Alex de Campi: Gojira!

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28.5.05 Being There

Music is free.

So are films and TV shows. The powers that be just haven't admitted it yet. You can get it all via the magic blue cable in the back of your computer.

Pay for it if you like, or steal it. Doesn't matter. The point is that when everyone can have everything all the time, the only important thing is the experience you can't hold on to. The moment in itself. The little flaws and improvisations of live performances. You can record it, but the playback never captures the energy of being there, right then. And with the economics of music undergoing their greatest sea-change since the record was invented, the only thing bands can rely on getting people to pay for is live performances.

That suits the kids, because remember how it was - you always want to be the first one to discover the new cool band among your friends, to have that rare track or go to that secret gig. But there are no rare tracks anymore, because someone, somewhere will whack it up on a file-sharing system as soon as it's released, for anyone to find when they search under the band's name. That leaves nothing but gigs: "I was there. Were you?" Ironically, the ubiquity of recorded music is sending us back to the behaviours of the pre-recorded age.

Sure, it means a whole musical culture is dying. Liner notes. B-sides. The special import-bin edition from Over There that had three tracks not on the copy sold Over Here, that made you the envy of your friends for a precious, golden week back in 1987. Boo-hoo. Stuff dies all the time.

I wonder how long it will be until we get bands that never record more than a couple of tracks, just to entice punters to their live shows? Menlo Park pretty much do this, and Vincent Vincent & The Villains. But whether that's due to Machiavellian cunning or simply not getting their shit together and into a studio, I have no idea. Imagine if a band with five or six albums' worth of music only had two songs done in a studio, and for the rest you had to go see them live. There would be tonnes of gig bootlegs; you can't stop that. But... Jesus. I've just realised. Everyone's becoming the Grateful Dead.

On that cheerfully horrific note, on to a week of black coffee, alcohol and ticket stubs. Saturday was a Fernando di Leo filmfest at the ICA, the highlight of which was Milano Calibro 9 (Milan 9mm), one of the most stylish and tight crime noirs I've seen. It stands out among di Leo's sub-average Saturday afternoon pulp like it was beamed in from another planet. Everything from story and cinematography to its superb early-70s Euro-funk soundtrack is miles better than the rest of di Leo's oeuvre. It doesn't have the moments of exquisite visual lyricism, or the deeply unsettling ideas of Bertolucci's Il Conformista, but as a discrete package it's an absolute wonder.

To Menlo Park at Koko (the old Camden Palais, now with delusions of grandeur) that evening, with Mr Watson. I adore the high-octane bravura craziness of Menlo Park, but this gig fell flat thanks to crap sound mixing, and the girl standing next to me, who would not shut the fuck up. When I go to see a band, I go to see a band. Sure, there may be the odd bit of barbed repartee with my companion, but we save it to between songs. This girl, she spent the entire time talking to her boyfriend, or accosting the frontman to let everyone know that she had been to their previous, secret gig about six months ago. "Chriiisss! CHRIS! Where are our masks and cloaks?" (Menlo Park have a sense of the dramatic that puts other bands to shame. Their last gig was held in the Masonic Temple above the Great Eastern Hotel in Liverpool Street, and everyone was given a domino mask and a cape to wear.) I could barely hear the vocals anyway due to the bad mixing, but she put paid to any hope I had of making out the lyrics. She was the kind of girl that when you finished fucking her she'd still be talking about what colour to paint the ceiling. "Chreee-isss!"

It was an odd night anyway. The headliners were Mylo, who don't even exist in the same musical galaxy as Menlo Park. Supporting Menlo Park were a band that Mr Watson fairly accurately pinned as Frankie Goes To Hollywood meets The Streets. It was the sort of synth-rock I didn't even like the first time round, when I was 13. It hasn't improved with age. I stared, fascinated, as I couldn't be sure if the band were taking the piss or not. I mean, I'm all for playing from behind a veil of irony, but these people needed a burqa of irony before they even approached vague acceptability. Still, they seemed happy to be putting the "past" into pastiche.

Sunday was more di Leo, and Monday was Guys & Dolls with Mr Wheeler. I refer you to his review, and urge you to go see it. Get to the box office at 8am on the day you want to go, and queue for a couple hours. Every day there are 18 front-row seats available for the evening's performance, at £20 each. I'm so soured to musicals thanks to the satanic combination of Ben Elton and Andrew Lloyd Weber that I'd quite forgotten how marvellous they can be when they're not sub-Puccini screechfests or cash-in devices for over-the-hill stadium-rockers. Guys & Dolls won't change your life, but it will make you happy, at least for a little while.

Tuesday, inexplicably, was an embarrassment of musical riches. There was a free Earlies gig at 93 Feet East. I love the Earlies, really I do, but live, they always play the same seven songs. Until they start airing some new material, their shows aren't high on my must-see list. So instead, the Graf von Sarll took me to the Spitz for The Real Tuesday Weld's single launch party, after he heard me go all gooey over Dreams That Money Can Buy. How do I explain The Real Tuesday Weld? Imagine the deadpan, laconic delivery of a Home-Counties Chet Baker (but with an uncanny resemblance to Jean Marais), backed by a cross between the Betas and the Hot Club Quintette. That may not put you exactly on their street, but it gets you in the right neighbourhood. They're a band made to be heard in a smoky old-fashioned club like Ronnie Scott's, and the Spitz stood in pretty well for that. Anyway, it was a storming set, full of a verve and energy that their studio sessions only hint at. The only slight jarring note were the lead singer's sunglasses, which seemed desperately uncomfortable. There's suffering for style, and then there's looking like you're suffering.

I've already told you about Thursday. Last night was Vincent Vincent & The Villains, who are pretty much the unholy love-child of Brian Setzer and Operation Ivy. Fun, hard-edged doo-wop/pop, porkpie hats and co-respondent shoes, and a bassist in the corner quietly holding it all together with some of the most inspired work I've heard outside Fugazi. Left the gig with a big stupid grin on my face and hummed songs the whole walk home to Primrose Hill.

It was all going so well. And then at lunch today I landed myself in trouble again. I agreed to DJ a big, posh party in the Channel Islands this August in exchange for mooching a friend's house for a week. I haven't DJ'd since 1992-93, when I played clubs in Hong Kong for partying money and free food. Hey, how wrong could it possibly go? Besides, I love trouble. We've already decided I'm to bring my projector and screen a few obscuro-films like Decasia and Orphee during the set, and to accompany it I'd like to try to make some mash-ups of the 1920s and 1930s esoterica sitting in my Music folder. Could any of you recommend a free and idiot-proof bit of mixing software? I'm a digital child, and it's all got to be done on my laptop. And if anyone has an electronic rip of the old Proclaimers B-side, "It's Over & Done With", I'd be much obliged if you'd send me a copy. I always used to close with it.

( 5:59 PM )

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