When warming wasn’t global, Canadian winters were very cold and Canadian music not yet cool, I was leaving Italy following my UK career.
When Rage against the Machine left a LA studio with their second album ready, a girl from Ottawa, Alanis Morissette, has just moved to LA to take the music scene aback with an album that will be selling around 30 million copies.

It was 1996. I was 26.
In Jagged Little Pill Alanis Morissette put into words and music all the rage coming from an unfaithful boyfriend. Not such an original idea, not even a prophetic thing, nevertheless in 13 songs a straightforward music integrate so well with the resentful lyrics that millions identified with her feelings.
It’s my coming out: I was among them.

For some particular reasons I haven’t yet ascertained, that album upset my unconscious enough to be the only album on my CD walkman in my Yorkshire residency. It managed to win the competition even against Oasis’ (What’s the story) morning glory? that was being played virtually everywhere.
Jagged little pill anger was satiating emotional needs hidden somewhere deep inside me.
Sabine introduced me to the album, the two of us and our soundtrack were indivisible for some weeks.

The other album I got around that time was Evil Empire the sophomore Rage Against the Machine. Despite it wasn’t as good as the debut, the opening pair People of the Sun/Bulls on Parade was my favourite choice anytime I needed to fuel my rebellion against the system!

I flew back to Rome, it was summer. Within few weeks both RATM and Alanis were about to playing.

The Rage gig was due in a space occupied by squatters, anarchists and left wing radicals. They agreed to play there, no tickets required just a free contribution to support that place and to pay the expenses. An amazing occasion to catch the band at its peak in their best natural environment.
A bizarre July day in Rome; it had been raining cats and dogs the entire afternoon. It didn’t stop me and my moped to cross the city to get there, wet, but too happy to see RATM live.
Regrettably, inexperienced organizers ignored that in Rome it may rain in July. The stage hadn’t been covered, got as soaked as me and that concert was cancelled, in the space of minutes it moved from history to a myth.
I have been swearing at those organizers for 12 years since, I kept missing RATM at least twice afterward until they split.

Alanis Morissette’s Italian date was on the contrary organised by a proper rock circuit. Don’t think this in Italy means a gig in a proper theatre or a rock venue, she was to play in a tennis court, but at least that concert happened.

Listening to my favourite soundtrack live was enthralling and emotional at the same time. I was on my own, Sabine was back to France and couldn’t join me.

A kind of magic happens when your fans-attitude pairs with personal emotions and stumble upon the concert of your hero at the peak of success. It is quite rare but if occurs expect to have a touching, unforgettable night.

There are side effects, though. If you have compulsive collector inclination, it is easy to get into fan’s obsession. Once there, you don’t believe that time goes by, legends fade, albums are not always that good and your mood changes. You think the past doesn’t pass, you keep feeding your dreams, you believe memories can indeed be revived.
I have been following Alanis Morissette career since that era, promptly being let down by almost any of her new songs or concert I went to.

2008. I’m 38.
During five days, my twelve years wait since that July rain ended on the 14th of June. Modena, Italy.
I flew from UK for the occasion. RATM are playing Europe, their tour misses London (the only band on earth to tour Europe without playing London). To stop that pluriennial spell which was impeding me to see them live, I pretended to be the mountain and I went to Mohammed.
I am neither a mountain nor a Muslim, but I am still a Rage Against the Machine fan, no way I would have missed them again!

It was well worth the wait and the journey. RATM live are a blast, the only band able to “wake up” 40.000 people, make us jump unruly from the front to the stadium border half a mile away. A breathtaking experience, from the opening Bombtrack with the band hooded and dressed with orange Guantanamo uniforms to the encore, when Killing in the name of proved to be the only song which can question my non-violent, peaceful attitude.

Five days later, still shocked, I am back to UK and I head to the Brixton Academy for Alanis Morissette comeback.

Gossips say she is hurt, her boyfriend left her for an emerging “singer”: Scarlett Johansson. She is not only competing with Alanis on the music field, her Tom Waits covers CD is out now, apparently she also managed to win the love of her fiancé. Tough stardom competition.

Reviewers find the analogy and assume that being wounded brought Alanis back to the angry mood that made her miserable and “zillionaire”…

“…You took me for a joke
You took me for a child
You took a long hard look at my ass
And then played golf for a while
Your shake is like a fish
You pat me on the head
You took me out to wine dine 69 me
But didn’t hear a damn word I said…
… …
Hello Mr. Man
You didn’t think I’d come back
You didn’t think I’d show up with my army
And this ammunition on my back
Now that I’m Miss Thing
Now that I’m a zillionaire
You scan the credits for your name
And wonder why it’s not there”

[Right Through you - Alanis Morissette]

Punctual, history doesn’t repeat.
1996 isn’t back. Alanis new album, Flavors of Entanglement is my umpteenth disillusion. Not a bad album, but albeit the dance-ish feel is not able to move me an inch. My ears are too far away from radio friendly pop tunes.

The new songs are synth rich and have a twist that doesn’t come close to her beginnings, actually is one of her most different works to date. Rock leaves space to dance loops, anger to distraction.

On the Brixton stage Alanis looks like a weird clone made with Sheryl Crow’s head on the top of Janis Joplin body and you don’t have to wonder why it’d be better if it was the other way around.

