JULIAN CASABLANCAS Live in Leeds

10/12/09

Leeds Met University

For someone who redefined the meaning of cool when he led his merry band of indie pretenders The Strokes to instant acclaim with game-changing 2001 record Is This It?, Julian Casablancas seems oddly unsure of himself. In recent interviews, he has appeared insecure, perhaps failing to get to grips with the transformative effect his song writing has had on alternative music, an impact of which everyone except himself seems sure.

Cool back in 2001 meant guitars, greasy hair and leather jackets and there is plenty of all three on display on a cold night in Leeds. The skinny jean and standard-issue military jacket brigade are out in force, perhaps hoping to relive those halcyon days. And though pre-gig watering hole the Dry Dock is playing enough Strokes classics to whet the appetite, Casablancas is out to prove he is no spent force, promoting first solo venture, Phrazes for the Young, an album which shows his songwriting talents show no sign of waning.

It does not take him long to get into his stride during his first live appearance on these shores since 2006. Standout album tracks 11th Dimension, Left & Right in the Dark and Out of the Blue go down predictably well, but it is less-trumpeted tracks Ludlow St. and River of Brakelights that are taken to a new level in a live setting. Whatever his supposed insecurities, Casablancas is ultimately a performer as ice-cool as the weather outside, his leather jacket not inducing even a bead of sweat on a potentially stressful first night.

The venue is near full, quite an achievement given that Mad-chester icon Ian Brown is stepping out down the road at the O2. Unlike the Stone Roses frontman, however, Casablancas has no need to dine out on former glories, delivering only a reworked acoustic version of third-album track You Only Live Once to those who had come for a Strokes tribute gig. Casablancas, however, has moved on. Their song-writing inspiration, The Strokes, certainly, need Casablancas back if the fourth album is to ever happen. Whether Casablancas needs them, however, is much less certain.

Casablancas played:

Ludlow St.
Out of the Blue
11th Dimension
Tourists
Left & Right in the Dark
4 Chords of the Apocalypse
I’ll Try Anything Once (You Only Live Once cover)
River of Brakelights

I wish it was Christmas Today
30 minute Boyfriend
Glass

JULIAN CASABLANCAS: Phrazes for the Young (album review)

NOVEMBER 2009

The extent to which New York indie maestros The Strokes transformed the face of guitar music in 2001 is often overlooked. With its inventive guitar lines and audacious arrangements, their first album, Is This It? showed how spectacularly creative guitar music could be. It was indie pop perfection, blazing a trail for the sort of bands – Bloc Party, Libertines, Kings of Leon – for which the noughties should be remembered.

Given their influence, it is perhaps surprising that the first sortie into solo territory of front man and songwriter Julian Casablancas has not generated more attention. However, The Strokes ship has not been a happy vessel of late, with mixed critical acclaim greeting their most recent, 2006 offering, First Impressions of Planet Earth and a mooted release date of early next year for album four attracting more doubt than excitement.

But take all that away and it is possible to distil the secret of The Strokes’ success to one indisputable truth: Casablancas is a wonderful songwriter. And on Phrazes for the Young he not only proves that he is in no way a spent song-writing force, but that the halcyon days of Is This It? may not be so far away after all.

Strokes aficionados may have had felt more than a twinge of worry that Casablancas would use a solo project to fully indulge his fondness for the massive, intricate arrangements that stretched the waistband of the New York band’s bloated last album. At fourteen songs First Impressions dragged on, but here Casablancas gets the recipe just right. Phrazes for the Young is filled with songs that fizz and sparkle and therefore skips along as an album, from the ravishing chorus of Left & Right in the Dark to the eighties bounce of synth-tastic standout track 11th Dimension.

Casablancas never fails to please with his trademark languid vocal, but what he has achieved is more than a hugely pleasing first solo album. By successfully fusing the raw, gutsy appeal of Strokes albums one and two with an almost electro vibe – while keeping it loaded with the arrangements of album three – is alchemy. If Phrazes for the Young proves one thing, it’s that Casablancas isn’t done yet – and that Strokes album four should be worth waiting for.

****

EDITORS Live in Leeds

17/10/09

No one does melodrama quite like Editors. Whatever reservations you have about the Birmingham band's third, most recent album In This Light And On This Evening, to see the ever-grandiose Tom Smith stand, Christ-like, and intone first album classics such as Munich and Blood in his peculiar tenor guarantees a compelling live spectacle. It is not so much singing as oratory from this operatic impresario. Worryingly for them, however, it was solely songs from 2004 debut The Back Room plus a couple of others that ensured this gig was a success.

