Two live reviews of very different bands in very different environments. I'm probably at my least comfortable when reviewing live performances because I'm aware they change and mutate and sometimes the perceived badness is little to do with the band; bad sound guy, lifeless crowd, ill-chosen venue or promotional decisions. These were my excuses when I perform music anyway.
JAY REATARD @ THE ROADHOUSE, 12/11/09
It's Thursday. It's raining. Shouldn't have to mention it's windy and cold too. It's 7.45, so no one has had time to get even a halfway decent beer buzz going. There are about 20 people present, four of whom write for Student Direct.
To minimise any chance that this night will work on any conceivable level, Reatard's band quit on him a month ago (explained as such via Twitter: “Band quit! Fuck them! They are boring rich kids who can't play for shit anyways. Say hello to your ugly and boring wives”) so he's grabbed a couple of Danish punks to fulfil his obligations.
Thankfully, it works. Reatard's metier, at casual distance, appears to be fun/throwaway garage-rock nonsense. Look closer. There's a twisted pop magician trying to break out, hamstrung by his lack of resistance to coat everything in a dense layer of sonic miasma. Make no mistake, these songs are big hits...in a parallel world where noise and dissonance don't result in radios being turned off or smashed.
There are no breaks between songs either, resulting in a 20 song set being comfortably wrapped up inside 40 minutes. Reatard's famous bad mood surfaces (“hey sound guy, you working tonight? It's feeding back up here”) just once. Talk of highlights doesn't work in a set with no filler. Great songs Reatard has written include 'It Ain't Gonna Save Me' and 'My Shadow', nihilistic pop jams played here with breakneck defiance.
Given the circumstances, it's the songs that shine through. The best sets work on a confluence of atmosphere and brilliance. Though the former was in absentia, the latter worked overtime.
PORTICO QUARTET @ ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 02/11/09
To be British and to be jazz is one of the sadder commercial constraints of modern times. It's a straitjacket worn by Portico Quartet, even though theirs is a jazz of signifiers: upright bass, non-linear movement and volcanic drumming. Mostly in 4/4 and solo-free, PQ's unique selling point; the hang, a bowel-shaped object sounding much like a gentrified steel drum.
Their compositions have as much in common with post-rock, ambient and krautrock tropes as they do in jazz. 'Clipper' erupts into a cock-fight between cubist sax, all gung-ho Ornette-inspired octuplet flurries, and a rhythm section tighter than PVA glue leggings.
Exploratory it may be, but there's direction to their tangents. Only a few bars after some chaotic mutual scraping of instruments, they'll drop into comfortable grooves and moods as easily as an old man getting into a warm bath.
It's this hand-holding through the murky waters of free jazz that makes Portico Quartet accessible to newcomers, and it's their melodic and rhythmic invention that makes them the darling of aficionados.
Token jazz nominee of the 2008 Mercury Prize they may have been, but they've come on in leaps and bounds since then. Imagine how good they'll be next time.
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