Alanis still got the energy, the temperament and she enjoys playing. She is into the songs so much to look alienated, as if she doesn’t perceive the five thousands screaming in front of her.

She runs up and down along the stage and is symphatetic with her dedicated band.
The music is arranged, keyboards are more dominant than usual as on the CD. The drummer protected behind a weird plexiglas barrier keeps the beat.
I can be still touched by any tune from Jagged Little Pill, I am sure I always will, those songs hit deep inside, but I just tolerate the rest.

You could argue it would be ridiculous to keep doing the same thing again and again, fair enough, then I think at that RATM gig just 5 days ago, they are back to do exactly the same thing again and again and that thing sounds as effective as always.

I must have moved away from the emotional rebellion that Jagged caused in me, but it is clear I am more than ever in need of RATM incitement, need to wake up.

Wake-Up

“…’Cause it’s easy not to
So much easier not to
And what goes around never comes around to you
…
There’s no love, no money, no thrill anymore
…
Get up get up get up off of it
Get out get outta here enough already
Get up get up get up off of it
Wake up”

[Wake Up – Alanis Morissette]

More Alanis Morissette [website] [myspace]

Wake Up

“…Yeah!
Yeah, back in this…
Wit’ poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin’ dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
‘Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I’m like takin’ photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin’ people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot…”

[Wake Up – Rage Against The Machine]

More Rage Against the Machine [website]

Photo tip

I am not a fan of sharpness in concert photography, if you browse this site regularly you must have noticed it. I like the dynamics arising from blurred images, I like the lack of details in an unfocused pictures.

If flash is not allowed, sharpness at gigs is achieved via perfect focusing, a quick shutter speed and the lowest possible ISO. You need to avoid motion and to minimize rumour (or film grain). It goes without saying that with the low light conditions you have, this is difficult and sometimes simply impossible.

Focusing is the “easy” bit, a good autofocus or a lot of experience on manual focus usually will give you some good images. It is clearly easier if the artists don’t move a lot, the main problem is that it happens when they are singing so you end up with a perfectly sharp picture with a totally irritating microphone in front of singer’s face. Be patient and wait for the right moment.

The ideal shutter speed is not fixed, it depends on several aspects.
Lens length. It takes part in camera shake. The rule of thumb tells to use a shutter speed which is the inverse of the lens length.
So, for example, if you are using a 28mm lens, your shutter should be in the range of 1/30s, if you are using a 200mm you don’t want to use a speed slower than 1/250s.
This usually works to avoid your hand shake and you understand why a wideangle is your favourite choice to have more chance of success.

Then you have to freeze your artist. This is more difficult to predict and depends on his/her motion as well as the distance from you.
A certain rule, you don’t stand a chance to catch a hip-hop star jumping 30cm from you, unless you use flash. If that is the case, give up trying and wait for the next folk concert!

In normal conditions (for a rock show), a shutter in the range of 1/125s-1/250s will be OK in most occasions.
Be aware that to have such speed minimizing ISO (best if you set them not higher than 800), you need quite wide apertures. As a consequence the depth of field will be very short and precise focusing becomes vital.
You may understand now another reason I prefer blurred shots…much less of a trouble!

Everything happened so quickly I still have to recover from the surprise.
From the first time I heard Fleet Foxes to being in front of the stage photographing their live London concert, just a week went by.

In this short period I came across countless reviews of their homonymous debut.
I can’t name a single one who hasn’t praised this album less then wonderful. Innumerable stars, coming from journalists of any background, ridiculed milky way count on a bright summer night.
My curiosity was turned on, my legendary scepticism followed short after.

I rushed to listen to what is available on myspace, not the best way to approach music, nonetheless the cheapest and quickest, considering the miraculous debut album wasn’t going to be out in time for the gig.

I admit I wasn’t particularly impressed by those tracks but considering I am rarely seduced by music streaming via PC and with all those flattering articles in mind, I was still convinced to go and see them live.

Just over an hour of their music and everything changed. Fact is, Fleet Foxes concert astonished and captured the sold out ULU with a flawless, breathtaking set.

The US answer to Canada seems to have rooted once again in Seattle and once again SubPop is controlling the blossom. If this is not enough coincidence, Neil Young is at the heart of this wave…once again!
If “grunge” epitomized Neil Young electric facet, this emerging new folk-rock scene, eradicated in the white North American musical roots, takes its inspiration from Neil Young acoustic works.

Put as simple as this is a very restricted view of the full frame. Most of white American music must be included in the picture to complete the landscape, including the borders with Canada that revealed to be a semi-permeable membrane which allows a continuous music flow into Northern States. A sort of “musical osmosis”, that goes beyond the barriers of time and space, is producing refreshing new cocktails. If you drive coast to coast along the Canadian borders these days, you come upon the hometown of one of the best modern music realities roughly every 50 miles.

At the ULU doors leaflets are already announcing a new Shepherd Bush date for Fleet Foxes in November. Inside the venue, before the start, tenths of people are queuing to buy Fleet Foxes the album and Sun Giant, the EP.
These are notable signs, considering the material on offer daily, Londoners have reasons to be choosy.