Three albums in, Editors are a band who have successfully straddled the competing demands of musical creativity and commercial success, with their third album topping the UK albums chart. However, from their latest it was only the rollicking Papillon that came close to matching earlier offerings for pace and electricity.

To say Editors have gone off the boil would be harsh, but the older age of the Leeds crowd is testament to the fact that Editors have failed to pick up new fans with recent material. That is fair enough – at least they continue to be innovative and bold and refuse to dilute and expand a winning brand in search of arena status in the style of Coldplay and Kings of Leon. Those young’uns are missing out anyway, as Editors are one of those bands that reach another, truly unexpectedly gripping level in a live setting. For Tom Smith, occasions like these are the next best thing to choir practice.

***

MIKA The Boy Who Knew Too Much (album review)

OCTOBER 2009

We all remember Grace Kelly, that annoyingly hummable three minutes of camp pop perfection that saw the unfailingly irritating Mika prance to fame in 2007. Few remember the rest of the Lebanese oddball’s first album, Life in Cartoon Motion, largely because it was rubbish, a jamboree of self-indulgent pop offal. Still, perhaps just off the back of the success of that one song, some industry bod has seen fit to award the bloke another album. Big Mistake.

Mika’s latest offering, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, achieves what few thought possible by out-camping its predecessor. The listener is left exhausted after just three songs, worn down by the ceaseless torrent of tinny nonsensical pop delivered in Mika’s thankfully inimitable screeching falsetto. By song six (if still listening), they are comatose, their eardrums burnt out by the bombardment. And yet on Mika wallows, with each song gamely proving the theory that no album is too bad for release. Why, oh why, couldn’t the floppy-haired Frodo Baggins impersonator have stuck to his natural role as an Any Dream Will Do contestant?

Whoever saw fit to sanction the album’s release obviously thinks its success rests on its first single We are Golden replicating the success of Grace Kelly. But lightning, no matter how much glitter you put on it, doesn’t strike twice and the fact it is the standout track says little for the rest of the album. And that’s even without the sheer, surely unforgivable weirdness of the video for the song, in which Mika dances around a bedroom on all fours dressed just in underpants and golden boots. It really is grotesque.

How Mika got ahead in the music industry, let alone made it to a second album, is unfathomable, but one thing is for sure: in the pantheon of musical crimes, this album rates pretty highly. In The Boy Who Knew Too Much, Mr. Flounce 2009 has produced a true clusterfuck of an album that should surely, surely ensure he doesn’t get the chance to make a third one. The only reason I can think for buying this album for someone is that you want to annoy them. But unless you want to lose that person forever, I wouldn’t risk it.

*

THE RUMBLE STRIPS Welcome to the Walk Alone (album review)

JUNE 2009

Judging by the latest offering from Devon quintet The Rumble Strips, the band was unhappy with the reception given to its 2007 debut Girls and Weather. Its mix of screaming brass and perfect pop arrangements won popular acclaim, but it did not afford them a place at the top table of British music – more positioning them as the excitable Springer Spaniel chewing on the chair leg of noughties indie.

Maybe that is unfair, but The Walk Alone certainly marks a new departure for the band. Gone are the punchy, euphoric climaxes that distinguished singles such as “Motorcycle,” to be replaced by a more orchestral, reflective feel. The previously raucous brass is brought under control in songs such as ‘Daniel’ and ‘Sweet Heart Hooligan,’ where strings and heavy piano chords are instead tasked to deliver weight and contrast.

This approach perhaps explains the album’s unsatisfactorily soft centre and it is no surprise that the album delivers whenever the band spring back to the form and style that marked their first album. ‘London’ and, in particular, ‘Not the only person’ are corking tracks with choruses that elevate and climaxes that deliver. One aspect of the album that consistently delivers is the vocal performance of front man Charlie Wheeler, who somehow manages to cross Ricky Wilson with Freddie Mercury and end up sounding more than respectable.

Overall, it is an enjoyable album; what is frustrating is that the band seems unwilling to return to springer spaniel territory, and fill the album with the zest and life which characterised songs such as ‘Alarm Clock’ and ‘Motorcycle.’ Opening track Welcome to the Walk Alone is indisputably a great song, but its sombre tone does not play to the band’s strengths. Maybe producer Mark Ronson was wary of loading the album with the trumpet twills for which he has a reputation. But as far as I’m concerned, bring them on. The Rumble Strips are essentially a fun, joyous band – they need to rediscover that next time around.

