Music PREVIEWS
EXPERIMENTAL, PUNK, ELECTRONIC WEEKEND FESTIVAL MUSIC LANGUAGE Various venues, Glasgow, Sat 1 & Sun 2 Sep
Scotland’s finest DIY promoters Cry Parrot and Tracer Trails team up again for a giddy weekend of underground music, art and partying. Keen not to repeat themselves, they’ve opted for a completely fresh line-up, with acts who have emerged within the past year. Any artists who appeared last year, such as folk magus Alasdair Roberts or avant-songsmith Richard Youngs, are doing so within new collaborative contexts, explains head Parrot Fielding Hope.
Among the artists are SAY award nominees Happy Particles and Conquering Animal Sound, post-dubstep magician Dam Mantle, demonic Lynchian jazzbos Tut Vu Vu, and a raft of hot new acts, from punky-Afro duo Sacred Paws to shoegazing goth fiends The Downs. An eclectic music policy sees lo-fi indie bands shake down with ghetto fabulous house acts, and noise-rockers do the watusi with rapturous folkies. The festival returns to the Yorkhill/Finniestoun area, with the 78 cafe-bar and warehouse arts space SWG3 hosting Saturday’s shindig. On the Sunday, Music Language branches into the southside, taking over Kinning Park Complex, and ‘bonkers country and western themed social club,’ the Grand Ole Opry. ‘The southside of Glasgow has been a hotbed for communal creativity for some time,’ says Hope, ‘whenever we’ve seen gigs in those surroundings, the atmosphere is incomparable to any other spaces both in or around Glasgow.’
Hope also promises guerilla gigs, courtesy of generator punks Winning Sperm Party, and after-parties in as-yet-undisclosed locations. ‘We want to make sure the music is presented in the most engaging and stimulating environments possible. Personally I find the concept of a band-on-a-stage-in-a-venue can be tiring and uninspiring at times, so seeing live music removed from its traditional context can be a really exciting, eye-opening experience.’ (Stewart Smith)
N A W A L L E T S
ALBUM LAUNCH DIVORCE Nice‘n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Sat 8 Sep ALT.ROCK PATTI SMITH 02 ABC, Glasgow, Wed 5 Sep
D.I.V.O.R.C.E, find out what it means to me! What it means to me is bleeding ears and free-sax fuck-rock squall. But what does it mean to you, oh harbingers of Glasgow carnage, aka Divorce? ‘We really love making a big dumb racket – none of us have any social, politi-
cal or psychological baggage we want to offload on the listener,’ proclaims drum-slayer Andy Brown (also of Remember Remember). ‘Jennie [Fulk] is the shouter, VSO is the bassist and Vickie [McDonald] is the guitarist. When it comes to writing songs we don’t attempt to write a “punk” song or a “metal” song or what-have-you. We’re happier completely pleasing ourselves, as a bunch of skint punk-jammers.’ ‘Me and VSO have been friends for a long time,’ says Brown. ‘We decided
to start a band, something loud and obnoxious, with an experimental attitude. We met the others at parties – we were the geeks in the kitchen talking about obscure Throbbing Gristle recordings, rather than cutting a rug in the main room.’ Following depraved emissions via Optimo and Winning Sperm Party, Divorce’s ace self-titled debut album is released on London DIY imprint Night School (Julia Holter, Sun Araw). ‘I’m mega-proud of how intense it turned out,’ says McDonald. Their forthcoming live depravity should expound why Lydia Lunch once called them Cuntzilla’s ungodly offspring. Let’s hear three organ- slaughtering cheers for the (un)holy (un)matrimony of Divorce. (Nicola Meighan)
Much like her contemporary, John Lydon, Smith is fêted less for what she does currently than for having hammered out, decades back, a profoundly revolution- ary paradigm. Smith – and Blondie and The Ramones too – came along just as we needed reminding that American music needn’t consist entirely of blokes in cheesecloth shirts growing facial hair competitively. She flared, briefly but glori- ously, with a unique brand of speed-fuelled hipster lyricism, releasing a set of albums – Horses, Easter and Radio Ethiopia – that earned her a place forever- more at the high table of Alternative. She went on to live in a world of Patti imitators – Siouxsie, Chrissie Hynde, Ari Up, Polystyrene – but was just too strange and wilful to mingle. Decades followed, of marriage, motherhood and dilettante dabbling on the wilder shores of Manhattan bohemia. It was only with the death of her husband, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, formerly of MC5, in the late 80s, that Smith re-entered the fray, encour- aged by disciples like REM, Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. She became a bestselling writer with Just Kids, a memoir of her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Seven albums followed, including the latest, Banga, each of which has been a firm, though these days rather less fervid, reaffirmation of her founding principles, layering folk, psychedelia and world music over Smith’s hallmarks: lyrics of outlaws on life’s emotional peripheries, plunging into dark nights of the soul and turning the doomed romance up to 11. (Allan Brown)
23 Aug–20 Sep 2012 THE LIST 65