A Minor Embarrassment

Monday 12th April: I learned long ago not to be embarrassed by my musical tastes. Very few people ever see my CD collection (and there are some very dodgy CDs in there...) and on the fair few occasions that I go to a gig on my own, it's easy to hide away next to a pillar, partially pretending that the rest of my attending group are at the bar, buying me a drink. Anyway, it's generally dark and nobody would recognise me.

It was slightly different tonight. When I arrived at Fibbers (a lot earlier than I usually would and still in full daylight), the queue stretched right along the street. And it was mainly made up of approximately sixth form aged girls. Most of them wondering why some old f*rt had joined the queue. I may not have been the eldest there but I was almost certainly the eldest who wasn't accompanying his or her children. I did my best to look nonchalant and spent quite a long time wondering why it was taking about an hour to get the sell-our crowd of 280 into the venue. I guess having to check the majority of the attendees' IDs adds quite a bit of time. (Sadly, nobody on the door asked me for my ID. They must have recognised me from my frequent visits...)

Anyway, I eventually got in and found a position at the bar (just behind a woman and her daughter - it's possible we inadvertently looked like a family group) just before The Shower Scene took to the stage amid much enthusiastic screaming. This four-piece from Dublin, performing for the first time in the UK, started out as a solo acoustic act but are now listed as "pop punk". I bet that's not a metamorphosis many bands go through. There was some nice guitar work and some very powerful drumming but I thought the vocals were lacking something during the louder songs (which, being part punk, most of them were). Strangely the one quieter song, which might have been called Run Away Tonight or, perhaps, Your Are Everything, was easily the best song vocally and proved a popular sing-along for the crowd. Vocalist Eoghan also seemed to be saving himself between songs as it was guitarist Goc, full of Irish charm and brogue (reminiscent of a Boyzone member with added swearing) who did all the talking, introducing the songs and providing a bit of commentary. This was a fair, if not outstanding set and provided a good opening for tonight's main act. I was impressed enough to shell out for the debut EP.

Arguably Elliot Minor are York's most successful band at the moment and, while a large part of their audience does seem to be composed of young (and, once again, screaming) females, they have produced two extremely good albums. Their live act is slightly different to the recorded output as the latter includes a large degree of string arrangements, but it can't be said that they aren't a very good live act. They certainly know how to play and how to work an audience, with Alex making good use of the stage barrier to get closer to the fans. Tonight's set comprised songs from both the debut album and last year's Solaris and, while the latter does (in my opinion) include at least one poor song, there wasn't a duff or dull part of the set, which included all my favourites - Jessica, Parallel Worlds, Running Away, Fireflies (a non-album release cover of Owl City's original) and the wonderfully riffed Electric High.

There was a lot of energy in the performance and all the band (or, at least, those that I could see) seemed to be enjoying themselves on what was the first gig of their current tour. I think it was the first time I had been to Fibbers when it was sold out and the place soon started to take on a steamy, sticky atmosphere, even for those of us not dancing or bouncing around. After about an hour, we got the usual announcement, "This is our last song." "Yeah, right," I thought, "except for the encore." The song was duly played, the band put down their instruments, took their bows and left the stage. And then nothing happened. No cries of "More!", no slow hand clap, no cheering. Nothing. In fact, people started leaving. I'm not sure whether the young audience didn't realise the rules, or whether the band didn't do encores, or even whether bands in general only do encores if people do actually shout for one but, after a few minutes, the lights started to come on and it was obvious that the last song was, in fact, just that.

It was a bizarre, surreal end to the evening and despite the quality of the performance I couldn't help but feel slightly cheated. With two albums worth of material, I would have thought the band could play for more than an hour, even if they intended to not come back on stage. Still, definitely a band worth seeing live - this was my second time and I wouldn't hesitate to see them again.

Mojos and Minors

Monday 13th October: Musically, last week was a funny sort of week...

It started with a bit of a disappointment. We had planned (and, indeed, had tickets) to see Curved Air at the Duchess on Thursday. But, on Monday, we discovered that the promoters had cancelled all gigs outside of the South-East of England. Had the credit-crunch hit the band's travel budget? Maybe hardly any tickets had been sold? We don't know and I doubt we ever will. I'll admit that I knew hardly anything by this re-formed 70's prog-rock band - I have one track Back Street Luv on a compilation CD - but I was looking forward to seeing them live. I think that, if I ever had to chose to listen to just one style of music it would be prog-rock and we don't get that many opportunities to hear it live in York. (Up-coming gigs by Breathing Space, Mostly Autumn and the original Asia notwithstanding...)

