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So This Is Christmas

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young (John Lennon)

Merry Christmas everyone!

SIDE A

The Long Blondes - Christmas Is Cancelled
Oasis - Merry Xmas Everyone
John Lennon - Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
The Kinks - Father Christmas
Eels - Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas
Death Cab For Cutie - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Coconut Records - It's Christmas
John Denver & The Muppets - Twelve Days Of Christmas
Florence + The Machine - Last Christmas
Bright Eyes - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Belle & Sebatian - Are You Coming Over For Christmas?
Blitzen Trapper - Christmas Is Coming Soon
Dean Martin - Let It Snow

SIDE B

Coldplay - Christmas Lights
The Wombats - Is This Christmas?
The Supremes - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Alvin And The Chipmunks - Frosty The Snowman
The Ramones - Merry Christmas
Julian Casablancas - I Wish It Was Christmas Today
Amos - XXXmas
Lightspeed Champion - Another Song About Being Alone At Xmas
Pete Yorn - Do They Know It's Christmas?
Sufjan Stevens - That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!
Snow Patrol - Just Like Christmas
Timid Tiger - Ring The Bells
Tahiti 80 - All Around Christmas
Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas
Johnny Cash - Silent Night

BRMC 1K or: Celebrating 1000 shows of luscious Rock 'n' Roll

A review in five acts by Jessica Schnittger

Prologue
It’s not as if you needed an excuse to go to London, but somehow people keep asking you “Oh, you’re going to London? What for?” and if your answer is “To attend my favourite band’s 1000th show.” that definitely has a more glorious ring to it than simply saying “Christmas shopping”. Oh yes, it has.
Trying to prevent the upcoming of those stupid groupie comments, which stick to you like glue if you simply love seeing fabulous shows of the same band (yes, it’s this band again for heaven’s sake) I won’t be telling you how many shows I’ve already seen this year. Let me put it this way: many. However, going to this show most definitely feels special, because London + BRMC promises to be a dreadly delightful combination. And if it’s (London + BRMC) x show #1000 there’s an important factor added to this equation, which results in the following: For the people about to experience it it’s a state of mind which could be described as ecstasizing.
Brixton’s O2 Academy (no product placement intended) is the venue of this event and, my dear readers, it’s not called O2 Academy for nothing. Nooo... actually, the company running/sponsoring this venue feels like they need to promote their products by forcing a two-class division upon their paying customers. Yes, this is modern Britain. Funnily enough, tonight’s promotion campain deluxe is connected to one of the British people’s supposedly favourite part-time activities. There is nothing less than a ‘priority queue’ for customers of said telephone company, ‘priority queue’ meaning that people waiting in this queue will be let in earlier than those poor souls standing in the other one. As we’re indeed about to benefit from this arrangement we’re not feeling too revolutionary tonight, but I’m still wondering how people who have paid the same price as everyone can accept that. What or rather who tops this whole business off is that very original London guy, who plays top dog for his watching audience, feeling ever so important by asking every single person joining the ‘priority queue’ “Have you got an O2 phone, madam/sir?”. If you’re about to attend another show at this venue, let me give you some advice teeming with irony: nobody ever actually checked my phone...
The venue turns out to be beautiful, but a bit too large for my taste and especially for my taste when it comes to BRMC shows. The stage is quite wide and the fact that the monitors and other equipment aren’t even put into the corners makes it appear as if this is actually intended to make the band feel a bit more comfortable.
London quintet The Duke Spirit are support for tonight and are on at about 7.30 pm, playing for about half an hour. Maybe it’s because of them only playing one known song followed by a whole bunch of new ones, supposedly being featured on a new album, but apart from one guy who feels like telling the whole audience what he’d like to do with singer Leila “all night long”, nobody’s temperature seems to have risen too much in the icy cold venue. Only when the lights are switched off and Soulsaver’s “Revival” resounds through the hall, announcing the beginning of the show and fitting perfectly, I first feel like taking my coat off.

