Horace Panter at 100 Club

Soul Groves with Horace Panter was a fundraiser for Tonic Music that took place at the 100 Club on Wednesday 5th of December. The show was a delight from start to finish. The band played tribute to musical heroes such as George Benson and Ray Charles.  I particularly enjoyed their covers of Lee Dorsey's Ya Ya. Dave Keech was a great master of ceremonies and Eddie Piller was the perfect choice for post show D.J.

Above: Horace Panter on Bass

Above: Dave Keech on Trombone

Above: Jim Hunt on Sax

Above: Nikolaj Torp Larsen on Hammond Organ 

Above: Chris Cobbson on Guitar.

Above: Kenrick Rowe on Drums.
You can see the band perform Green Onions and Tippi Toes on You Tube.

One of the patrons for Tonic Music For Mental Health is Horace's band mate, Terry Hall.

Terry says:

“I'm proud to be a patron of Tonic Music for Mental Health. They're a great organisation that run music and art projects that anyone can get involved in.One of the things I did when I became ill, because I couldn't communicate, was to start painting. My therapist had said it was a good way to express yourself, so I started to paint The Jackson 5, except the first one I drew ended up with six of them on it! Anything that gives you a voice is really good. Art and music are a great outlet and have been such an important part of my recovery.”

For more info about the charity visit:

http://www.tonicmusic.co.uk/about-tonic-music

Photos and Text by Harry Pye December 2018

IT'S BRIIIIIIXMAAAAAAAS! The Brixton Hill All-Stars reviewed by Patrick Nicholson

‘Charity Christmas album’: a phrase to rouse the most jaundiced lapsed-socialist into raging, at Dickens’ brutal London winter Fortnum-ed into the Season of Goodwill; and carolling Tories, cleansed and ready for the next fully-exploitative 51-and-a-half weeks.

Yet Christmas pop is its own steadfast twinkling pantheon. For some artists, their Christmas song is their immortality: Greg Lake, Shane, Mariah, John &Yoko…you’d have to be impossibly pure in heart to resist their sweet mawk, and if there’s still a pulse of deluded hope in you, here’s something to jolt it, with musical quality to match.

Brixton Hill Studios is a rehearsal space at the heart of the South London rock renaissance led by Goat Girl and Black Midi. Six of the the studio’s regular clients here contribute new December songs, with proceeds going to Brixton Soup Kitchen, which was helping the local poor and homeless long before Jacob Rees-Mogg branded such things ‘uplifting’ .

First in this winter set is the suitably titled ’Ice Cream’ in which crooner Jerskin Frendrix’s sublime hymnal piano opens like Nick Cave singing Judee Sill singing ‘It’s always Christmas-time when I’m with you’, planting a melody in your head that you heard at birth. This then builds and merges before your eyes into Black Midi doing a thrash-King Crimson Prog Second Coming. It’s a great dramatic coup, but at the root is a true contender for a Christmas classic.

Next, Hammersmith’s Alessi’s Ark bring us ‘Winter’s Grace’, an effortlessly pretty poetic tune evoking warmth and safety: ‘nothing’s stopping me from being by your side’. Sounds awful doesn’t it? But it’s lovely. 

Track 3 is Ham Legion continuing the mad-prog with ‘We’d better start dinner’, complete with lead-synth, choir and bells. Sort of Colosseum over 90s indie drumming. Good fun but two helpings is plenty.

Then come Bad Parents with ‘Christmas Present’, very Kevin Ayers via Graham Coxon, with the killer line ‘it’s just another day in December to stay in bed watching YouTube’. Whoever can sing ‘I bought a Christmas present for you’ and make it sound new has something going on. A grower.

Two great titles close the cd: ‘Christmas Crime’ is a pun worthy of old punk, like something off the 80s Oi!-comp ‘Bollocks to Christmas’ EP (rubbish, don’t bother), but thankfully it’s Scud FM’s dub tale of desolation and robbery, with a moral weight reminiscent of the Specials. Somehow the circular trumpet summons the burden we all carry at Christmas. ‘Friends and family come over, I’m completely done over’.  It’s genuinely affecting.

