THE KING OF NO-FI BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA REVIEWS ANOTHER HAUL OF NEW AND UPCOMING RELEASES FOR THE MONOLITH COCKTAIl. (Unless stated otherwise, all releases are available at time of publication)
/SINGLES\
Tearless Life ‘Conversations With Angels’
(Other Voices Records)
The debut single from The Tearless Life and a strange thing it is indeed; part post-punk gothitude, part Harry Styles: maybe they should have called themselves Boy Division. It is a quite interesting and enjoyable pop single and is blanketed in a summer warmth that captures the long lost summer radio evenings of Radio one, when Kid Jenson and Janice Long used to entertain us whilst waiting for the stranger sounds from John Peel. And the B-side does not half remind me of Julian Cope in one of his stranger pop explosions of leather flying pants glory. A quite wonderful pairing.
Candid Faces ‘Coming Home’
(Warren Faces)
Every week I seem to have an email box full up of great guitar music by young bands. Sadly I cannot write about them all, so Candid Faces are one of the chosen ones in this month’s round up. And as I have just written, they are young, full of life and humour, vim and vigour, and are blessed with a pop nonchalance that I very much approve of. I’m very sure they will be riding the waves of success when the damn breaks and guitar music will once again become a musical mainstream necessity.
Hydroplane ‘Stars (Twilight Mix)’
(World Of Echo)
A sweet twee last dance of a song, all heavenly bobby socks melodies chiming Buddy Holly guitars and the taste of the end or the beginning of first love; the sound of the ending of innocent wishes and kisses and a rather beautiful thing it all is too.
Slow Pulp ‘Doubt’
(ANTI-)
Slow Pulp’s ‘Doubt’ is an enjoyable little indie rock/emo pop song that my daughter seemed to enjoy. As I was listening to the track she asked what and who it was, and is now considering going to watch them at Jimmys in Liverpool in November. So they must be doing something right, and is nice to know that music still reaches out and touches the souls and inspires youngsters to go out and have a good night with friends. The power and emotional pull of music will never subside.
\ALBUMS-EPS/
Liam Gallagher ‘Live At Knebworth 22’
11th August 2023
Ok, people who know anything about me know that I’m really not an Oasis fan. I find them extremely over-rated and I think they put guitar music back 30 years with their unimaginative paint by numbers guitar sludge. They made it fashionable to be average and beige, and to make mock ‘n’ roll music. For real rock ‘n’ roll has a spirit; a sexiness; a taste of adventure that Oasis songs really do not have: they have as much danger as watching an episode of Hollyoaks.
So I admit I wasn’t expecting to really like this album much. And for once I was right: I really do not like this album at all. It has all the lack of qualities that Oasis had. It is of course Liam Gallagher‘s triumphant return to Knebworth in all its paint by numbers glory. Liam standing bow legged like he has a full nappy singing in his voice like he has just been told off by his mum, backed by a band who knows all the right chords and are played in all the right order with no deviation from the recorded and released versions. Half the songs are Oasis classics (if classics is the right word for songs of such stodgy lack of glamour), but at least they have a melody unlike the other half of the album made up of highlights from his solo albums – again, highlight might not be the right word as the highlight of a Liam album is the last bar of the last song on it. I know people will say Liam must be good because he sold out Knebworth so many times and all these people went to watch him. Yes indeed, but remember people also pay to watch Golf.
Is there anything good I can say about this album? Well actually I can find two things. The first is it does not have a version of ‘Little James’ on it, which is the worst song ever written by a grown up, and the second thing, is at least it is not a Noel Gallagher solo album, which would take tedium to new highs: or would that be lows. So an album to be avoided by all: even if you are an Oasis fan. You might as well listen to your already cherished copies of the studio albums as there is nothing different here, just the same old sameness.
Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevedo ‘Phantasmagoria In Blue’
(Mute) 1st September 2023
Phantasmagoria In Blue is an album of sweeping lush duets between a man and a woman; mostly covers with a couple of originals thrown in. An old and wonderful concept that has done many times before, but a concept that I for one never tire of, as I never grow tired of renditions of ‘Songs For The Siren’. For yes there is another version on Phantasmagoria In Blue, and a fine version it is, swathed in beauty and strings and conjuring up images of windswept lovers meeting on winter beaches with the ocean whispering sweet truths and wishful wants.
The whole album in fact is one long journey; one long story that sets a mood and for the length of the album never loses that mood; an album of romantic redemption; an album to lose yourself in with the partner of your choice or one to soundtrack the unforgiving beauty of loneliness.
Craig Fortnam ‘Ruins In Time EP’
(Believer’s Roast)
Late 60s early 70s psych folk vibes abound with this rather spiffing three-piece slice of Bandcamp magic. From the excellent opener, the Syd Barrett like ‘Shepard’s On The Lawn’, through to the second and my fave of the three, the rather beautiful folky ‘Ruins In Time’ – which had me wondering where I have left my ‘A Game For All To Play Boxset’ – these tracks really do take you back to a much gentler and magical time. The only bad point about this EP is that it not an album.
