Sonisphere @ Knebworth 2010

It's been a while since my last post; I've been enjoying the summer for reasons other than music, which is a surprise even to me. Since I last wrote, I've done several musical things, like go to metal fest Sonisphere, get into Bright Eyes, and reboot my dead iTunes.

The most important of those being Sonisphere.



On July 30th, I went to Sonisphere with my boyfriend. If you read any of the posts below, you'll know that metal is not really my favourite genre. I was definitely one of the girlfriends there whose sole purpose was to keep the tent warm - I made myself enjoy it anyway. I only saw a handful of bands: when most of the names are unfamiliar to you, you never quite know where to go.

We caught a few minutes of Gary Numan and Europe on the Friday night, and that was all. For the rest of the time, we explored the campsite and arena. Large numbers of men in tutus and girls in Newrocks wandered the fields, graffiting the much adored 'Pantera' on tents and queuing for portaloos, whose scent defined my weekend.

Alice Cooper was the best on the Friday night. Onto the Saturn Stage he strutted as the sun went down, dressed ridiculously with a myriad of wrinkles criss-crossing his face; he launched into 'School's Out', and the crowd's mixture of amusement and adulation added to the great atmosphere. From there, Alice proceeded to die onstage about five times, kill various hideously made-up humans and sing over his few-chord showman's punk. It was fun, and very tiring.



The first night was soundtracked by random cheers which spread across the campsite like mexican waves, skanky people talking and smoking shit, and the calls and jeers of drunken insomniacs.



On Saturday, we saw Family Force 5 on the Apollo Stage in the morning. They are incredibly scene, described by the term 'Christian Crunkcore' (?) and talking a lot about dancing. And dancing. Wearing lots of leather. That day we also saw Andrew O' Neill in the comedy tent, who definitely topped Tim Minchin, the act he was opening for. Rammstein finished the evening. I've never seen the deal with Rammstein: it's dull to me, repetitive and humourless. I enjoyed the stage show - fire, fire and more fire - but I wasn't particularly bothered when they went off early. A beachball ricocheting off a bald man's head and a mass singalong of 'Du Hast' were my highlights of the set.

On Sunday, my day started badly when my boyfriend's uncle arrived early and had to go back home, meaning we thought we were going to have to get the train home. Not having washed for two days, this seemed a harrowing sentence, so we didn't enjoy the morning. Finally, it was agreed he'd come back in the evening, so we were free to enjoy the empowering reggae metal of Skindred, who were bested only by Alice Cooper's set. Later on, we saw Kylesa, a hard punk band who headlined the Jaegermeister Stage, then Pendulum, and ultimately, Iron Maiden.

All weekend, girls had been baring their breasts to big screens, but it got stupid during Pendulum. There were so many incidents of chest-exposure that even the laddish men in the crowd stopped cheering, and it became a bored expectation of the women on camera. I got pissed off by the misogyny and it ruined Pendulum for me. We went for a wander before Iron Maiden, immersing ourselves in the atmosphere of all the expensive food tents, the legal highs tents, then spending too much on the 10p machines at the amusement arcade.



Iggy Pop was weak. He looked even more decrepit on stage than Alice Cooper had, but unlike Cooper's, the show was without fun, and unless you were in the pit, a mere irritation en route to Iron Maiden. They were also disappointing, for me. Rammstein had burned things. Alice Cooper had died. Iron Maiden didn't do anything fun which a less-metal fan could watch, Bruce Dickinson just talked in clichés before playing the songs, straight.



I think the crowd enjoyed it, though. It's just not my taste. My boyfriend didn't much care for their setlist either however, so we left early and packed up to go home.

And that was Sonisphere. On the journey home, sleeping on Jozef in the car, I had a heavy rock band playing invented songs in my ears, vaguely Metallica, and they didn't go away for days. We were exhausted and disgustingly unwashed, but happy. Very happy. It was my first festival, and I've discovered the charm of a permanent hum of music, overheard comments ("Slayer were amazing. I love my cock."), and nighttime fairgrounds lighting up littered fields.

