Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

RIYL: Tyler The Creator

  • High Llamas & Novelty Island

    High Llamas & Novelty Island

     

    We covered High Llamas recently and if you read that review you’ll know we werent about to pass up the chance to see them again as they enchant the people of Liverpool, for the first time in 15 years

    First up though are Novelty Island – the “surreal pop project” of one Tom McConnell who grew up between Newcastle and Liverpool – two tough port cities at opposite ends of the North with huge cultural and musical identities and a lot of inspiration to draw on.

    I was only dimly aware of the band before so I did some homework and listened to a recent release ‘Taped Over’ on Bandcamp which is a really smart record full of glorious, breezy pop hooks but with a woozy, sun-baked electronic edge and those little killer chord changes I always look for in songwriting. There also seem to be some interesting graphic nods to railways and rainbows and geography, this is sure to be good. I make sure I arrive on time to see them.

    I wasn’t sure how this would be presented – maybe a couple of musicians and a laptop – so I’m surprised to see Tom has brought a 6 piece supergroup with him – so many that their drummer is relegated to the side of the stage, on the floor and completely out of sight – we can only just glimpse some sticks flailing behind a speaker stack. Drummer and band take all this in their stride and deliver a thoroughly enjoyable set as the venue gradually fills up. I get to hear the full-band version of what Novelty Island do – big, bold and fully arranged songs like ‘Cowboy on a Bicycle’ and ‘This Bird’ – this is mighty fine stuff.

    There’s an obvious Beatle influence but specifically they remind me of the good bits of the 1970s George Harrison records (that is meant as high praise). I get also a hint of the more adventurous 70s songwriters like Andrew Gold and 10CC spring to mind – and maybe Andy Partridge’s more kaleidoscopic moments and definitely the Irish band Pugwash. This is a great fit for a crowd here to see High Llamas and they go down a treat. I pick up a cassette copy of ‘Taped Over’ at the merch table which seems apt – I now need to work my way through their expanding back catalogue , and so should you.

    High Llamas – much like the support act, tend to be regarded as a solo project for Sean O’Hagan but in fact the same core line up has been there throughout – and here tonight: Marcus Holdaway on keys, Jon Fell on bass, Rob Allum an drums. They’re joined on this tour by O’Hagan junior, Livvy who provides vocal and percussion support making this feel like even more of a family affair. For all of the complexity of the music, the performance is unassuming, informal and a little raggedy. Sean wrestles with a malfunctioning Sampler, has a minor wardrobe malfunction and while tuning-up and recounts a few past tales of mishaps at gigs all of which adds to the charm. The venue, while delightfully laid out and atmopsheric does have a bit of a flaw in that you can hear the band downstairs during quieter moments – which reminds Sean of playing in Seattle downstairs from a very loud grunge band and asking them to turn it down because “we were playing banjos!”.

    The crowd are very reverent, particularly for Liverpool who can be a right chatty lot at times- High Llamas don’t come around very often and people want to just drink it in and listen- but it’s an evening full of joy and each song is met with hearty applause. Like with the Hebden Bridge show ‘Hey Panda’ makes up a lot of the set. It’s the most critically acclaimed Llamas record in many years so I suspect most people know the songs now and it makes a great centerpiece for the set – combining, as it does, the typical baroque pop of Van Dyke Parks or Fred Neil with Sean’s fascination with contemporary hip hop & R&B. The other key work on display is the underrated ‘Snowbug’ which Sean has said is his favourite album and gets 4 tracks in the set – definitely one for a reappraisal.

    The set is pretty much the same as Hebden Bridge last year – complete with ‘Jackie’ (from ‘Here Come the Rattling Trees’) becoming an unlikely audience participation number. They encore with the song that nearly got Sean a job producing the Beach Boys – ‘Checking In, Checking Out’ .Unlike the last time I saw them this is planned and they have worked out the middle 8 and added a lovely coda for the audience to join in again. They could have played another 90 mins and still not run out of fantastic songs, such is the High Lllamas songbook, brimming over with quirky, curious song cycles and skewed grooves.

    A wondrous gig with a very appreciative crowd applauding one of the finest and most idiosyncratic songwriters of our times and his brilliant band in a city that knows one of those when it sees one.

     

  • High Llamas

    High Llamas

    1 July 1995 I was in London for the weekend with some pals and, with no definite plans for the Saturday evening, we looked in Time Out magazine that day and saw that Mercury Rev were playing the Astoria – so that was the entertainment sorted for the evening – (pre internet, we just rang the venue and booked tickets…imagine that)

    I was absolutely blown away by the headliners who were plugging the under-rated ‘See You On the Other Side’ to a modest crowd (a few years before they headed for the Catskills and made their canonical ‘Deserters Songs’) but what really stuck with me was the support band High Llamas – they played what I now know is a mix of 50s and 60s Exotica, Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, Steely Dan and experimental European electronica. It was a really formative gig for me, and particularly their habit of hitting on a beautiful chord progression and repeating it on an endless, dreamy loop. I was hooked, and there is such a thing as a High Llamas completist because, dear reader, I am one. If you’ve not ventured beyond their earlier works you’re missing out. Try their latter-period masterpiece ‘Beet, Maize and Corn’ for instance:

    So it’s a delight to be back in Hebden Bridge at one of the best gig venues on the planet to see a very rare appearance from the High Llamas and they blew me away all over again. Sean is joined by his daughter on backing vocals, longtime Llama Marcus Holdaway and a brilliant rhythm section. We get a bunch of songs from extraordinary new album which reflects Sean’s fascination with contemporary Pop/Hip Hop and R&B (he was sampled by Tyler y’know!)

    …which somehow works perfectly with the older material of which we get an unexpectedly generous serving. Sean doubles up on acoustic guitar and vocals and occasionally firing off samples from his Roland 404 (yesss!) which adds those unexpected contemporary pop moments into the songs. He really is steeped in the contemporary Pop landscape in a way that puts me (and probably most of us gathered here) to shame but listen to him here on the Rocks Back Pages podcast talking with infectious enthusiasm about this new inspiration

    As a massive fan I’d have struggled to predict the very varied setlist seemingly picked from a tombola of the wonderful records they’ve quietly slipped out over the past 20 years but it worked brilliantly. There is a reverence and hush but a lot of appreciation from the crowd even if a lot of the material may be unfamiliar to many (who may be expecting cuts from ‘Hawaii’ – which is perhaps their ‘Deserters Songs’) – and there’s the unmistakable sense that something special is happening tonight. While a lot of the songs were really carefully rehearsed (there are a lot of chord changes and unusual time signatures involved here so you can’t just wing it) they very kindly played a request – the song Steely Dan could have written ‘Checking In Checking Out’ which they hadn’t rehearsed and I don’t recall them playing since 1995, the bass player didn’t know it (and nobody could remember the middle eight) but bless ’em they played it anyway. So this isn’t a night of nostalgia – playing all the old tunes, but what it does do is make me feel as inspired and delighted as I was 20 years ago – better than nostalgia.