Where Worlds Collide

The first time I went to see Panic Room at The House of Progression almost exactly two years ago, I never got to see them play. A power blackout plunged the entire neigbourhood into darkness twenty minutes into support band Jump’s set, forcing the curtailment of the gig. I even got a message on Twitter from one of the band remind us to bring some coins for the meter!

Since then, I’ve seen them quite a few times, the most recent being at The Duchess in York at the beginning of the month. Tonight, as at that show, Chris Johnson provided the support. Solo acoustic acts can be a bit hit-and-miss; without the power of a full band the set must stand or fall on the strength of the songs alone. Fortunately Chris Johnson has the songs, quite a few of which were already familiar. Stripped-down versions of songs from Parade’s excellent “The Fabric” made up a big chunk of the set, complete with that really nasty additional verse of “The Dogs” about hoping for the subject’s death and following the coffin. And I thought Chris was a nice person! He also treated us to a great version of “Gaze”, one of the songs Chris wrote for the second disk of Mostly Autumn’s “Heart Full of Sky”.

Panic Room have come a long way since the very first time I saw them, a week before that ill-fated power cut gig. They’re now amazingly tight, and with a high proportion of rockers in the set the energy level stays high. If you only know Anne-Marie Helder for playing a supporting role in Mostly Autumn it’s a revelation seeing her front her own band. She has a tremendous stage presence and her powerful and impassioned lead vocals easily the equal of any other female vocalist in the prog scene. The rest of the band put in superb performances too, for me it was the rhythm section of Alan Vaughan and Gavin Griffiths who really stood out on this night. The band now draw almost the entire set from their second album “Satellite”, including several songs from the EP “Little Satellite” that came with the limited edition release of the album, and it says a lot for the strength of the new material the whole of it comes over live so well. The ominous “Dark Star” with Jon Edwards’ Hammer House of Horror keyboards was one of many high spots, as was the rocked up version of Anne-Marie’s powerful solo song “Blood Red Sky”, and set closer “Apocalypstick”, one of only a couple of songs from their first album to remain in the set.

They’re on tour again in the Autumn, and are well worth seeing.

I think Southend is the furthest I’ve travelled to date for a Breathing Space gig. But with Olivia Sparnenn leaving the band at the beginning of April there are a limited number of chances to see the current incarnation of the band on stage. And with relatives in that part of the world, there was the opportunity to combine a must-see gig with a family visit.

I’ve not been to The Riga Bar before; it’s an excellent little venue, great sound, and a crowd who made up in enthusiasm what the lacked in numbers.

Breathing Space were, as usual, superb. Over the past year they’ve significantly upped the energy level of their live performances, replacing the jazz-inflected ballads with tougher guitar-driven numbers. Although the setlist drew from all three albums, songs from last year’s “Below the Radar” featured heavily.

Livvy Sparnenn was on great form; lovely renditions of songs like “Dusk” and “Drowning” as well as rockers like “Clear”. Fans of Mostly Autumn have nothing to fear when she takes over in that band next month. And we were also treated with some excellent lead guitar from Bryan Josh, in much more relaxed form when he’s not leading his own band.

It’s clear that this lineup of the band is determined to go out with a bang. Just one more gig to go now, at Bilston Robin 2 on Easter Sunday, April 4th. If it’s possible for you to get there, be there.

An article on The Guardian Media Site has turned into an interesting tangential discussion on exactly how The Guardian decides on what to and what not to review.

Film and Music editor Michael Hann came up with this gem:

Other albums that “have to be reviewed” are the ones that are achingly hip, or from artists one would expect to see reviewed in the Guardian - the likes of Bonnie “Prince” Billy, for example.

This drew a wonderful spleen-filled response one noted metal fan, to which Hann responded.

And features are actually a better way of contextualising minority interest musics than reviews are, especially when accompanied - as our features usually are - by a playlist.

Which ignores the fact that hipster-indie is as much a minority interest music as metal. Except that the groupthinking Guardian writers don’t seem to be able to realise this.

So far, I haven’t had a response to exactly why they “have to review” Bonnie “Prince” Billy, but did not have space to review Opeth’s “Watershed”. A cursory glance at the sorts of tour venues the two artists play suggests both are of similar standing in terms of audience style. While I know popularity isn’t everthing, I cannot see how the relative merits of progressive death metal vs.lo-fi indie folk are down to anything other than purely subjective taste.

Or is it simply Opeth are further from their comfort zone than hipster-indie?

I’ve uploaded a few photos I took of Apethorn Junction at the Macclesfield show to my Fotopic site.

This has got to be one of the best 7mm scale layouts I’ve seen on the exhibition circuit. It’s sheer size makes a big impression, and the whole thing just oozes atmosphere. It’s all DCC with sound chips on most if not all the locomotives, so the layout reverberates with the throaty roar of English Electric and Sulzer engines.

Even after far too little sleep, the after-effects of a little too much Tyskie, and still on a high from meeting some of my heroes, York railway station is still a magnificent place. Here’s East Coast Trains 91105 waiting to depart on a northbound service.

Next time you hear some record company marketing suit spouting canards about filesharing destroying the music industy and claiming that major labels companies are on the same side as the artists, point them at this post about Hollie Smith being screwed over by EMI.

So a couple of months after signing, they came through and said ‘hey we think you’ve got a lot of potential, we want someone to write you a radio single and start doing the whole radio-friendly single thing’.

“I said ‘well, give me a month and I’ll write you a couple and you can say if they’re adequate or not. And if that’s the case, then sweet and if not, let’s talk about the idea of someone else writing my stuff because I don’t want a cheesy pop song that’s totally irrelevant to the rest of the album’.

They were like, ‘cool, cool, cool’. I sent them over some stuff and I hadn’t heard back from them and I rung them again and said ‘what’s happening?’ And they’re like ‘oh we’ve decided not to release your album at all internationally’.

Read the whole thing. The sooner EMI are flushed down the toilet history, the better.