Thing of the Day
Some goings off and things we found in the flower garden…
February 18th 2011
all
the fishes in the sea and Lotus Flowers and such…. First, Gilliam:
GILLIAM
- Now this is what we want for a Friday Thing Of The Day, a rather
beautifully awkward band from Tel Aviv, who do rather sound like
they’re from Tel Aviv if you listen to those details and the touch of
klesmer; love their track Schizofriend
that they have on MySpace, especially the live version - fine blend of
slightly quirky, Gentle Giant-flavoured prog adventure.
Actually it was The Consultant who pointed them out to us when we
visited his flower garden earlier today. There they were, a band called
Gilliam
performing a rather fine version of Cardiacs'
R.E.S and
off that set us on a search to find out more... http://www.myspace.com/gilliamusic
And talking of fishes in the sea and
Flower
Gardens and such, we once put out a split CD single featuring tracks
from Cardiacs
and and a band called Camp
Blackfoot, - hmm, wonder if there’s anything online? It
was back in the last century and the atmosphere was choked with human
hair and bats wings and it then it hit us like a frying pan, hang on,
here it is on YouTube, all red clouds hanging over the town an all the
birds flying upside down again, damn, we put out some rather good music
on ORG, didn’t w, - hmm, wonder if there’s anything online? It was back
in the last century and the atmosphere was choked with human hair and
bats wings and it then it hit us like a frying pan, hang on, here it is
on YouTube, all red clouds hanging over the town an all the birds
flying upside down again, damn, we put out some rather good music on
ORG, didn’t we..?
www.youtube.com/watch
We mention this today because Alex
Ward was once part of Camp Blackfoot... See, today’s
collection of Things are all coming together rather nicely, and just
like she said, the pieces fit but the picture’s all wrong… No no, the
picture is perfectly right and onward with the flowers and fishes and
Gilliam and the Consultant and Lotus Flowers and slightly quirky jazz
flavoured prog adventures - and one of the many (many) strings to (one
time inhabitant of Camp Blackfoot) Alex Ward’s multi stringed bow, his
band The Dead Ends.
Alex says Dead Ends is his song-based band, and in a neat twist of something near fate, the Dead Ends play this very Saturday, bit of a last minute affair, here’s the details…
ALEX WARD
& THE DEAD ENDS - Featuring James Sedwards
(Nought, Guapo, The Devil) on guitar,
Joe Williamson (Trapist, Kletka Red) on bass, Jem Doulton (Dead
Days Beyond Help, Ron Jetson) on drums, and Alex Ward on guitar
and vocals. Ward might be best known in certain circles as an
improviser on clarinet and guitar, having worked with the likes of
Derek Bailey and Eugene Chadbourne, and is frequently to be found
performing around London with fellow improvisers such as Lol Coxhill
and Steve Noble. But songwriting has played an equally important role
in his music since the early 2000s. The Dead Ends were originally
formed to play songs from his solo album Hapless Days, and
have since developed an extensive repertoire of originals (and the
occasional unexpected cover), comprising equal parts country-inflected
melodicism, brutal noise-rock aggression, and dual-guitar fuelled
flights of improvisational abandon. With their bass player resident in
Sweden, opportunities to see them in London are comparatively rare, so
this show is not to be missed.
http://www.myspace.com/alexwardandthedeadends
Supporting The Dead Ends tomorrow night are Shake Rag and Joe Williamson, on first at 8.30pm. Mr Ward tells us that
“Shake Rag are Julia Dagger (vocals),
John MacMillan (guitar), Mike Freer (guitar), Santiago Horro (bass) and
Kev Morpurgo (drums). Their music manages to combine rock energy with
swampy eeriness, hints of blues and punk melded into an altogether less
classifiable sound, hooks and dissonance expertly married”, and that
Joe Williamson was “born in Canada and now resident in Stockholm, Dead
Ends bassist Joe Williamson will open the evening with a solo
guitar/vocals set. He will be performing songs about love, war, alien
abduction, pet ownership, misguided samaritanism and Norwegian black
metal, from his 2009 album Everything
Should Have Been Just Fine and new releases Crackpot
and Waterboarder
- www.joewilliamson.klingt.org
The Alex Ward and the Dead Ends gig happens at The Others, Stoke Newington,
London, tomorrow, Saturday, first band on 8.30, Alex and
company on at 10pm, strange venue above a snooker hall, broken synths
chained to the walls and such… http://www.theothers.uk.com
And to almost complete the synchronicity, this turned up in today’s post. See what a neat and orderly set of Friday things we’re feeding you here? No squalor, everything tidy, nothing left on the floor today…
EUREKA
MACHINES – These Are
The People Who Live In My House (Wrath) –
Leeds band Eureka Machines have just released a new (digital) single,
more of their very poppy, very uplifting breezy wildhearted beach boy
poprock… and they’re growing on us. Good pop rock, English cheap tricks
and yes indeed all very pop side of Wildhearts and take off your shoes
at the door… And over on the b-side is the recent Eureka Machines
contribution to the Tim Smith tribute album celebration of his songs
type collection of Cardiacs covers - a very poppy version of Arnald. One of the
more poppy Cardiacs moments anyway and made even more poppy here, and
all the fishes in the sea, and I suspect this version would leave Tim
Smith an even bigger smile then usual. He was forever telling us how
all he ever wanted to do was write pop songs and however hard he tried
“it always came out sounding like the same old shit”. He
would never listen when we argued he was achieving everything he wanted
- there you go Tim, told you they were pop songs! This
version has a very Jon Poole feel to it actually, punchy poppy rocky,
all cake on top and real inside, a fine fine spade to build a
moat… And the A-Side is Eureka Machines' best moment yet,
fine piece of pop rock and a man with a plan and an early taste on
their excellently titled new album Champion
The Underdog – more from www.eurekamachines.com
Find out about the Tim Smith tribute album here… www.organart.com/organthing015.html
Eureka Machines video -
And finally, nothing to do with anything in the (Lotus) Flower Garden (although the first time we saw Radiohead they were opening for Cardiacs and professing their love for the leader of the starry skies). We’re rather enjoying this new King of Limbs Radiohead stuff, kind of ‘nice’ yet still with that strange experimental edge all of their own, and you don’t need us covering it here though, do you? I expect you’ll find it all over the media by now. The album came out today, the album is called King of Limbs, here’s a track called Lotus Flower…
