dea Lesson No.1

Monday, May 14

GETTING A BRICK, A CHAIR AND A WOOLF ACROSS A RIVER



So this Wednesday I am chipping in with a gig chiefly booked by Will and Keith of the loveable Joy Collective which will deliver varied and upstanding brands of noise. About a fortnight after that I have a punkier show headlined by terrific Boston, MA band FOREIGN OBJECTS. Then after that I probably won’t be doing many shows for a mighty long time. Most likely a Swn Festival bill of some kind, as I’ve done one every year so far and I got asked again, but to be really real, most imminently touring bands on my radar right now are either too big/pricey for my smalltime operation, more suited to promotion by someone else in Cardiff, or I just don’t rate them enough to feel like stressing out about doing a pop concert for them. This is always subject to change without notice, so anyone can still enquire about the possibility of Lesson No.1 gigs – it isn’t very likely at the moment, is all.

On which note I shall stop talking about myself and shine a firefly-sized light on the musical acts playing this thing. MXLX is the headliner. The flyer at the top looks almost tauntingly as if it says MXPX, who are a popular Christian ska-punk band, but it’s MXLX. He is a guy called Matt Loveridge who lives in Bristol, and this is only one of his noms de noise – you might know him as Team Brick, under which name he’s recorded and performed since maybe 2003. He was a right old mess in those first couple of years, if this writer recalls right: junky live electronics and random surreality, with the general feeling it was all being done on the hoof somewhat. Over time, he started listening to a lot of ‘ethnomusical’ (is that the correct term? An acceptable term?) records and teaching himself throat singing, which was/is really cool to watch/listen to, especially when put through a bunch of loopy modulatey FX.

Matt’s virtuosity and uniqueness was picked up on by many in Bristol especially, the highest profile being Geoff Barrow of Portishead, and the two play together in the Kraut/prog trio BEAK>, one of Barrow’s projects during Portishead downtime. Despite this raising of his profile, Matt has continued to furnish micro-labels with music for short-run CDRs and tapes – as Team Brick, Fairhorns, Gnar Hest, Klad Hest, Knife Library and MXLX. In this latter mode, he seems to favour long pieces which approach transcendentalism and employ intense, ecclesiastical drones and scarcely shifting motifs. I seriously can’t get enough of ‘8’, the 42-minute chongout on his Bandcamp (linked above). If he pulls out something like that on Wednesday I’ll be stoked.

It will likely be an extremely jarring shift from what WOOLF are going to deliver, but Woolf are kinda jarring by design. When I booked them for this gig and told them about the rest of the bill, Colette from the band informed me that she put Team Brick on in Cardiff back in 2006, before she moved to London. Which was cool because that show was nutty (Gay Against You made a mess by throwing polystyrene everywhere), and because I had an inkling it was her that promoted it, but wasn’t sure, and didn’t want to ask cos I’d look weird. This will be Woolf’s first gig in Cardiff, and they will have copies of their 13-minute album (you may lean towards ‘EP’ here) ‘The Right Way To Play’. Released on the heroic La Vida Es En Mus label, it promises to be wickedly scratchy, itchy, practically deconstructed punk primitivism indebted to riot grrrl, especially its least rockist enclaves. The Woolf songs out there thus far (their side of a split 7” with Trash Kit and a couple of other online tracks, basically) remind me of no-one more than Skinned Teen, although Woolf aren’t 16 years old and so have different concerns.

Woolf have done a really nice poster for the UK tour, listing all the bands they’re playing with and all. It occurred to me that maybe they’re expecting ‘Brandyman DJs’ to be actual DJs who like scratch and beatmatch and that, as opposed to Ben and DC from the band Brandyman putting CDs on one after the other, which is what it will be. They will choose wisely, though, on account of their fine musical taste. Also on the bill is STACKING CHAIRS, a solo project (with occasional help) of Casey Raymond. Casey is known (to those who know) for creating weird videos for singles by pop bands large and small; he also likes to make wonky DIY noise out of keyboards, loops and contact mic’d household objects.