Finally we have Hot Sauce Pony - part Beefheart, part Banshees - in a characteristically muscular creeping piece ‘Christmas in Prison’. ‘What do you do when the bars won’t bend?’. HSP have a natural timeless feel, like their songs could go anywhere, and an intimate, involving singer in Caroline Gilchrist.

Overall a great listen, something different at Christmas and definitely allowed in the other 51-and-a-half weeks.

Listen to Bad Parents: here

Buy the album here:

Text by Patrick Nicholson
December 2018

Bernardo Bertolucci by Chris Hick

Yesterday saw the passing of another of the great directors, Bernardo Bertolucci who died on Monday 26th November at the age of 77. This came the day after another of the greats had passed away, British director, Nicholas Roeg. What both filmmakers had in common was a unique style of filmmaking that led to some unique films. 

Bertolucci was born in Parma, Italy on 16^th March 1941 and while, like Roeg, not the most prolific of directors, he made some true classics of cinema. Having made a number of films in his native Italy in the 1960s that were hardly going to set the world on fire, he went on to make Il Conformista (The Conformist) in 1970, a Mussollini era set political crime thriller, it is one of the key Italian films of the 1970s. This was followed a few films and a couple of years later with the then controversial Franco-Italian co-production, Last Tango in Paris (1972). 

Set in Paris and starring Marlon Brando, fresh from his turn as Don Corleone in the Oscar winning The Godfather, with Maria Schneider. It is a film about passion and desire, but is most famous for its steamy scene of anal rape (it involves butter, but I will leave it at that). The film does appear relatively tame today, but is still one of the director’s key films in his oeuvre.

He went on to make the underrated 1900 (1976), an epic story covering the first half of the 20^th century in Bertolucci’s home region of Emiliga-Romagna. But it was the more international The Last Emperor (1987), Bertolucci’s most ambitious and biggest project that made him a household name. An epic film in scale it is the story of Puyi, the last Emperor of China who lived in the walled Forbidden City and his growth in an ever changing and challenging China through the 20^thCentury. An Anglo-Italian co-production, this film still maintains its epic scale and sumptuous look. For his next few films there was certainly a modern historical travelogue feel to his films: The Sheltering Sky (1990) is set in various African countries, the story of pre-enlightenment Little Buddha (1993), Prince Siddhartha in South East Asia, Brits in Italy in Stealing Beauty (1996) before he went on to make one of his more challenging and frankly most interesting films of his career, The Dreamers (2003).

The Dreamers catches a particular moment in modern French history: namely the student revolt of May 1968. Based off a novel by Gilbert Adair, ‘Holy Innocents’, it is a re-imagining of the writer’s own experiences living in Paris during these heady times. For the film, his character has been transformed from a Brit to American in the shape of the character of Matthew (Michael Pitt). It is February 1968 and he has arrived in Paris at a time when the former war hero, General de Gaulle was the President of France. De Gaulle represented the old order and a more engaged and politically left leaning politik was stirring through University campuses. Matthew has befriended twins Théo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green) who agree that Matthew can stay with them. He is invited to dinner where he meets their English mother (Anna Chancellor) and French father (Robin Renucci), but soon after the parents leave on a trip, leaving the three youngsters to their own devices. The apartment is French bohemian baroque, a little run down and tired, probably symbolising the French state. It is reminiscent of a haunted house in a Mario Bava horror film or bourgeois decadence in a Visconti classic.

The twins had met Matthew at the famous Cinémathèque Française, a key place where the student protests started from. Where else but in France would protest and revolution start from but from an arts centre? The students are protesting the sacking of the Cinémathèque Française director, Henri Langlois by the French Arts Minister, André Malraux who had ceased to fund what he saw as a hot bed of Marxist thinking. Under instructions as to what he should screen for a visiting Soviet dignitary, Langlois refused stating that he was not at the behest of the government. This led to its closure and subsequent protest from the likes of such eminent directors as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and even Nicholas Ray (the director of Rebel Without a Cause, 1955) from Hollywood, setting the country on a wave of protests throughout Paris and the rest of the country until it reached its climax in May ’68.

