SHARK ATTACK!!

King Khan and the Shrines - The Supreme Genius of... (VICE 2008)

Insane Canadian Black Lips associate King Khan brings his bombastic garage punk essence to the UK with an 11 piece strong band recruited and rehearsed in uber-arty Berlin, comprising of horns, guitars, backing singers, drummers and the very spirit of Little Richard singing Stooges tunes. This is a greatest hits package of the quality work King Khan has been churning out over the last few years and is a fuzzy warm piece of analogue beauty, funky, soulful and punk all in tandem, exploding all over your dancing asses. From melodic and sweet ‘Torture’ to the squeal and sensuality of ‘Outta Harm’s Way’ the mood is rock throb, and the sex is dripping from the squeakers as the guitars and brass tussle for power. This is decidedly retro and each song tempo is upbeat and larger than life. Most of all, it’s fun. And that’s what’s lacking in our posey world of icy stares and arsey haircuts. King Khan brings the funk, brings the bombast and brings the danger back to garage rock with dirt and aplomb. And you know what? Brown boys certainly know how to rock and roll. Somewhere between Little Richard and George Clinton is where Khan pitches his agonisingly sqealish vocals, sounding like Prince once did, like Hendrix once did. The Shrines are an impressive bunch with members of the live bands of Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Sun Ra all make an appearance amongst the other amazing musicians. Nothing is lost in the swirl of guitar spanking solos, free jazz freakouts and pulsing vibrant clattering drums. And yet they are all commanded by the insatiable King Khan. ‘ I Wanna Be a Girl’ sounds like the Rolling Stones trapped in a cellar and forced to practice in a pool of their own sweat. ‘Shiver Down My Spine’ is a dirtier sleazier attempt, slower, like Otis Redding backed by Kings of Leon. ‘Live Fast Die Strong’ is more rnb-ish, exploding and stopping and starting and raising your pulse as well as the roof. There’s some crazy 50s rockabilly and there’s some soulful numbers and the deep dirty garage punk too. Something for everyone. All 16 songs on here are uber-hits, so well put together, so musical, melodic and imbued with raw punk attitude and wrong intentions. And the man puts on an amazing live show. He’s touring London on 3 dates (12-14 December- Dirty Water Club, Old Blue Last, Hoxton Bar and Grill), you need to see him. He’s effing brilliant and batshit crazy and so what if such warm passionate music is put out on the cynical Vice magazine’s own label, this guy f**king rocks.

Go and get now.

Myspazz.

Live evidence:

Gentle Friendly - Night Tapes (No Pain in Pop 2008)

Recorded over five days by drummer Daniel and keyboarding vocalist David, this is a dirty 4 track jam of epic proportions, drenched in psychedelic white noise, fuzz, dischord and the loose spirit of jazz imbued in its contours. Sometimes disjointed and chaotic, other times melodic and passionate, this stop-start drench of power is an outburst of improvisational greatness, from the squelch and dementia of ‘Xxxmas’ to the gabba destruction urgency of frenetic ‘Sky Burial’. This is a real liveness to everything that makes it feel more pumping, thumping, vital and virile than a studio-honed version could be. This oozes in adrenaline and attack. Check it out. This is dirty fuzz-soaked nocturnal madness in the extreme.



Myspazzz

pacific! - A Tree (Half Machine 2008)

It stands to reason that those lamenting the passing of summer should see fit to imbibe us with the summeriest music they can commit to acetate to get us through the cold harsh winter months. Gothenburg’s pacific! are no different with their panza attack of Beach Boys lushness paraded over the sunniest of electronics. ‘A Tree’ is a paean to lost love and being ‘just friends’ over a shingly thrust of power-pop summer good-time vibes. You can see the sun setting over Malibu beach as these shimmery posters roll their trousers up and get involved with the sea. ‘Do It’ continues in the same mood, employing a weird off-kilter Hawaiian throb and thrust with their guitars and weird 80s basslines skanking away in the background. The Beach Boys harmonies are more in the forefront here, with a cheesy tongue in cheek. If it were warmer this would be resigned to the brie counter, but in the cold Arctic front, there’s a charm to it that pushes on through. There’s also a house remix of ‘A Tree’ by Tobias D. Treehouse.

www.myspace.com/musicpacific

Live Long and Prosper

Aint it cool gets us a brand new Star Trek trailer.

Actually is the same as the current one, but with one very special difference at the end...

Gramercy Arms - Shining Bright (Reveal 2008)

Shining Bright is a summery slice of sugary power-pop, acoustic and sweet, dripping with nice vibes. It arrives in the cool dawn of winter though and suddenly we're transported to a Californian vista, letting the sea wash over us. These East Coasters, boasting an impressive line-up of stars all lending a hand such as Sarah Silverman and Joan as Police Woman bring a seasonal set of songs full of pensive loss and abandonment dripping in pain and misery and sadness, a contrast to the sacchrine pop of their album. 'Walking Around' is the closest we will ever have to autumnal rnb. It's sweet and harmless enough with a great belief in the power of the singer's emotions but lacks a crutch, something to grab you and pull you into its core. Good but not great.

Video Nasties - Albatross EP (2008)

Snarling charming Video Nasties certainly like their white noise dischords peppering sombre nasty melodies in a fashion similar to good ol' My Bloody Valentine. There's a bullish attempt to be clever and angular by playing around with time signatures and allowing the singer to muddy his vocals to miscomprehension. But the real albatross of hope on this is the dizzying crunching duelling guitars duking it out for supremacy over thudding thunderous beats that pound with the spirit of soar-rock in its very nuclear core, a snarl and a pissed-grimace away from erupting into the kind of earth-shattering optimism that made the Verve vital once.



