old sounds but twisting them into new innovative forms, and the whole thing has that special, effortless glow of Eastern magic.

After Srikanth and her drumming friend the idea of an NME-sponsored tour didn’t exactly glow with allure. It isn’t at the top of my list of places to go on a Thursday night for sure, but money at a premium and a weekend trip to Bristol just around the corner, an offer of free tickets is sufficient, and the line-up isn’t too bad considering it’s NME, Operator Please ("the Aussie Be your Own PET"), and The Go! Team who I’d heard a lot about piquing interest a little, so I drift inside like a cat into a dog kennel, and it’s on with the dance, as Roy Smeck said.

The crowd is sparse for openers Operator Please, but their sound is interesting, a kind of piquant amalgam of alternative indie ambition and New Rave “style”, creaking at the seams and heading for the stars. I’ll state now that I hate Klaxons and the kind of empty clamour that generally follows the genre as it flirts with mainstream acclaim, but some of the bands it has spawned are admittedly an interesting bunch. Operator Please feature a violinist centre-stage, and she shoots her riffs in and out of the band’s sounds to give it a definite creative buzz. It’s superb at times, the singer’s voice a powerful thing, deep and quite mellifluous as she sprays vaguely rebellious couplets into the arena, a keyboardist stage-left adding a sprinkling of the Pop kind of cool to the proceedings, etching lines that are perfect foils for the violin riffs. She looks a little like a young Louise Wener, dark and fulsome features bouncing along to the songs, but I can’t help wishing the band in general would explode into the riot grrrl riot they threaten rather than simply keeping on threatening it. How great it could be. As for now it’s just good.

A short walk about after Operator Please reveals the trademark NME imagery. As the temperature inside rises, the clusters of posters thrown onto the walls with careless abandon are beginning to come loose, and you get sites like the one pictured, which is a horrible thing, but as a troupe of kaleidoscopically coloured heroes take the stage we can forget for a moment the dark lords that are behind the gig. The Go! Team lift spirits with cartoon grandeur and mind-blowing Pop passion. They fly round the stage with the alacrity of bats, and the last time I saw anyone so into a gig was the Apples in Stereo at Clwb Ifor Bach last winter. The sound is great, a prolonged explosion of Pop awe with a raucous sprinkling of party rap. The Go! Team’s rapper takes centre-stage for the first few numbers before joining the drummer on a second drum set for a dual beat assault that drills outlandishness into our ears; the keyboardist stage-left becomes a melodica angel, a flute demon and a guitar hero in a matter of minutes; another girl takes over vocal duties for a while as the pace changes from raucous party hip hop Pop to a shimmering thing of humble restraint, and at the end we all walk out like we’ve been juggled by Durga.

With Pop and Party still ringing in my ears, the next day I set off for Cardiff classical hotspot St David’s Hall, though judging by the posters and ads inside these days it’s more of a haunt for past-it (or never had it) rock stars and celebrity-infused pantomime (must catch Timmy Mallet in Cinderella). It’s still a hallowed arena though, and when the music starts it takes on a majestic serenity.

The National Orchestra of Wales are a charmingly disparate bunch, young and old combining to etch 19th and 20th century music with a comforting awe and personal inspiration. A rendition of Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel is very special, the variegated bass section throwing down the anchor as the violinists etch soaring melodies that drip with melancholic wonder, the clarinet section at the back adding humble textures, and conductor Thierry Fischer feverishly waving his arms like a cartoon god. Together they make Eulenspiegel glow in all its outlandish romantic profundity.

Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D is next, Latvian virtuoso Baiba Skride appearing like the world’s saviour centre-stage, and where the Strauss rendition shimmered with collective orchestral grace, this ebbs with virtuosic individuality. I’m glued to Skride’s play as she bows Stravinsky’s innovative lines, technique forever giving way to pure feeling and intonation as the master demanded. It’s a pleasure to see someone play such a piece so fluently, without once consulting her sheets, and as Skride is passed a huge bouquet of flowers at the end, we half expect her to pull a rabbit.

Skride departs and we’re left with our friendly ensemble, bracing themselves for a run at Romeo and Juliet. It spurts into life, the brass section takes off, and a land of high drama lands in our laps. Everyone knows The Scene: The Street Awakens part of Romeo and Juliet – it goes “da da da da / da da da da” – and it brings a whiff of familiarity to proceedings whilst not coming across as clich・d at all. How many times the players must have parped those lines, but still they resonate with a superb spontaneity, fresh and exciting. The small movements follow in intense balletic grandeur, each swaying with the most magnificent nuances, alternately harrowing, grand, tragic and beautiful. The Orchestra are so disciplined and personally inspired, and after two hours in the hands of them and the old masters I feel totally exalted.

It’s a quick rush down Queen Street in the hope of catching mountain-Pop heroes Lucky Delucci at Tommy’s Bar afterwards, but alas I’m too late, so settle down with a drink to watch a shy-looking man take the stage all alone bar for a guitar and samplers, and what a treat Pagan Wanderer Lu is. The place is quite full with people in various states of inebriation, and Lu plays with the brilliant air of a man who knows he might well be talking to himself, but doesn’t really care. His songs are great, affectionately crafted vignettes with some marvellous lyrical quirks and hooks, rhythmic guitar lines being repeatedly etched over carefully formatted backing music, the final effect a kind of innovative whirl of DiY magic.

The next day takes us to Bristol for The Decemberists show that’s unfortunately cancelled due to one of the band members falling ill, but every cloud has a silver lining and it does allow us to explore Bristol a little. It’s a long walk up the big hill to the Anson Rooms to find out for definite if the show is cancelled, but there are so many things going on as we walk up and the whole place seems so vibrant. Our night freed up, we pop along to see the famous Theckla ship, sipping a beer on its roof as the band in the basement threaten to sink it without trace, before making our way up to our final alternative destination, The Croft.

We’d browsed the events listings of the Bristol paper, where the familiar names of Wake the President and Santa Dog jumped out at us (both being of the inaugural Indietracks 2007 family), and we get there in time to see the former etching their intricate, Postcard-inspired Pop, shimmering with craftsmanship and melody. Wake the President have come down all the way from Glasgow, possibly the only place where indie remains indie, and they leave us with a fantastic sense of its humble magic.

Rowena Dugdale from Bristol’s own Santa Dog has arranged this gig, and now she comes out like the sun in winter, radiating an immediate warmth that says we’re in for some Pop show. Dugdale has some stage presence, ebulliently bouncing through songs and weaving sultry Pop lines through her band's eloquent rhythms. I can’t help thinking of Sleeper at times, which is no bad thing of coarse, but there’s a humble commercial resignation to Santa Dog that’s typical of the modern underground Pop band, and it makes them ten times better. A new song that’s name I don’t get is possibly the Dog’s ‘Statuesque’, and by the time the gig comes to a halt the small Bristol back-street pub side-room is full to the brim, buzzing on the Pop drug and baying for more. Santa Dog are a a sultry, shimmering indiepop delight, and a fine way to end a week of diverse delights.