I am writing about the recent(-ish) Bowlie 2 festival in Minehead, curated by Belle & Sebastian, the people who brought us the original Bowlie Weekender back in 1998. This is the last bit.
In overall terms Bowlie 2 was one of the better ATP events, with lots of fun music and way more girls than beardies attending. In that respect it was like the original Bowlie Weekender, which was also a largely chin-stroker-free event. However, in one respect my experience of attending it was rather different than with the first Bowlie. The original featured a cornucopia of new sounds available, and I came away from it with a load of new favourite bands that I had never heard of before the weekend. This time round, though, it was mostly old familiar artists who impressed.
It was also poignant to consider the passage of time since the first Bowlie (which took place in 1998, if I remember things correctly). Almost none of my friends who were at the original weekender were at its sequel, for various reasons (B&S apostasy, age, children, other commitments, etc.). This made me think again about how I stay the same while everything else changes around me.
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Showing posts with label Bowlie 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bowlie 2. Show all posts
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Friday, March 04, 2011
Bowlie 2: The World Crashes In
Yes, I am still writing about the recent(-ish) Bowlie 2 festival in Minehead, curated by Belle & Sebastian, the people who brought us the original Bowlie Weekender back in 1998.
One great thing about ATP events is you get the ATP TV channels playing weirdo nonsense into your chalet, so if you fancy staying up all night watching mentalism then this is the place to do it. Likewise if there are no good bands on. I saw very few of the following in their entirety.
The Banana Splits – I remember this from when I was small. It is nice to see that it really does seem to have been primarily made by drøggies for drøggies, attracting a child audience largely by accident.
Respect Yourself – the Stax Records Story – You know, Stax, Southern Soul, big brassy music, that kind of stuff. I am still a bit vague on the difference between Stax and Tamla Motown, but I know that Stax is cooler. From this documentary I was fascinated by the details on racism in the South – like one of the (white) Stax musicians talking about what a social nightmare it could be touring in those bits of the South where diners were segregated, meaning that he could not eat with his (black) fellow musicians.
Permissive - This was a film from the Sixties in which some woman moves up to London and starts hanging out with bands, soon becoming the Boris Bike of her era. It is an odd film – at one level it is like a shocking indictment of the loose morals of people in the music business, but at another it is a bit "Get a load of those tits". It struck me as being a bit like a British film version of those Men's Adventure Magazines I mentioned some time back. The various musicians seem to have been actual members of Comus and bands like that; they look like real catches.
Jadon the Gangster – This was a Nigerian gangster film about a midget gangster (played by a terrifying child). There was another plot about this rich guy whose daughter was secretly having an affair with another midget (also played by a child, making love scenes a bit creepy). It was all pretty cheaply made, and the sound recording was particularly poor, making the dialogue (in heavily accented English) largely incomprehensible. But the acting was rather impressive, and the film seemed well able to roll with its technical limitations. The kid playing Jadon was amazing, turning up the menace big time for the obligatory scene where he reveals to his henchmen that one of them has betrayed him and is about to pay the ultimate price.
Do any readers know anything about Nigerian films? I dimly remember an article in the LRB once, and this film makes the genre worth exploring further. There is also an interesting piece on Nollywood in the Christmas Economist, but it focuses more on the business side than on any must-see films.
Alchemists of Sound – This was a BBC documentary about the BBC Radiophonic workshop. It was great seeing actual footage of Delia Derbyshire talking to camera, though I do sometimes wonder if her greater fame compared to her colleagues comes from her funny name and her rowrness.
An inuit panda production
One great thing about ATP events is you get the ATP TV channels playing weirdo nonsense into your chalet, so if you fancy staying up all night watching mentalism then this is the place to do it. Likewise if there are no good bands on. I saw very few of the following in their entirety.
The Banana Splits – I remember this from when I was small. It is nice to see that it really does seem to have been primarily made by drøggies for drøggies, attracting a child audience largely by accident.