Renewed Guilty Pleasures

We all grew up on music that we'd later be ashamed to admit we loved. As a young teen and below, one's music taste is often a ramshackle collection of things your parents like, things heard on the radio, and things Aunties bought you for Christmas that you felt obliged to listen to. The minority of people who still like the music they liked at 11 are either very lucky with their relatives' influences, or have really really awful music taste.

I have my guilty first albums and singles (mostly easy listening, and thankfully no boybands). There has only been one album I've tried and failed to forget since I was 11. This summer, all musical snobbery and shame pushed aside, I found out my For the Love of Him album by Shania Twain, only to discover that is the epitome of good 80s folk-rock.

Unlike the girly country of most Shania Twain albums, For the Love of Him employs heavy guitars and rough edges to achieve a hard-rock sound. Shania Twain's angriest and most powerful vocals ever accompany decent lyrics in perfectly-crafted pop songs. No matter how ashamed I felt when I woke up to them in my mind after years and years, I could never forget 'Bite My Lip' and 'Once Over' - they have possibly the catchiest choruses in my music collection. I tried listening to the album objectively, all prejudices about Shania Twain aside, and the guitars are well-played, the songs well-constructed, the vocals well-sung. There are catchy riffs and quirky sound effects.

So what if For the Love of Him sounds like a parody of the 80s? Shania Twain pretends this album never happened, for the most part: it is her short-lived affair with rock and roll. But it's good stuff.

Just don't blame me if I turn off my last.fm plugin while I'm listening to it. It's a self-respect thing.

Getting into Bright Eyes

Few artists have music so deeply engrained into their being that they can live their whole lives without being lost for chords. Bright Eyes certainly seems that way, putting out music since he was 13, and still going now, almost 17 years later. His music has ranged from bluesy American folk to hardcore punk-rock, but no matter what he was playing, he never let his guitar gather dust.



I took 2007's Cassadaga out of the library a few months ago and never really got into it. On it was the brilliant 'Hot Knives', and a few other decent tracks, but it was a bit too obvious, polished. Only on listening to 2002 album Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground have I realised that polish was not all Conor Oberst had to offer.

I'm not a clued-up fan. Ask any one of his thousands of obsessives and you could argue over which is his best project, album, song, lyric. All I know is that 'Lover I Don't Have to Love' took me by the heart the moment I heard it, and the whole albums genuine, open lyrics and sketchy but honest atmosphere are definitely an example of how good Bright Eyes can be. I'll be trying to become that clued-up fan over the next few months, I think.

For When the Sun Comes Out

Ticking along behind the changing music scenes of the last twenty years, a certain breed of pop group has been working to make every moment sunnier. Belle and Sebastian have perfected their charming breed of 'chamber pop', and fellow Scots Camera Obscura have been right there evolving alongside them.

Here is a Camera Obscura track for your delectation: its bitterness and sadness smoothed over the top of upbeat, offbeat pop - summer incarnate. Listen and love.

Ain't No Substitute for the Blues

I love a bit of punk and ska, and when I'm in the mood, a little Britpop is a nice change too. Tango and indie pop and possibly a smattering of harder rock are all on the menu from time to time. But there ain't no substitute for the blues.

With my dad's ecletic (and often eccentric) music taste unavoidable while growing up, blues has featured heavily in my upbringing. Eric Clapton and BB King and The Animals have been there all along, on vinyl and CD and cassette. I've always loved the blues, but I've never explored it: it's 'old' music, it's outside of teenage fashion. One of the BBC's documentaries on it the other night inspired me to get out the parents' CDs, surf the web for more, and I'm so glad I did.

There are so many things which can be said about blues. For one, it's incredibly simple. Blues guitarist and singer Albert Collins said that "simple music is the hardest music to play, and blues is simple music." When you hear 12 bar blues, 1st, 4th and 5th chords, being played by the masters, you can't feel disdain - it's just not in the catalogue of emotions available. A beginner on most instruments can mess around with its structure, and the blues scales, but only the best can turn that messing into Blues.

There's something instinctive in it which cannot be captured in any other form of music. Those notes, those chords, that simple discontent (your girl's left you, you ain't got no money, you're leavin' town), they give blues music power and strength that most other music can barely touch upon. Blues can depress you or fire you up, turn you on or enrage you; somehow, it can do everything barely using more than three chords.

