No Finger Picking
Last night I went to see some bands. Well, I went to see Boys Or Ballet? (my mate's band) play in Darlington. It just so happened that I caught a couple of other bands as well. Well. I caught all of The Cutters and a bit of Amazing Babies or something. Something dawned on me.
The first band were a nice affair, not as tight as perhaps their music needed to really demand awe but certainly on the way. Endowed with that journalist favourite for aspirants, potential. The songs were interesting and strayed happily from bog standard structure. They didn't always go where you wanted them to but then, its not your vision that's writing them is it. They owed a little to other bands in places (the most beautiful part of one of the songs, possibly a little too close to a Sonic Youth song than any of us'd prefer to mention) but ultimately they were A Good Band that just needed a bit of polishing. Fair enough when you consider their bassist had just stepped in for an absent member a fortnight before (although he was very good, the bassist, and clearly a crowd pleaser).
Then we had The Cutters, a band which my most NME of friends described by text on the day as being 'mint' (which up here in the dead north is high praise indeed, although is also used like punctuation by this particular friend, mint). They also played closer to home supporting, uh, The Golden Virgins (what shit names some bands have, Amazing Babies? Golden Virgins?) in my very own local Da Crowd. So. Some visibility to their name.
They are also the third band this month through the Unlixes doors on the back of home packaged CDs. The first was Kill Kenada (little nod to ThisCenturyLied's boyfriend). That had low production values, tinny sound, but was ultimately a fine body of forward thinking rock. The second, more recently, was There's No Return by This Et Al, the Template/Loveliest Alarm single. The packaging was a little papery but the plastic sleeve had a nice texture to it and ultimately my far-too-premature The New Radiohead inclusion for this band was further cemented by the fantastic and engaging sound of a band in their prime.
The Cutters CD (one of two given out at the show) is just going on now. At the show last night they prompted the following observation. Three chord bands need to be really, really good to be any good at all. Think about it. I watched Boys Or Ballet? straddling guitar and bass and while the racket they made wasn't pitch perfect on every note there were more than two notes per song. Now don't get me wrong we're talking the live experience here and I don't do live music very often, it's just not as pure as far as I'm concerned (controversial I know). Most bands sounds better in pin-sharp stereo (except Keith and Duels, who sound far and away better live). I gave them that but, frankly, strum strum strum, it's not difficult is it. I could've played the bass part for most of the songs on show and that's just poor.
Now, I buy almost all the music I hear. I don't listen to the radio or even music TV that much, I don't go out as often as people think, most of the time music comes into my ears via my computer or a recently computer-detached portable device. I don't download that much and if I do, I download from a website, listen once or twice, then wait for the official release. The music I listen to, I own it, I bought it and heaven knows I can't afford to buy the latest single of every Tom, Dick and Harry 'The' band that falls onto the shelves on HMV.
That means that most of the music I own is, well, good. It has to be, I just paid money for it. If it drops below a certain level I take it back. On a good month I can listen to 150 new songs. They'll be awkward and computer generated, they'll be willfully obscure indie, they'll be feedback laden post punk, they'll be anthemic rock floor-fillers. What The Cutters make is instantly dismissable three chord guitar MOR rock. I wouldn't look twice at music like this. Its averageness makes it commercial suicide for me.
Now. A band like this, like The Vines or The Von Bondies, can occasionally write a song - I'm looking at you Get Free and C'mon C'mon - which makes itself nigh on essential. Its sheer infectiousness, the weight of its inspiration, its side-of-a-juggernaut sized chorus, makes it just unputdownable. However, for a band with as little inspiration per song as The Cutters, it'll be sheer fluke that ever gives them a song like that. They'll plough out song after song until one day by absolute accident they'll hit a riff and tie it to a chorus and then stick in a breakdown (cuz, duh, that's songwriting folks), and it'll just work. It'll be a perfect three minute pop song.
(At least I hope it's a three minute pop song, cuz they're having a laugh if they think their songs need to be nigh on five minutes like they are now.)
I doubt The Cutters are as far from the norm as they appear to be in my record collection. No doubt they're an absolute template for bands up and down the country that, (sorry), thankfully never make it past small time gigs in converted primary school studios. I guess I'd find more of them and their sub-Stone Roses intros and sub-Oasis choruses if I went to see more small-time live music. Heaven knows that's no incentive.