‘Weak-Beat And Noodles’, the first Stacking Chairs album – purchasable on the link above – reminds me of the Skaters’ tape-damaged gloop, V/VM’s assault on pop culture and the plunderphonic prototypes of John Oswald (and ‘Revolution No.9’, I guess). You won’t see much like it round here too often, so treasure these small gifts. Starts at 8pm, finishes at 11pm, fiver on the door.

posted by Noel Gardner at 9:26 AM 0 comments

Thursday, March 29

GOODNIGHT SEATTLE WE HATE YOU*



Lesson No.1 doesn’t put on that many bands where it’s imperative/desirable to fuck people up in the mosh, and even when we do, sometimes it doesn’t happen for whatever reason. No biggie, it’s not normally my thing anyway. The last time we put Seattle’s utterly killing BLACK BREATH on, however, people banged their heads and pushed into each other a bit and spilled some lager, probably. They were doing it because Black Breath crush as a live band: twin-axe amp stack singer-in-the-crowd concoctions of early Swedish death metal, post Cro-Mags crossover, the crustiest hardcore out of Umea/Portland/Bristol/name your epicentre... totally oppressive, fully inclusive, vicious GOOD TIMES.

And now they’re coming back to Cardiff to do it all again. This time they’re in a bigger venue and they have an extra 40 minutes of material in the form of their out-this-week second album, ‘Sentenced To Life’, which is pretty much like the first album and the EP that came before it, only better. Man, if I’m not busy with something when the intro to ‘Doomed’ kicks in, I’m going to throw a table across the room and put a broken Foster’s bottle across my neck. Unless someone points out to me how irresponsible that would be.

Black Breath are also touring with two bands this time, making this a VFM four-act bill in total thanks to a rare and based exclusive show courtesy of SHAPED BY FATE. They have a new album in the can, so expect to hear a bunch of that, along with their singer mocking you for not throwing tables across the room etc. He’s the original #bantersaurus! Cosily, Richey from Shaped By Fate also did the cover art for ‘A Dissident’, the most recent album by VICTIMS from Sweden. They write Clwb Ifor Bach as ‘Clwb For Ibach’ on their tour poster, but it’s OK cos their music bangs hard. Still loyal to the D-beat game, like when they formed in the late 90s, they also have lots of lozenge-requiring Lemmy vocals and hardcore-is-metal guitar leads a la Poison Idea. I could listen to them all day, but 30 minutes or so is probably the perfect length.

Finally, TORMENTED, also from Sweden (Finspång, it says here), are the dark horses of the bill from where I’m standing. If you check for death metal more than crust or whatever, though, you may disagree. I don’t mind if you call me a pussy. Let it all out. Anyway, these guys are on the Listenable label and are ex-members of a ton of bands, including effing MARDUK for goodness’ sakes, and exist to mine the rich seam of DM from before it got super technical and drum triggery and Protooled – Autopsy, Death, Pestilence, Possessed, that kind of thing. They do this very ably, which means they sound dirtier than Colin McRae’s mudflap, and fast as shit but not just for the sake of it. I can’t fucking get over how heavy this bill is!

Which is probably the point where I should stop acting like I deserve some sort of praise for bringing it to Cardiff, and give props to Greg Barton of GRAB Promotions, as he’s been the main guy that’s made all this happen, and I’m just helping out with plugging it. The best way I can think of doing that is by saying that if you care even one tiny bit about metal and don’t go to this show, you should drown yourself in a bath filled with stomach acid.

*Black Breath don’t hate Seattle as far as I know, it’s just a Frasier reference

posted by Noel Gardner at 8:55 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 17

THE LOW END FEAR ‘EE



OK, so basically the deal with this gig is that it’s an identical lineup to one that took place in October, which was written about here, which is comfortably still on the front page of this blog. If you want to know why it’s being done again, I guess try and find the thread for the original gig on Southwalesmassive for (some would say) an overly comprehensive explanation.

Long story short, Conan drove down from Liverpool just to play the show, played for about ten minutes and were physically coerced into stopping by the relief* landlord of the venue, who had been drinking solidly for something like 15 hours, due to Wales’ world cup game that day. Then they drove back to Liverpool again. What a rip! Well they didn’t want to leave things hanging like this, neither did the folks who organised the show, and the fine Swalian metal/punk/whatever dudes who attended didn’t really get to see the headline band. So we booked CONAN, ZONDERHOOF and PUS into Buffalo for Sun 22 Jan – that’s THIS SUNDAY – and will be letting you in for only TWO QUID.

