I was going to post this on saturday but I was waiting for pictures of the evening, well, a picture of Finn's superb fake Cow Hide mini-skirt but it has not arrived yet. Sorry Finn. If, As, and When...

Meanwhile, here's Milk with the weather:

Hello it's saturday morning. I'm typing this while I try and wake up {or perhaps sober up} enough to venture out in search of food and films and stuff. I guess this is going to be as much a 'review' as a ramble and a few pages of notes, and I guess maybe this is how this blog has been shaping up anyway so here goes... no excuses.

So it was Friday night and we were back @ The Playroom in London. Just when everyone else was at Glastonbury, playing in the mud. We went on the train.

It was a very different experience to last time, last time being about bands that had nothing in common at all, this time being much more about bands who wear a lot of dark clothing.

There were some really interesting bands. Oh yes really. Sorry if I get some names wrong or miss anyone out:

Hannah the Band were up first: a trio of drums, bass and voice / acoustic guitar {through a delay unit apparently}. Really like the simplicity of their setup and the girl singer / guitarist {Hannah?} had a nice attitude and a really good voice - I say keep it that way, maybe even cut back on some of the guitar, leaves some gaps and let the voice come through. Nice. Good luck to yous!

Interestingly enough Hannah the Band and Sound Corruption seemed, to me at least, to have just as much going for them as headliners Amanda Ghost. Maybe I was just in the mood to see some fellow amateurs.

It's probably just my warped view of things {I've just discovered I've got something called 'Alice in Wonderland Syndrome' ???}, but they came across as youthful and fresh, us and Amanda Ghost perhaps were a bit more serious / cynical.

If you can get a balance between the two - between the freshness and the maturity, I think that's something that a lot of people would call 'professional' or 'a sign of quality'?

Justin Timebombloke

Amanda Ghost had a really full, rich sound - and it was really good to see and hear a mix of acoustic, triggered and sequenced drum sounds, but I found myself warming more to the less studied performances of Hannah and Sound Corruption. A.G. are heading in a much more dark synth-pop direction, but there's still the conventional guitar sound and song structures there.

In a way, there's 'not a lot in it' between what A.G. were doing and what we were doing - in terms of sound and vibe. I'm not saying that we're anything even close to their level of musicianship, or even that we want to be.

Our song structures are much less conventional {or apparent}, and we're still comparatively freeform {none of us have to stick to doing what we did last time, let alone sticking to 'this bit comes next'}. Although we've become less freeform as bit by bit our lovely live-sampley, live-loopey delays and laptop have started to give up the ghost.

"Must... but must not."

Yes, we shouldn't need to rely on technology so much. But we need and want to make sound, and strip the machines away and what are we left with? Are vocal chords not machines of sorts? Certainly, they're a part of the human machine {or the machine that has the potential to become human} and they even need a certain amount of electromagnetic N.R.G in order to remain interesting and interested.

In this day and age, making music without the aid of 'technology' or electricity doesn't necessarily make that music any more 'true' - it's just as much a bold statement as producing entirely sample-based music. On that level, there's no escaping artistic / political / ecological / environmental / psychological and even spiritual content and commentary. Dressing down is a statement as much as dressing up. Plugging in is no more or less contentious as pulling out the plug. So you may as well do exactly what you fancy musically.

"On is off and off is on."

Pull out the Plug

This dependence upon tech and electrickery is of course an unhealthy thing - but music full stop is unhealthy and has been for a very long time, and I don't just mean pop music. In all forms of music, we remember the shapes, the forms, the flavour, but we've long since lost the point, the process, the methodology, the meaning. It's all just guess-work, all of it, from Dylan to Dabrye.

But what do you do when your favourite music can do you just as much good as a good book, a good meal or a good play between the sheets?

What I mean is, once upon a time, people could use a song in the same way we use any other set of instructions: at some point we 'understood' sound {and visual art} in the same way we 'understand' words and numbers. If you think I'm talking shite here, then you need to go away and read something else, or at least do your homework.

Back on earth, it seemed like A.G. were taking quite a departure from their first album, and I have to say it's quite a brave direction because it's not the most commercial choice - it seems like what they started out doing {singer songwriter with voice} has become 'quite the thing' - so it says a lot for them that they are moving on.

Anyway - it's good for us to know that we're not the only people mixing up angry vocals, dirty beats, and live elements - even if the industry hasn't noticed yet!

Amanda Ghost's sound has made me think that maybe we need to fatten up some of our sounds a bit more.

