Still Too Young To Cry! Live Review: The Adicts @ The Best Buy Theater, NYC, 17th May 2012

Still Too Young To Cry! The Adicts Live @ The Best Buy Theater, NYC, 17th May 2012
by Carrie Quartly

I was excited to see The Adicts in New York after being frustrated by the rarity of non-festival appearances in their native UK and missing them late last year as their Rebellion set clashed with a Captain Sensible solo performance, so eagerly purchased tickets when they went on sale earlier in March.

The venue, formerly The Roxy, is now a Best Buy Theater, and it's a strange, sterilised place with lighted escalators, a mandatory $3 bag check-in cloakroom, and big burly door staff on a position of authority power trip (I watched as one girl was told she could not stand in a specific spot, and was brusquely directed instead to move a mere 3 inches away). There was even a long table where the contents of people's bags were being picked through and analysed by security. It reminded me of an airport.

The doors opened at 7, and the first band, Eva & Her Virgins, didn't come on until nearly 9. When they finally strutted on stage, it was clear what the delay was, they were obviously too busy getting dressed.

The blonde haired singer stomped around on spike heeled boots festooned with glittering chains, her purple corseted ball gown pushing her ample bust up to her eyeballs. She sprawled around the stage in overt masturbatory poses, and repeatedly flashed the audience, hiking the short hem of her dress up over her ripped fence net tights. The guys were shirtless with dog tags slung around their necks, or wearing sleeveless hoodies draped with the obligatory emo chains. A flimsy keyboard burble squeezed out like a sofa fart, and was abruptly smothered by generic chugging guitar riffs, while the singer shrieked and strangulated herself with the microphone cable, which unfortunately failed to muffle her tuneless croaks. 
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, another trendy looking twit with a bad haircut and a septum piercing was brought out for some guest rap verses. If there's one thing I hate, its shitty rap rock fusion acts who can't even tackle one style of music competently, never mind successfully combining the two.

I suppose they'd like to think of themselves as dark electronic pop with a theatrical edge, but it played out like an embarrassing, desperate pantomime of nu-metal posturing. Little plastic dolls all dressed up in their alternative clothes. I scowled through the entire set.

2nd band World Inferno aka "World/Inferno Friendship Society", aka "The Inferno" (another local band from Brooklyn) took the stage next, an ambitious multi-instrumentalist ensemble of sharp dressers blending styles of punk, soul, jazz, klezmer, cabaret and ska. Front man Jack Terricloth proved to be a charismatic performer, cavorting about the stage with a twinkle in his eye as the several backing members (including a viola and an alto sax player) plugged away behind him with devilish abandon. “Who’s your favourite dead punk rocker?” he asked the fans before ripping into ‘Poor Old Jeffrey Lee’, “Everybody’s got one.”

Their confidence and command of the stage was welcome after the woeful disaster of the first band, although the crowd became particularly aggressive throughout - punches were thrown, I endured the constant digging of elbows in my back, and some beer was spat into my fringe by a girl coveting my spot by the barrier (I don't give in that easily!), all considerably distracting!
Another annoyance was the relentless crowd surfing, several times I had to dodge pairs of Converse boots as they swung towards my face when some attention seeking moron (often the same person again and again) was hauled over the barrier by event personnel. We were also regularly having water bottles emptied over our heads without consent, which made me feel a bit like an animal being hosed down in a pen (and didn't do my leather jacket any favours, either).

The mood visibly changed for the better when the Clockwork Orange intro boomed out from behind the closed curtain - the people behind me were bouncing with excitement rather than through motives of attempted GBH. The curtains parted to reveal the brother droogs in their white jumpsuits and bowlers, announcing their intentions of fun with a violin instrumental version of ‘Ode To joy’.

For opening number ‘Joker In the Pack’, they were soon joined by Monkey, resplendent in full joker makeup, glittered trousers and matching oversized mad hatter top hat. Great salvos of confetti were tipped out from boxes, and Monkey stalked the stage, pulling long multi-coloured paper streamers out of his mouth and nonchalantly tossing decks of playing cards about. Despite technical issues for the always entertaining guitarist Pete Dee at the start, his buoyant spirit never dampened and he soldiered on with a plucky smile. 

