Nov
26
The Mess Hall - Devils Elbow
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by Mark Snelson
The Mess Hall return with a second album ‘Devil’s Elbow’ which was produced by Gerling’s Burke Reid. For the unitiated The Mess Hall is a noisy little Sydney based two piece consisting of Jed Curzel on guitar/vocals and Cec Condon on drums.
The album was made over a fairly harrowing time for Kurzel whose father passed away, his aunty committed suicide and his dog also died. Whilst this is very tragic, I have always believed that artists work best in hard times and this spills out onto Devil’s Elbow.
The thing that stands out on Devil’s Elbow is how much depth, diversity and maturity there is in the songwriting here. Previously The Mess Hall were in danger of becoming a one trick pony with only one sound – a stomping swampy blues rock, which was great but it was a sound that might have turned stale should they have revisited it for another full length release.
Devil’s Elbow opens with a corker of a track ‘Keep Walking’, with heavy riffing more akin to stoner rock than the swampy blues most would remember The Mess Hall for. ‘City of Roses’ is the closest this album gets to their roots with its rawkus riffs, punchy drums and wailing vocals. They wander into quieter alt-country territory with ‘Load Left’, ‘Lorelei’ and ‘Betty’. One of the standouts of this release is ‘Cookie’, a song that creeps along with a repetitive groove and soft vocals before launching into an aural explosion that will no doubt become a live favourite. The album ends with another surprise, a ballad titled ‘Be Not A Man’ that has an Irish sing-along feel to it when it kicks in.
Devil’s Elbow may disappoint fans expecting another full throttle blues rock assault but those willing to give it a chance will be rewarded with an album of far more depth than anyone could have expected from The Mess Hall.
Nov
26
By Tahlia Grieve
Walking into the Bar on the hill on Friday night, you could detect a building sense of celebration about to burst through the walls of the bar. Mid November marks the end of exam week/s for many Newcastle students and both High School and University students were able to unite in celebration of this at the all ages Kisschasy concert.
Horsell Common was the perfect support band creating a fun, punk vibe for the night. Though setting the mood for what was to come, they definitely had a good size following of their own. People packed into the sectioned off alcohol free band area with only some dancing room left. Others danced along outside with a drink in hand belting out the lyrics to their well known songs.
Hot Lies followed soon after which was well received by the crowd who wasn’t interested in waiting around for too long. They picked up the pace, to play off the rising excitement in the room. Again with their own loyal following Hot Lies had nearly everyone in the room singing along, especially to “Tokyo”
Earning more respect from the crowd Kisschasy didn’t spend too much time setting up, and started with a bang. The guitarist Sean Thomas was evidently playing off the crowd’s excitement; during two songs he climbed on top of the speakers and fervently played his solos and the base line of the songs.
I must admit I was only half the fan I was before I saw Kisschasy live, it was evident that they feed off their live gigs as well. At one point, front man Darren Cordeux said “thank-you all for supporting our music, continue to burn CD’s, download off the internet what ever you can so that hear and know our music and then come to our live shows.” (Not a direct quote)
Kisschasy have almost reached the level of independent sound, where they are no longer compared to the sounds of other artists. In fact I have even heard people say of newer bands “they sound a bit like Kisschasy”. The night reached a climax when they sang some of their older songs during “Hey Jealousy”, Codeux giving the microphone away towards the audience.
Kisschasy finished the evening on a high, leaving the crowd satisfied with a few encore songs including “Do-Do’s & Whoa-Oh’s” & “The Shake”. Finally Cordeux closed by saying “thanks Newcastle we’re Kissfuckingchasy good night!”
Nov
8
Maximo Park lead singer Paul Smith talked to I’m With The Band’s Victoria Jack about being the UK’s kookiest rockstar, on the band’s recent visit to Australia.
Paul Smith is a character that people seem to be fascinated by. Music press articles about his band are full of references to his wacky persona, with one journalist from The Guardian going so far as to call him a ‘tragicomic hero’ whose every relationship ends in the lady of his affection leaving the country. He’s renowned for his mysterious yet comical lyrics and his unorthodox dance moves. But according to Smith himself, he’s just your average English lad.
Paul Smith is a character that people seem to be fascinated by. Music press articles about his band are full of references to his wacky persona, with one journalist from The Guardian going so far as to call him a ‘tragicomic hero’ whose every relationship ends in the lady of his affection leaving the country. He’s renowned for his mysterious yet comical lyrics and his unorthodox dance moves. But according to Smith himself, he’s just your average English lad.
“I try and respond to the world that I’m in and be coloured by it, as well as be my own person. That’s when you become a character and maybe that’s what people want to make of me sometimes,” says Smith.
“I would say I’m a fairly normal person who goes through normal things and that’s what I write about. I suppose it is quite funny sometimes, that’s why I wrote the song like ‘the night I lost my head,’ ‘cause it was funny. Think about just sort of being too drunk on a dance floor and making a fool of yourself in front of some girl you fancy, that sounds like a funny night to me.”