{I could barely hear what we were doing - and that makes me turn what I'm doing down - which I get told off for... obviously I could hear 'something' but it was all so unclear. Patrick had as much trouble trying to keep the beat when he couldn't hear the drums. We really need to get ourselves some little monitors or something. Using a guitar amp can't be the answer cause that'll just kill the drums even more? Of course, most venues are set up for live drums... doh! Oh and hello and thanks to the nice bloke who offered his services as a live drummer by the way!!!!}

What I really want is for the vocals and the bass to come through, I don't care half as much about the guitar, or the synth parts. And Patrick's bass is getting nice and fat, and Finn's voice is big with or without the aid of fex... so it shouldn't be too hard.

Listening to some of our mixes this week - it all sounds so damned muddy and I really don't think we can get much more out of our dodgy old set-up. Too much going on, too many ideas at once.

I've got a load of .mpg videos on loop and I've just noticed how a lot of The Prodigy stuff has a load of samples and dirt but the nice fat kick drum still cuts through without having to be a 'metal click drum' type sound. I've said it before and I'll say it again, that Mr. H is going to make an ace producer one day. Oh - I've just worked out... he's panned the bass-line {leaving centre-stage for the kick drum to come through...}

FACES RAINING

A part of me thinks that finding your vibe and coming across in an honest way with it, is working out what you can get away with: i.e. being honest about your own ideas, your affectations, flirtations, influences. If it resonates with you, if you can honour it, you almost have to steal / affect / further any {uncool} stuff and it'll work - if you're honest and honourable. But it's just too easy now. It's too easy for rock bands. It's too easy for DJ's. All of us. And I really don't like the idea of stealing other people's ideas in order to further my own. Influence isn't the same thing?

But look at all these late 70's / early 80's metal and goth elements that are creeping back into pop and rock. The Beavery. Interplod. The Otters. Puddle of Piss. Nicklebloke. All your favourites. All with sh*t Flock of Seagulls hair or flappy trousers. Suck in those cheek bones, furrow those brows.

Back at the gig, yes, I'm fascinated by the way that Iron Maiden / Black Sabbath style riffage is creeping back into {teenage} rock band sounds. A certain chug a certain 'twin lead guitar' thing. Pre-punk in punk attire. What must sound a lot like their parent's record collection {which explains why Appropriate Agent's guitarist is also their Dad - or one of them at least}. Oh - their web site lists Maiden and Sabbath so there you go... I suppose the irony is that they, the kind of band you'd traditionally expect from a night of 'proper live music', were the odd one's out. But it didn't bother them, and it didn't bother anyone else, so there!

But you're still here.

Funny how it's perfectly acceptable to sing in an affected accent, but when you keep up the affectation between songs and you chat in some non-specific American accent, it sounds more obviously odd, or at least immature. You'd think it'd work the other way round. And before you track me down and pour your pint over me, or paw a pint out of me, my point here is that you'd think keeping up the pretense would be the right thing to do?

"What do you think?"
"I don't like it."
"What?! Fuck off! It's good, it's really good. Don't be such an arse."
"But you asked me what I THOUGHT! If you really want me to agree with you just say 'I think this, please tell me I'm right and cool."

Our set was trouble-free apart from a bit of feedback here and there, and I laughed my way through Probably NoT, but early on I kept thinking we were coming across as spiteful, pissed off, or taking the piss {I mean, we are, but still...} but as half of the bands were trying for that kind of vibe anyway I figured it didn't actually matter.

I took it as a good sign that some of the other bands were interested enough to say hello and ask some questions and we'd really really like to hear back from you chaps {you know who you are} about getting you down to Brighton for gigs.

There was a little more camaraderie amongst bands this time.

{And I couldn't help but feel a sense of deep, warm, slightly smug satisfaction when people who are old enough to remember punk and new wave spot our new-waveness and get excited by it. It was an unexpected pleasure to be compared to Killing Joke! 'Killing Joke?' you say - 'no way!' O.K.}

Sound Corruption only got to do one or two songs which was a total tragedy. They're definitely more of a pop band than we are {Lee N - you'd really like this band, check them out if we haven't scared you off completely}. And there's a certain brattish / snottiness about their vibe that I like a lot. I'd like to see more of that.

Also, in the post this morning I received a package from Al {CrackerDog / Elementary Productions} containing a video for / of The Next Monsoon.

Not sure how we'll be dishing this out but I think future copies of our first Cd / eP might contain a few videos / showreels?