‘Tango’ saw Monkey armed with a large umbrella, re-enacting the dance steps, crossing one foot in front of the other with a playful grin. The umbrella then sprang open, hurling showers of sparkling confetti all over the stage.

Throughout the evening a series of similar outlandish props were employed, Monkey’s microphone stand was a spangly orgy of streamers. He wore a giant inflatable Elvis wig and flashing LED glasses during ‘Crazy’ which were then discarded into the audience. He flung soft toys and sock monkeys and unraveled long colourful streamers at the eager throng of fans who did their best to catch them.

When he disappeared for a wardrobe change, he returned in a checkerboard sequined jacket all done up with string lights, flashing like a Christmas tree. He even drank out of a glass that flashed in a sequence of changing colours in-between songs. He sweated through infinite layers of garishly patterned outfits (shiney, shiney) and emptied an entire can of silly string into drummer Michael ‘Kid Dee’ Davison’s face, while a bubble machine unleashed a flurry of hundreds of little bubbles into the air.

These wacky antics are the perfect backdrop to The Adicts brand of up-tempo, catchy anthems and high energy punk-pop.

The set covered most of the high points of their lengthy career, from the boot boy days of their 1979 Lunch With the Adicts EP (‘Easy Way Out’), to 80’s synth pop driven hits from third album Smart Alex (‘Troubadour’), and a couple from early 90’s comeback Twenty-Seven (‘Angel’ and ‘Fuck It Up’, the latter giving Monkey the excuse to flip his middle finger out at the audience in time to the beat).   

‘Chinese Takeaway’ became an extended rallying chant, with the audience spiritedly joining in on the “woo woo woo!” chorus. Other highlights were Monkey's mime theatre act for ‘Too Young’, the wickedly absurd ‘Steamroller’, and a fist-pumpingly anthemic ‘Viva La Revolution’ which made me want to storm the Bastille.

“It’s almost midnight in Times Square in New York City.”, Monkey declared as more confetti tubes exploded on the far right of the stage. “This is better than New Year's Eve, isn't it?!”
Yes, Monkey, indeed it is.
The set closed with the band's biggest hit and firm fan favourite, the enduring and endearing 'Bad Boy'. The crowd swayed and sang along and bumped big beach balls around the room as if in a giant gumball machine. 
This was only the second time I've seen them live, but it seems an Adicts gig is guaranteed to be a dazzling circus of fun, and with an act that's over thirty years old, perhaps also the secret to why they have aged so much better than a lot of their crusty punk peers. VIVA!

Live Review: Pulp at Radio City Music Hall, 11th April 2012

Pulp at Radio City Music Hall, 11th April 2012
Pulp resurrected! Jarvis Cocker - He is not Jesus, though he has the same initials...

by Carrie Quartly

Pulp's 2 night stint in New York last week took place in a city landmark, home of the Rockettes, and the USA's 'showplace of the nation' - The Radio City Music Hall. Just wandering into the grand foyer was an experience, gazing up at the opulent 60 foot high ceiling festooned with chandeliers, a lavishly draped art deco delight of elegant, ornately mirrored walls. This breath-taking space seemed the perfect backdrop for a band with the drama and heart of Pulp, returning triumphantly after an absence of 14 years...

First on was the funny and self-effacing observational songwriter and cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis, hailed by Jarvis as "The best lyricist working in the US today". 

Lewis first came to my attention for his humourous low budget video "The Legend of The Fall", which brilliantly traces the rise of the band's humble beginnings from the appearance of 'a young dock clerk named Mark E. Smith' in 1976 to perennial John Peel favourites, with fantastic drawings. 

