MELODRAMAS – Melodramas

When south coast youngsters Melodramas released their debut EP last year, we grabbed a copy, liked it and stated that the band were “on the cusp of stepping up to the next level” (read the full review here ). Since then the lads have played Southsea Fest (I missed them, but did catch up with Greg for a chat, whilst CUTA writer Matthew Clarke seemed to thoroughly enjoy them), had a mini-tour of Australia, supported The New York Dolls, played Kuwait-stock(!) and are, as I write this, making final preparation for a gig in Vietnam (at a club called Apocalypse Now – how I want to go there!).
Things have most certainly changed for the band then, and this is reflected in the songs here. Where their first release dealt with life in and around Portsmouth, the scope is wider here, as is the sound. Gone is the indie-pop and in it’s place we hear a more wide ranging arc of influences, from the garage-rock scuzziness of The Paris Metro to Ewoks, with a sound that reminds these ears of early Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or perhaps Hot Hot Heat with it’s angular guitars. The outlook is a little less rose tinted too, perhaps as the last year has seen the boys mature rapidly.
If they were on the cusp of bigger things when we saw them last, today finds Melodramas making their way along that road at a brisk pace and all this with a set of tunes knocked up in a garage for thirty quid… splendid!

check out Melodramas at: www.myspace.com/melodramastheband

SOUTHSEA FEST: Matthew Clarke’s View

Presumably, one has been here before. A year ago to the day (funny, being that it has become an annual thing) I was stood here, looking just as bemused as I did today. But a year has proven itself to be a long time in terms of social arrangement and within seconds I have met up with Edward Perry (The Boy I Used To Be’s lesser known band member) and I have mugged him for a Fest ticket and his camera. The first moments of the official day then begin wandering over the cables that litter the Wine Vaults and some punked up women swap my ticket for a wristband. They look unamused as Chris Psalia offers them beer, not pieces of paper. Suddenly I have become uninteresting.
It is just about 20 past 11 and I guess you can say Festival day begins now because the wristband is now on. About two and a half minutes in I notice the guys from Senator walk past who enthusiastically inform me that they are on at the Deco at half 4. I let them know in return that I already know because I wanted to see them anyway. They look surprised and I have to show them my timetable and their band name highlight for them to believe me. Unfortunately they ended up going on later, so I would have to let them down. Not long after that I get jumped by Huw Olesker who was just about to play his first of seven shows of the day. He’s basically the literal version of Tiny Tim for the uke-is-now-cool generation. This would be the third time I’ve seen him and, despite playing familiar material, I laugh my tits off.
Not long after I pop over to the Fat Fox. It’s still closed and would be for about 40 minutes but people start congregating around whilst Ally (the promoter for the venue) reminisces casually about how the Fat Fox was buzzing last year because this was where the wristband exchange was. After a while trendy people start smoking and talking about trendy things that, frankly, I don’t give a toss about. I zone out. I finally get inside to a wave of apathy. Ed’s inside strumming his guitar and I sit by him. He starts making up things with my name in it that are clever but often let down by the odd self-referential lyric. He’s a funny fucker I’ll give him that and I genuinely couldn’t wait for his set, which although I’ve heard a hundred times (on stage and myspace and whatever) it still sounds fresh and fun. But it is now 20 past 1 and I want to see Aeroplane Attack…
…who are half-way through their set in the sweaty Edge of the Wedge. I had the weird and wonderful opportunity to support these guys but fuck me if they were bigger and better than then. It was a very short ten minutes though before they finished, the wall of sound collapsing and leaving me uncomfortable with the thought of walking back anywhere. Ritchie from the Demons said he was popping to the loft to see the Confederate Dead and, being that it was my plan to do the same anyway, I followed. When I got there it was the unlikely formation of the Melodramas that made me take notice. They were interesting and doomy, drastically different to the sound of craptastic indie that I had associated them with. However, this kind of slid my mind cos I wasn’t here for them. WHEN the mighty Confederate’s started it was as if there was no other reason to go to the fest. Mind-blowing and quite sexual, I rejoiced at the entire band and their request for fuck loads of reverb. It was like fucking Hope Sandoval in a black hole. Only, I can only assume that would be slightly more memorable.
Next up was a quick jog over to LJR’s (a venue well-known for terrible sound) for the fantastic Deads. Heed the previous sentence though for the garage band were hindered with the crappy sound and the whole thing became muggy and fuzzed without sounding interesting. I knew the SONGS were there, but the sound was shite. No need to mince words. Don’t worry though, the B of the Bang sounded like this too. Anyway, next I wandered over to speak to Ed to tempt him into seeing Kill Kasper but he wanted to see a couple of crappy Joy Division sound-a-likes so I let him get on with it. After stopping several times on the way to the Wedge I finally got there and watched the majority of Kill Kasper. I’ve heard these guys before on t’internet but never really had been impressed by many of the things that they do. I was always under the impression the lyrics were lifeless and had no meaning other than the vapid imagery they conjured. Boy, was I wrong though. On stage the words seem to impact you like a mallet. The Kolonel looks sincere, pissed off and like he wants you to rock out. A woman starts dancing at closer ‘Get Out’ but she looks like the woman in the song. Suddenly irony overwhelms me.
I’m not a 100% what I did next. A bit more wandering I think, but The Demons were really only on my mind. I got to the Edge, thinking that I would be late for the start of the show, but I was only just appearing at the beginning of Dragon Eye Morrison, a group I never really cared for and the gig didn’t really sway me in any way. When the Demons did come on stage, I really don’t think I was ready for it. I’ve seen them quite a bit and I like all the lads (and Neil, their groupie) so it is always a pleasure to check them out. They were phenomenal. Ok, the vocals were a bit muddy and inaudible, but when does that factor in a pop underground show. That’s right, never! Just about as good as the Confederate’s and probably one of the best times I had seen them play. Next up I wandered to the Magick Bean to watch Le Plat Du Jour, who were kooky and reminded me of Devendra Banhart, the Velvet Underground and Cat Power without the star power. Ed, being the scenester fanboy he is, loved it though and got mildly offended to my text suggesting that “she’d get it”.
We got chips after that and started planning our next visits, but I was knackered and began to make my way home at half 7. A couple of goodbyes and second-thoughts plus ten minutes later I was on the train. I was asleep by half 9. What a wuss.