Anyway, that meant that I had to meet up with the guys on Friday night instead - Roj had something to pass on to me before Sunday (more on that later...) There wasn't a great deal that took our fancy, so we planned to go to the Roman Bath to see The Penetrators, allegedly a 70's to noughties rock covers band. I say "allegedly" because, when we arrived, The Penetrators were nowhere to be seen. (Maybe they were holed up with Curved Air in the South East.) Instead, The Mojos were gracing the stage area. Now, up until Friday I was a Mojos virgin. The other guys, however, had seen them a number of times and had told me that they were pretty good.

The first thing I noticed, however, was the, errrm, let's say disparate ages of some of the band. Well, let's be honest, it was, being perfectly frank, the apparent age of Dave, who could have been the father of any of the other members. If I hadn't heard of them from the guys, I would have had the vague thought that this could have ended up being embarrassing. A bit like finding out that your Grandad played in a rock band. However, the past reviews were right. These guys are really good. Their selection of covers is slightly different to the usual fare and they play them extremely well. Tonight's set was spoiled slightly by a couple of electrical problems - one ending Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall somewhat abruptly (all we need is just another 50p in the metre??), the other making The Mojos' version of The Kaiser Chiefs' Ruby better than the original. A packed set was graced, for me, with many favourite songs by many favourite bands, including Robbie Williams, Bryan Adams, Guns 'n' Roses, Whitesnake, To-to and Queen. Being honest, I'm off the opinion that nobody should ever cover Queen, but that's by-the-by - they didn't do too bad a job at all. The set was rounded off with a fantastic medley containing songs that I can't remember the titles of. (Must start carrying around pen and paper.)

The only thing that remains to be said is that the bass guitar that John was playing is possibly the ugliest guitar I have ever seen. That didn't stop him playing it well, though. A good gig by a top covers band. One I hope to catch again sometime.

And, as the evening drew to a close (or, at least, as we were kicked out of the Bath to commence our usual chit-chat/insult-trading on the streets of York) Roj handed me my ticket for Sunday night's gig at the Duchess, featuring York band Elliot Minor.

Regular readers (I like to kid myself that I have some) will remember that I reviewed their debut album a few months back and that I liked it enough to rate it my album of the year at that point. Sunday night's gig was set up at short notice, was for charity and, given the almost boy-band status of Elliot Minor, I didn't think I'd manage to get a ticket. Thanks go to Roj, who braved the humiliation to pick one up for me.

It's a bit of a complicated story but I arrived at the Duchess at seven o'clock on Sunday evening, thought I'd missed the first band, who were due to finish at seven and couldn't work out what had happened to the second one, The Hot Melts, as they seemed to have morphed from a Liverpudlian foursome into a York-based female threesome who I had seen before. It urns out that The Hot Melts had cancelled at short notice (there's somewhat of a them developing here...) and the girls were the first band starting late. (It was good of them to wait for me, don't you think?)

Anyway, they were Third Conduct (and networking socially) and I had originally seen them at Fibbers over a year ago. Billed as "pop punk", you can imagine their style from the two covers that they performed - Green Day's She and, errrm, The Monkees' I'm a Believer (albeit the slightly rockier version from Shrek). However, they primarily play their own stuff and very good it is too. Kate's pounding drums belie her tender age, Hannah's guitar-playing is electric while Sarah's vocals, despite a slight nasal quality, have improved vastly since the last time I saw them. This was a much more assured performance overall and was thoroughly enjoyable. I'm not normally a big fan of either punk or punk-lite, but these girls are good enough for me to consider getting hold of a copy of their 8-track EP. Unfortunately, I didn't see them after their set finished so didn't get to pick one up on the night.

And so to the main act. I have a vague feeling that if you were to take Elliot Minor's album and rework it slightly (take away the string arrangements, tone down the slightly plummy vocals, crank up the volume a bit) you would have a slightly better than average rock album, rather than the excellent, sophisticated pop-rock album that it was released as. Add in some youthful exuberance, some excellent musicianship and a crowd composed partially of screaming girls and crank up the volume even more and you have what turned out to be an extremely good rock concert.

There can be no doubt that the boys of Elliot Minor have a great deal of talent (and, it has to be said, the looks to make you wish you were part of the same gene-pool). Being labelled as a boy-band doesn't do them justice. Their live set, containing most songs from the album and at least one new track, isn't just a re-hash of those songs but almost completely different versions. Yes, the lyrics are the same but the music is a lot rockier, verging on heavy and the vocals are a lot more raw, losing some of the "posh" tones which were my main criticism of the album, but retaining the variety of having multiple vocalists. They even showed a variety of talent by playing Silently totally acoustically, without drums.