Act I: Exposition (BRMC)
The band seem to be still feeling cold as well, Peter and Robert entering the stage in their notorious leather jackets, but warming up everybody’s heart by playing Love Burns as their first song tonight. From where I’m standing the crowd appears to be feeling it from the start, being into it from this very first song on, ‘it’ being the almost festive mood of this special night. There’s only one thing that taints this mood to some degree and this is the attendence of an almost ridiculous amount of photographers in this huge gap between stage and audience. While this might be a good sign for the band, I assume that the natural feel of a BRMC show, which usually includes a lot of close ups of Robert with the audience, somewhat gets lost. There’s no way of him sitting down on the monitor tonight and singing directly to his audience, which I think is too bad. All the same, the second song is Red Eyes and Tears and this is the point where I start to wonder.
Knowing that BRMC are anything but lame or boring and rather have something special up their sleeves than playing a bog-standard show, I suppose everyone has been wondering about possible specialties concerning the set list. So, playing song number one and two of their debut in a row I am quite intrigued by the possibility of them playing the whole album in a row (and maybe continuing with the other four?). However, after the third song this night, a rowdy Punk Song, another supportive fact for my thesis, Robert solves the mystery. He tells the audience that they originally felt like playing everything, but that there is not enough time. (I guess we can thank that bloody venue for that again...) Thus, he continues, they decided on playing not all of their songs, but a lot, and, here comes the absolutely special part, in the order in which these songs came to them. Well, if the lady and the two gentlemen prefer a chronological approach tonight, so be it! Additionally, the idea of the songs coming to them than rather them writing the songs is an idea that strikes me, as if these songs had always existed, wafting around before, just waiting for the right moment to be picked up by the right person and be played.
At some point in this first act there are people standing on Peter’s side of the stage all of a sudden and I realize that the things that were given away before the show must have been vouchers to make you stand on stage for a couple of songs, so there is always a bunch of people standing in the backround of the stage, clearly spellbound, happy and fascinated by being given the chance to see their band performing from such a close distance.
Following chronology the next song is Spread Your Love, another audience-all-time favourite, nowadays being extended by a steamy additional, bluesy, the girls wanting to shake their bum part. And with this ends Act I.

Act II: Escalation (Take Them On, On Your Own)
We’re now entering the slightly darker realms of album #2, beginning with Stop and Six Barrel Shotgun, another representative of BRMC’s category of somewhat revised songs that plainly turn out to be better live whereas listening to the original recording they now seem to be lacking something. Up next is a supreme surprise in form of We’re All In Love, which I don’t think I’ve heard live ever since my very first BRMC show in 2003 and which possibly turns out to be a treat for a lot of people, who are able to appreciate it.
Finally, and as I have hoped ever since Robert explained tonight’s concept of the setlist, we get to hear the first notes of Heart + Soul, the one song that I have been missing so very much on this tour. This song is everything again tonight: desperate, torn, loud, tender, a beautiful beast of a song that truly escalates in a most climactic way, demanding everything from the three musicians on stage. So while this appears to be one of the first highlights of this show, the band is toning it down a bit by entering Act III.

Act III: Turning Point (Howl)
Devil’s Waitin’ is another gem in this cold December night’s collection. Peter starts this song on his own and is later on joined by Robert, who comes back on stage to add harmonies to Peter’s performance. While we were still being brought through the almost ear-deafening, beautiful noise of Heart + Soul only two minutes ago, Peter has a knack of now, all of a sudden, taking us back down again and bewitching us only by accompanying himself with an acoustic guitar. Apparently, it’s these mood changes and the competence of estimating the arc of suspense that make a BRMC show what they are to some degree.
It’s getting jollier again with the next song, which is an acoustic interpretation of Shuffle Your Feet with Leah not sitting down at her drum kit, but playing the tambourine and joining Robert at his mic in singing. The picture displayed here is so harmonious that I would wish for Leah leaving her drum kit at the back of the stage more often, if only that wouldn’t hinder her from presenting her drumming skills...
Ain’t No Easy Way, a long-established component of almost every set list laying on the right kind of fun for the audience, is another ‘filler’ before we are once more ensnared in awe. For it is nothing less than Weight of the World that comes up next, one of the few songs I have repeatedly tried to shout at Robert whenever he went asking the audience what they wanted to hear. And tonight my wish of hearing this song live finally comes true.

