April 7, 2007
Two guitars, bass, drums & hoarse rasping vocals from Ohio USA playing straight forward american rock music, Two Cow Garage manage to rack up a couple hundred live shows each year. With a European Tour scheduled for Summer 2007 we’ll not judge whether they had time to think of a more inspired name for their third album so Three it is.
Sticking strongly to the rock n roll cowboy formula with songs about how shit things are when endlessly touring, Three strolls along from one bittersweet regret to the next with the vocals setting a very strained feeling to the whole affair which at times is crushingly depressing. Often Two Cow Garage struggle to convey the ‘who gives a fuck’ attitude that real kick-ass rock music requires to reach into your guts and tighten guitar strings round your soul.
Halfway through though, Now I Know bounces in unexpectedly like a bastardised american version of a Quireboys tune before the album sliding back into Should’ve California, a what could’ve been ballad about youthful glory days. Mediocre then takes us into a Dave Lee Roth self-parodying sound complete with horn section but overall the highlight, upbeat moments are over-shadowed by the world weary balladeering, leaving the album as the perfect soundtrack to anyone wishing to buy in a gallon of Jack Daniel’s & a carton of Marloboro and smoke & drink themselves into oblivion. Understanding that is the key to the album’s greatness.
March 21, 2007
One of The Netherlands’ finest embassadors of pop punk, constantly touring around the UK & rest of the world, you’ll find The Apers being name-checked alongside The Queers & Screeching Weasel by anyone worth their punk-cred salt. Descended directly from the quick-fire two-chord, one-line sing-a-long repeat lines of the Ramones and sticking right to the half-hour album ethos—“you can play the album at full volume with speakers out your window and have it finish before the cops arrive”—don’t expect anything new here. But hey, if it ain’t broke then there’s no need to fix it.
After more than ten years and five albums it’s no surprise that this time around The Apers have offered a somewhat more mature sounding album, very by-the-numbers at times and with a couple of instantly forgettable tracks along the way. They’re gone before you notice though and a new jumping chorus hook is along to keep you entertained.
Reanimate My Heart is one of the album’s epics, reaching almost three minutes fifty seconds. It slows down the pace from the rest of the album’s full frontal punk guitar onslaught, a welcome change from so many of today’s ‘punk’ emo kids idly thrumming away at guitars for no apparent reason. The aim here is clear, get off your dumb fat ass, start shaking it and jump around like a loon.
December 8, 2006
The Pierces are two sisters from the deep south living in New York. Catherine, currently engaged to our headliner for tonight (just an aside for you celeb gossip type folks) and Allison have been both been blessed with above average looks, pleasing stage personalities and luckily—most importantly—they can sing.
Opening with a Celtic duet which I’d like to think was rolled out especially for Scotland, The Pierces manage to be very laid back in front of their first Glasgow audience with Catherine taking the lead mostly and Allison seeming just that bit nervy or quieter. Very soon it becomes apparent that the airy pop production on some of their recorded material and the precisely styled image of promo pics & videos isn’t what these lassies are really about. Third track Lights On pumps the live electric bass at me so strongly I forget this is the tune we’d listed as least favourite and too singalong poppy fluff while listening before the show. It’s not just the bass that’s been turned up either, with Catherine using her lungs to full advantage to make sure everyone was sitting up and taking notice. Two songs later and Go To Heaven gives Allison her turn to turn on the vocals and let us know that she’s just as strong as her sister, although the quieter moments of the song are blighted by the ABC 2’s acoustics favouring those idiots holding conversations at the back rather than the stage PA.
The set ranges across a wealth of influences with at one point the hookline of “cross my heart and hope to die” floating over a tune that started out as Celtic, veered into French burlesque cabaret and kept time throughout with gypsy beats. Boring can only properly be described as a tongue-in-cheek Shirley Bassey Bond theme and Sticks and Stones closes their time on stage with a rousing, foot-stomping number that has much of the crowd clapping along.
Of course most of the crowd were there to see Mr. Albert Hammond Jr., normally of The Strokes & scene-cool indie rock legend, and the reaction to the indie-rocking chiming guitar intro reveals that. The set however doesn’t quite suit me: each song the band plays has a great intro and a hook hanging around in it somewhere, but too often they sound overly familiar to me. I spend my time entertaining hopes of this one being a goodie and lifting me onto a gig high, but I’m always dropped back by the end of the first verse. Everything seems alright and I’m sure if they left behind the wavy fingered keyboardist and visited on a drunken weekend night then I’d be cheering on the crazy-eyed rockiness along with the die-hard fans and shouting for a Strokes song with the rest of the crowd. Tonight I’m content to enjoy the insight that sometimes, just sometimes going solo reveals an artist to have left behind an important part of what made them good.
Filed under:
Gigs,
Music,
Reviews — Tags:
abc,
abc 2,
albert hammond jr,
gig,
glasgow,
live,
Music,
review,
the pierces — Ryan Woolies @ 12:08 pm