Funeral Cake ‘One Funny Place EP’
(Dandy Boy Records)
Does anyone out there want a slice of Funeral Cake? A 4 track EP of fuzzy guitar pop and tuneful melodies, that sounds a lot like those pesky Primitives; yes, that band from the 80s that held our pop hearts in their hands and juggled and performed various holiday fairylike tricks with it sprinkling sparkle dust over the pesky blighter. Yes indeed, the Funeral Cake carry the same magic, the same pop suss, the same melodious let-me-tickle-your-funny-bones-and-make-your-day-a-sunny-treat. Yes, Funeral Cake are popadelica: a real treat for you.
LP REVIW
Dominic Valvona
Idiot Blur Fanboy ‘Oasis Are The Enemy’
(Wormhole World) LP/6th March 2020
There’s that 70s interview between goading miscreant music writer Lester Bangs and his idol Lou Reed, the one where Bangs baits his subject, hitting on a nerve in taking a pop at the former Velvet darling’s current foil and champion David Bowie, who’s star was of course in ascendance, a consequence of which was reviving Lou’s solo career. Bangs however accuses Bowie, Nosferatu style, of bloodsucking on Lou’s creative life force for his own ends; at one point he opines that Bowie wasn’t even a good songwriter, and that he hadn’t written anything even as good or lasting as Sam The Sham’s ‘Wooly Bully’. Tenuous, but in the same ballpark, cult leader of the stalwart lo fi Bordellos and a myriad of sporadic side-projects, Brian Shea recently posted a series of charity shop bin-fodder and kitsch albums (from the early 90s cast of Coronation Street to Bruce Forsyth) he, as scornfully goading as Bangs and hoping for a similar rise, stated were better than Oasis’s grand opus, Be Here Now. He had a point.
Under the guises of the Idiot Blur Fanboy, Brian’s latest dysfunctional and despondent Tascam rubber-band four-track triumph Oasis Are The Enemy pours a bucket of cold sick over not only the sorry excuse for a Ruttles tribute band but their mockney middleclass rivals Blur. But this isn’t just an obsessive ranting diatribe – even if the George Formby meets Mark E Smith twat-gait breezy ‘Liam Gallagher’ ditty is an excuse to take a pop: “Walks like he shat himself, sings like a spud” -; more a title and lyric that encapsulates the sorry state of the music industry and pockets of fandom still living in a recent past. But at least Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn have moved on musically, as uninspiring as they might be. Liam, stuck still singing the Wonderwalls and Supernovas his brother wrote 25 years ago, has a solo career that he seems to think is somehow truer to the spirit of rock’n’roll; knocking and pestering, squabbling constantly with Noel who he denounces for apparently turning his back on that myopic vision of rock music. Truth is Liam’s music and cockiness is dull as dishwater. Apart from the already mentioned cheap but hilarious turd delivered Liam track, the titular tune is the only other sneering polemic relating to this theme; ‘Idiot Blur Fanboy’, which originally had an even less PC title, is a chugging thumbed lo fi Jilted John distortion, a brilliant raving Britpop antichrist tango.
The rest of Brian’s ruminations and idiosyncratic observed, musical inspirations littered, diy poetry concerns love-lost resignation, electric-soup connoisseurs of lethal strong lager, wistful remorse, regret and even a tinge of that nostalgia. ‘Cabbage Patch Doll Kiss’ is in the melancholic romantic vogue; a cantering malady with some of the album’s best lines (and there are many): “My hat was a garden, now it’s a rubbish tip. You were the captain of my favourite bath ship.” –Syd Barret eat your heart out. That bastard ‘Rick Astley’ was playing on the radio during another breakup (“I longed for the dark, so I could cry under the killing moon.”) yet is credited with saving Brian’s soul. ‘In My Bed’ pulls the malingering humour into sharp focus however, as one of the album’s saddest profound heartaches, Brian touching upon his own mental health and its effects on a partner. Just as seemingly sad, ‘Guitars And Dust’ finds the middle-aged St. Helens maverick as the lamentable surveyor of his bedroom music empire, yearning that “I’m not the man I thought I’d be.” With a sort of bastardised slow ‘Band On The Run’ feel, Brian touches upon his family band’s underground status, devoid after decades of success. Brian pulls himself together for the final scour, ‘Oh Morrissey’. To a discordant buzz and lone electric guitar Brian has a go at an icon over a perceived betrayal; Morrissey lurching in recent years to the ‘right’. Always a contrary fucker at the best of times, but no calls for boycotts or much in the way of criticism over his vulgarities and cuntiness when he was supporting left wing causes, Morrissey has shown support for Tommy Robinson, sported a Britain First badge on US TV, but also (how dare he) been sympathetic to those who voted for Brexit. He is, as Brian puts it, a “twat”. But lets see it for what it is, a fading star stirring the pot and looking for attention. Still a boycott seems petty and full of false indignity: Be weary of false idols.
The wisdom of a St. Helens Daniel Johnston or Dan Treacy on the dole, the stripped down Idiot Blur Fanboy LP is a triumph of lo fi integrity in an age in which all the counterculture and underground ‘mutherfuckers’ have disappeared into mediocrity or under the fleeting caviler relationship of streaming: a flakey epoch and market place unsympathetic to musicians and artists. Someone care though, and for that they deserve your support and pocket money. Let’s see what we can do to keep such mavericks afloat.
Related from the Archives:
The Bordellos ‘Debt Sounds: Track by Track’
The Bordellos ‘Will.I.Am, You’re Really Nothing’
Brian Bordello’s Reviews Roundup
Monolith Cocktail Blog 