In exchange you will get to see three kickass bands do their thing, and no staff members will be drunk to the point of abject incapability. Regarding the bands themselves, most of what I wrote a few months back still applies, I think: Conan have finished recording their new album, which might be their debut depending if you think four-song, 30-minute slabs of stone called ‘Horseback Battle Hammer’ are albums or not, and will doubtless be playing a wedge of it. Pus have continued to get glowing reviews for their debut EP, likewise Zonderhoof for their ‘Hakken!’ full-length.

Basically it would be really neat if you could go to this and finish off a job that was left incomplete by the vagaries of the pub/gig interface. Don’t blame pubs, though. They’re not the guilty party here.

*this means that he isn’t the normal landlord, and this sort of thing doesn’t normally happen. I went to see Diet Pills and others in there about six weeks afterwards, it was just as loud, and everyone was good people.

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Noel Gardner at 9:15 PM 0 comments

Thursday, November 10

GUEST BLOG PARAISO



The title of this entry is a pun on ‘Guest House Paradiso’, which is a movie from the late 90s that’s basically a feature-length episode of ‘Bottom’. It may have made you think that it was going to be written by someone who isn’t me (Noel who does Lesson No.1). Sadly it is still me, but in a sense I am a guest of Paul from Burial Chamber, in that he booked a show for ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO UFO, and invited me to help him out, by doing things such as writing this blog post.

This show is in Bridgend because Paul has an affinity with the place, I think, and especially the venue it’s in, Hobos. I’ve never even been to Bridgend, but I will be getting the train after work, which runs regularly and is a piece of piss from Cardiff. You can do it too. AMT will easily finish in time for you to get the last train back. Let’s talk about them! Acid Mothers Temple, that is, not trains.

What you might know about them, and/or the stuff that should probably be talked about first anyway: they come from Japan. They’ve released records in the mid-90s, and absolutely bonkers amounts of them. You don’t have to worry about getting them all, really, but they have a surprisingly high quality threshold considering their prolific nature. Their music runs from classic psychedelia to free improv to heavy riffing stoner thud-rock to intense drone pieces to a bunch of other stuff. They often give their stuff titles parodying some of their favourite bands, with Pink Floyd and King Crimson coming in for treatment especially – the album they’re currently touring (on the Riot Season label) is called ‘The Ripper At The Heaven’s Gates Of Dark’. They are just DEVESTATING live, and while they play for ages (expect anything between 80 minutes and two hours on Mon 14, I reckon), they shapeshift and switch up so lithely and electrically, time will just fly by.

South Wales-wise, they’ve done three Cardiff dates and a Carmarthen one, by my reckoning, although nowt since 2008. (The last one, in Clwb Ifor Bach, I chiefly recall in the context of the huge Cymdeithias banners that were hung behind them onstage. I’m sure they do indeed care deeply about the preservation of the Welsh language.) People who’ve seen them on this tour – they’re already in the UK – have assured us that they’re killing it. This will seriously rearrange your head in ways that you will only understand once it’s happened. ALSO! As it stands the real, no-foolin’ Nik Turner out of HAWKWIND is set to rock up on the night and play some of his underground psych sax blare onstage with ‘em. I mean, this kind of thing is pretty ad hoc, but he asked the band to play, this isn’t some desperate hype ploy.

Add BEAR-MAN to this cauldron of excitement, as they are tonight’s support. If you ask me, they make a lot of sense. Here’s what I wrote when they played with Drum Eyes in Buffalo earlier this year: “Bear-Man are a Cardiff-based trio who are playing their debut show. They feature ex/current members of The Martini Henry Rifles and Brown Wings, but don’t sound much like those bands. Exciting free improv guitar-drum-knobs blowouts are the name of the game – think, let’s say, Ultralyd, Aufgehoben, The Dead C, Sunburned... to kick you off. They have a cassette release coming soon on Cardiff’s rad Phantomhead label.”

That cassette has now been out the best part of a year, and was/is dope; you might be able to buy it somewhere still, but if not check this. You will however be wanting a wad of notes for the Acid Mothers distro table, which tends to groan under the weight of virgin vinyl and lurid tripster colour schemes.

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

posted by Noel Gardner at 8:21 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 19

BONEHEADS’ BANK HOLIDAY [N.B. NOT A BANK HOLIDAY]



To be honest with you, I just came in from a really disappointing gig – Tropics, as in the dude who just had an album out on Planet Mu; the album is totally worth hearing but I’m not feeling his indie-jazz-funk thing as a live trio at all – so I’m gonna try and get buoyed by writing about the Swn show we have coming up this Friday (Oct 21). And then go to bed.