There's also a possibility that we'll be playing up in Birmingham some point soon - be warned!

All in all then, a really rewarding night, in which Finn discovered that we don't have a single song that is 'nice about someone or something'.

"It's big, it's heavy, it's wood... it's Log!"

The Mekano Set

Hello, how are you?

Very very tired here. Had a much-needed recording session and, although we are suffering the inevitable side-effects of drinking an inexplicable amount of red wine, we have three new ideas. They sound really ace to my ears - tuneful, lots of catchy moments, but with loads of interesting textures. Some cool happy accidents.

The Saint has also added some bass-end. One track has about four different basses on it. Might need to sort that out a bit... or not.

We've also put together a brand new CD that has what we thinks are our three bestest-yet tracks.

{Oh and a quick note to Anti B and Lisa - we had bangers and mash 'the morning after'!!! The old hangover cures are still the best! I mean, it doesn't work, but it helps.}

Hope to see some of you at the gig next week.

The Mekano Set

You can now download a flyer for the Amanda Ghost / Playroom night here.

Other bands playing include Sound Corruption, Appropriate Agent, and Hannah the Band.

You can also download our 'box flyer' for the Pleasure Unit night here.

And you might also like to check out the gigs page for more info.

Enjoy!

xXThe Mekano SetXx

Please Note: Contents May Offend!

Right, this is going to be another rambling, offensive, opinionated rant that hopefully still manages to amuse. It is of course, way, way too long, even though I deleted a lot of it...

Smudged Eye-Liner

So friday night we headed up to West London and The Playroom. The journey up was a bit hectic: the Bank Holiday rush to escape, or arrive, it was way too warm to be carrying heavy luggage around, and there were the inevitable train delays and Sardine-Sweat-Lodge tube rides. This is why I normally like to set off way too early.

The Playroom takes place six nights a week in the basement of a smart, unpretentious looking bar in Marlborough Village, not too far off Oxford Road {sorry - that should be Oxford Street shouldn't it? "Hit the North!"}, a good sized place, with some neat alcoves, moody lighting and it's own bar. The stage was tiny but things were loud enough to get lost in.

Organizers Jeff and Melissa were really nice and cool. They obviously put a lot of time and effort into the place, and they don't seem snobbish about what styles of music they put on - everything from folk to freeform.

I'm listening to the fabulous 'Let Us Never Speak of it...' by Out Hud. A sweet, jolly, quirky funky American groove thing. Nice. Just what your ears need after you've been listening to fuzzed-up bass chords for six hours.

London Village

The musical line-up for the night couldn't have been much more eclectic. The first act started out as a sort of John Denver with a Chorus Pedal and ended with full-on 1969 rock-freakout antics {the ending of their last song lasted longer than the rest of their set put together}. An interesting young man trapped in the body of a well-preserved older woman. But in the world of us, androgyny is cool, cause it pisses OFF the right kind of people, and turns ON the right kind of people, if you get me.

And cause we're a bit gay looking.

Apart from The Saint, although there's always the gay-skinhead thing isn't there? It was a petty that our Gay-Following was too lazy to come out to play. Ha ha...

I know a lot of people who say things like "I feel like a lesbian trapped inside a man's body", or "I feel like a gay man trapped inside a woman's body". But that just sounds really painful and awkward.

Personally, I see myself as a heterosexual man trapped inside the body of a gay man. Sorry, I've been reading Richard Herring...

I want to be Mark Hollis but I know I'm more like a badly dressed Kenneth Williams

Next up was a young singer / keyboard player who was the only act of the evening who came across like a 'professional' musician: that sort of hair-swishing, anecdote telling, rehearsed-modesty-confidence, MOR, proper-piano playing, American accent singing thang. Very pleasant and really quite cheesy. We all wanted her {Scottish} accent. She even stayed to hear our set which was nice!

Some might say that MOR is the new alternative. But then again, some might say Hitler was just misunderstood. Let's get real people. Soft Rock is Limp Cock: it looks awful, and serves no real purpose other than to amuse young boys. At least Cock Rock has the decency to pretend to be something more than just the crap it is. I mean it's still crap but at least they work up a sweat, they earn your annoyance.

Actually when you think about it, making music with just a voice and an electric piano is actually braver than your average 'rock' band on one level, because on a bad night, badly played rock music can still be louder than the abuse thrown at it. Not that she received any abuse.