After initial scenes which are filmed at the location of the Cinémathèque Française much of the next hour or so takes place in the apartment. There are three themes that consistently run through the film: Politics, Sex and Cinema. Politics is the glue that unites them all for Bertolucci and indeed for the French nouvelle vague too. In one scene the trio play a game answering questions on cinema. When Matthew gets the answer wrong, his forfeit is to masturbate in front of them. Indeed there are many scenes in the film that are quite daring and the Paris locations and the erotic games recall Bertolucci's earlier film, Last Tango in Paris. Green’s character of Isabelle is quite promiscuous and the film plays with ideas of incest as well as her as a femme-fatale. In another scene Théo demands that Isabelle and Matthew have sex in front of him, leading Matthew to discover that she was in fact a virgin. In time they have trashed the apartment and when the parents unexpectedly return are upset at the state of their home. Isabelle plots to gas them both in an almost Oedipean scene. A sense of agoraphobia almost pervades the film to this point until a their lives are disturbed by a stone thrown through the window. Our trio of characters dare to venture out only to find themselves at the height of the May protests with students and protesters facing off against a militarised CRS (the French anti-riot police) which they join in on.

The May 1968 riots were a part of the zeitgeist (shuddering to use a cliché) that was spreading through the Western world with anti-Vietnam Protests taking place in the United States, Britain and elsewhere, the Prague Spring that led to Soviet occupation and supporting student protests in Milan, Chicago and at Hornsey Art College in support of the Sorbonne. The counter-culture was questioning the old order with the French speaking out against old France and the Republic. Many of the aforementioned filmmakers, Godard and Truffaut were beaten and injured by the CRS riot police during the protests, Jean-Paul Sartre was actively involved and was arrested for civil disobedience. In cinema Godard had made the Maoist tract La Chinoise (1967) and in London One Plus One (1968), (which famously was inter cut with footage of The Rolling Stones recording 'Sympathy for the Devil') , as well as the later Tout va bien (1972), whereas Truffaut made Baisers volés (1968) set during the May turbulence and La Nuit Américaine (Day for Night , 1973). Both these films starred Truffaut regular Jean-Pierre Léaud who appeared in several of his films as the character Antoine Doinel since Les Quatre Cents Coup (1959). Léaud appears in The Dreamers, both in documentary footage during May '68 giving a speech and appears as an older self in the film. Léaud's appearance also links with Bertolucci as he had co-starred in Last Tango in Paris. 

The Dreamers, Bertolucci's penultimate film (his last being Me and You, 2012) is critically not his best received film, but is one of his most interesting. Some of the dislike met out to the film is probably to do with the dislike-able, spoilt and self-indulgent nature of the protagonists. However, the film is a celebration of the power of cinema and especially those of the nouvelle vague which I would argue act as a tribute to France and a period of failed revolution that nevertheless changed the direction of France, showing that a director in his then 60s still had the faculty to make great art.

Text by Chris Hick 2018

Nick Revell reviews 'Funny Business' at Shortwave Gallery

The esteemed comedy writer and performer, Nick Revell ventured to Shortwave to experience, 'Funny Business' an exhibition featuring paintings by; Geraldine Swayne, Jasper Joffe, Kate Lyddon, Sadie Hennessey, and Harry Pye - and Gordon Beswick was there to film the results. The 'Funny Business' exhibition gets taken down on November 28th so catch it while you can. Shortwave is a 5 minute walk from Bermondsey tube station and is open 7 days a week (8.30am til 10.30pm)

(Below:) Geraldine Swayne - Nick says of Geraldine's work: "I love that one... such a little sledgehammer. It's clever, disturbing and challenging." 

(Below)Jasper Joffe - Nick says of Jasper's work: "I like the colour of it. I like the liveliness of it and like the way he's stuck it over a fire alarm."

(Below) Kate Lyddon - Nick says of Kate's work: "She often makes strange, grotesque images. This one intrigues me and makes me think there's a story there that I could unpick or unravel."

(Below) Sadie Hennessey Nick says of Sadie's work: "I like it it's boldness and cheekiness and how it plays around with your perspective."

(Below) Harry Pye Nick says of Harry's work: "There's something about the solemnity of the two outside figures and the contrasting tones..and I like the cat obviously."