Stubborn and sceptical, I decide I want to listen to the gig before investing my money on the album. It is so good from the first song that I am prophetic enough to decide to head to the merchandise stall to get my hands on both the CD and EP (and a free poster) before the end. Just a couple of minutes more and the queue would have been long enough to have missed my last train home.

The five pieces come on stage and singer guitarist, Robin Pecknold, goes something like “good evening, we are U2”, from the crowd someone shouts “play Sunday bloody Sunday!”, Robin quickly answers “Don’t worry we’re gonna play all our hits tonight” while guitarist sketched few notes of The Edge’s riff with a folky sound. It’s fun from the start.

Apparently to form a rock band in the States today, long hair and beards are as essential as guitars. More useful to produce music, the rest of the stage is filled with keyboards, bass, drums acoustic and electric guitar. A classic line-up but what catches your attention from the first song is the singing performed by everyone but the electric guitarist which is fully dedicated in generating his peculiar sound by means of pedals and even a Page-ian bow.

An almost a-cappella version of Sun Giant kicks off the show, it is instantly clear we’re not going to miss U2 tonight.
With vocal harmonies borrowed from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young legacy; the songs have an ethereal folky feel that all of a sudden can burst into sonic slashes of reverber. Quiet pastoral passages crisscrossed with choral organ chords have a Sunday solemn mass feel.

Despite I have been dubious since My Morning Jacket and Arcade Fire opened indie-rock to baroque harmonies and highly structured arrangements, I have to admit the trend is becoming more and more alluring and excellent bands are joining the company.
Where Band of Horses seduced me with a wonderful electric concert, Fleet Foxes acoustic rendition of the same theme seems to make it even better.

A sophisticated result from a simple formula, as it usually happens with good albums. It starts from the music they confess to love and, with a modern vision of the scene, moves away from there to sound at the same time warm and refreshing.
From the discordant opener Sun it Rises, which puts together echoes of Beach Boys infusing drops of cheery pop into lakes of Joni Mitchell melancholy to the wonderful closer Oliver James that recalls CSN&Y and Simon and Garfunkel singing, among their songs there are already instant classics as I would define pearls as White Winter Hymnal, Quite Houses or the wonderful Mikonos and English House selected for the debut EP Sun Giant.

You can argue part of such an ecstatic view is because I am mirroring my long hair and beard into this five guys’ music, and I wouldn’t argue with you on this, but undeniably listening to Band of Horses, Grand Archives and Fleet Foxes I truly believe SubPop has found a new gold mine for the future of indie music.
As a related observation, this curiously clashes with the SubPop strategy to support the return of Mudhoney or the formation of a band as Gutter Twins that compared to their label mates instantly sound just a tardy attempt to resurrect an outdated decade while rock music is well ready for to the next.

2010 is not too far and, if the nineties were dominated by electric Seattle and the beginning of this century has been characterised by American bands playing with an English sound (Strokes, Interpol, Killers…), I envisage in the next future American rock will be dedicated to rediscover its white roots. Groups as Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver and more to come are clearly leading this scene and indicating the pathway is linked to the music, the life, the fields and the animals of their ancestors. Foxes included.

Meet Fleet Foxes on their [myspace] [@ subpop]

Photo Tip

The Bar of student unions is a classic British place to put up a rock stage for emerging bands. Any UK university has one, the biggest the university the most important the concerts that are happening in there.

University of London Students Union, as known as ULU, has reached such a fame that is now part of the established London venues circuit, hosting several big acts weekly.

The interesting bit is that these places preserve that students mood even when the entire audience left university ages before or still has to start it. This includes a chatty and cosy atmosphere, relatively cheap drinks, vending machines and loads of chairs, tables and sofas to relax before the gig.

The negative bit is that these places resist to adapt, from an area thought for few students relaxing after a hard studying session, to a place packed up with rock fans.

In particular ULU problems include extreme heat, no photographers’ pit and the resulting struggle to get to the front row even if Fleet Foxes folk-ish crowd is laid-back.
The impossibility of moving along the stage to try different angles and the sweaty conditions got worse with a heavy bag and two cameras hanging from my neck, to the point that I left that position after the ritual 3 songs and moved upstairs to explore the balcony.

It proved to be a good move, despite there was as crowded as the stalls, I managed to sit on the aisle right to the front and use it as a privileged position for some panoramic shots.
On a 35mm size a 70mm lens is the perfect length to frame the whole stage. I used anything from a 50mm to a 135mm to get some close ups. There you have the additional advantage to exploit the front barrier to avoid camera shakes.

If you are going to photograph at the ULU, my suggestion is to bring with you a range of lenses to overcome both the no-pit situations and to move upstairs to take some snaps from the balcony.

Results pay back even if they cannot compete with the feeling of being back to university. Unfortunately it lasts just a couple of hours, the pictures much longer though.

I am not into rap, hip-hop, urban. I never did.
The g-culture, ghettos, gangs, guns is not my culture, it couldn’t be.
I am white, I am from Rome, I am 38. In the end all these things sum up.
My credentials to be part of this music, understand it to the point of talking about it, is quite impossible. It is like asking a Bronx gang to listen to Italian folk or Balkan dance and write a comprehensive review.