SKULL DEFEKTSare a band from Gothenburg in Sweden who started out in the mid-00s as a CDR-releasing, pedal-mangling, endurance-testing totem of noise-rock. Over time, they have become... well, not exactly accessible, but more alive to recognisable ‘rock’ idioms, with occasional non-epic song lengths. This has most recently culminated in two records on the Thrill Jockey label, ‘Peer Amid’ and ‘2013-3012’, which have former Lungfish singer Daniel Higgs on vocals. They have proved a mystically excellent match, which makes it a great shame to tell you that Higgs won’t be here with them at Buffalo. (More so since the Daniel Higgs Trio show we did in April – don’t look for it on this blog, I never got round to writing about it – was half-ruined by non-payers talking over it.) Anyway, they will crunch and drone (they have a CD called ‘The Drone Drug’, which I think might be a personal ‘classic album title’) and freak and riff to the point of euphoria. They have a dude who used to be in Kid Commando in the band! Lesson No.1 put them on in 2005, they were great but the show was crappy. I bet he doesn’t even remember. Union Carbide Productions and Anti-Cimex (!!!) too. I think some of them might be pretty OLD. I can’t wait to greet them!

THE GOOD WIFE don’t have anyone from bands that ~seminal~, but they are fronted by a super guy called Emile, who used to sing and do karate kicks in Chariots. By their own admission, they don’t play anywhere near enough – the last time they were in this region, I think, was early 2008 supporting Cursed. Since then they’ve released a 7” on the Superfi label, and also have an album pretty much ready to go. Sludgy jazz noiserock uncompromisability is their game, pal. ‘An Evil Heat’ meets ‘My War’ meets ‘Liar’ is the hyperbole I’m sticking with, and if you’re immediately turned off by the fucking arrogance of writing those album titles like they’re household names, then buck up your Googling skills before it’s too late and you’ve missed the band.

Also do not miss BRANDYMAN, the cucumber down the crotch of rock’n’roll. This is their first show since March, on account of member kerfuffle – they currently have one of Shaped By Fate and one of The Death Of Her Money, as well as DC Gates (Gindrinker) and Ben Woods (Truckers Of Husk, FTSE100), but should still bring the same precise beatdown of gnarly riffology. They are going to be on at about 7.30, The Good Wife at maybe 8.30, Skull Defekts around 9.30. Early finish. If you don’t have a Swn wristband, I think it’s gonna be £7 on the door. Go somewhere else after, maybe one of the other Swn things.

posted by Noel Gardner at 11:40 PM 0 comments

Thursday, October 6

DOT.CROM START UP



Just over a year ago Lesson No.1 helped some folks out with a Cardiff show for a band called CONAN, who come from Liverpool and play bone-meltingly powerful sludged-out doom metal. I don’t know if everywhere they play gets this treatment, but they helped increase their affability by posting on local messageboard Southwalesmassive in the style of some kind of comedy Norse warrior. Because they’re called Conan, I suppose. Anyhoo, it all helped get folks’ dander up for the show, which was in Buffalo and owned hard.

Since then, Conan have incrementally increased their standing in the doom community by a combo of rare-but-valuable shows, and good auld word of mouth. They’ve also added to the one release they had in 2010 – a lumbering four-song half-hour monster called ‘Horseback Battle Hammer’ which I reviewed here – in the form of a split album with oppressively bleak Irishmen Slomatics. It’s out on Head Of Crom (12”) and Burning World (CD) and I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to buy both at this show happening on Saturday.

Support this time round comes from ZONDERHOOF, a Cardiff band who have been (at) large in the city since the middle of last decade. If you’d gone to WH Smugs and bought last month’s issue of Terrorizer magazine, which usefully has been taken off the shelves literally today as I type, you would have got a FREE copy of ‘Hakken!’, their debut album. Instead, you can buy it in a proper case at the show or from Undergroove, the label boss of whom is a Terrorizer staff member. HE’S TRYING TO GIVE YOU SOMETHING GOOD FOR FREE, DUMBASSES. Oh yeah, what does their music sound like? Fine and bottom-heavy rumbling instrumental metal averaging about seven and a half minutes per song, with a Melvins jones but much for fans of Keelhaul, Capricorns, Neurosis, Loincloth und so weiter. They don’t play live enough, so come out and pay respect.