A word about the audience. I expected to be completely composed almost exclusively of screaming girls and fully expected to be the oldest person there. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, while a good deal of the audience was student-aged, there was a fair number of older music fans present as well. Even some who admitted to owning the album. There was even a handful of people older than me and some of them didn't appear to be related to the band.

Whether Elliot Minor turn out to be a flash in the pan or whether they can sustain and build upon the momentum created by their first release remains to be seen. Personally, though, I'm glad that I took the opportunity to see them live relatively early in their career. The only downside to the performance was the somewhat mixed message coming from the band about under-aged drinking - while bass-player Ed was advising people not to do it or they would be kicked out, lead guitarist Alex responded with "f*** the bouncers, let's all have fun tonight." It may be rock and roll but, given the hoops that had to be jumped through to get The Duchess open in the first place, it's probably not what Tim and Michelle wanted to hear.

The proceeds of this gig are going to York Against Cancer and it raised over £3,100. Somehow it feels good to enjoy yourself while doing some good.

A Minor Release

Monday 5th May: In my last post, I was bemoaning the apparent lack of quality in the live music scene in York. I'm glad to say, however, that York (and it's near environs) is still producing some excellent bands and, consequently, some good CD releases. So far this year, I have bought five CDs from York (or near-York) bands. Three of those have been released this year. Indeed, two of those three have been debut releases. My latest purchase is the self-titled debut album by Elliot Minor.

The five members of Elliot Minor are all classically trained musicians and three of them are also former choristers. They have, essentially, formed a boy-band, albeit one which writes its own material and have produced an album which is a fusion of bouncy pop, rock and orchestral string arrangements. The result is a catchy, infectious pop-rock album with hints of Queen and E.L.O. and (sadly) a touch of McFly-like vocals. (The boys actually supported McFly in 2007, but I suspect that their live show, probably without the orchestral sound, is slightly different to their recorded sound.)

While listening to the CD today, I tried to make notes on all the tracks, so that I could write a track-by-track review similar to the recent one I did for Glass Shadows. It's perhaps a little telling that I struggled to find original things to say about all of them and my notes became briefer as the album progressed. Yes, the album is pretty similar all the way through, but that isn't to detract from it. In the main, the songs are pretty good. In fact, I don't think there's a duff track on the album.

So, instead of a track-by-track review, here's a few random thoughts and highlights.

The album credits list Alex Davies as lead vocals and Ed Minton as vocals. I'm afraid to say that Ed's singing style isn't quite as good as Alex's and, while the multi-track vocal style used in some of the songs works well, when Ed's vocals take the lead, there is a slight reduction in quality of sound.

Dan Hetherton's drumming, throughout the album, is strong without being overpowering and there is good use of Uilean pipes (the second album in row which I have bought that features these instruments) horns and strings. All the string and orchestral arrangements have been done by Alex, who also has at least a hand in writing all the songs (Ed Minton and Dan Hetherton also appear on song credits, along with non-band member Beni Giles), showing what a talented guy he must be.

My favourite track is the second on the album, and first single, Parallel Worlds. This is a fast-paced, traditional rock song with Queen-influenced guitars. The actual song is short, weighing in at just under three minutes, but the track ends with an orchestral arrangement that sounds vaguely familiar but not in a way that I can put my finger on.

The Liar Is You, opens with a beautiful keyboard introduction (Ali Paul is on keyboards). It's a ballad-like track to start with, but turns into something much more rocky halfway through and contains the strongest hints of E.L.O. on the album.

Jessica is, perhaps, the track most like a typical boy-band pop song. It's a bouncy, catchy ode to actress Jessica Alba which cleverly incorporates at least four of her film and TV appearances in the lyrics.

Still Figuring Out is the most annoying song on the album. It contains a really nice guitar solo but is spoiled by over-repetitive lyrics.

Silently is the typical boy band ballad - you can almost pinpoint the place where Westlife would rise up off their stools as the music soars into the finale. Somehow, however, it works on this album.

The final track, Last Call To New York City, is a strong ending to a cracking CD. It manages to combine all the best things of the ten previous tracks (I haven't commented on four of them) into one song. Bizarrely, it ends with a firework display which works well, despite the obvious lack of visuals.

I sometimes feel the need to (almost) apologise for my musical tastes and I admit that I have a fairly high tolerance for most musical forms. That, together with a lack of basic knowledge of musical techniques, sometimes means that my tastes appear to be a little bizarre to friends and colleagues. In this case, they will just have to accept that, in my opinion, this is the best 2008 album I have bought so far.