Everything to me is even complicated by the hip-hop slang and their use of singing.
I have been in UK for quite a while but I still cannot understand many of the rap lyrics, which doesn’t help to get into the experience while listening to an album or a gig.

Nevertheless I can still take photo, photography jumps more easily the barriers of languages and cultures, doesn’t it?

On top of this, Public Enemy are well beyond a simple rap squad. Public Enemy have been for more than twenty years the model for any political group, a crucial reference for any urban act and each militant band that followed.

Their legacy goes much beyond rap and black culture and has influenced cross-over acts since. We would not have Rage Against The Machine, Living Colour, Korn, Beastie Boys and even Red Hot Chili Peppers wouldn’t be the same without Public Enemy storming the music scene.

Politically inspired by the seminal Gil Scott-Heron’s poetry, musically urbanizing the funk of George Clinton and Sly Stone’s families, radicalizing the DJ disco sounds of the eighties and flirting with rock guitars, Public Enemy beat has been the voice and the symbol of black American rebellion.

I have always been interested in USA social issues, I have always been critic about USA politics, I am interested at black fight for emancipation, I love blues and jazz, their social history and the way it permeates their communities. No doubts it is PE radical aspect the most appealing side to me.

By a mere coincidence I just finished reading Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival, a week before this gig, so I was totally in the mood for such a night.

“Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother fuck him and John Wayne
Cause I’m Black and I’m proud
I’m ready and hyped plus I’m amped
Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps
Sample a look back you look and find
Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check
Don’t worry be happy
Was a number one jam
Damn if I say it you can slap me right here
(Get it) lets get this party started right
Right on, c’mon
What we got to say
Power to the people no delay
To make everybody see
In order to fight the powers that be”

[Fight the Power – Public Enemy]

Chuck D is not only the mind behind Public Enemy, the frontman, a legend for rap lovers and the creator of political rap. Coming from an activist family he is personally involved in actions, lectures and likes to define himself a “raptivist”.

So critical against American governments to be compared to Black Panther’s manifesto, Chuck D (D stands for Dangerous) has been on the blacklist of American power for his plain-spoken statements “Governments are the cancer of civilisation…government and culture are two diametrically opposed forces - the one blinds and oppresses, the other uplifts and unites” (the Observer)

On Chuck D side, Flavor Fav with its big plastic clock hanging over his neck is his stooge and Public Enemy most memorisable figure.
Public Enemy image has always worked because of the perfect balance between Chuck D strong declarations and the “cartoon role” of Flavor Fav which, instead of making fun of the whole thing, strengthen Chuck D meanings, engage the audience and make Public Enemy live show a brilliant act and not only a political demonstration with a DJ sampling songs on a drum base.

The ATP “don’t look back” series of concerts showed in years to be a successful format, giving the fans what the fans any concert hope.
Historical bands have been asked to play live, in their track-by-track entirety, their most famous albums.
So far mostly concentrated on white american alternative scene: Sonic Youth, Jon Spencer, Slint, Dinosaur Jr, Patti Smith, Sebadoh, Lemonheads, Sophia, Mudhoney have all delighted their fans performing their magnum opus.

It was quite surprising to read that Public Enemy were asked and agreed to perform their masterpiece for the very first time.
The occasion was the 20th anniversary of the release of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
Chuck D, Flavor Flav and their entire posse came to UK to play what has been described, by almost any music magazine, the most important rap album of all times.

More than enough to fuel my curiosity, challenge my English and get my cameras loaded.

“Cause the D is for dangerous
You can come and get some of this
I teach and speak
So when its spoke, it’s no joke
The voice of choice
The place shakes with bass
Called one for the treble
The rhythm is the rebel
Here’s a funky rhyme that they’re tappin’ on
Just thinkin’ I’m breakin’ the beats I’m rappin’ on
CIA FBI
All they tell us is lies
And when I say it they get alarmed
‘Cause I’m louder than a bomb”

[Louder than a bomb – Public Enemy]

On stage Public Enemy are a drummer, a DJ (Lord), a guitarist, a bass player, three “kind of” samurai performing war dances in a Public Enemy mimetic uniform and, of course, the wonderful pair, Chuck D and his alter ego Flavor Flav. No wonder why they name themselves a bomb squad!

As soon as the album starts, with the immortal Bring the Noise, the crowd feels the moment and burst in euphoria. They forget nostalgia and realize that good music is ageless, so simply ageless that many forgot to be in their forties and started to dance wildly many years since they did last time.

Chuck D confessed the song was such a good opener that the original LP sides would have been inverted but they didn’t to keep it at the start.

The concert continues furious and passionate in its track by track splendour. It follows with Don’t Believe the Hype, a statement made famous recently in UK by the Arctic Monkeys, and hit by hit closes with the anthem Party For Your Right To Fight.

“To those that disagree it causes static
For the original Black Asiatic man
Cream of the earth
And was here first
And some devils prevent this from being known
But you check out the books they own
Even masons they know it
But refuse to show it, yo
But it’s proven and fact
And it takes a nation of millions to hold us back”

[Party For Your Right To Fight – Public Enemy]

The rest of the Public Enemy world is on their official [website] [lyrics] [myspace]

Photo Tip

One of the best bits of Public Enemy gig is Chuck D and Flavor Flav constant interaction with the audience.
It can happen for a song, but it doesn’t happen to have a band having such an incessant physical contact with their audience throughout the set. It is a fantastic chance to freeze some of these moments.

