Desperate Journalist - Desperate Journalist;- A review

I'll come clean. It wasn't a song on the radio, or a video link on social media. It was the name. I've since learnt it is a reference to a The Cure radio session where they changed the name to one of their songs to 'Desperate Journalist in Ongoing Meaningful Review Situation' in response to a scathing attack by journalist Paul Morley in a review of their debut album. I just thought it was a brilliant name. There is a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between a writer and a journalist and an even bigger void between that and a desperate journalist, the kind you would more than likely find working for a tabloid. Or worse, a freelance that wants to work for a tabloid. There be a desperate journalist.

Of course, by nature of the fact it was a name of a band, you click on the link and watch the video or listen to the stream from Soundcloud. There was a part of me that thought they might be a one man dance act or MC. However  I was pleasantly surprised.

What struck me immediately was the Marr-esque guitar. The unmistakable sound of a 12 string Rickenbacker. Then the vocal. Then how much singer, Jo Bevan, looks like writer and comedienne, Holly Walsh.

Finally, it was, someone needs to introduce this lot to Morrissey. With his penchant for strong female vocalists in the guise of Anna Calvi and Kristeen Young, who have been his most recent supporting acts, and the fact that they have perfected the ability to sound like The Smiths, whilst also sounding like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, but still being themselves.

The initial exposure was of non-album tracks, Organ, Mistakes and Kitten which are the sound of a band developing their sound. Finally, there was Cristina and Happening where the chemical reaction was complete, and these two are front and centre on their debut, self-titled album.

The biggest contrast between the early and album songs are the guitar sounds. Robert Hardy sounds far more confident in his ability and the hooks and riffs are prominent and take the lead in the song, where on the early efforts there is a reliance on distorted power chords, which only really appear when necessary and have the best impact, such as in the chorus to 'Heartbeats' where Jo's falsetto rises above the guitar with spectacular results. "I can't bear you heartbeats". Stunning.

Ultimately, this record is a knock-out. A broad canvas of sonic landscapes and intricate detail. From the opening notes of Control to the elongated climax to Heartbeats, the pace doesn't drop and the quality doesn't waver.

'Eulogy' encapsulates their name perfectly. "What would we do / without your vital view" bites at the very nature of our view of the journalist. The throng of shouting reporters with their Dictaphones thrust into the faces of the innocent, the guilty and the irrelevant, and when they fail to get their story, they say what they want anyway.

The overriding feeling with this record is somewhat desperate. In the lyrics written by Bevan, she talks of the anger of lost love or break up (Nothing and Remainder), the possibility of love (Hesitate) and the feeling of being lost (Cristina). The delivery is so full of the emotion and heartache of the lyrics which is only enhanced by the wall of sound behind her and its enchanting and it's breath-taking.

This is an irresistible album. Powerful and confident. It doesn't sound like a debut effort. The difference between the earlier songs and the 12 on the record demonstrates the progression and the work to create the Desperate Journalist sound.

If I was going to be pernickety, I would say that final song 'Cement' should probably have been swapped with 'Heartbeats' with its anthemic crescendo concluding the album perfectly. That isn't a slight on the song, maybe just it's placement.

This band don't just deserve recognition. It's essential that they get it. The derivative, radio friendly pop-rock that pollutes much of the Absolute and XFM playlists is dull and insipid. Two words you could never say about Desperate Journalist.

The debut album is out on Fierce Panda on Monday, although the Mp3 has been available since November. With all due respect to Fierce Panda, although this has always been their forte, giving new bands an opportunity (and long may it continue), this album needs a bigger label release and to be heard on car radios and Spotify.

In the mean time, buy it now.

To paraphrase the first lines of the album "I'm so happy that they're here / Just ecstatic that they're here.

Menace Beach - Rat World - A review of sorts

 

I'm on a fast. Saturday has become a day of fasting. One of two days a week where I can eat bugger all in the name of losing weight. Impending wedding, gluttonous Christmas, requires a reduction of the waste line and 'love handles'. It has been less of a drag than I envisaged and with a bit of will power you can avoid the temptations of the calorlicious. I am hungry though. The remnants of sweets and chocolate from the season-to-be-gorging have been binned in an attempt to remove the said temptation (except someone always has a birthday at work, or a family member has a big birthday right in the middle of one of your fat fighting attempts) so there is nothing to forage for, apart from green stuff in the fridge ready for dinner later. Sat in your own home, you feel the urge to go on the search, there must be something I can eat that won't jeopardise my calorie count. I know there isn't a lot that won't, but the desire to go for a scavenge is increasing.

