TWO BITS OF SPOON

First the album, the only record thus far that I have reviewed by listening to it on Spotify. It's probably the future of record-sending; a resource to stream music. Add in some codes and some threats about recording and the industry probably save a ton on promos.

I've been a fan of the band since I saw them in 2005, and even though I am conscious of their status as an indie vanguard band du jour, I can't help but feel they're the one band whose imminent acceptance by FM radio would be a totally welcome and ideal thing.

First, their new LP...

Spoon, Transference

That's the problem with the kids these days: no consistency. The Strokes lost their magic formula as soon as they found it. The Libertines might have done it had they not irritated Her Majesty's finest so much. Oasis and Blur; familiar stories of fighting and drugs. Thank ye gods for Spoon, as dependable and upright as the utensil they're named for, provided Uri Geller is safely outside a 50 mile radius.



Transference, the Austin quartet's seventh, continues in the mutual quest to be the best band that nobody will ever hear. Initially appearing to be their signature mix of loping, sarcastic funk, songwriting that would shame the Brill Building's finest and dubby production tricks, Spoon have subterfuge on their agenda. They invert the symbols that made previous long-players such romps; the repetition seems threatening rather than a call to party. The flickers of echo sound like madness in the dark rather than intimate or loving. There's something of the night about the whole affair.

Closest to the Spoon of old are the singles; 'Written in Reverse' struts along unimpeded, 'Got Nuffin' stomps like Northern Soul and 'The Mystery Zone' manages to leave you demanding more from a one-note bassline. Even the stuff that is a progression or a deconstruction of the previous tropes are delivered with the same cocksure confidence as ever. Even Britt Daniel's pen is refusing to fail him (“I've seen it in your eyes / there's nothing there.”).

If you've ever sat around thinking 'why isn't there some kind of mid-point between the best of indie-rock, soul music and pop, preferably something timeless-sounding without any overplaying or grandstanding emotional outpourings' then you should probably check out Spoon. They're on a helluva run, they put on a great rock show and on form like this, they don't know how to make a bad record. Transference isn't the best starting point (2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is), but it's a great place to wash up.

...and then live on the tour to support it.

Spoon / White Rabbits @ Academy 3
15th February 2010

Five years ago, the Spoon live experience was all about economy. Stripped back, no effects, they pumped out hit after hit after hit without as much as a by-your-leave. They still do the latter, make no mistake. Except now, they're more ambitous; they stretch things out, add and take away, entirely confident that at the core of each number is a Fundamentally Good Thing. And they'd be right.



Seven albums in, they're armed to the teeth with savvy indie-pop-soul-rock nuggets. Their secret? Don't do too much. No one in Spoon ever overplays. A keyboard line could be one or two notes, but they make all the difference. The bassline to 'The Mystery Zone' is one single note, repeatedly jabbed, and it's absolutely fantastic.

It'd be unfair to pick highlights, so to arbitraily pick songtitles off the setlist: 'I Saw The Light' has two parts: great and greater. 'Rhythm and Soul' is the best pop song you didn't hear in the '00s. 'Written In Reverse' will probably be the best pop song you didn't hear this decade. 'The Ghost of You Lingers' recasts German titans Neu! minus their cerebral tendencies in a fairly heartstopping performance. There are no clunkers. It's home run after touchdown after goal after slam dunk all around.

Support act White Rabbits are something of a Spoon Jr; their recent LP was produced by head Spooner Britt Daniel, and they share some of the collar-popping sang froid of their mentors. Still, it's a head-turning performance, refreshingly quirk-free, taking the spirit of the headline act more than their actual tunes.

TV GHOST INTERVIEW

Since hearing Cold Fish by TV Ghost, I've been pretty hooked. Thought I'd landed a real scoop only to find out that the NME had pipped me by giving them a brief mention. I'm still pretty sure this is their first UK publication interview though. Interesting for the wrong reasons, perhaps?

The Germans have a saying: “do not make monuments to the living, for they can still disgrace the stone.” It's a bit like our 'don't meet your heroes' line, but cleverer. Having met two heroes previously (British Bulldog: warm, solid handshake, enthusiasm. Dynamite Kid: called me a 'poof'' and yelled dubious obscenities from his knackered wheelchair), your hack opted for the side of generosity and chased up an interview with TV Ghost.



Stricken with love, according to last.fm, yr. corresp spun their recent LP Cold Fish seventeen times, most of which were consecutive. That's not including physical plays and ripping the whole thing to an MP3 player, deleting everything else in turn. Then buying the thing on import, alongside their rare-as-rocking-horse-shit debut self-titled 12”.

People call their genre 'shitgaze'. It's a stupid term, based on a joke. Now people are talking about this whole 'shitgaze' revolution. It's enough to make you vomit up a lung. How does singer/guitarist Timothy Conrad Glick feel about this?

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I dunno.”

At the time, it seems like an infuriating answer. Looking back, it was a dumb question. When has a band ever graciously accepted a genre tag? Even if the genre tag came from the dude who recorded their first 12” record?

So how would you describe what TV Ghost did to some dude or lady dude who had never heard you? “Uhhhhhhhhh. [silence].”

Looks like I'm going to have to do it for him. The Ghosters came a-creepin' outta Lafayette, IN, a “pretty crappy” rustbelt town that one W. Axl Rose used to call home. It's not riven with the crack and crime of East Coast no-fly zones like Trenton and Camden. Instead it's decaying in that mundane, late-capitalistic way, all rusted gates and abandoned lots.



The band themselves are four skinny kids on drugs and a nihilistic kick to match those dudes from The Big Lebowski. Thousand-yard stares. Remorseless stances. Nary a smile between them. You'd mistake them for complete dorks if they weren't playing some of the most vital music of the century.

There's something for everyone who hates most things. TV Ghost stick their necks up above the garage-rock parapet to incorporate telekinetic spasms of no wave, the icy-technological paranoia of Chrome and their early industrial ilk and wiry, worried post-punk. Glick howls like his bowels are being extracted through his gluteals and the rest of the band pummel away in noisy ecstacy.

Back to the interview. What's going down in Lafayette? “Oh, nothing.” It's the spiritual home of Guns'n'Roses, I tell him. Stone silence. Like his album suggests, cold fish. “There's not much of a scene here at all.”

But a lot of the recent garage/lo-fi stuff has had a lot of press coverage. Even MTV did a little feature on groups like Tyvek, Kurt Vile and Psychedelic Horseshit. “I don't know about that.” You've even played some pretty awesome stuff, like the recent WFMU festival with legends such as Teenage Jesus and Faust. “Mmmm.”

Mmmm? Mmmmm???!!! Just as rage is about to find voice, he finds enough to tell Student Direct, a propos of nothing, that Lydia Lunch thought their drummer, the improbably named Jackson Van Horn, was “pretty hot.” And then he laughs a lot, like a man who does not laugh a lot. Like this: “Ha. Ha ha. Ha. Ha.” Stop.

Which sends your writer into an inexplicable fit of laughter, capped with a pretty obvious ephiphany: those Germans were right. Whaddya expect this guy to do, come out with a Beckett play? He's a singer in a band tipped for success, not Ban Ki Moon. His defensiveness and lack of expurgation don't mean much at all when you crank the record up high.



Whatever their future status (hint: they're tipped to act as poster boys in the new US arm of the next big NME wave) they've managed to sew up a couple of high-quality releases along the way. 2010 should see them coming over here to show us what they've got. What can we expect? “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Oh just go and see them. Far less infuriating.