It is one of the most challenging aspects of concert photography. Usually photographers don’t have many occasions on three songs and even if it happens there are many potential (but frequent) obstacles, this time you need all you skills.

These kinds of shots are difficult but the results are very catchy. The interaction keep the eyes of the viewer constantly moving from one side to the other of the action being stuck to the image longer.

The best chance to have artist-public interaction is with bands that have a singer who doesn’t play an instrument (and it is not Mark Lanegan). On average they are less busy and tend to interact more with their fans.

The ideal place is a small venue which has a photo pit where you are allowed staying and taking photos. Pit doesn’t have to be too wide, so that the artists can reach their fans without jumping down from the stage.

If you are to this point, your main problem become, in fact, the other people with you in the pit. Security and other photographers usually make pits quite crowded areas.
You don’t want to frame unwanted individuals, who make pictures messy and distracting and are quite complicate to remove even if you are a photoshop wizard.

The right moment is when you and all photographers are on the same side. You can arrange with them in advance, since it is in their interest to try catching this too, otherwise just follow them. Security guys are usually rigid and heavy as marble statues, they will not move so you have to go around them. The one in the centre is usually the biggest and the most annoying, after all he is the air-traffic controller, paid to catch the landing of surf-crowders. You can’t blame the management.

Now, step aside, preferring the area that gives the picture the darkest, neater background; this helps the final result and, eventually, the photoshop session.

Mount a lens (or a zoom) wide enough to include the artist and the public. It depends on the distance between the stage and the barrier; usually a mild wide-angle lens, 28mm or 35mm, works for me. It goes without saying the faster the better.

Monitor the lights usually the audience is quite in the dark so, if you can’t use flash, to have details of the hands you have to spot the right moment that, as any concert light, last no more of a fraction of a sec. Be ready and very quick.

Don’t get nervous and have fun. It is not an easy one. Quite a lot of experience, patience and luck must concentrate on the same night before you get the image you dream. Don’t be discouraged keep trying and trying again, it will happen.

If there was a list of potential reunions unlikely to happen ten years ago, Dinosaur Jr would have ranked second, not far from checking Morrissey and Marr back together in a tour bus.

Let’s travel back in time to a seminal year: 1991. Rock history was turned upside down.

Nirvana released Nevermind.
Capitalizing on Dinosaur Jr. influential works, Nevermind was the landmark album which will lead “Seattle wave” to conquer the world. Twelve songs that swept the eighties away as a tornado.

Meanwhile J Mascis was working all alone to finish the fourth Dinosaur Jr. album: Green Mind. Almost a solo project; the first without his schoolmate, bassist Lou Barlow, and Patrick Murphy’s drums.
The clash of egos in the previous months ended up in fights and the original Dinosaur Jr. line-up went into pieces.

Murphy went drumming with Evan Dando’s Lemonheads.
Barlow took his side project to main, and shouted all his frustration versus Mascis on The Freed Pig, the instructive opening track of Sebadoh masterpiece: III.

“You were right
I was battling you, trying to prove myself
I tried to bury you with guilt; I wanted to prove you wrong
I’ve got nothing better to do than pay too much attention to you
It’s sad, but it’s not your fault
Self-righteous and rude
I guess I lost that cool
Tapping until I drive you insane
I’m self-righteous, but never right
So laid back, but so uptight
Destroying your patience to tolerate me
With all the negative spirit I bring
Right, I was obsessed to bring you down
Watching your every move
Playing a little-boy game
Always with something to prove
Waiting to cut you down, making it hard to live
With only one thing to do
Cut me first, make it easy
Now you will be free
Now that nothing depends on me
Tapping until I drive you insane
Now you will be free
With no sick people tugging on your sleeve
Your big head has that “more room to grow”
A glory I will never know”

[The Freed Pig - Sebadoh III (1991) - Lyrics by Lou Barlow]

Apparently Barlow didn’t hurt Mascis’ ego enough to make him stop. J toured Green Mind and selected, as support, an emerging Seattle band - guess who? - Nirvana.
The twist is complete and the revolution set to start.

Harsh guitars, kindly offered to rock scene by Dinosaurs, with Pixies and Sonic Youth’s contribution, will be merged into that marketing operation called “Grunge”.
It will dominate rock music for the next decade, any bunch of guys playing guitars in Seattle make it to a label, an album and surely a rank in one sort of indie chart.
Even a declining star as Neil Young, at a complete loss during the eighties, managed to find his second youth being acknowledged as a godfather by this unstoppable music wave.

Everything culminates with Cobain death in 1994. A Neil Young citation “it’s better to burn out, than to fade away” closes his suicide note, it is worth mentioning.

Dramatic but true, the shock of a man life is a perfect chance that the music marketing took for its goals. The sanctification of the man, the band, the music and the whole period will bring huge incomes to anyone involved with it: from music to books, from clothing to hairdresser.
[Suggested reading: "Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine (the Rise of Disaster Capitalism)"]

Begin of 2005. Rumors are spreading; Dinosaur Jr. original line up will tour again.
Having missed the real thing on the good old days - a teenager in Rome doesn’t have so many chances (and money) to access any indie label overseas - I was thrilled, curious and a bit worried to see live a band which I discovered too late. Can they still rock?