Respect Yourself – the Stax Records Story – You know, Stax, Southern Soul, big brassy music, that kind of stuff. I am still a bit vague on the difference between Stax and Tamla Motown, but I know that Stax is cooler. From this documentary I was fascinated by the details on racism in the South – like one of the (white) Stax musicians talking about what a social nightmare it could be touring in those bits of the South where diners were segregated, meaning that he could not eat with his (black) fellow musicians.
Permissive - This was a film from the Sixties in which some woman moves up to London and starts hanging out with bands, soon becoming the Boris Bike of her era. It is an odd film – at one level it is like a shocking indictment of the loose morals of people in the music business, but at another it is a bit "Get a load of those tits". It struck me as being a bit like a British film version of those Men's Adventure Magazines I mentioned some time back. The various musicians seem to have been actual members of Comus and bands like that; they look like real catches.
Jadon the Gangster – This was a Nigerian gangster film about a midget gangster (played by a terrifying child). There was another plot about this rich guy whose daughter was secretly having an affair with another midget (also played by a child, making love scenes a bit creepy). It was all pretty cheaply made, and the sound recording was particularly poor, making the dialogue (in heavily accented English) largely incomprehensible. But the acting was rather impressive, and the film seemed well able to roll with its technical limitations. The kid playing Jadon was amazing, turning up the menace big time for the obligatory scene where he reveals to his henchmen that one of them has betrayed him and is about to pay the ultimate price.
Do any readers know anything about Nigerian films? I dimly remember an article in the LRB once, and this film makes the genre worth exploring further. There is also an interesting piece on Nollywood in the Christmas Economist, but it focuses more on the business side than on any must-see films.
Alchemists of Sound – This was a BBC documentary about the BBC Radiophonic workshop. It was great seeing actual footage of Delia Derbyshire talking to camera, though I do sometimes wonder if her greater fame compared to her colleagues comes from her funny name and her rowrness.
An inuit panda production
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Bowlie 2: Saturday (Part 2)
I am writing about the recent(-ish) Bowlie 2 festival in Minehead, curated by Belle & Sebastian, the people who brought us the original Bowlie Weekender back in 1998. I have italicised the names of artists who played at the original festival. Read on as I continue talking about artists I saw on the Saturday.
And so to Belle & Sebastian themselves. They were pretty good, but the magic is basically gone for me now, and the stage they were playing on was too large too rekindle it. I was also a bit disappointed that they did not take advantage of Isobel Campbell's presence to do a Spinal Tap and have her join them onstage for a cello solo.
The Great Debate triggered by this particular B&S performance was whether Stuart Murdoch has become sleazy or whether he was always a bit that-way-inclined. At one stage he got some young ladies up from the audience to clap their hands and dance onstage, and he was only really one step away from saying "Now girls, how about if you all jumped up and down a bit? And aren't those sweaters a bit warm?". What do my many B&S fan readers think?
For one reason and another we then missed Jenny and Johnny – Jenny Watson from Rilo Kiley and Jonathan Rice from Jonathan Rice playing together. I gather that it proved very popular, possibly because of the "Hello sailor" photo of Ms Watson that appeared in the programme.
We also missed almost all of the Super Secret Special Guest Artist known to everyone to be Franz Ferdinand, as there was too much of a queue to get into where they were playing. But I did get in to hear their last song, which was 'Jacqueline', one of my favourites. And guess what, Franz Ferdinand seem to be a great live band. Does anyone know if their third album is an improvement on their rubbish second?
I caught a bit of the ever reliable Justin Spear DJing his pop psyche sounds and also a track or two by Crystal Castles, who seemed to be amazingly ravey and not what you would expect at a B&S-curated festival (then again, 'Electronic Renaissance' suggests that Murdoch and co. have at least some familiarity with the world of mad mental electronic music and the drøgs that go with it).
DJs from How Does It Feel? delivered a crowd-pleasingly tarty set of indie-pop classics and likeable sixties tunes, sound-tracking a reunion of those of us who used to post on the Bowlie Forum. It was so tarty that they even played B&S songs the band themselves had played earlier in the evening. Mad buzz.