Act IV: Retarding Momentum (Baby 81)
The beginning of the following song, Took Out A Loan, also announces the beginning of Act IV, our retarding momentum by means of feasting on a dense vapour of pure Rock ‘n’ Roll. The sequence of Took Out A Loan, Berlin and Weapon Of Choice turns out to be a torrid threesome that doesn’t leave a single armpit dry.
Wondering what will be up next the audience is again addressed by Robert, who seems to be talking his head off tonight, at least when you compare it with the usual amount of words uttered on stage during a regular show. They should keep this up, really. This time he communicates that he wants to dedicate the next song, like everything they do, to his late father Michael Been, “who we lost on this tour”. Furthermore he projects an image of Michael in our mind by saying that he’s sure he’s with us tonight and if he actually were in person, he’d be standing behind us all, with a big fat grin on his face. There’s a moment when last summer’s sadness resurfaces to Robert and to those of us who felt with the band back then, but he puts on a brave face and introduces us to Tom Ferrier, Michael’s old bandmate from The Call. He’s come to join the band playing the guitar on stage tonight to perform Windows. So Robert sits down at the piano and off they go. This tribute to Michael is a truly beautiful highlight of this show, on the one hand as seeing these four people interacting on stage is completely cute, Leah, Peter and Tom smiling at each other a lot and totally feeling it, on the other hand because once more we get the feeling that Michael certainly is here with us in London this moment. Their saying goodnight and leaving stage after this is totally unnecessary, however, as we all know that there is at least one act to go...

Act V: Denouement (Beat The Devil’s Tattoo)
Before we get to enjoy songs of the latest record there are some more singularities lying ahead of us, though. After the short break Robert enters the stage on his own again, telling the audience that they can request a song now, because so far the band has been making all the decisions. A very democratic approach that results in him starting to play a cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, being all smiles and smirks. At this point I’m laughing my ass off, actually, as this combination is just so bloody funny, especially when he delves into “That’s all they really waahaaaant, just fuuuuun”. In the middle of the song he breaks up anyhow, as he says he doesn’t know the rest of the song, and starts playing Dirty Old Town instead, a song that makes almost the whole hall sing along.
While we’re right at it with covering songs, there’s yet another one to come, this time a cover of Wild One, which was originally performed by Johnny O’Keefe and also by Iggy Pop in the 80s. However, what is even more striking is the fact that the song is introduced by Robert explaining that one of their friends initially wanted to be here and join them on stage tonight, but who unfortunately couldn’t so that he has sent us a message instead. The next thing we get to hear then is Iggy Pop’s voice telling us how sorry he is that he can’t be with us tonight and who pays tribute to Michael Been. Another interesting aspect about this is the band’s history with this song. Shortly after Michael had died Robert played this song on acoustic guitar at some airport, making a little girl dance to the music. Luckily this was filmed and if you haven’t seen this most endearing video yet, check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4twe7Z6my7o

After this short interlude we realize that the end of this gig has to be near, but not before we experience the pleasure of hearing a sequence of the recent album’s title track Beat The Devil’s Tattoo, Bad Blood, Half State, Conscience Killer, which finally lets Robert jump off the stage and get close to the crowd, and Shadow’s Keeper. Another peak in this show is definitely Half State, which threatens to rip the first rows off, because the sound, a noisy, yet beautiful wall of guitars and immense drums, hits you like a hammer. Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a break to rest your hurting muscles, as the next piece, shortly introduced by Robert as the last song, Shadow’s Keeper, heads out into exactly the same direction.
This is the cathartic moment anyone at any BRMC show has possibly felt, the moment when you feel like you and the music are becoming one, the kick that a lot of people, who I have come to know throughout the past years, would describe as the kick that makes them addicted to BRMC live shows. I think I can speak for a lot of people present that night when I say that this music sends you on a trip and makes you an addict with no hope of soon recovery.