Normally holding open a dog-eared sketch pad for illustrated accompaniment to his songs, tonight he had his hands free as the huge RCMH monitor screens played a slideshow of his drawings for his 2 minute "French Revolution" documentary, and fan favourite "Creeping Brain", an outlandish horror tale where an enterprising and hungry brain eats everything until it is large enough to take over the world. Other songs included the irresistible pop hooks of "Broken Broken Broken Heart", as well as "Time Trades" from his latest album A Turn In the Dream Songs, a poignant slice of truth that had me quietly pondering my own choices and possibilities for the future. Show stealer had to be "Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror", ranked number 47 in Time Out New York's list of 100 best NYC songs (bizarrely overstepped by the likes of Jay-Z and Barry Manilow!), where Jeffrey Lewis confronts the enigmatic singer on the L train in an encounter that ends in a violent homosexual rape fantasy.

 

Soon the lights drop again and the anticipation is palpable in the historic theater as green laser beams scroll teasing messages to the pumped up crowd, "Shall we do it?", then a robotic voice recites the blurb from "Mis-Shapes", a kind of empowering outsider manifesto - "We don't want no trouble. We just want the right to be different. That's all."

Jarvis appears straddling the risers in his Cuban heeled boots and skinny suit, throwing candy bars into the audience like some kind of sexy librarian Easter bunny.

At this point the reek of marijuana begins to permeate the room with an earthy sweet marinade, and the synchronised fist pumping begins in earnest as Pulp springs alive with a surging and propulsive "Do You Remember the First Time?", Cocker's wiry frame thrashing in a series of jerky hip sways, his floppy hair flying and two fingers sweeping across his eyes, Saturday Night Fever style. 

The stage is then bathed in an acid green for “Monday Morning”, and Jarvis seems to be shouting into a large tin can telephone, “Why live in the world when you can live in your head?”

Cocker then segues into “Razzmatazz” by way of a surreal monologue incorporating a history lesson of the venue before trailing off into a beautiful free form ramble about “glitter, isotopes and amino acids”. He shimmies and scissor kicks and utters some well-timed breezily exhaled “aaaahhhh”s as the band confidently bounces away behind him.

If there’s little mention of the Pulp backing band, it is because Jarvis himself is such a presence; it was almost impossible to take my eyes off him.

The stage was arranged in a tiered format, the top layer featuring Candida manning the keyboard setup and Nick Banks on drums, bottom level was Steve Mackey on bass and Mark Webber on guitar. Cocker also occasionally banged on a big stand-alone bass drum with a mallet for some extra improvisational percussion.

“Pencil Skirt” followed, with Jarvis scrutinising the crowd and deciding that the concert was also doubling for ‘the pencil skirt convention of North America’, as so many fans had dressed up in homage to the track.

We were treated to the big love ballad from Different Class, “Something Changed”, which was dedicated to a newly married couple in the audience, the euphoric sing-along of “Disco 2000”, where a spotlight followed Jarvis as he climbed the rafters, and a laser light strewn rave for the dance and drug scene song “Sorted For E’s and Wizz”. 

“F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.” was presented with an odd stiff ballet by a black clad dance troupe rushing from one end of the stage to the other, while “I Spy” saw the multiple screen stage backdrop displaying a video camera feed of excited faces in the crowd before taking a plunge past Cocker’s bearded chin and down towards his tonsils.

Throughout the evening, Cocker also made toasts to relevant April 11^th pop culture legacies, strumming out a version of “Louie Louie” as a tribute to Richard Berry, who was born on this day in 1935 (“Imagine a world without that riff…”), and quoting Kurt Vonnegut who died on April 11^th five years ago (“"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."). 

His witty chatter and storytelling only made you warm to him more, even though he once sternly rebuked himself for a lengthy song explanation and apologised for not just getting on with it and playing it!  

It is difficult to describe the appeal of Pulp to someone who doesn’t get it - the glorious, compulsively danceable disco influenced pop, combined with Cocker’s sex and social class lyrical obsessions, resulting in a sort of Abba-meets-The Fall-singing-from-a-Mike Leigh-film-script type feel.  