First on (probably a wee bit after 8pm) are PUS, who were also one of the supports last time out. They’ve got t’ings done since then, too – notably their debut EP, which came out on Universal Tongue/Feretro a couple of months back, and has been awarded glowing reviews by the doom community (them again). Some people seem to think that blazing up 24/7 is crucial to its appreciation, but I don’t think it’s necessary to shut out cowards like me in that way. “Relentlessly tranced out black dirge, doomy and psychedelic, mesmerizing and hypnotic,” is another line from a review, though, and I’m pretty well on board with that.

So yeah. This is once again only a fiver to get in, the drinks are cheaper here and it’s a Saturday. If you’ve already given yourself over to the Michael Forever concert in the Millennium Stadium, perhaps as a result of working in one of the companies that got free tickets for every employee as they literally can’t give them away, then... sux2BU.

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Noel Gardner at 7:28 PM 0 comments

Saturday, August 27

SHINE CAUSE I GRIND



What sort of music do people think of when they think of Cardiff-based gig promotions entity Lesson No.1? It is not a question you expect to be asked. Maybe a better one would be “do people think of Cardiff-based gig promotions entity Lesson No.1 at all?” Whatever, if you’re reading this you’re thinking of it. Right? But your answer to the original question will probably not be “incredibly deranged and badass 30-second-song grindcore,” and that is fair enough... as long as it doesn’t stop you from coming to see this blitzin’ four-band bill on Thurs 1 Sept, headlined by Singapore dealers of disgustingness WORMROT.

Grindcore has been a properly global scene for at least the last 20 years, having been galvanised by tape-trading, zines etc. Being angry about social injustice is a truly cross-cultural pursuit, as is watching gross gory movies, so no wonder that you can find grind in nearly every nation on earth. Wormrot formed in 2007 and quickly got to work releasing EPs and splits; in 2009 Digby from Earache Records got in touch after hearing them on the internet, and Earache reissued their debut album, ‘Abuse’, the following year. ‘Dirge’, its followup, came out a few months ago, and is just as crushing – 18 minutes, 25 songs, incredibly exhilarating energy and precision, production by a chainsaw with 10,000% perfect hearing.

It’s funny. If Earache Records had never got started, Wormrot might not play the music they do now – Napalm Death, Carcass and others would have surely found an outlet for their grind prototypes, but without Digby’s dedication, who knows what might have happened to the scene. And yet the label has been through the wringer like almost no other since the early 90s, earning a reputation best described as ‘mixed’. Even amid the Ademas and Adrenalin Junkies, though, there’s always been some decent-to-great stuff on the roster, and it’s telling on some level that the two grind bands Earache have released in the last few years – Wormrot and Insect Warfare, who Lesson No.1 put on in 2009 – have been two of the realest motherfuckers active in the genre. Moreover, if being on Earache has helped Wormrot get over to the UK, then you don’t know how damn lucky you are.

In the support ‘slots’ are three of the raddest examples of the worldwide grind aesthetic in the 2010s. EVISORAX are from Wigan and have shifted genre priorities in recent times, from brutal (or maybe even br00tal) death metallisms to musclebound technical grindcore. This has much to do with a rejigged lineup that features ex-members of Narcosis – who also got a discography issued on Earache a while back, and also owned – and post-Narcosis outfit the Ergon Carousel. They have an album called ‘Isle Of Dogs’, which it says here is out on the actual day of this show! They’re the UK tour support, too, so expect no slacking from them, else Wormrot will make them look like CHUMPS.

The other two bands on the bill, THE ATROCITY EXHIBIT and ATOMÇK , have in fact just been tour partners themselves, on a continental jaunt that took in the legendary Obscene Extreme festival. The former of those bands come from Northampton and Milton Keynes, and also have a bit of death metal in their DNA, while also touching on overdriven crust battery. They have a few EPs out there somewhere, and a three-way split thingy with Magpyes and Jesus Of Spazzereth (I just like typing their name). As for Atomçk, I wrote some blurbabout them less than a month ago, which obviously still applies... EXCEPT they sorely need a new drummer, as the current dude is going to explode after this show. In fact, they’re saying that if no-one steps up to the stool, this might be one of their last gigs EV-ARRRRGGGGHHH. So if you like this kind of music and can play a fucking blastbeat, get in touch with the band on their Facebook page or whatever.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Noel Gardner at 7:23 PM 0 comments