Epilogue
Shadow’s Keeper being the last song is not entirely true, though, as the last notes of the song blend into the beginning of the most heart-warming, tender, beautiful Open Invitation. Having heard this song played as an outro on the occasion of several shows now, I can’t help but feel as if this song was wrapping you up in a warm blanket, like a goodbye hug that caresses you and leaves you with a mixture of feeling both sorry that the show is finally over and still being totally satisfied. Thus, a perfect choice for an outro. Furthermore, the line “And we may never be here again” repeatedly points out the evanescence of everybody and everything and gives you the feeling of having done exactly the right thing by coming all the way to London to join into this celebration tonight, as life is simply short, vulnerable and you should possibly live every day of you life as if it were the last. Thus, this celebration of 1000 shows of luscious Rock ‘n’ Roll comes to an end and I can’t help it but hope for at least another 1000 to come.

We Are Family

Mothers teach you to crawl
Fathers teach you rise or fall

This month's tape is all about the ones closest to you, whether you like this or not. Let me introduce you to November's running order:

SIDE A

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - MAMA Taught Me Better
The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your MOTHER
Soundtrack Of Our Lives - SISTER Surround
The Organ - BROTHER
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - ... Things That Wouldn't Make Your PARENTS Proud
The Brothers Movement - SISTER
Oasis - My SISTER Lover
The Beatles - Your MOTHER Should Know
Glasvegas - DADDY's Gone
Voxtrot - BROTHER In Conflict
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate SON
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - Celebrate Your MOTHER


SIDE B

Art Brut - My Little BROTHER
Maximo Park - The KIDS Are Sick Again
The Rapture - SISTER Saviour
Arcade Fire - City With No CHILDREN
Friska Viljor - Shotgun SISTER
Shout Out Louds - PARENTS' Livingroom
The Smiths - Shakespeare's SISTER
IV Thieves - MOTHER's Dilemma
The White Stripes - SISTER, Do You Know My Name?
The Black Keys - Unknown BROTHER
Adam Green - Don't Call Me UNCLE
Voyager One - The KIDS Take Control
The Killers - UNCLE Johnny
The Gaslight Anthem - Here's Looking At You, Kid

Don't Play With Me Cause You're Playing With Fire

This month it's getting hot. But be careful and don't get your ears burned listening to this smoldering mixtape. The fiery set goes like this:

SIDE A

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Love BURNS
Interpol - All FIRED Up
Kings of Leon - Pistol of FIRE
Johnny Cash - Ring of FIRE
The Morning After Girls - FIREworks
Band of Skulls - FIRES
Doves - FIREsuite
Richard Ashcroft - Money to BURN
Spiritualized - Soul on FIRE
Ride - Dreams BURN Down
The Black Ryder - BURN and Fade

SIDE B

Kasabian - FIRE
The Boxer Rebellion - Spitting FIRE
Howling Bells - Cities BURNING Down
Arctic Monkeys - FIRE and the Thud
Mando Diao - The WildFIRE (If it was true)
Shout Out Louds - The Candle BURNED out
Beat! Beat! Beat! - FIREworks
The Wombats - BackFIRE at the Disco
Franz Ferdinand - This FIRE
Voxtrot - FIREcracker
Adam Green - Cigarette BURNS forever
The Rolling Stones - Play with FIRE
The Whites Boy Alive - BURNING

I Fell In Love With The Sweet Sensation

Here's a sweet treat for your ears in September, totally calorie-free.
Enjoy!