It’s even funnier when you consider that the girl Smith was trying to impress was Meg White of The White Stripes, although he didn’t realise that until a friend who witnessed his failed dancefloor attempt later told him. So, you could say Smith has a little trouble keeping up with the uber-cool-bad-boy-gushing-with-sex-appeal persona that pervades the Rock industry. But that was never what he was aiming at anyway. Conversing with the down-to-earth, instantly loveable Smith, it soon becomes evident that he is not into contriving an image that creates a false representation of who he is.
“If music expresses something of your self it will have enough character and individuality to move people and to have an effect. And I think too many people get dragged into the whole thing of… let’s say, you want to be a recluse, recluses are just recluses, you don’t want to be a recluse!”
The band was in Australia in August, touring the country off the back of their sophomore album Our Earthly Pleasures. The album, which was released in May this year, saw the band rocket to the top of the fiercely competitive UK charts. Well, almost. It peaked at number two, which one might think would be pretty bloody frustrating, but Smith is happy with the result, he says.
“We were absolutely stoked that it got to number two!”
“[Things are] going really well. It’s finally sort of sinking into people what we do. When you first come out you’re grouped in with other people, if you’re lucky enough to actually get through to anybody. So considering that we’re now getting on as a band in our own right, it’s really nice.”
When the band first started getting noticed, doing the rounds on the live circuit in England, they were compared in the British music press to Franz Ferdinand and other popular indie acts. Although flattering, it wasn’t really a comparison that made sense to the band, says Paul.
“Even when we first came out I just didn’t think that we sounded like anybody else.
We were interested in making punky pop songs that actually meant something and were intelligent enough for people from all different backgrounds to get into them. It never really made sense to me that we were like Franz Ferdianand.”
If you’ve had a listen to either of their albums, you’ll probably be in agreeance. Maximo have a unique take on indie pop. It’s a style that is all their own, led by Smith’s characteristic thick British accent, and his emotional and kooky, yet ambiguous lyrics that are a cornerstone of the band’s songwriting.
That lyrical style stems back to a firmly held belief of Smith’s that if you’re going to be a frontman, you most definitely need to have something important to say. If you were to have asked him a few years ago, he would have told you he never thought of being a frontman because he didn’t slot himself into that category. Famously, the story is that he was spotted by the then girlfriend of Maximo drummer Tom, doing a rather impressive improvised cover of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition in a pub (only the second time he’d sung in public mind you), and was approached by the band to sing for them. After a few years behind the mic he seems to have warmed to the thought of himself as a purveyor of wisdom or a… philosopher of life! To ask Smith about his lyrics now is like throwing a coin into a bottomless well; it is clear that these days, he certainly does have something to say for himself.
“On this record [the concept] was kind of like ‘Why do we do the things that we do?’ whereas the first album was just describing things that we do. It’s just wanting to get to the bottom of things as a songwriter. [People are] constantly pulled in one direction or another by pleasure, even outside of the romantic idea of pleasure.”
“That album title [Our Earthly Pleasures] is a line that comes from the song ‘Russian Literature’ where it is just basically walking through empty buldings and wondering what’s going on there. You know, like, there’s loads of people that don’t have anywhere to live and then there’s these buildings in the middle of town that are just empty for years cos the rent’s too high. Then later on in the song it’s about two people who are meeting and, you know, outside of all these things you end up thinking about that person opposite you.”
“You’re pulled in loads of different directions by your emotions and you can want to care about the world but ultimately you end up caring about your own little personal world.”
Smith has a unique way of making what could have been a simple love song complex and unique. In ‘Graffiti,’ from the band’s first album, he sings ‘I’ll do graffiti if you sing to me in French’ – as he explained, he’s simply trying to point out the crazy things people do when they want to impress someone they are interested in romantically; but Smith’s way of conveying that message has a little more poetry and originality to it than your standard Celine Dion ballad. Although the themes themselves that Smith explores are universal, he still likes to be ambiguous enough for listener’s to bring their own meaning to the songs.
“I don’t want other people to know exactly what I’m talking about ‘cause then I’m just talking about my life and that’s boring. I want people to gain something from the songs and I think if you allow people a little window into the songs, or even a mirror, if we’re talking metaphors, I want people to sort of see themselves in the songs. Its not about me, I don’t care about me. If that was the case, I’d just sort of record songs for myself.”
It’s hard not to like Smith. He is witty, intelligent, grounded and quirky, yet not in a pretentious or contrived way. Amongst an industry of bands who define themselves by the length of their side fringes, the snugness of their tight jeans, how bad their drug addictions are and how skinny their supermodel girlfriends can be, Smith distinguishes himself by his natural, kooky demeanour and a talent for uniquely expressing his own take on life, love and literature.
“I’ve always said I don’t want there to be any mystique about our band, we’re just people who make music and that’s it. We’re not some sort of weirdos. We’re trying to do something that means something to people, that’s fun, but it’s also got pop music but it’s also got something of the essence of life or whatever,” Smith says, followed by awkward laugh that tells of his immediate embarrassment for having taken himself a little too seriously. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say” Smith corrects himself, as his humility kicks back in.
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