The first band were a nice affair, not as tight as perhaps their music needed to really demand awe but certainly on the way. Endowed with that journalist favourite for aspirants, potential. The songs were interesting and strayed happily from bog standard structure. They didn't always go where you wanted them to but then, its not your vision that's writing them is it. They owed a little to other bands in places (the most beautiful part of one of the songs, possibly a little too close to a Sonic Youth song than any of us'd prefer to mention) but ultimately they were A Good Band that just needed a bit of polishing. Fair enough when you consider their bassist had just stepped in for an absent member a fortnight before (although he was very good, the bassist, and clearly a crowd pleaser).
Then we had The Cutters, a band which my most NME of friends described by text on the day as being 'mint' (which up here in the dead north is high praise indeed, although is also used like punctuation by this particular friend, mint). They also played closer to home supporting, uh, The Golden Virgins (what shit names some bands have, Amazing Babies? Golden Virgins?) in my very own local Da Crowd. So. Some visibility to their name.
They are also the third band this month through the Unlixes doors on the back of home packaged CDs. The first was Kill Kenada (little nod to ThisCenturyLied's boyfriend). That had low production values, tinny sound, but was ultimately a fine body of forward thinking rock. The second, more recently, was There's No Return by This Et Al, the Template/Loveliest Alarm single. The packaging was a little papery but the plastic sleeve had a nice texture to it and ultimately my far-too-premature The New Radiohead inclusion for this band was further cemented by the fantastic and engaging sound of a band in their prime.
The Cutters CD (one of two given out at the show) is just going on now. At the show last night they prompted the following observation. Three chord bands need to be really, really good to be any good at all. Think about it. I watched Boys Or Ballet? straddling guitar and bass and while the racket they made wasn't pitch perfect on every note there were more than two notes per song. Now don't get me wrong we're talking the live experience here and I don't do live music very often, it's just not as pure as far as I'm concerned (controversial I know). Most bands sounds better in pin-sharp stereo (except Keith and Duels, who sound far and away better live). I gave them that but, frankly, strum strum strum, it's not difficult is it. I could've played the bass part for most of the songs on show and that's just poor.
Now, I buy almost all the music I hear. I don't listen to the radio or even music TV that much, I don't go out as often as people think, most of the time music comes into my ears via my computer or a recently computer-detached portable device. I don't download that much and if I do, I download from a website, listen once or twice, then wait for the official release. The music I listen to, I own it, I bought it and heaven knows I can't afford to buy the latest single of every Tom, Dick and Harry 'The' band that falls onto the shelves on HMV.
That means that most of the music I own is, well, good. It has to be, I just paid money for it. If it drops below a certain level I take it back. On a good month I can listen to 150 new songs. They'll be awkward and computer generated, they'll be willfully obscure indie, they'll be feedback laden post punk, they'll be anthemic rock floor-fillers. What The Cutters make is instantly dismissable three chord guitar MOR rock. I wouldn't look twice at music like this. Its averageness makes it commercial suicide for me.
Now. A band like this, like The Vines or The Von Bondies, can occasionally write a song - I'm looking at you Get Free and C'mon C'mon - which makes itself nigh on essential. Its sheer infectiousness, the weight of its inspiration, its side-of-a-juggernaut sized chorus, makes it just unputdownable. However, for a band with as little inspiration per song as The Cutters, it'll be sheer fluke that ever gives them a song like that. They'll plough out song after song until one day by absolute accident they'll hit a riff and tie it to a chorus and then stick in a breakdown (cuz, duh, that's songwriting folks), and it'll just work. It'll be a perfect three minute pop song.
(At least I hope it's a three minute pop song, cuz they're having a laugh if they think their songs need to be nigh on five minutes like they are now.)
I doubt The Cutters are as far from the norm as they appear to be in my record collection. No doubt they're an absolute template for bands up and down the country that, (sorry), thankfully never make it past small time gigs in converted primary school studios. I guess I'd find more of them and their sub-Stone Roses intros and sub-Oasis choruses if I went to see more small-time live music. Heaven knows that's no incentive.