SIDE A

The Verve - Bitter SWEET Symphony
The Temper Trap - SWEET Disposition
!!! - SWEET Life
The Big Pink - SWEET Dreams
Los Campesinos! - SWEET Dreams, SWEET Cheeks
Those Dancing Days - Home SWEET Home
The Lightning Seeds - SWEETEST Soul Sensations
Shout Out Louds - Oh, SWEETheart
Chelsy - SWEET Medicine
She & Him - SWEET Darlin'
Ryan Adams - Oh My SWEET Carolina
Neil Diamond - SWEET Caroline

SIDE B

Mando Diao - SWEET Ride
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - SWEET n Sour
Creedence Clearwater Revival - SWEET Hitch-Hiker
The White Stripes - Prickly Thorn, but SWEETly worn
Bob Dylan - Absolutely SWEET Marie
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - SWEET Feeling
The Black Ryder - SWEET Come Down
Spiritualized - SWEET Talk
Richard Ashcroft - SWEET Brother Malcolm
Eels - SWEET Lil Thing
Kasabian - The SWEET Escape
The Velvet Underground - SWEET Jane
The Kills - SWEET Cloud

Review: BRMC @ Hedon Zwolle (25/08/10)

Lost in the Netherlands again… Somehow I can’t stop wondering why exactly BRMC keep playing these tiny towns in the Netherlands, towns that nobody apart from the Dutch population have possibly ever heard of.
And Zwolle is one of these pretty little towns that have a cute, old market in their middle and where the shops and also cafés close at 6 pm. The venue, which from the outside could be mistaken for a building hosting a public swimming pool turns out to be the cultural centre of this Dutch town and holds a capacity of approximately 500 people. Therefore, one could assume that this is going to be a very cosy show.
We’re not really surprised that there is almost nothing going on in front of the venue even half an hour before doors are supposed to open, but on entering it becomes obvious why: the hall is dinky to the greatest degree, it’s so small that the furthest you can get away from the stage might be ten steps, so you’ll be able to feel close to the stage even when you’re standing in the doorway. How exquisite can a show get, huh?
Luckily, we’re spared the performance of a boring support band this time and get straight to the real thing: the lady and the two gentlemen enter at about 9.30 pm and the show begins. Standing in the front row we can catch a glimpse of the set list taped to the floor and can’t believe our eyes. But shortly after that we’re getting convinced that there’s nothing wrong with them at all. For the set starts with Evol indeed and blows us away as most of us have never heard this song played live before. The endless reminders to please play this song and a certain someone’s final remark on the night before towards Peter might have resulted in this, so we’re especially happy to be offered this song as an opener tonight.
Not wearing his hooded cloak this time, Robert comes across less tense than the night before, which was the first show during which his dad was not sitting at the soundboard. From an outsider’s perspective it seems as if playing shows is actually doing him good, distracting him, giving him an opportunity of at least a bit of elation, letting go of some of his frustration and sadness.
After this first highlight the band continue their set with the by now obligatory second and third songs Mama Taught Me Better and Red Eyes and Tears, luckily, as we all have become so used to, with the beautiful reprise in the end. I can’t help but feel that this song isn’t complete with this additional part, so hearing it being played live like that always makes myself and as far as I know some other people very happy.
Unfortunately, the sound turns out to be pretty bad. You can’t really understand Peter’s vocals standing on the left side, same goes for Rob’s vocals on the other side of the room, sometimes you can’t hear Peter’s guitar, and so on. If we weren’t thinking about the tragic circumstances of this leg of the tour anyway, it would now, at the latest, become apparent that Michael is missing. Allen, who is usually the engineer in charge of the sound on stage, has taken Michael’s place at the soundboard, so we are not sure who’s responsible for the sound on stage tonight, but I suppose that you can find one possible source of the technical problems there. This is not about blaming anyone, but it is not surprising that issues like that arise when a good team is torn apart and a stranger has to fill in for Papa Been. During Ain’t No Easy Way there’s some problem with Pete’s harmonica and at the end of the song he gets so frustrated, possibly about things not working out and realizing that Michael’s missing, he smashes his guitar against the microphone stand, which, as a result, unfortunately hits a friend of mine. However, things tend to get better again throughout the rest of the show.