The blazing colours of the surrounding stage screens and the spectacular light show only reinforced the performance as a technicolour orgasm of perfect pop.

“Babies” and “Underwear” (“a song about changing your mind at the last second…when you don’t have any clothes on.”) were followed by the highlight of the night for me, the pulsing, sleazy noir of “This Is Hardcore”. Jarvis climbed the ramparts again, followed by a blood red spotlight, and disappeared behind a curtain before emerging theatrically from behind it, twisting and swishing it around his lanky frame. When he returned to the stage, he laid down on his back and thrust his legs out in time with the burlesque Busby Berkeley style choreography of the video clip. 

Next was the pastoral "Sunrise" from 2001's underrated swansong We Love Life, and “Bar Italia”, about the dreaded comedown after a brilliant night out (which some of us will be feeling after this gig!). 

Then Cocker appeared to be giving street directions,"Out of Bar Italia, turn right, over to Charing Cross Road, you pass Saint Martin’s college.", and it's not long before there's a collective gasp as the penny drops ("“And if you don’t already know what the next song is, what are you doing here?”) and the crowd goes mental for the big anthem they were all waiting for. A brief lamentation of CSM's closure and move across London concludes the "Common People" intro,  and after an explosive surge of impassioned energy, they leave the stage.
The encore brings us "Like A Friend", written for the Great Expectations soundtrack, spiteful break up song "Bad Cover Version" (""Relationships don't always work out. That's why we have songs, to get over it."), and finally finishes with the band's second biggest hit, "Mis-Shapes". "Brothers, sisters, can’t you see? The future’s owned by you and me,” Cocker declares with an evangelical zeal, and at that moment it feels like he is right.
If there's one band we need again right now, it's Pulp, and they're back in phenomenal form.
 

Setlist:

Do You Remember the First Time?

Monday Morning

Razzmatazz

Pencil Skirt  

Something Changed

Disco 2000

Sorted for E's & Wizz

F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.

I Spy           

Louie Louie (Richard Berry cover)

Babies

Underwear

This Is Hardcore

Sunrise   

Bar Italia

Common People

Encore:

Like a Friend

Bad Cover Version

Mis-Shapes

Live Review: Dum Dum Girls at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, 7 Feb 2012

Dum Dum Girls at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, 7th Feb 2012
(with Punks on Mars and Widowspeak)
by Carrie Quartly

The Dum Dum Girls are a fuzz pop quartet from sunny California, named after both Iggy Pop's "Dum Dum Boys" as well as The Vaselines Dum Dum album. To give further clues as to where their musical  loyalties lie, lead vocalist and songwriter Kristen Gundred goes by the stage name Dee Dee Penny. They are also infatuated with the 60's, and they wear the dark Cleopatra eye makeup of the  Ronettes, the coordinated outfits and matching fringes of the Shangri-La's. They may have a hankering for the past, but they are far from just another retro pop act, with a determined focus on  progression and exploring new directions, putting enormous energies into carving out their own identity as gifted songwriters.
Their latest album Only In Dreams already shows a dramatic shift in  the band's aesthetic, Dee Dee's heavily reverbed hazy purr and the group's velvety, echo saturated drone traded in for pristinely produced sugar coated harmonies, everything crystal clear and buffed to an immaculate shine. The garage-y clatter and youthful emotions of first album I will Be are discarded for assured performances and mature lyrical themes of sadness and loss (Dee Dee's mother died of brain cancer in late 2010, and her portrait adorns both album sleeves in tribute).
Their critics might say this new found clarity exposes a band restricted by simple song structures,  relying on derivative catchy choruses without any real identifiable hooks. While it took me a while to warm to Only In Dreams, I soon grew to enjoy the twangy surf guitar licks, the swaggering, expressive vibrato of Dee Dee's vocals, no longer self-conscious and buried under a sludgy wall of noise. Most striking about the record is the deeply heartfelt and painfully earnest lyrics, with Dee Dee singing about losing her mother. On the moving "Hold Your Hand" she croons "From dreams you wake to shock to find it's true/And you'd do anything to bring her back". Rarely has that level of wrenching honesty been put forth in such a sweet pop song, and I hope the record has been a cathartic experience for Dee Dee to cope with her grief.