8th of June 2005. I stand in the front barrier of the Forum; Dinosaur Jr. third gig of the new era is in London. I managed to sneak in my camera to catch them (not having a pass those days) but a big security guy confiscated my camera after my second shot. Me: “everyone is taking photos!” him: “this is too professional”.
Since that day I haven’t realized there is a professional camera’s ranking, I never thought my worn-out film SLR would even be eligible to compete! I got it back at the end, though.

The gig was extremely loud, very wild and little interactive; everything followed expected plans. Apparently nothing changed in the 18 years gap.
The music sounded still embryonic, as if the band was trying to decide what direction to go but it got surprisingly better song after song. I won’t forget the inimitable sequence Sludgefeast, Freak Scene, and Cure’s cover Just Like Heaven as a closure that left me excited enough to be seduced and buy a 5£ unofficial T-shirt outside the venue.
The message was to be spread: Dinosaur Jr. are back!

15th of May 2008. Still resentful for that guy who blocked me from taking pictures, I proudly enter Koko holding a proper photo-pass and showing off the security my full-size camera bag.

Dinosaur Jr during these three years have been very busy.
Whilst incessantly touring, they curated 2006 All Tomorrow Parties festival, they played on its entirety their second You’re Living All Over Me and they find the time to record an album full of new material: Beyond. Their first release in 18 years, doesn’t add more than a couple of songs to their “best of” playlist, yet is one of the few notable comeback albums to have ever been issued.

I think I am ready. Standing in the Koko photographers’ pit for this warm-up pre-ATP festival, I am selecting the best spots, sneaking at the setlist and counting the pile of Marshall amps on stage… when I figure out I forgot my earplugs, gosh!

The trio starts playing as soon as they walk on stage. Usual coldness, usual wall of very loud sound for my unprotected ears. I am dazed by their mix of feedback and distortion, a noise which mix to melody and deliver their ageless sound.

Mascis (and Barlow) voices don’t have the volume high enough to emerge over the guitars explosion. The songs are rowdy, the public goes wild.
It is a feedback driven trip from the start, a sonic journey into distorted rock history which gets its best moment in the instrumental rides of solos.

Mascis is the heart, soul and hair of the band. Hidden behind his cascade of long, straight, tiny and grey spaghetti, he is fully dedicated to his guitar. He forgets the audience and ignores his mates.

Lou Barlow, split between his two creatures (the reunited Sebadoh played Koko just a couple of days before), tonight looks satisfied to keep is ego on a side, let Mascis have the leader role and even play bass on a couple of songs from the post-Barlow Dinosaurs catalogue.
Patrick Murphy, not a single hair left, still drums the hell out of his kit.

In the brilliant mayhem that the three manage to produce, you wouldn’t appreciate which remarkable songwriters they are if you didn’t know the songs. To distinguish between the eternal classics from the weaker, recent material on the setlist is a for-fans-only task.
Earsplitting guitar, bass and incessant drums are Dinosaur Jr. distinctive live quality whatever they play.
If you want to listen to good songs, you better buy their remastered special priced first 3 albums.
If you are after a night of distortion and feedback, better you hurry up and get a ticket, the spell is still on.

Dinosaur Jr online [myspace] [website]

“I’ve been asking ’round if you were there
Asking, but I’m always scared
Asking ’cause I want to care again
Come on life
I’m almost ready
Not right
I’m almost ready”

[Almost Ready – Beyond (2007) - Lyrics by J Mascis]

Photo tip

A classic of rock music: Long hair.
Something linked to teenagers’ rebellion that, if you are a rockstar and baldness spares you, will last until Robert Plant age.
If you were a musician in the 70s they were a must-have. Nowadays they are more occasional, but when you meet someone with hair falling over his shoulder it still retain the rocker cliché.

Mascis straight, long, grey hair are, on their own, a subject worth a reportage. The use he makes of it, mainly to hide his face, would be argument of an interesting psychoanalytical lecture.

Photography wise, it is a good occasion for some different portraits.
Use a medium telephoto lens, something like a fast 85mm would be best. Open it wide to minimize the depth of field (DOF) and exploit a longer shutter speed (ideally 1/250s @ f1.4). What you need to achieve is freezing any movement in order to have a sharp crisp image which emphasize the hair.

If you can use the artist head to cover a backlight, you will have a bright background which will glorify the haircut for the joy of your viewers and his hairdresser. It is not easy but keep trying, it will happen sooner or later.

The other effect you can try with long hair is to use their movement to increase dynamism in your pictures.
A situation difficult to control, the procedure is exactly the opposite of the previous one for portraits. You better set a wider lens, a longer shutter time that will give you a blurred image but will let you use a deeper DOF (let’s say 1/15s @ f5.6) helpful to keep your hero in the in-focus area even if it moves.

Try and then try again…especially for the one of you working digitally who can check the photos straight after, you can quickly improve the results.

One of the reasons I am waiting for the release of the wonderful James Mollison’s photo book about rock fans - Disciples - is to see if he selected any image of Einstürzende Neubauten followers.