As we reach the acoustic set there’s one of those heart-throbbing moments again. Robert starts playing a song that at least I have never heard before and so, from what I can pick up from the lyrics (“You run and you run and you run and never stop / You work and you work and you work until you drop”) I get the impression that this might be a new song, having been written just recently. In the end I simply turn out to be ignorant of the fact that this is a song by his dad Robert is playing, The Call’s You Run. The effect, however, remains the same. Only thinking about how he is standing there, the bright stage light surrounding him almost halo-like, sharing his love and pain with us by reciting this song is on the one hand almost impossible to bear, but on the other hand it has such a profound effect of feeling touched and connected I would never want to miss this experience.
So we’re being left there to stomach this, a little bit out of this world, feeling hit by something one probably can’t really describe with words, and Peter has to help us out a bit to get back to planet earth, reminding us of the good old times by a presentation of Complicated Situation. Like the day before, Robert joins Peter in his second acoustic song again, sneaking back on stage and adding harmonies.
After this there’s a short moment of communication, in which Robert initially wants to start off with the next song on the playlist. Peter has something else on his mind, though, so he beckons to Leah and Robert, something like “Follow me” and off they go playing Screaming Gun. In spite of first rejoicing in how special this is, this is also the moment when the magic spell is broken. Let me tell you why.
All of a sudden there’s this chick entering Peter’s side of the stage starting off with a, at least in my humble opinion, ridiculous wannabe-pole dance, almost raping one of the boxes, if I may be so bold as to borrow that expression from one of my friends. After some time she is politely asked to get off stage again and totally unimpressed by this fruitless attempt to catch their attention (there’s only a short glance and a smirk), the band just continue through the song and really can’t be bothered.
Apart from this rather eccentric aberration there’s some decent audience reaction going on. All in all the Zwolle crowd is surprisingly into it, surprisingly because, let’s be honest, we’re lost somewhere in the Netherlands, sorry if I sound repetitive, in a tiny venue in a pretty town that has approximately as many inhabitants as the hicksville I come from. But do the people who came here tonight care about that? No, Sir! The sequence of Conscience Killer, Sixbarrel Shotgun and Spread Your Love brings about a sweaty sheen to the crowd’s faces. It actually results in such a vigorous mood that, when the song is actually supposed to be over, Peter gives his comrades a sign again and the song carries on, a mighty, sultry, lush jam that, if I were to decide, could continue all night long. But, let’s face it, most of the time the good things have to end early. So band and crowd reach the climax together and after the compulsory short absence the band returns for another round of pure BRMC bliss, presenting a guitar/bass/drum firework of Shadow’s Keeper, Robert reaching out to the crowd at the edge of the stage now and again.
Possibly knowing that there can be no better ending of a show than that of playing the beautiful interpretation of Open Invitation we’re confronted with exactly that, leaving us all with a warm, fuzzy feeling.
That’s what this band does to you. In such a short span of “only” two hours they educe every possible feeling from you and most of the crowd can’t help it. They leave you there, jaw dropped, part of you screaming for a break, part of you simply wanting more.
While some might have doubted that pulling off these shows could be the right thing, that the sad death of Michael could steal their energy, their vibe, their spirit, I have to disagree. There’s nothing lacking at these shows. And while others, myself included, might hide away in such situations as these, it’s obvious that playing shows is a means of helping them heal, turning their sorrow into energy to use for the one thing that unites them, their audience, and the one thing they seem to live for. Music.