Tonight in Brooklyn, New York, on the first big night of the tour, they have traded in some of the vintage black for a monochromatic wardrobe scheme, the girls sporting short white dresses over their traditional patterned tights - puff sleeve lacy numbers cinched in with black waist belts, and a flowing draped dress top for Dee Dee that whirls and whooshes around her, Marilyn starlet style. 
Tall redheaded bassist Bambi's recent departure (played her last show with the band in Auckland, New Zealand in early January as she is off to write a TV show)  ushered in the live debut of new recruit Malia James of Marnie Stern and The Black Ryder fame. She certainly does nothing to hurt the band's image with her coolly aloof posturing and model good looks, and she competently filled the gap without a real noticeable disruption of the band dynamic. Perhaps in time she will grow into her role even more.

They opened the show with the grinding guitar squall of  "He Gets Me High", an ideal opener, it's rough, lumbering rhythm offset by the sweet gauzy shine of the girl's vocal harmonies. Then they propel into early single "Catholicked", about breaking away from a religious upbringing. Fast, echo-drenched dreamy guitars recalling The Jesus and Mary Chain, with a punky rapid fire vocal that even sneaks in a Patti Smith lyric.

From there they revisit the title track of 2010's I Will Be,  Sandy's thump-thump drumming like a train chugging along the tracks and Dee Dee's face twisted with the effort of the emotive vocal refrain.
Next is the slow, smouldering  "Rest of Our Lives", a beautiful swaying love ballad written in Dee Dee's youth and infused with real burning adolescent passion, "Your eyes can see me, they always have, before you knew me, I dreamt of them..."
They follow up with "Hold Your Hand" from Only In Dreams, the wavering trill of Dee Dee's voice here resembling Chrissie Hynde or Grace Slick but with a more nuanced sadness and sensitivity as she sings about being by her mother's bedside during her final moments.
The pace is tightened again by delinquent anthem and crowd favourite "Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout", dedicated to Dee Dee's niece on her 20th birthday as she's "Almost old enough to be a burn out." The momentum is driven forward by the racing heart beats of Sandy's drums, while a sinuous guitar line from Jules weaves in and out over an infectiously joyful 60's girl group sing-song harmony, no wonder the audience are now at their most animated.

The interaction is brief, a smile and a quick thanks before moving onto "Heartbeat (Take It Away)", a featherweight sugary tune injected with c86 guitar jangle and hand-clap style percussion. What you notice most is Dee Dee's bewitching, soulful voice - no longer the icy, detached persona, standing stock still and static from stage fright. There is a confidence and a warmth to her performance, and it seems like now she is willing to embrace being a frontwoman, the Only In Dreams material allowing her to showcase her surprisingly sophisticated vocal range, and these live renditions give the album tracks new depths that were perhaps lost among all the gloss and glamour of their official recording's ruthlessly perfect production.

The crowd is then treated to a new song, "I Got Nothing", and then "a very old song" , I Will Be's "Jail La La", a playful sing along about an uneasy stint in the slammer next to a woman "covered in shit and high as a kite".
They then storm into the churning psychedelia of "Lavender Haze" before unleashing the uber catchy, surf riff laden "Bedroom Eyes" and leaving the stage. Moments later they return for an encore, appropriately winding things down with the exquisite ballad "Coming Down", Dee Dee's expression intense as she belts out a soaring "There I goooooooooooooooo...." at the end of the bridge.



Being on the far right of the stage was a disadvantage as the sound was murkier and the harmonies not as easily picked up on beneath the loud, domineering bass, but Dum Dum Girls are a very professional unit, they play well and they look the part. If they suffer at all from a lack of variation and some tunes blurring into one another it is because they play to their strengths, and when they're good they're masters at tapping into our pop pleasure centers, and they can only get better.