An inuit panda production
And so to Belle & Sebastian themselves. They were pretty good, but the magic is basically gone for me now, and the stage they were playing on was too large too rekindle it. I was also a bit disappointed that they did not take advantage of Isobel Campbell's presence to do a Spinal Tap and have her join them onstage for a cello solo.
The Great Debate triggered by this particular B&S performance was whether Stuart Murdoch has become sleazy or whether he was always a bit that-way-inclined. At one stage he got some young ladies up from the audience to clap their hands and dance onstage, and he was only really one step away from saying "Now girls, how about if you all jumped up and down a bit? And aren't those sweaters a bit warm?". What do my many B&S fan readers think?
For one reason and another we then missed Jenny and Johnny – Jenny Watson from Rilo Kiley and Jonathan Rice from Jonathan Rice playing together. I gather that it proved very popular, possibly because of the "Hello sailor" photo of Ms Watson that appeared in the programme.
We also missed almost all of the Super Secret Special Guest Artist known to everyone to be Franz Ferdinand, as there was too much of a queue to get into where they were playing. But I did get in to hear their last song, which was 'Jacqueline', one of my favourites. And guess what, Franz Ferdinand seem to be a great live band. Does anyone know if their third album is an improvement on their rubbish second?
I caught a bit of the ever reliable Justin Spear DJing his pop psyche sounds and also a track or two by Crystal Castles, who seemed to be amazingly ravey and not what you would expect at a B&S-curated festival (then again, 'Electronic Renaissance' suggests that Murdoch and co. have at least some familiarity with the world of mad mental electronic music and the drøgs that go with it).
DJs from How Does It Feel? delivered a crowd-pleasingly tarty set of indie-pop classics and likeable sixties tunes, sound-tracking a reunion of those of us who used to post on the Bowlie Forum. It was so tarty that they even played B&S songs the band themselves had played earlier in the evening. Mad buzz.
An inuit panda production
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Bowlie 2: Saturday (Part 1)
I am writing about the recent(-ish) Bowlie 2 festival in Minehead, curated by Belle & Sebastian, the people who brought us the original Bowlie Weekender back in 1998. I have italicised the names of artists who played at the original festival. Read on as I talk about artists I saw on the Saturday.
Isobel Campbell* and Mark Lanegan performed songs from the dark country records they have made together (of which I particularly recommend Ballad of the Broken Seas). Gravel-voiced Lanegan is a wonderfullly expressive singer, playing well against Campbell's somewhat weaker vocal chords. It was odd, though, how statue-like the two of them were onstage, singing their parts with very little obvious interaction. I found this a bit alienating, given that the songs are duets and suggest a relationship between the narrative voices; Irene thought it was impressively austere. The aural reproduction of the records was certainly impressive.
Edywn Collins is arguably the man who invented indie pop (so future hataz will no doubt send a terminator back to take him out before he founded Orange Juice). He is also well known for recently having had a massive brain haemorrhage that limited his ability to speak or walk and apparently meant that he had to re-learn how to sing his songs from scratch. I had never seen him before, but there is a wonderful triumph-over-adversity quality to his performance** – these are great songs and for all his problems he can still sing them well. Having Teenage Fanclub as your backing band makes this almost the perfect musical experience. I was also struck by how well 'A Girl Like You' sounded alongside the Orange Juice tracks, for all that various people have accused it of being the crassly commercial big hit from an otherwise credible artist. But whatever, Collins received some of the most appreciative applause of anyone playing that weekend. I feel lucky to have seen him.
I love Julian Cope but I do not really like him when he plays live solo. The music seems a bit thin without the accompaniment of a band. Furthermore, playing on his own he has a worrying tendency to just stop the music and instead start yapping on about pixies and ley-lines. So I was a bit disappointed to find that Cope was indeed playing solo, especially after seeing him with a full band at the Portishead ATP two years ago. He largely stuck to playing the music, but it was not really working for me. Inertia meant that I stayed when I should have left for another stage.