John Lee Hooker made this post happen. Listening to The Healer, one of his most famous albums, I feel whole again for the first time since... well, since the last music I really connected to. I may be a middle class white girl, but there's something deeply affecting about listening to the story of someone worse off, in the mouth of a brilliant singer or from the moans of a soulful guitar, hearing the same primal emotions, the same mixed bag of thoughts and feelings that we all have. Blues transcends cultures, while drawing you into its own like nothing else can.

Blues is a healer, all over the world.

Three Artists You Should Listen To

1. Reuben. Oh come on, do I need to plug them any more than I already do? Explosive guitar riffs, life-defining atmosphere, brilliant lyrics sung brilliantly over brilliant chord changes, expression I could only dream about, muscular power and sensitivity in perfect balance. Just do it. Please.

2. Belle and Sebastian. If you're inclined towards the indie end of pop, twee, light indie, anything like that, then you've probably heard Belle and Sebastian already. They're elusively ubiquitous, managing to tiptoe through the lives of so many, enchanting them, entrancing them, but staying out of the hype machine which rules the music industry. They plaster the summer straight over the top of this long British winter; they are a billboard advertisement for summery cocktails or The Seaside. The wry wit and tongue-in-cheek lyrical edge in many of the tracks counteracts the twee melodies and enhances the charm of the albums. I'd highly recommend them, even in winter.

3. Julian Casablancas. I like his dirty electro, his monotonous growl of a voice, the lyrics which catch the ear, the complex games he plays with the chromatic scale. But most of all, however bad I feel for it, I like his photos.

Jamie Lenman Interview and Update

Writing for The 405 gave me a viable excuse a few weeks ago to email illustrator, musician, and all round Great Guy Jamie Lenman, lead singer of Reuben. He agreed, and right now, I have 2 items on the home page of The 405, an interview with Jamie and a review of the tUnE-yArDs' new single, Real Live Flesh. My, unnecessary capitalisation pisses me off. It's hard to type, and if they thought it would make the name memorable, they were frankly wrong. I can never remember it. It's a good job the single is worth a listen, really.



My friend brought up an interesting point the other day. Should music criticism be as huge as it is now? Being a voluntary music writer, I tilted an eyebrow and rushed to the defensive guns of "Of course, then how would you ever find out whether music was worth listening to or not?"

But if that was my main argument, I was struggling. To be told what you like and dislike in music is the easy way out, and it's part of the reason why fashions still have their cold fingers laced around the ventricles of the modern music scene. (To reiterate: music isn't good because it sold well in your peergroup, or simply because it's new, and that's what fashion dictates.) Other arguments for music criticism are forced: if there were no reviews, there would still be adverts, the radio, sites like last.fm and Spotify, articles on new music... so you can't say that it is our only gateway to music.

What other arguments are there for music criticism? It's always irritating to hear our favourite artists being slammed by critics who we would usually respect, (or not), especially as every sensible person knows that while there are technical qualities to albums, most of our judgment of music is subjective. Music criticism can make or break careers, and most of it is guided by peer opinions and personal prejudices anyway.

Then again, my best retaliation came with the argument 'there has to be a filter in the music system'. In businesses, there are promotions up for offer, you get increasing salaries and responsibilities and jobs with each step up. You could not impose a system like that on the arts. Criticism, however harsh and demoralising, can give a band the boost it needs to get onto the (albeit unevenly runged) ladder, and then offer educated opinions on what should and could do very well. As long as the reader can identify whatever spin has been put on the article, and can think for themselves, criticism can be the most helpful way to separate the cream from the milk. And the off milk from the good milk...

And of course, everyone wants to do it. Most people who love music have sneaky reviews somewhere in their computer, or in their minds, ready for conversation; many write online, or for magazines. It's a natural urge, putting into words what music makes you feel, think, do.

Music can change lives, and the kinder end of crit acknowledges that.

Have a read of my items on The 405 anyway (or not); I'm really glad the website's taking off. I'm not just spouting spiel when I say it's an exciting thing to be part of, as it's growing so fast, getting so much more professional and organised. If you can get yourself to any of The 405 nights in London, I'm assured they are amazing nights out, and Oliver Primus would appreciate your company!