For those of you old enough to remember the classic 90's "lads" sitcom 'Men Behaving Badly', may recall a scene where Neil Morrissey's character Tony is making a half hearted attempt at losing weight by running around the flat, doing star jumps and cutting his finger and toe nails. Very quickly he gives in, to the pathetic exercise, and to his hunger, and begins rummaging through the rubbish bin for a horrible, stale slice of pizza with an old banana skin draped across it.

Well I can empathise. With the sentiment anyway. I know what's in my kitchen rubbish and won't be wading through that in the hope of finding something.

I bring this up because I am listening to the wonderfully pink splattered vinyl of the debut album by Menace Beach, Rat World. It is so called, as Ryan Needham, one half of the permanent duo at the heart of the band, stated in an interview, because a visiting friend of his commented that the flat that he and Liza Violet (the other half) share in Leeds was so messy, untidy and generally resembling of a rubbish tip that it must be a "Rat World". The image has stuck in my head and listening to this record, it strangely conjures an imaginary "Rat World" something almost BBC 6pm on Sunday, Narnia/Burrowers like. It could easily soundtrack a documentary of a rat infested flat, a POV from the rat's perspective.

This is in no way to it's detriment. It is fantastically grimy. As has been written before regarding this band of many parts, they aren't necessarily doing anything that hasn't been done back in the 90's. A lo-fi, scuzzy guitar, pop record. There are beautiful elements of light and shade, when the power-punk 90 second "Low Talkin'" stretches into the Liza led "Blue Eye", all sweet, almost indistinguishable vocals and droning, fuzz guitar that marry together perfectly, it is a really effective contrast, mainly as you are already used to the backing vocals of the slight, axe wielding Liza and her coming to the fore works seamlessly.

What attracts about Menace Beach is the familiarity. For someone approaching their mid-30's, like myself, there is a huge dollop of nostalgia and whimsical staring into the ether, day-dreaming about what was great about being 14-18 in the mid-to-late 90's.There is a myriad of influences. Sitting here listening to the record for the second time around this morning, you can pick up more note-worthy bands. The Breeders, Elastica and Slowdive are fairly obvious, but there are further nods hidden away in each song. Sleeper, Feeder, Nirvana spring to mind.

In a world where there is this demand for something new and original to excite us, there is a mass of bands and artists aping all their influences. The general obsession in the mainstream to flip from one decade to another as the next kitsch music style to throw your hat on and introduce to the next generation who were all in nappies and at playschool, or at best just starting school, when the 90's shuffled to a close, it's odd and some what hypocritical to mark down a band for un-originality. We are going to be waiting a long, long time for something like that because it has barely ever happened.

Every band on this planet are channelling their influences and favourite bands through their writing and they have been for 60 years.

Someone said Menace Beach need to find their voice. This is their voice. What do they want from them? This is what I want from them.

I can't stand the word pop, mainly as it covers all necessary evils. It would do. It means 'Popular'. Yet, it has come to encapsulate a style of music, become a genre. If you had to use that word, it would describe the spirit of this record. The speed and frantic pulse of the album screams 'pop'.

If I have to use it, it is a pop record. It's a fantastic, lo-fi, scuzzy, fuzzy pop record, made by a band scurrying around their little "Rat World" set somewhere between 1993 and 1998.

The Joy of the Vinyl

I'm acutely aware that this blog is called Back to the Vinyl and I haven't really talked about it much.

What I have said is that I bought a record player last year, basically as I had all my Dad's old vinyl that he didn't want to drag all the way to the Welsh border and store somewhere in his country house, and I'd bought two records with nothing to play them on. I did also mention some of the really old stuff I can remember from being very young and pulling them out from the cabinet to look at the pretty colours. In retrospect, I think there is a chance these were some of my fathers less choice cuts from his collection as he was allowing a toddler to pull them out of their sleeves and possibly even play them. Even now as an adult in my 30's, he didn't give up all of his most precious L.P's. All the Jimi Hendrix albums are missing for a start.

However all The Beatles are there that he bought or kept from the joint ownership arrangement he had with his elder brother. As are the Rolling Stones.

As you grow up and begin your own music journey, you are more likely to pick up the current format to purchase your single or album. Now it's the mp3 or download. There was the short lived Mini Disc (I did have a portable player) and for the best part of 30 years there has been the CD. This is where the bulk of my music collection is housed. This is where the teenage me spent all his pocket money, part time job wages and student loan. But before that, when the CD was a luxury, expensive item, my Dad played me vinyl, he bought me vinyl and I would chose old jukebox 7" singles from an ice-cream tub underneath the magazines racks in the corner shop near the park. My brother and I had our own ice-cream tub full of singles without the middle which would have the small hole that you slipped onto the turntable. You had to buy those plastic 3 edged in-fills that would clip into place so you could play them.