Among the hundreds of gigs I went I am not capable of naming another band that has a fanbase as cohesive, loyal and supportive as Einstürzende Neubauten.

Just before my first Neubauten gig, a couple of years ago at London Koko, I chatted with a woman who came all the way from Boston (USA), on her own, in order to follow their UK tour. She told me how hard was to convince her husband (who stayed at home) to let her cross the Atlantic in order to see some gigs of her favorite band. I have always been fascinated by the psychology behind die-hard fans and I was trying to catch which is the drive that a person finds to employ so much energy and money into this.

While chatting, we were heard by a group of Neubauten devotees who joined our conversation. Unsurprisingly (at that moment I could expect everything) they had just traveled from Germany specifically for the gig and were standing by her choice against husband’s doubt. They were utterly convinced that a Neubauten gig is worth a familiar crisis and a transatlantic flight.

At that point I felt curious and fascinated at the same time, I didn’t tell them that my drive to be at that gig was the Australian band The Devastations supporting!

I cannot call me neither a fan nor an expert of industrial music to attempt a qualified review. I got to know Einstürzende Neubauten about 10 years ago through Blixa Bargeld’s collaboration with the Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds. My words are just a passionate complement to this picture story of one of their legendary live performance.
An introduction for the ones who don’t know them, an apology for the fans who are reading.
Everyone is invited to comment and improve this article with their experience, anecdotes, corrections.

Named after the German equivalent of “collapsing new buildings”, Einstürzende Neubauten formed in west Berlin in 1980.

Condensing the dark sounds of Manchester post-punk, industrial noise from the Ruhr steel factories, Klaus Schulze and Kraftwerk electronica, German lyrics (which I don’t understand!) and a stupefying and unexpected endowment for sumptuous melody, that only a country who gave birth to Beethoven and Wagner can have, their work is a sonic experience that goes beyond any music classification.

Neubauten are the music equivalent of a work of conceptual-art or, if you prefer to see the other way round, a conceptual art collective that performs using music, words, design, architecture and theatre.

Their music is produced by conventional rock instruments, their noise achieved with conventional industrial tools, unconventionally brought on theatre stages. It wasn’t surprising to meet on a Neubauten’s eighties show pneumatic hammer, air compressor, circular saw. It is still common to see them producing sounds using steel plates, metal shavings and “instruments” made from any building material.

The environment is first “collapsed” by the use of loud metallic devices then your deafened ears are gently tickled by polystyrene flakes let fall softly. The gentle sound of a chemical rain in a post atomic landscape.

Blixa innate theatrical attitude is the centre of attention around which everything and everyone else gravitate. A magnetic director of his orchestra, an opera singer on loan to entertain metalworkers in a plant yard.

Supported by the eminent contribution of original members, bassist Alexander Hacke and “instruments’ inventor” N.U. Unruh, the line-up completes with three more artists who share guitar, drums, keyboards and (odd) percussions duties.

Their early live performances used to concentrate on the noisy industrial aspect of their sound, ending with systematic destruction (Einstürzende=collapsing) of the stage, operated by their own instruments.

After this first radical decade, Einstürzende Neubauten music in the nineties took a twist experimenting with electronica and melody. The compositions started to have a “kind of” identifiable song structure.
The recent live shows privilege this aspect, nevertheless I still find more enthralling any moment the stage resembles an assembly line and ceases to appear a rock concert.

The band returns fans devotion letting them being part of their projects.
Unsigned to any record label, Neubauten albums are produced by the band, sold at gigs and available only through their official website.
Any of their concert is recorded on site and released as limited edition double CD that you can book only the same night of the gig.

They also created a form of support which, behind a payment of a fee, gets you audio and video material, links among supporter through your dedicated @neubauten.org e-mail, and an active part in spreading their music to the world. An all-embracing plan which allows full communication between the band and its public bypassing the music industry.

I don’t have doubts building such a community is good to keep all fans united, but looking at the dedication of their almost religious audience I wonder how this is effective to involve new fans and simple avant-garde music lovers. My feeling is that this looks as a very strict circle and speak a personal language which could be a bit intimidating for a novice. Who wants to be part of it, but isn’t ready to start a conversation about their change of line-up or doesn’t have a clue about the meaning behind their German texts, could feel out of place.

At the end of that first gig, I looked for those fans arrived from everywhere. I wanted to tell them that after two hours of such a majestic experience I could understand better their passion. Unfortunately I haven’t found them and I haven’t joint the EN supporters.
I find it difficult to be a fan of anyone, I am too curious and moody. My musical preferences change with my feelings, as you can guess reading the progression of artists decorating this site; nevertheless since I experienced how Einstürzende Neubauten produce their works, I periodically play one of their Strategies against Architecture. These three collections should be the starting point for anyone approaching the band.

If you want an even quicker introduction, get in touch with the world of Einstürzende Neubauten here [website] [myspace] [supporter]

Photo tip

It is a while I wanted to talk about the use of details in concert photography, I was just waiting for the right act.
Now, using Einstürzende Neubauten performance can be even cheeky, but it definitely speaks my mind out. Neubauten are recognisable more by their stage design than by the musicians. They use a logo that competes with Prince’s for the most famous (and beautiful) all through music scene.
I bet much more people know the Einstürzende Neubauten logo than the face of their guitarist. A picture of it (or including it) could be more revealing than the artist.

