Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

RIYL: Swervedriver

  • Hotline TNT

    Hotline TNT

    We’re back on a  (yeah yeah) industrial estate in Salford for the 2nd time in the past week on a particularly rain-lashed mid week night. Hotline TNT are here, all the way from New York City and something tells me I’m into something good. They’re a few albums in but their new one ‘Raspberry Moon’ grabbed my attention. It is billed as ‘New American Shoegaze’ but what I’m hearing is more aligned to the grungey but sunnyside-up sounds that were adjacent in the imperial 89-92 era – the likes of Teenage Fanclub, Dinosaur JR… think Swervedriver rather than Slowdive. Big guitar sounds, big songs. 

    Ver’ Hotline are hard gigging band who have earned their stripes around the US and beyond, and as soon as they strike up their set it shows.
    Unlike some current bands in their ‘milieu’ they aren’t afraid to crank it up and let rip. There’s a lot to be said for confidence and a bit of swagger, you can feel the relief – nobody’s going to have a wobble if they break a string or fluff a note – they’re going for it. There’s no great experimentation going on, but that’s fine because they’ve got some great songs, a deft way with a build up, a drummer who can swing from metronomic to Who-esque fills and a load of bounce. Not that this is meat & taters grunge rock either, underneath the energetic fireworks there is a precision and craft and they have a way with melody – check ‘Lawnmower’ or ‘Dance the Night Away’ off the the new LP you’ll see what I mean. 

    Such is the confidence and ease with which they entertain us I start to wonder if they’re one of those bands that might go past the 2 hour mark and ‘do a Yo La Tengo’ – but in fact it’s a short, sharp set and after 45 mins they’re off – quick blast through 2 encores and away. Perfectly pitched, heart-warming and downright fun. 

  • julie

    julie

    California 3 piece julie (lower case – obvs) have the pop-crazed youngsters moshing with their iPhones in the air like they just don’t care

    julie have made quite an impression it seems and have a sold out tour of the UK ahead of them and I just make it in time to catch the unusually early start of 8.15 (which no amount of scouring the Gorilla or SJM ‘socials’ would reveal) so I’m in a narky mood as the loud strains of opera emanate from the empty stage as the capacity crowd gear up for julie. This had better be good.

    It is good. The band take to the stage to a trouser flapping bass rumble and the crowd go absolutely nuts as they crash into the first tune ‘catalogue’ (lower case).

    julie have acquired that inevtiable Shoegaze or Nu-Gaze tag but fundamentally it’s not the swoonsome Slowdive or Cocteau Twins that is the obvious inspiration here. It’s the scuzzier, Squatney, cheap cider-fuelled end – we’re talking ‘Isn’t Anything’ and ‘You Made Me Realise’ era My Bloody Valentine – hyperactive drums, waves of distorted guitar and bass – with a big nod towards Swervedriver particularly in terms of that mix of grungey guitars with warm, widescreen melodic washes – and the dissonant wanderings of Sonic Youth. Yes!

    The stage is minimally set up, no backdrop just some big amps and white light and occasional strobes. The 3 piece line up in formation – bass – guitar – drums in that order – and while they don’t say much, julie deliver a physical and visceral performance. The guitarist Keyan and singer/bass Alexandria vanish quite often either to mess with their pedals or roll around on the floor or whatever. There are long periods of tuning up and re-setting which the band wisely fill with sampled noise and a chance for their unflappable drummer Dillon to loose off some mad freeform drum fills – raising the tension before the next big riff comes in.

    The crowd is definitely a younger demographic although like me there a few veterans of the first wave of 90s Shoegaze but the pop-crazed youngsters are crushing down the front to enjoy a proper mosh – albeit with phones aloft which will make for some very shaky footage. There’s a telling moment in this video of a julie performance where someone does the very 90s thing of stage-diving – albeit the diver is filming themselves as they go down which will probably make for a great Tik Tok vid …kids today eh? That said I like this quote from Keyan in the NME which really endears me to them:

    “If more artists focused on art and music and playing live rather than social media, they’d be just fine”

    It was a literally a blast – very, very loud performance with tons of intensity and attitude and I suspect next time julie come to Manchester it’ll be New Century or The Ritz and don’t sleep on it when the tickets go on sale. They’ve clearly got what it takes to build up an audience and create a certain weirdness and mystique around themselves around them which is very difficult to to do in the 2020s. If they have one shortcoming it’s perhaps the adherence to that My Bloody Sonic Swervedriver template but I suspect they might have a change of direction up their skinny sleeves – and indeed those confrontational between-song noise-fests are an indication of how ready julie are to challenge and face-off their audience – suffice to say the kids seem ready to take whatever julie can throw at ’em.

    Fly julie fly…