You can watch Nick auditioning for Andrew Graham Dixon's job: here

http://www.nickrevell.com/

Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) reviewed by Astrid Horkheimer

Spellbound ends with a brilliant shot of a revolving revolving but possibly the most famous scene is of a kiss between Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck that is followed by shots of seven doors opening in quick succession. Bergaman is beautiful and Peck is perfect and there are great cameos from Leo G. Carol and Micheal Chekov. It's also memorable for it's bonkers Salvador Dali dream sequence.

Hitchcock said that of the 50 films he made his personal favourite was Shadow of a Doubt which he made two years earlier. His take on Spellbound is that it's not so hot, ("just another manhunt story wrapped up in Pseudo- Psychoanalysis.")  but I think he's being way too harsh. The film's eerie soundtrack by Miklos Rozsa won an Oscar and popularised the theremin (later made even more famous by Brian Wilson in his song Good Vibrations.

Spellbound was produced  by David O. Selznick whose previous two films were Gone With The Wind, and Rebecca. Despite Selznick's success he was not a happy man until he discovered therapy. It was Selznick who wanted Francis Beeding's novel, The House of Dr Edwardes turned into a film. Because it was Selznick who got the ball rolling I think there is an unfair tendency amongst critics to dismiss the movie as being a vanity project. The plot of a therapist falling in love with a patient with amnesia is easy to pick holes in. Mel Brooks found it easy to spoof the story in his film High Anxiety. Although it's not a masterpiece there is something about the chemistry between Bergman and Peck that makes Spellbound a must see. You'd be mad to pass this film by.

Text by Astrid Horkheimer 2018

Five unmissable gigs at The London Roots Festival

London Roots Festival is becoming a staple landmark of the capital's gig calendar, bringing us the best in folk, roots and world music from all over the globe to a variety of London's coolest venues.

This year's line up, as ever, features everything from household names to cutting edge contenders.  We've included a full list of forthcoming LRF gigs at the bottom, of this article, but here are the five shows that Extricate is particularly looking forward to.  See you down the front!

Sam Kelly + The Lost Boys

Bristol-based Sam Kelly and his band The Lost Boys delivers a gloriously raucous combination of traditional folk sounds and more than a hint of maniacal punk rock energy,  First making their mark with their debut EP 'Your Way Home' some five years back, they've been touring hard and recruiting fans across the country, cementing their success with their widely acclaimed 'Pretty Peggy' album last year.

Sun Nov 11 –  Bush Hall

Watch 'Chasing Shadows' here

Sound of the Sirens

Another act hailing from the West Country's  fertile roots scene, Exeter-based duo Sound of the Sirens break almost every rule in the folk handbook by being young and female and making music that is not only authentic but also accessible and boasting an enviably sharp edge.  Chris Evans was so impressed, he stuck them on his 'TFI Friday' show immediately after seeing them - but don't let that put you off, even he can be right every now and then!

Thu Nov 15 – The Slaughtered Lamb

Watch 'Smokescreen' here

John Smith

Smith is probably the most traditional prospect in our list of tips, not just because his raw, stripped back sound is based purely around guitar and vocals, but also because he's thrown himself into the musical archeology of folk culture, unearthing and reinventing songs from both sides of the Atlantic, sometime hundreds of years old.  That's one reason to like the Liverpudlian, although even more  important is the quietb storm of his music and a voice that you can't help but be emotionally engaged with.

Thu Nov 15 – St Pancras Church

Watch 'the story of Hummingbird' here

Trampled By Turtles

If you think you know bluegrass, think again.  Trampled By Turtles take the genre by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake up, sending a surging energy through the well worn template of banjo twang and dueling fiddles.  They're massive in their native US, but as being booked into the size-able Camden venue the Electric Ballroom proves, this rare showing in good old Blighty is feverishly anticipated too.

