I’d write you a letter to explain all my actions
but I’d only take it too far again, and you’ll
consign it to that shoebox underneath
the place where you hang your coats
on a pile of train tickets and badges.
Well maybe that’s justice,
on a pile of train tickets and badges
and I’ll be at home with objects that
can pierce your heart
and take you far away.
Paint me with loyal marks,
at least ignore me with feeling.
Good arms, painter.
This time I’m not just
thinking out loud.
“
| — | Gibraltar by Tellison |
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
My Wife’s Grave is in Paris by Tellison
One of the best albums of 2011, and this is perhaps my second favourite song on it.
Arcs Across Any Other City - Tramlines. [1: Friday Fears Nothing]
And what did you do this weekend? I went and saw some pop music, for free.
Sheffield’s Tramlines festival is so much better than it has any right to be. A free festival in a major city should surely be a mess of long ques, obnoxious advertising and bland inoffensive Radio 2 acts.
Somehow, it’s actually really good and totally works. Full marks to everyone involved organization-wise and if the line-up features more than three acts you quite like next year I really would strongly encourage you to go. (Also, Sheffield is REALLY nice. So between that and Leeds being the best place in the world I guess maybe the north is ok after all.)
And what did I do this weekend? This stuff -
Friday (aka Emo Night)
The Leadmill hosted a (FREE. Never forget this was all free) evening of bands who all had at least a little emo in their blood, even if nobody was willing to say it out loud. After a long stationary que (my only one of the weekend, I think) Without Our Crowns played a pretty enjoyable set of what I believe the kids are calling “easycore”, which to you and me is pop-punk with yelling and better riffs. They have two vocalists, and after dashing my hopes that one of them would be a hypeman, it turned out they sort of just had a division of duties where one of them was more mannered than they other. Never screaming (sadly?) but The One Without the Baseball Cap did some good throaty shouting (at least?). Most of the group I was giggoing with found them annoying but I genuinely liked them, despite it taking me four or five tries to figure out the band name. Bands, don’t put the word “our” in your names.
Once upon a time, I didn’t like Tellison. I was an idiot. This year’s “The Wages of Fear” is a great record of hypermelodic emo-damaged indie rock, and live they’re spirited and likeable. It seemed they were a bit too much fun for the deadly serious rawk kids around me who really didn’t know what to make of the singalong major key choruses or the marriage of the heartfelt and the ridiculous that produces things like the adorable dentist-fancier ballad “Freud Links the Heart and the Teeth”. Tellison will make you feel good about being alive and leave you humming songs you didn’t think you knew before. (And a female friend of mine said they were all “well fit”, so there’s an endorsement for you.)
[I didn’t watch Futures. Sorry Futures. I needed to sit down and rehydrate. The crowd seemed to be really in to it though. They introduced one song by asking the audience to sing the words “Say My Name”. It was not a Destiny’s Child cover. Which is a shame.]
Twin Atlantic are a Scottish rock band who put out music on Red Bull Records. That’s a not a joke. Red Bull have a record label, and if you imagined what the best band on a record label run by Red Bull would sound like, you’d probably imagine something like Twin Atlantic - heavy guitars equally adept at twisty riffs and sprinting chord thrashes, big arena-ready choruses and, uh, deeply questionable lyrics. They leave a lot of sweat (and love. For a band that a lot of people haven’t heard of they seem to have a pretty big dedicated following and the audience in the Leadmill adores them) on stage and execute all their maneuvres (even the tricky to pull off Acoustic Slow Song move! They make it work with the addition of an electric cello) perfectly. And when they’re belting out Vivarium highlight “Lightspeed” it’s fantastic, thrilling, visceral stuff. But this year they released an album titled “Free” and it’s just… It’s just a bit too willfully huge for my liking. Bits of it sound like Muse and the Foo Fighters and that’s not particularly interesting for me. Still - When they barrel through “What is Light? Where is Laughter?” it feels genuinely euphoric and leaves a smile on my face and a skip in my step that carries me all the way to A Mainstream Indie Megaclub where I drink too much, dance like I mean it to Sum 41 and wonder what DJ in their right mind plays two Rolling Stones songs back to back.
[Sat/Sun to follow.]