***

TORI AMOS Abnormally Attracted To Sin (album review)

May 2009

I don’t think I will ever ‘get’ Tori Amos. I don’t know who she is for. She certainly has staying power, with her latest offering marking the tenth album of a career spanning 20 years. Her talent is obvious, and Abnormally is boosted by her swooping vocals. But it is all just a bit odd, really. From the bizarre album art – from whips to a chameleon, any prop will do for our Tori – to the sinister quality of many of the songs, I don’t see who she appeals to. And this does not help a marathon album in which, at seventeen songs, the finishing line is rarely in sight.

The album waits until track five to kick into something resembling life, with the optimistically named “Not Dying Today” supplying a surprise variation on the keyboard-driven melancholy. Not that we should be surprised at the lack of party poppers – this is a woman with a lot to get off her chest. Rape and a miscarriage have provided rich source material for her music in the past and you get the impression emotional toil is always bubbling away below the surface.

Which is something I could happily do without. Computer scientists with Goth pretensions will no doubt love it. But as one not up for jumping off that cliff just yet, it is an album I would happily forget.

*

ELBOW Live in Sheffield

O2 Academy, Sheffield
03/03/09

Poor old Elbow. The arbiters of musical taste have kept them waiting. It took five albums and eighteen years to achieve the mainstream success they surely deserved from the start, a Mercury Music Prize the reward for last year’s tour de force, Seldom Seen Kid. The Best Band gong at the Brits that followed a fortnight ago truly propelled them into the limelight. However, you get the impression that Elbow are happiest onstage, doing what they do best, sending delirious punters into sensual overdrive with their smooth melodies and intricate arrangements. As lead-singer Guy Garvey testifies: “the Brits were good- but it wasn’t our sort of party.”

If one thing’s for sure, a cold, wet night in the Steel City most certainly is their kind of party. Elbow’s arrival onstage is heralded by the tumultuous trumpets of SSK opener Starlings, and followed by more of their recent award-winning material. One of the biggest cheers of the night is reserved for the arrival of Sheffield legend Richard Hawley’s, who collaborated with Garvey on The Fix. However, the Sheffield crowd (most of whom are old enough to remember Hawley’s heyday) are truly sent into raptures by SSK standout tracks Grounds for Divorce and Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver- the soaring vocals of the latter track truly send a tingle down your spine when heard live.

As any listener to Garvey’s 6Music radio show will know, his patter is good. You would not get an informal Q&A session in the middle of many gigs but Garvey’s easy charm pulls it off (he answers “what’s in the mug?” with “the elixir of eternal life- it doesn’t seem to be working”). After ending with the wonderful One Day Like This, Elbow are invited back for more, Garvey’s falsetto delivering with style in Weather to Fly before pleasing the hardcore fans with beautiful older track Newborn.

Not your average rockers, members of Elbow come in various shapes and sizes, having incurred varying degrees of hair loss. However, like a good cheese they have matured over time and at last have achieved the commercial success to match their critical acclaim. Even if uncomfortable with their new position as a fixture in England’s musical elite, Elbow more than lived up to expectations with a live performance that proved to be a euphoric experience.

*****

Welcome to my new blog

It is all about music.

Hopefully, more good music than bad. To that end, I will be posting reviews of albums and live shows and commenting on the latest music news and industry trends. For the past year I have been writing reviews for the newspaper I work on at university - York Vision - and will be uploading a few of them to the site later.

Just to give an idea of where this blog may be heading musically, some interests to declare: I grew up reading NME, though our paths have diverged of late (that was proven by their inclusion of Lady Gaga and Dizzee Rascal in the 2009 top 50 tracks list). My favourite band of all time is the Strokes. In the noughties, Bloc Party, the Libertines and Arctic Monkey also rank highly, along with Maximo Park, The Coral, Radiohead and Arcade Fire. Prior to that, Oasis and Blur reigned supreme in my young eyes, though I later found out how the Beatles and Stones will never be equalled.

I took pride in my album collection until iTunes came along and will probably end up succumbing (finally) to the evil advertry of Spotify in the new year. Whenever I am not being mocked for owning an iPod shuffle I am listening to music on it and the first band I saw live was The Futureheads. The most recent was Julian Casablancas, last week. The chances are slim, but if you like the sound of all that and are still reading, this blog may be for you. Stay tuned.

PS. In the meantime, listen to this. It goes against everything I have just written. But it's great.