SOUTHSEA FEST: The Editor’s View

The Deads

Here is the first of our reports from Southsea Fest, but keep checking back for other people’s views of the day and some brilliant photos of the goings on

 

 

Many people mark down Bestival as the end of the summer festival calendar, but for those of us who dwell on the South Coast (and, indeed for many others too), there’s a one day event that really caps the summer off. Southsea Fest has been running for a few years now and, much like this writers waistline, it grows ever bigger. This was my first experience of it though, but after a day of being roasted alive, crushed, being told there was no more beer and missing more bands than I laid eyes on, I wouldn’t miss it again for the world!
By the time I arrived, collected my wristband and headed back out to the street the party was in full swing, bumping into one of Call Upon The Author’s favourite artists, Loz Bridge, I discovered he had been added at the last minute to the Gang Bang stage. Looking in we saw that The Deads were about to take to the stage, these Portsmouth garage rockers disappeared a few years ago, but are now back in force and played a blistering set that was as compelling as it was fun. Never more so than when the band poised themselves to launch into a new number only to realise that they couldn’t remember how it went!

Kill Kasper

Popping out for a few minutes we made our way to The Loft, but despite the joys of Villiers Terrace we left very quickly due to the baking heat in the venue, heading instead to The Wedgewood Rooms to catch another of our favourite, the almighty Kill Kasper. The Kolonel had been laid low with a particularly vicious strain of swine/man flu, but summoned all his strength to hit the stage and blast out some good honest old-fashioned rock! With the closing chords of Scenesters still ringing in our ears we dashed back to Little Johnny Russells to catch Loz Bridge, only to find him tidying his keyboard away, thankfully it wasn’t in vain as Hold Fast were next to the stage, playing possibly their most ferocious set to date, the band threw out their music so hard and fast that they shaved ten minutes off of their set time. Jumping down into the audience, Roberta didn’t miss a beat while the band rocked out and decimated the crammed in audience with old favourites like Lie and newer tracks such as Jaws.
It was across the road to see The Strange Death of Liberal England next and we were thwarted once again, though this time not by poor timing (by this stage, at about 4.30pm, most stages were running late to a varying degree) but by a queue, the venue was full to bursting, but from the street the band sounded great, as did The B Of The Bang who were playing on the stage we had just left.
Off it was then to The Fat Fox, for a quiet sit down, we caught just a snippet of Nat Jenkins, whose songs didn’t do enough to capture the attention. Back on the street we decided to go walkabout and see where we ended up, which was the Magic Bean Café, hosting a poetry/acoustic stage, this was a lovely little find and the only venue selling cake! Abi Lanigan was performing and rapidly became our favourite find of the day with some great song writing, (more of that later). As we stood outside and shared a beer with Abi’s bass player Ryan, we caught up with Alex from festival headliners Official Secrets Act who appeared to be having so much fun that he’d lost his socks. Meanwhile, back in the café Le Plat Du Jour played a strong set of laid back, fuzzy post rock musings.