Eventually I tore myself away from the baleful influence of the arch-drude, making my way to the upstairs venue where Dean Wareham*** was playing the tunes of his former band, Galaxie 500. This was amazingly good, and for all that I kicked myself for arriving so late that I only caught the last few songs, they are still among the best live performances I have ever witnessed. Wareham was playing with a band, but he could almost have got away with playing solo, as the power of these songs comes from the interplay of his soaring yet brittle guitar-playing and his slightly strangulated yet emotionally charged voice. Highlight #1 was the cover of New Order's 'Ceremony'****, while highlight #2 was Britta Phillips singing Nico's 'I'll Keep It With Mine'*****. Highlight #3 was 'Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste', which I have recently discovered was also a cover (something that may well trigger some [special voice] comments in the next issue of Frank's APA).
We were eating a pizza downstairs while Dirty Projectors were playing. They seemed interesting enough, so we stayed for a bit to get some sense of them, even though we were expected elsewhere. On a first pass, I like them – they seemed to combine being experimental with also being unproblematically pleasant to listen to. This seemed partly to derive from their having nice lady singers, as opposed to the tuneless squawking more usually associated with the avant-garde.
But we had to rejoin our friends to see some of The New Pornographers (or did we?). I did not see enough to fully judge them, but they seemed pleasant enough. However, they had the misfortune to be playing just before B&S started on another stage, so we (and almost everyone else) flooded away from them before they had finished their set.
*As you know, Isobel Campbell used to be in B&S, before romantic differences hastened her departure. I remember her as a key feature of original Bowlie, walking around Pontins with a striking presence that left me certain that she was more than just an average punter (this at a time when I had no idea what any of B&S looked like), and not just because of her stunning good looks.
** Then again, what else is he going to do – live off disability benefit?
***At original Bowlie Dean Wareham performed music from his then-current band Luna while Irene and I sat at the back of the venue eating veggie-burgers. It was one of the highlights of the weekend.
**** Reader's Special Voice: "I think you'll find that actually it is Joy Division's 'Ceremony' ".
*****Ken Maher's voice: "This was originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan".
An inuit panda production
Isobel Campbell* and Mark Lanegan performed songs from the dark country records they have made together (of which I particularly recommend Ballad of the Broken Seas). Gravel-voiced Lanegan is a wonderfullly expressive singer, playing well against Campbell's somewhat weaker vocal chords. It was odd, though, how statue-like the two of them were onstage, singing their parts with very little obvious interaction. I found this a bit alienating, given that the songs are duets and suggest a relationship between the narrative voices; Irene thought it was impressively austere. The aural reproduction of the records was certainly impressive.
Edywn Collins is arguably the man who invented indie pop (so future hataz will no doubt send a terminator back to take him out before he founded Orange Juice). He is also well known for recently having had a massive brain haemorrhage that limited his ability to speak or walk and apparently meant that he had to re-learn how to sing his songs from scratch. I had never seen him before, but there is a wonderful triumph-over-adversity quality to his performance** – these are great songs and for all his problems he can still sing them well. Having Teenage Fanclub as your backing band makes this almost the perfect musical experience. I was also struck by how well 'A Girl Like You' sounded alongside the Orange Juice tracks, for all that various people have accused it of being the crassly commercial big hit from an otherwise credible artist. But whatever, Collins received some of the most appreciative applause of anyone playing that weekend. I feel lucky to have seen him.
I love Julian Cope but I do not really like him when he plays live solo. The music seems a bit thin without the accompaniment of a band. Furthermore, playing on his own he has a worrying tendency to just stop the music and instead start yapping on about pixies and ley-lines. So I was a bit disappointed to find that Cope was indeed playing solo, especially after seeing him with a full band at the Portishead ATP two years ago. He largely stuck to playing the music, but it was not really working for me. Inertia meant that I stayed when I should have left for another stage.