Masturbation

Next up were this cheesy-to-the-point-of-being-shocking jazz-pop band who's bass player was the only person to taint the mood of the night with his Spinal Tap 'you want to use MY bass amp?! Don't touch any of the settings, don't actually TOUCH the amp, don't even LOOK at my amp' antics.

There's just something really embarrassing and fake about that kind of A Level / University Music mentality. Like the way you can spot a band that formed whilst studying A Levels at school: a certain awkward 'funk rock' rhythm...

If you're doing what you want and enjoying it, why are you so miserable?

On the wall of a local rehearsal space I noticed a sign advertising lessons in "Personal Stage Craft". Why on earth would someone want to go to a lesson {from someone else!} to learn 'Personal stage craft'?

Anyway, this jazz-pop band were brilliant musicians. Brilliant in the way that porn stars are really good lovers. They look like they know where everything goes, they look like they're having an amazing time, and it's music of a sort, but you're left with the feeling that only the people involved in making it should actually be watching and listening... let alone applauding...

I can see now why 'jazz' is seen as the most masturbatory form of music. I'm sure someone {more than just one person} somewhere has written about the relationship between sex and music.

Totally throwaway lyrics {if the music has to be complex, shifting, of-the-moment, layered etc. why do the lyrics have to be delivered so much as a token, so trivial and thoughtless?}; fretless-six-string-bass solos, pointless anecdotal asides {as if to reassure us that they are unpretentious, out for a good time, just like us as opposed to egotistical and boring}.

Jazz in the way that Kenny G is jazz. Funky in the way that Chris de Burgh is funky

I smell Oxbridge by Calvin Klein. Or was it Royal College by Hugo Boss?

I have to say that I really like a lot of what real jazz is about. I love improvisation, brushed drums, drums that don't worry about time-signatures, total chaos, dischordance, any music that requires that you wear shades 24 hours a day and drink vodka for breakfast gets my vote! And, through no fault of my own, I really love jazz-funk-grooves {the only useful music to be inflicted on my ears as a child: fat bass, cheese-organ, no sax, non-stop lock-grooves elements} and believe it or not early on we had our moments... seriously.

Think about it, jazz has always been uncool with the out-crowd, and largely ignored by the in-crowd, so how could I not be into it?

I'm not really taking sides, I'm just saying that I find some elements of jazz interesting, in the same way that I find some elements of rock really, really boring.

At its best, jazz is at least as anarchic, chaotic, and wild as rock at its best. Miles Davis will always seem more demonic, cool, menacing and enigmatic than the likes of Mick Jagger to my mind. Jagger is one of those dumb-it-down buffoonish types that actively pursues a ludicrous mockney persona. Miles Davis never hid the fact that he was a bit of a git.

At its worst, jazz is like a modern day Disney Films Premake of American Psycho. It simply shouldn't be witnessed by mortal minds.

At a gig before Christmas we were talking to a sound-man who was obviously a serious metal / industrial head. We were pointing out that 'someone like him' should be well up for a bit of noise, chaos, feedback, anarchy. He seemed bemused and pointed out that he 'likes control, conformity' and that he 'likes to know what's going to happen next'.

I think it's odd that the people who take offense at any anti-Beatles / anti-Stones leanings were, largely, not even born when the likes of Jagger were even remotely entertaining. Yeah, sure, I've heard all about how the Stones were sex on a stick back in the 60's, but I'm not a child or a teen of the 60's - just because I like music doesn't mean I HAVE to respect the Beatles or the Stones. Yawn.

{Deleted bit about not wishing to fuck the corpse of rock music}

But fuck instead the way that just because a band uses heavy guitars it gets called Punk and if it uses a drum machine it gets called Poncey. Heavy Metal is not Punk. Punk at its best is just as much about radical / humanitarian politics {real anarchist / Marxist philosophy is very much concerned with humanitarian values} / individuality / originality as it is about chaotic sound and acting like someone who belongs in day-care.

Man, Out Hud's 'One Life to Leave' is a thing of beauty.

I'm always really fascinated by the different mentalities and attitudes of musicians and I was intrigued by the way that the bass player from this band put so much time and effort into things like deciding what stool he was going to sit on. Ace.

Doing music I never know how to behave, so I don't think about it too much. Usually I'm too preocuppied to think about it. Pretending to have a great time when you are too pissed or too scared to remember where to put your hands is just pointless.