Fri Nov 16 –, Electric Ballroom

Watch 'So Long' here

Joshua Burnside

Northern Ireland's Joshua Burnside is one of a new generation of artist using new technology to reinvigorate their offering of traditional sounds.  Burnside is a multi-instrumentalist, with accordion and banjo very much at the fore of his sound, but after travelling the world in support if his award winning debut album 'Ephrata' he's been letting all sorts of influences and collaborators in to keep things fresh,

Thu Nov 22 – The Waiting Room

Watch 'A Man of High Renown' here

www.londonrootsfestival.com

Full listings:

                                Sat Nov 10 – Bruce Cockburn, St Pancras Church

Sun Nov 11 – Sam Kelly + The Lost Boys, Bush Hall

Mon Nov 12 – Vagabond Voices (Dean Owens & Yvonne Lyon), The Green Note, Camden

Tues Nov 13 – Over The Rhine, Union Chapel

Wed Nov 14 – Jake Morrell, The Slaughtered Lamb

Thu Nov 15 – Finbar Furey, Union Chapel

Thu Nov 15 – Sound of Sirens, The Slaughtered Lamb

Thu Nov 15 – John Smith, St Pancras Church

Fri Nov 16 – Trampled by Turtles, Electric Ballroom

Thu Nov 22 – Joshua Burnside, The Waiting Room

Photo of Sound of the Sirens by Matt Austin

Text by John Robbins

2018

TEN THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT SIR VERE’S ‘PSYCHOBALLISTICFUNK’ ALBUM

 1)   'SONAR' SETS ITS LAZERS TO STUN

A great album isn't a great album without a great opening, and 'Psychoballisticfunk' starts with a hailstorm of lazer fire, the crunch of drum machines and echoing dub effects. As icebreakers go, it's a corker, and even better, it's over in what feels like a flash, paving the way for the rest opf the album to unfold.

2)   JOHNNY MARR'S NAMECHECK ON 'NIGHT TIME'.

The album's third track is a boisterous stream of consciousness about a night out on the razzle, including bumping into a Spanish woman who, it transpires, has Rickenbacker guitar stashed in the back of her car. “She can play like Johnny Marr,” declares singer Craig Hammond with a mixture of amazement and adoration.
Hear 'Night Time': here

3)   DRUMS, DRUMS AND MORE DRUMS ON 'YOU, ME & THE CONTINUUM'

No prizes for guessing which instrument is the focus of this track, as a tsunami-sized wave of percussion overwhelms the mix, with only the subtlest of  electronic augmentation included to keep it fresh.

4)   ‘LIGHTS OUT’ – AND EYES DOWN FOR A FULL HOUSE

‘Psychoballisticfunk’ is packed with cleverly syncopated layers of sampled breakbeats and live drums meshed together.  But then there’s this, the shuffling, thumping house monster that is ‘Lights Out’.  Chunky heaven.

5)   SHEVVY MURPHYY'S VOCALS ON 'BUSTED LOOP'

Hammond is joined by female vocalist Shevvy Murphy on the brash, punky 'Busted Loop', about the frustration of being stuck queuing outside a nightclub just as the evening's chemical entertainment begins to kick in.  Her handling of the sassy sounding chorus is what makes it unforgettable.

6)   THE UK GARAGE BASS PRESSURE ON 'DO YOU LOVE ME (ANYMORE)'

In the dim and distant past, Sir-Vere counted one Zed Bias – he of massive UKG hit 'Neighbourhood' - as a band member.  These days it's Stevie Vega who takes on beats and bass duties but the colossal. nostril-tweaking sub-bass b-line that graces this electro/breaks hybrid shows their ability to incorporate the genre into their sound and make it sounds totally natural.

7)   'ALL FUNKED UP’S RIFF POWER

Sir-Vere guitarist Gary Morland makes a heap of key contributions across 'Psychoballisticfunk', but this is probably the best.  A nifty three note riff, nicely distorted, rides the single note bassline, with glorious results that sound like AC/DC and the Chemical Brothers joining forces.

 8)   HAMMOND'S CONSPIRACY THEORY LYRICS

'Holy Fool', rumoured to be about Donald Trump and the religious right in America, and 'Consume Me', with its dark utterances about Big Brother, show a lyrical bent that's head and shoulders above the usual twaddle that passes for words in most dance music.

9)   THE RETRO FUTURISM OF ‘THE SUNDANCE KISS’

Put simply, you’ve just got to love those swirling 80s synths….

10) THE BEGINNING OF THE END, ON 'LIPS'

The album's closing track is a fittingly blissful, euphoric climax to proceedings.  It's great throughout but its intro is truly spine tingling, with piano and strings intertwining to evoke memories of Prodigy at their most stirring and epic.  

The new album PSYCHOBALLISTICFUNK is out soon on Wall of sound Records