It's Eclectic! It's Eccentric! It's RadioNowhere's BlogSpot!: October 2014

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

Jessie Love Action at CMJ - Day 5

CMJ Saturday - Day 5

Day 5 of CMJ was Saturday... and admittedly, after playing 3 gigs with September Girls, we were pretty burned out. The Brooklyn Vegan day showcase was on later that afternoon at Baby's All Right in Brooklyn, which was literally across the street from where we were staying, and the bands on offer promised a good show. However, myself and Caoimhe from the band decided to have a little day off for ourselves first. We headed to the East Village and found ourselves instead in the midst of the Halloween Dog Parage in Tompkins Square instead.

After a spot of ridiculous dog watching and a refreshing mimosa we popped along to The Deep End Club, Tennessee Thomas' shop of wondrous wares. At this late stage in the trip all we could fit in our cases was some badges, but we left with them proudly in our biker jackets. We then wandered and shopped for hours, ate some delicious pizza in SoHo and realised the day had gone by and we had already missed Bo Ningen and Girlpool at the Brooklyn Vegan show. We hoofed it over the Williamsburg Bridge to try and catch The Fat White Family, expecting a massive impossible queue (certainly after our sxsw and Great Escape experiences). Amazingly, we made it in without bother, and even had a good view of the stage. The show was crowded, but not uncomfortable, and we knew from experience we didn't want to be at the front and covered in beer.

Fat White Family

As usual, The Fat White Family did not disappoint. Brash, sweaty, noisy garage rock from a bunch of lads who look like they need a good feed. They give the work shambolic a good name, with the singer jumping into the crowd, the bassist, without a guitar strap, pulling serious moves and holding his bass at the same time... and of course, all members of the band eventually stripping down to chest. Not a band for the faint hearted, but definitely an experience worth wading through.

And with that, we were too wrecked to find any more music despite there being a full evening left of showcases. An absolutely great few days of playing and listening to music, and much more accessible and (to sound cliché) real, compared to the sprawling sponsor-fest that sxsw seems to be.

The #1s

A few honourable mentions should go to The #1s, our pals from Dublin, who also made the journey - they played loads of shows, many of them before CMJ officially started, including a great set at The Grand Victory on Monday night. Also, according to Sarah and Paula, who were at Baby's All Right on Thursday night, Bo Ningen and The Wytches were unbelievably good.

I'll be posting a few other photos from the week tomorrow.
x Jessie

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

Jessie Love Action at CMJ - Day 4

CMJ Friday Day 4

Day 4 of CMJ promised to be our most hectic, as September Girls were booked to play 3 shows in both Manhattan and Brooklyn over the course of the day. Lucky for us, the first show was near our apartment at the new(ish) Rough Trade NYC branch in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The shop is massive and wonderfully laid out. A brick warehouse styled up with its warehouse roots, with shipping containers being used as walls and dividers and lots of space to browse and listen to music.

The shop also features a venue... not a little shop stage mind, but an actual venue with a tall roomy stage, great sound and lighting system, balcony and bar. We enjoyed our set as the sound was good and the Tecate was refreshing.

Up after us were Pinact - a duo from Glasgow... though as we were told, the drummer didn't make it through immigration and the singer/guitarist had a friend filling in on drums. You'd never know anything was amiss however, as they were incredibly fun and brash indie punk. There was a real 90s Alternative sound, with Nirvana as an obvious reference, but it wasn't just simple aping, as they had an incredible energy and were a really enjoyable watch.

Oscar were up next, and were certainly something different, but also enjoyable. Genre defy-ing but a bit indie-alternative with guitars, keys and no drummer. The songs I heard reminded me of The Drums, fun pop, but with a underlying bitter edge.

Unfortunately we weren't able to stick around for the "secret surprise guest" who turned out to be 90s Manchester greats, James. Oh Well.

We headed back over the Williamsburg Bridge to The Delancey, where the Music From Ireland was due to begin. September Girls were up first, and admittedly had a little bit of a struggle with our sound as we were rushed onto the stage as the previous showcase was running around an hour behind schedule. Yikes. Despite this we let loose and just went with it.

After us, Dott, from Galway, popped onto stage and sounded great. They've got a harmonious beachy sound, similar to Best Coast, and they looked like they were truly enjoying the show, smiling and joking about out of tune guitars. They were quite good at recreating their recorded sound, which is certainly worth checking out. We had to head back to Brooklyn for our next gig so I didn't make it through to the end of the set, but I can imagine the rest of it went swimmingly.

Our next stop was Brooklyn Nite Bazaar - an indoor shopping market complete with stalls of homemade trinkets and food stuffs like Korean Tacos and Meat Cones (still not sure what that is). My bandmate Lauren described it as "Hipster Chuck E Cheese" and indeed it had a real cool, grown-up fun fair vibe.

We arrived in time to catch Beverly, another Kanine Records band (it was a Kanine party after all) and they absolutely blew me away. Harmonious indie pop as you'd expect from a band whose original members included Frankie Rose, but Rose was not missed, as the band were dreamy and fun. Really looking forward to having a proper listen to their album.

September Girls turn next, and being our last gig, we let loose, headbanged a bit and screamed for our lives at the end of our last song, Sister. New York had been very good to us and we enjoyed every minute.

After us, once again, were Flowers. Having seen them at least three times in the last few days, they were noticeably also more confident and having fun. The crowd seemed to really get into it and it topped off a great night, and a great festival overall.

Sunday, 26 October 2014

RadioNowhere at Elefant Party - 25 October 2014 - The Lexington, London, UK

Elefant Party - 25 October 2014 - The Lexington, London, UK
Wild Balbina + The Catenary Wires + Evans The Death + Cristina Quesada and Andreas Jonsson

We started the evening with a chat with our old friend, Liz Hunt (The School, Elefant UK) who organised this show, and it was lovely to catch up with her, and also Simon Love, who DJ-ed between acts (we much enjoyed hearing Betty Boo, thank you Simon!) It was great to see such a good crowd; at £5 a ticket for four bands, it represented an almost unheard of austerity-friendly night out in London!

We had travelled down to London from the Moisture Farm not only to take advantage of such a spectacular line-up, but we also had the pleasure of interviewing tonight's headliners, Wild Balbina, ahead of their first London show. The band comprises Marta, Antia, Guille and Miguel, who were all lovely and spoke amazing English (our Spanish gets no better!) They kindly indulged us by signing their beautiful 10" (available on Elefant Records) and gifted us each a t-shirt which we will wear with pride. The interview will be broadcast soon on The Vinyl Dungeon - follow us @vinyldungeon/@radionowhereuk for more details.