"Magic" is a song by Mick Smiley that features on the soundtrack to the film Ghostbusters. Largely, it isn't very good. But then about half way through it all gets 'recorded backwards then reversed' and it sounds like Ladytron and John Fryer have forced their way into the studio and turned all the levels up to 'Spooky reverse-reverb Phil Spectre Cool'.

And so next up were us like

We played for about 25 miles and the set just totally flew-by, loads of fun, loud enough to 'let go', a really good sound {apparently}, no technical troubles at all and a really chilled sound guy {Beth: "We sing through guitar effects." Sound Man: "Cool."} sic.

Miss Finn, Mr. Saint, and anyone else who'd seen us live before were in for a different experience in that they could definitely hear what I was doing too. I figured I should make a point of being more audible as a few people have been convinced that my guitar {a twelve string electric that is shaped like a 1970's Vox Phantom - a particularly ugly looking object as used by The Beat, The Velvet Underpants, and Ian Curtis amongst others} is purely 'just for show'. Plus, the sound guy accidentally left my mic turned on so you could probably hear me singing as well. What a crazy world eh?

Bank Holiday Weekend meant that while we were heading away from the beach, everybody else was heading towards it, but we got people dancing which was 4ucking wicked. They even asked permission. Dancing = good!

So the set flew by from my point of view. It was quite short because the laptop we use to sequence the drums, sound effects, synthbasslines and some of the live-sampling seems to be on it's last legs. And we didn't want to push it. We're lucky it's still working at all considering I accidentally emptied an entire mug of black coffee into its workings a couple of weeks ago.

It really started acting up the night before the gig. Sparks literally flew. It's antiquated 400Mhz processor {it's a Mac so it's not as bad as it sounds} is no longer able to handle the number of layers we are working with and getting it to live-sample maybe 8 seconds + of sound is just way too risky. So it's time to move on and we're hopefully going to invest in something a little bit more 21st Century... God knows what this will do to our material!

We couldn't hang around for much of Fell Before Finnish but they sounded a lot more interesting than your average white boys with guitars band in that they weren't attempting to rip-off Franz Ferdinand or Muse. Nice. Such a small gesture really... but well worth the effort as I'm sure they'd tell you. although one of them may or may not have made off with one of Patrick's stomp boxes...

Post-Pop Band's Five-in-a-Bed Romp Exclusive

Then it was off to the NME night at KoKo Club where we saw something of Death From Above 1979's set. Looks like a superb venue {imagine a classy, over-priced Muppet Show theatre}, and is obviously a clear result of a general return to 'coolness' for live music in general.

I know how dumb this sounds but it's only now that dance music is no longer the 'in' thing do I feel good about doing songs like D.H.J. It's not all that dancey but I'm sure you get my point... if I have one...

On 'record', DFA actually sound pretty conventional {the Lemmy-like bass guitar riffage easily filling the space of other instruments}. Very rawk. But live they were like a two-man Ministry. All strobes and sweat and smoke. Rawk.

The rest is a bit of a blur, but we were up and dancing until the early hours of the morning. Was good to have a late one for the first time in months.

We stayed over until saturday, It was so nice to hang out as a band {although maybe sleeping five-to-a-bed was a bit too much?}. Must do more of that.

Must also give a mention to the marvelous Mr. Woolly who is like some kind of unofficial band go-getter / publicist / action man. Well done that man!

I was sort of half asleep for most of saturday, but we had a wander round Denmark Street for some new bits and pieces {a new distortion pedal and 'special mic stand' for Miss Finn}.

Anyway, we've been invited back to The Playroom on Friday 24th June. We'll be supporting Amanda Ghost who sounds really interesting and someone who we might actually have stuff in common with musically! Wonderful, but typical Mekano Set luck, it's also the week of Glastonbury, and Patrick is going to Glastonbury. And he's going to attempt to leave Glastonbury for the gig, and then return. It's possible in theory... Fingers crossed on that one.

Later for you,

The Mekano Set

I'll do a proper post about last friday's gig later, but meanwhile I'll just say that it went really well, and we've been invited back to The Playroom on Friday 24th June where we'll be supporting Amanda Ghost who sounds really interesting and someone who we might actually have stuff in common with musically! Wonderful, but typical Mekano Set luck, it's also the week of Glastonbury...

You can download a flyer for the night here.

We're also appearing @ The Pleasure Unit in Bethnal Green, East London, on Thursday 28th July with Flame On. Ace.

You can download our 'box flyer' for the Pleasure Unit night here.

xXThe Mekano SetXx