DIARY OF A PANDAMAN – JUNE 2024
A curious time of year for the diarist pandamanning the lonely summertime gigging fort. Festival season is fully upon us, while the footballing Euros see a variety of venues switch from live music to back rooms full of tipsy pessimists screaming at big screens. The small gigs, the lifeblood of the bloody live scene, somehow feel even smaller in the middle of summer.
Entire musical nights are lost to puzzling over the bizarre rudimentaries of the offsider and handballing laws. In some exquisite parallel reality, the nation’s football stadia are bereft of sports and full of giant acts with names like The Foo Fighters, Burna Boy, Green Day, AC/DC and, of course Taylor and her Swifties. Gotta be loving the resulting cultural crossovering across London Town – bonus points to the trainload of kick’n’mix Killers and Morgan Wallen fankids heading home to Essex from the O2 and BST – tipsy cowboy hats and boots ahoy!
But we didn’t get where we are today by standing on reappropriated football pitches with 60,000 other overwhelmed punters dressed as Wild West heroes. And, thankfully for our ongoing attempt to see 365 live sets in 2024, some other small gig lovers are keeping the flames burning, such as Karousel over at Paper Dress Vintage, whose showcases are always worth a punt or three. June’s is no exception, with RUBY DUFF on top buzzy showbizzing form. “Eccentric and honest music for the unconventional pop lover” is the strapline, and it’s a lovely tight fit for Ruby as she comes with a three-piece band with a free-spirited sensibility and some sassily chewy pop songs, like perhaps what would have happened if Bjork came from that there Yorkshire.
On the same bill, and slightly closer to home, SISTER hail from East London. Theirs is a beefy, glammy sound propelled forward by Sadie’s thumping bass and bellowing hair which falls somewhere between T. Rex and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (the sound, not the hair, although Marc Bolan would have surely thrown her some jealous glances). There’s a satisfying crunch, a positive punch to proceedings which warrants further investigation of their ‘Lip Service’ EP.
Onto slightly calmer musical waters, with VILLAGERS ‘fessing up at the Royal Festival Hall. We’re no experts when it comes to seated venues (although the river views from the balcony bar are sensational) but the RFH’s plush furnishings are as fitting for Conor O’Brien’s ruminations today as they were for the Bee Gees in the early ‘70s. Six albums down the line, Conor’s Villagers project trajectory has been the definition of stealthy, and his music follows a similar pattern.
It’s all a wall of lush lullabying, very subdued and graceful with a haunted melodic refrain over there, a baby’s heartbeat of a rhythm over there. ‘Pieces’ is gently euphoric, while other musical lullings creep into the existential melodic world of Dave Fridmann: is that a spark of Flaming Lips, a murk of Mercury Rev reverb? Possibly even both at the same time. When he builds up a head of (relatively) hectic steam Conor is caught skipping on the spot, sweet hearted to the end.
No less gentle and lulling are the excellently-named WHITELANDS (go check a band picture). One of the main attractions at Brighten The Corners festival in Ipswich, they play a Baths venue flooded with 6music mums, dads and teenies hankering after the dreamy indie glory daze, which they deliver in sonic spades. AR Kane is the frazzlingly obvious comparison, as Whitelands mine the shimmering shoegaze seam running through the early ‘90s. Those who were there are nodding knowingly, while the 6music teens are enraptured by the fuzzy haze.
Proving that the shoegaze pallet is a broader beast than many believe, over at The Victoria in Dalston the similarly excellently-named LAUGHTER take the dreampop template outside for a smoke and a good kicking. Armed with a singer who is more coquettish than a pawful of mashed potato rolled in crispy breadcrumbs, they create a chimingly chaotic soundscape which is murky and murderous and beefy, but you can see the potential, and indeed the potential is realised on their excellently thunderous new ‘Group Bonding’ EP. Hardcore shoegaze…Can we call it hardgaze? Shoecore?? Of course we can’t.
Back at the Victoria, the vivacity is cranked up even further for GENDER WARFARE, who are headlining a TNBI show which attracts a frankly fabulous-looking crowd. Their Bandcamp strapline is “serving c*** in the queercore form, 24/7” – these people will not be supporting Villagers anytime soon – and GW do this mental metal transgender thing as a three piece with guitar and drums and giant attitude and a big old moshpit. It is utter glorious madness with a techno underbelly – the best kind – but there is melody in there in their ubergrunge outbursts and the sense of fun whizzing around in the communal carnage is thoroughly admirable.
Over on the TV screens Portugal have just been humiliated by Georgia in something called the ‘Euros’. Watch those summertime storms being unleashed…
PANDAMAN’S 2024 LIVE BAND TOTAL: 253