Official

The Ills of Networks

The Ills of Networking

I feel sick to my stomach this morning. Last night I spent an entire evening flying under the radar of my new boss in my new swanky publishing job as I went around one of our events pushing my own agenda. There were publishers I wanted to push my book to; there were publishers who had rejected my book, ones I needed answers from; there were publishers who were still considering my book I wanted some sort of inkling from. Beer helped. The steady push of support from my colleagues and a friend, all rooting for my self-promotion to pay off in dividends, meant I had to go for it. I started circling my prey, waiting for one to stray away from the pack, then POW I would erupt on her like a talking imposition.

She broke off. I broke off a conversation mid-flow and headed her way. I introduced myself. She introduced herself. Her colleague saw she had made a friend and brought us back into the pack. I was in the inner-circle. I had to talk. I made my play. Hello, yes, I am a writer, would you like to read my book thank you that would be lovely thanks yes it’s great I’m great oh what a character I am yes thank you. My spiel ended on an awkward pause to which one of my prey said, ‘You’re very good at self-promotion, you know?’ I shrugged her an aww shucks as if to say, yes but sod all that, will you read my book? Eventually I tired of trying to keep talking as they had sussed my game out, thus giving me no cause to continue verbalising. I smiled and said I was going to the bar. I walked away, doing the quick glance-back. They were wide-eyed at each other, laughing and darting their eyes back to me and enthusing about my weirdness.

I started obsessing over four representatives of a publisher we’re to date still waiting to hear back from. They were stood in a cliquey circle. I needed to talk to them. I assumed one of them would be the editor looking at my work. I sat on a radiator, obsessing. My friend told me to just go up and get on with it as I had nothing to lose but my dignity, and seeing as I had none left just get on with it.

I went in just as the pack split into two factions. I went in for the two smaller less imposing girls as the factions had split on height. It turned out in the first 30 seconds these girls had nothing to do with editorial. I’d backed the wrong horse. I was about to hang up my network spurs but I persisted with being nice because it isn’t all about speaking to the most important person in the room, sometimes it’s probably good just being nice to someone. We chatted and I endeared myself enough to them that they introduced me to a middle-aged lady who looked like the archetypal white female senior editor. She wasn’t, she was a fellow writer. She was a fellow writer who needed me to promote some work for her. I’d backed the wrong horse and followed it into someone else’s stable. The tallest, youngest girl in the group, a beautifully androgenous Bowie figure circled the outside of our burgeoning circle. The sales girls took pity on me and introduced me to her. She was an editor. She hadn’t heard of me. We talked about how hard it was getting published and sci-fi and music and my book and she gave it her best interested face. She told me she had to leave, I thanked her for not rolling her eyes at me too much. She laughed and walked off. I returned to my group who all celebrated my eventual success. I ran back to the bar to get us a celebration drink. But there she was... She-Bowie hadn’t left at all. She’d relocated to a hidden part of the room to talk to someone else. She’d let me spiel, given me her best attentive ten minutes then moved on. She was dead to me.

Then this conversation happened.

ME: Hi, are you [name of author]?
MAN: No, I’m [name of biggest agent in country]
ME: Oh, shucks, right, hi. I know [author represented by biggest agent in country]. He’s a really good friend.
MAN: Yes, terrific talent.
ME: Yes, really paved the way for up-and-coming writers like me.
MAN: ...
ME: Have you read any of the books tonight?
MAN: No.
MAN: Yes, [author represented by biggest agent in country] is a terrific talent.
ME: Yes, really paved the way for up-and-coming writers like me...
MAN:...
ME: He’s a really good friend.
MAN: I’m going to go now. It was nice meeting you.
ME: It was really awkward wasn’t it?
MAN: Yes.

I hate networking. I hate being the guy with the product and the snappy talk and yet I find myself in this auto-pilot groove where I’m able to spout off oodles of self-promotional gumf about myself. Why don’t I believe any of this stuff in real life? I have no idea. I’m not convinced by how much or how little talent I have and I’m not convinced in a roomful of the most important people in publishers I have any ability to make myself a known entity to them but the whole network is a nasty game of chance, bipolar personalities and the ability to relay your CV in a bullet-pointed two minute format. And free wine.

We Hate the Kids

You know how parents commandeer the conversations to talk about what their kids have done, said or been interested in recently and how hilarious/cute it was? Well, I think that's bad parenting. Ultimately, you're allowing people to build up a brand profile of your child to allow them to do an identity theft on the kid. I mean, Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie is all about that. Imagine if she'd kept her mundane anecdotes to herself, we wouldn't be in this situation. I mention this because not only do parents do the whole 'talk about our kids' thing but they also allow the kids to encroach into your precious personal space in public spaces. They let their kids lean on you, kick your bag, fall into you, jump on your things, talk loudly and giggle as they are tickled by an over-eager father desperate to bond with a child he spends hardly any time with. Well, we at Geek Pie hate your kids. We don't hate any of the kids we're related to. We just hate your kids. We hate that as they grow, they become the targeted demographic for taste-makers, meaning what we like gets pushed to the old-fashioned back. We hate their attention-seeking fickleness, their willingness to only love and adore anyone plying them with sweets and with attention and games. We hate their lack of heritage, their lack of knowledge about Sesame Street and D'Artagnan in favour of Ben 10 and In the Night Garden. We hate them and we hate you for making them encroach into our lives.

Actually, we're just jealous they're able to play with Superman toys and not suffer any recriminations. I think I just feel old.

Guitycle Hero

Time + Guitar Hero+ More Time + Boredom + Yet More Time + Bike =