Gabby Young

Back to The Wedgewood Rooms and Dan Smith was sat alone on stage with his keyboard, pouring out some intriguing tunes and leading us to make a mental note to check out more. For the second time in the day we poked our head into the Awesome Noise stage next door too, only to find that once again there was nobody playing. Were they hiding from us? We popped into another stage at The Wine Vaults, bumping into Greg from Melodramas who excitedly shared the bands new ventures with us (again, more on that ata a later date).
Back at The Loft, which had thankfully cooled down somewhat, we just missed Logan (Son of Robert) Plant’s band Sons Of Albion but we were just in time for Gabby Young & Other Animals. Built around Gabby’s powerful voice this set was a little treat from the Hong Kong Gardeners Club who were running the stage (if you haven’t checked these two ladies and their brilliant nights out, then you really should make the effort). For some reason Young & her animals even brought a puppy with them, which seemed to perk up the slightly flagging staff at the stage.
Across the road, and back to where our day had started, we caught the festivals only internationals, the brilliantly scuzzy LoveLikeFire, who were so great that we decided, on the spot to end our evening on that high, disappearing into the night in pursuit of Chinese food, while the rest of the festival goers delighted in the likes of The Joy Formidable and James Yuill.

many thanks to Emma van Kooperen for the photographs.

MELODRAMAS – EP One

We here at call Upon The Author have a fondness for the lads at Jelly Maid Music. They put out CDs we like from bands we really admire. So it comes as no surprise that when Melodramas announced the release of their debut EP, I snapped up a copy pretty sharpish. I’m glad I did too, as there are only a hundred of them to go round. This is quite a lovely little disc too, full of quirky indie pop tunes that are immediately gripping and stand ready to be blasted out of speakers on a summer day. Opener ‘Albert Rd’, about the street at the heart of Portsmouth’s thriving music community is a loving tribute to one of the bands regular haunts and invokes the spirit of the place perfectly, from it’s small gig venues to the numerous Indian restaurants and fish & chip shops. ‘Kids Get Killed’ has been compared to The Enemy, rather harshly I feel, as it’s a good little tune and free of any relentless pandering to specific markets. ‘Jessica’ may have the feel of something we’ve heard before, but there are plenty of bands with hugely derivative songs out there, so we’ll let that one slide. All in all, this is a good little snapshot of a band on the cusp of stepping up to the next level and it leaves all of us at CUTA waiting for EP Two!

check out Melodramas at: www.myspace.com/melodramastheband

JELLY MAID MUSIC SHOWCASE – Live @ The Wedgewood Rooms, 26/03/09

Here at Call Upon The Author we’ve been keeping tabs on the good folks at Jelly Maid Music for some time. Last year we were dazzled by the debut release by Dawn Chorus and our thoughts on B of The Bang are well documented here. So, when we realised label boss Rich Tamblyn was putting all his acts on the same bill we thought it would be rude not to pop down to The Wedgewood Rooms and see what would unfold.

B of the Bang were first up, and the larger venue seemed to do wonders for the bands sound. Wit and his rabble seemed to expand their outlook with every new song, swamping the audience with dual (sometimes even triple) layers of production and making the most of the crystal clear sound offered to them. Hints of middle eastern rhythms seeped in and out of a set that was pretty much flawless, but the highlight was undoubtedly the haunting rendition of Lung.

Next up were Autons, whose stark electronic rock was undoubtedly well crafted but, sadly, didn’t do much for this writer. Clearly I was in the minority though as the rest of the audience seemed to be loving their tunes.

Melodramas were the enigma on the line up, a band I knew of, but hadn’t heard. I’d certainly been missing out though, as evidenced by the roaring welcome the group got when they hit the stage. Frontman Matt Woolway has the rock star swagger down pat and the band have the tunes to back it up. Undoubtedly local anthem Albert Rd received a great reception (the song is about the street where the venue is located). These guys have potential by the bucket load and I can’t wait to hear more from them!

Last up were The Dawn Chorus and, it has to be said, I was a little disheartened. Their album was one of my favourites of last year, but they seemed to be a little off the pace here. Strangely, after some superb work form the sound technicians on the previous acts, these guys sounded fuzzy and a little unclear, muddying their folk tinged tunes. A shame, they have superb tunes and a great reputation as a live act, but somehow it just didn’t work for me.

Still, it has to be said, Tamblyn has some great acts and Jelly Maid certainly looks to be a label worth watching.