Somewhere between the old house and the new (23 years ago NEW) those boxes of 45's were lost, which I am gutted about. I was then too, but now I have an obsession and I would love to have the Apple re-issues of The Beatles singles, I distinctly remember having Hey Jude. Admittedly, even in the late 80's/ early 90's when you could still readily buy the 7" single in Our Price and Woolworths, there were some really shoddy and shameful additions, such as Kylie Minogue's 'Tears on my pillow', which was a particular lowlight. There would still have been some great stuff though. Tears for Fears and Thompson Twins. My Mum is convinced that I had a couple of Smith's singles which is a devastating thought, if true, that I no longer have them. I'm not convinced which is why its not a nagging, painful regret.

Due to the rise in the popularity of the vinyl over the past few years, my interest has awoken. I can't put my finger on the point when the vinyl was relegated into the metaphorical and literal bargain bin and CD sidled into take its place, but there must have been one. We had a big stereo system that had the turntable, radio, double tape deck and CD from an early stage of the CD revolution, but I'm not conscious of a split from records to CD. I was making mix tapes from CD's, Vinyl and even other cassettes for a long time. Well into my teenage years. I think it may well have been the birthday when I received my first CD player. It may have been as late as my 15th, as I did get What's the Story (Morning Glory) on tape for the Christmas the year it came out (1995) when I was 14.

It has just occurred to me, that the reason for the abandoning of the record was the use of the CD in the creation of the mix tape. For all those whose teenage years were the 1980's and the mix tape making from their vinyl was a joyous time, it was also, besides cassettes, your only option. By the time I was making the tapes to go in my Walkman for those long drives to the seaside or the walk or ride to school or town, it was so, so much easier to queue up a track from a CD. A side of vinyl with 5 or 6 tracks was a real pain to drop the needle at the right point to then have the time to press pause to begin recording. Cassettes were even worse. At least you could see the grooves on the record. No, it was just too damn easy to press the next button until you got to the song you wanted, and then release the pause or press record. It became a fine art. A seamless process. The tape would run between songs as if it was made professionally.

It's different now though, isn't it. I don't need to make a mix tape. The teenager in me would still love to, but, as I said about the 80's teenager having no choice but to queue up the middle track on the record, back then, I HAD to make a mix tape because there was no iPod or mp3. Now, there is. Not only that, I can have my cake and eat it by buying a new album on vinyl AND getting the download code with it. I have my record and I get to put it on my iPod for the train to work.

I think that is one of the secrets to its new found success. Over a million vinyl records were sold in the UK last year. Would that many have been sold if you didn't also get the download? I'm not so sure.

You can still buy those old albums from bands that you have the CD for that you have already burnt onto iTunes, so that doesn't matter, but the new releases or the re-release with an extra 30 songs, that's where you need the download.

What you don't want to do though, is come home, make a cup of tea or have a beer, and open your laptop or turn your little box in the corner of your room that is synced with your computer's music library. You want to open the lid, switch it on and hear the pop of the speakers. You want to thumb through the spines of your L.P's, pull one out, feel it your hands, pull the sleeve out, slide the record out, hold it at the edges, place it on the turntable, lift the arm, place the needle carefully on the edge, and listen to it crackle, watch it spin, and feel the anticipation of the music starting. It's magical. It's special. It doesn't sound like an mp3 or a CD. It sounds like stylus on vinyl. The imperfections, the little wobble (not too much, you want to be able to hear the majesty of the song), the tangible thing in your hands. The size, the weight, the artwork, the sleeve, the gatefold.

It makes me glad that it's coming back, that it isn't lost forever. We've reached the pinnacle. There may be a different type of file, but it will still be an invisible thing, that is just some writing on a computer screen.

It seems to me, now, there is more chance of the CD dying than the vinyl record. I know plenty of people packing up their jewel cases and sending them to Music Magpie for a pittance because they don't need it. I couldn't do that to my CD's, maybe some, but not the ones with sentimental value. They are my legacy. They are the timeline of my life, from the first Oasis album to the newest Elbow.

But I've regressed, and now I want the format of my very earliest memories.

The beauty and the magic of the vinyl record.

P.S I've been listening to a few new additions that I was given at Christmas. Nick Drake's "Made to Love Magic", made up of unreleased songs from early and later in his recording career and different versions of songs from the three studio albums, and "Pink Moon", a master piece. I swear it sounds better on vinyl. How it was intended to be listened to.