Eventually I tore myself away from the baleful influence of the arch-drude, making my way to the upstairs venue where Dean Wareham*** was playing the tunes of his former band, Galaxie 500. This was amazingly good, and for all that I kicked myself for arriving so late that I only caught the last few songs, they are still among the best live performances I have ever witnessed. Wareham was playing with a band, but he could almost have got away with playing solo, as the power of these songs comes from the interplay of his soaring yet brittle guitar-playing and his slightly strangulated yet emotionally charged voice. Highlight #1 was the cover of New Order's 'Ceremony'****, while highlight #2 was Britta Phillips singing Nico's 'I'll Keep It With Mine'*****. Highlight #3 was 'Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste', which I have recently discovered was also a cover (something that may well trigger some [special voice] comments in the next issue of Frank's APA).
We were eating a pizza downstairs while Dirty Projectors were playing. They seemed interesting enough, so we stayed for a bit to get some sense of them, even though we were expected elsewhere. On a first pass, I like them – they seemed to combine being experimental with also being unproblematically pleasant to listen to. This seemed partly to derive from their having nice lady singers, as opposed to the tuneless squawking more usually associated with the avant-garde.
But we had to rejoin our friends to see some of The New Pornographers (or did we?). I did not see enough to fully judge them, but they seemed pleasant enough. However, they had the misfortune to be playing just before B&S started on another stage, so we (and almost everyone else) flooded away from them before they had finished their set.
*As you know, Isobel Campbell used to be in B&S, before romantic differences hastened her departure. I remember her as a key feature of original Bowlie, walking around Pontins with a striking presence that left me certain that she was more than just an average punter (this at a time when I had no idea what any of B&S looked like), and not just because of her stunning good looks.
** Then again, what else is he going to do – live off disability benefit?
***At original Bowlie Dean Wareham performed music from his then-current band Luna while Irene and I sat at the back of the venue eating veggie-burgers. It was one of the highlights of the weekend.
**** Reader's Special Voice: "I think you'll find that actually it is Joy Division's 'Ceremony' ".
*****Ken Maher's voice: "This was originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan".
An inuit panda production
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Bowlie 2: Friday
Belle & Sebastian largely created the ATP-style festival with the 1998 Bowlie Weekender in Camber Sands. Then in December 2010 they brought us Bowlie 2, this time in Minehead. Read on while I talk about whom I saw there on Friday.
Best Coast featured a former member of Pocahaunted who has left behind the hypnagogic sound for a simulacrum of indiepop music. Not recommended.
Teenage Fanclub played (badly) at the first Bowlie. This time they delivered a more typically high quality performance that reminded us all of why we loved them. Their songwriting skills remain intact, with recent tune 'The Past' tempting me towards buying their latest album.
Saint Etienne started late because heavy traffic (from a funeral, so no booing) had delayed Sarah Cracknell. We therefore got a show with more music and less yap. The set was rather focussed on their first couple of albums, but these are some of the most enjoyable pop tunes ever and left me wondering why I listen to their music so rarely. They also had some nice visuals, especially of some Northern Soul dancing.
I saw and liked The Go! Team some years ago. In the meantime I started wondering if maybe they were not actually that good, but seeing them again reminds me that no, they storm. Their thing is combining samples of brassy stuff and the like with their own playing of instruments and a lady rapper called Ninja (her real name, your honour) shouting over the top. It makes for dance-tastic music. I like it.
The Phenomenal Handclap Band were not doing any handclapping. We filed a complaint under the Trade Descriptions Act.
The last thing I saw on Friday was Steve Mason. He turns out to be the singer from the Beta Band, and he plays music that sounds not unlike that of his former outfit – languid, percussive, daring, inventive, and so on. But I was a bit puppy tired after a long day of travelling and rocking out, so I retired to the chalet rather than force myself to stay up late and wreck myself for the rest of the festival. I hope to investigate Mr Mason's music further in the future.
An inuit panda production
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