Who does it regularly knows that taking concert pictures can be incredibly repetitive. You spend countless “three songs” waiting for a moment diverse from the usual “singer playing guitar stuck to the microphone pole”. It is boring and you have to think different. You make use of lights, you change your lenses, you move along the stage although photographer’s freedom in a pit is not much.
We depend on both the artists in front of us and the light technicians at the mixing desk.

That is why, I tend to make use of other elements beyond the artist himself. It is plenty of interesting things to photograph on a stage, pedals, instruments, stickers, amps, boxes, cables, glasses of beer, weird tools and band logos.

Taking advantage of this, whenever you spot something interesting, is useful. You might not use the images for a one photo complement to a review, but they can harmonize a report and complement a portfolio with some different shots.

Don’t be too seduced by your stars, ignore them for a little while every so often.

Let’s start from where I just finished. The Astoria, the blues, the Johnny Winter sunburst Gibson Firebird brought back to its glory.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am reconciled, blues has a future and a name:
The Black Keys.

Dan Auerbach (guitar) and Patrick Carney (drums) are the ones who hold the (black) keys of blues renaissance. The only ones, since Meg depression put the White Stripes on hiatus, that can keep the blues alive this side of the millennium.

Solving the first music-puzzle, I can count at least 3 bands named after “Black xxxS”: Lips, Kids and Keys. Even including the Black (Eyed) Peas, the Black Crowes, the Black Seeds and the Black Angels which fail the rebus just for few letters, the Black Keys are by far the most amazing of them all.

You can also browse among the overabundance of indie-garage duos, all rigorously plural: The White Stripes, Blood Red Shoes, the Ting Tings, The Kills, The Dresden Dolls, the Raveonettes. The Black Keys are, again, the most amazing of them all.

If you hit the 5 “black keys” on a piano keyboard, you play an e-flat minor pentatonic (blues) scale. So we solved the name-puzzle too.

Music knowledge follows strange paths.
I stumbled upon Black Keys when their LP Rubber Factory came out thanks to a Fat Possum leaflet in one of their CD.
Fat Possum, possibly the most amazing blues label on earth, began recording, preserving and spreading some neglected bluesmen from the Hill Country, Mississippi. A rougher music, stripped to the bone, mostly played with just an electric guitar and a three piece drumkit. A music which never left the Delta juke joints, never got to Chicago or Memphis’ night clubs.

These records, to the disappointment of many bass players, where discovered by some garage rock bands in the nineties and gave rise to a trend of coarse, angular sound.
It is often referred as “punk-blues”, a futile word. Speaking in person with eighty-something years old T-Model Ford, one of the few of these bluesmen still alive, he confessed he doesn’t have a clue what punk is. “I know the blues and I play the blues” were his words while his trembling hand was trying to sign one of his CDs.

I met Fat Possum thanks to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and their A Ass Pocket of Whiskey album, recorded with another great bluesman, R. L. Burnside. As you might expect with Joe Spencer, not a great studio record, but the discover of a great treasure.

That is how Fat Possum signed, the Black Keys’ Rubber Factory first, Thickfreakness and the Junior Kimbrough’ covers EP, Chulahoma second, travelled from Oxford - Mississippi to land into my letterbox. Full circle.
Since they arrived I never stopped playing them, along with the blues of their mentors: Junior Kimbrough, R. L. Burnside, Asye Payton, and T-Model Ford. If you love the “Keys” give their grandfathers a go.

Back to present, Attack and Release, their fifth album, has recently been published by Nonesuch/V2, a label with a press office clearly more efficient than Fat Possum.
It is being reviewed and applauded as their best work to date.
Unquestionably it is their most diverse, if it translates into their best, I’ll tell when I can approach the listening without a sensation of perplexity and displacement.

Brian Burton’s - a.k.a Danger Mouse - production (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz and next is Beck) openly intervenes in their legendary lo-fi sound. He was recruited to record a Black Keys collaboration with R’n’B legend Ike Turner, an unreleased project which failed because of Turner’s death.
Apparently, since then, The Black keys and Danger Mouse had pulled together enough material to fill a new album.

Burton’s control at the mixing desk cleans their abrasive, rowdy sound with mellower arrangements that gain in “soul” (Lies) but lose in spontaneity. Their trademark style is recognizable only on the second track, the beautiful I Got Mine.
Everything in Attack & Release is perfect, too perfect. The singing is defined, the guitars are tidy and the drumbeat precise. New instruments add shades to a colourful palette: a banjo in Psychotic Girl provides hints of country-bluegrass, a cameo by Marc Ribot inputs Waitsian memories.

The collaboration manages the impossible. Urban echoes become audible in the secluded Hills Country woods where nothing but the blues was allowed to enter for the past century. The album concentrates all his freshness in a remarkable closure with Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be.

Stopping over the old continent on their way to Australia, The Attack & Release European tour landed on the Brit islands, opening and closing at the London Astoria. I told you it is a must play venue, didn’t I?

Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney enter the stage. No sight of Danger Mouse around. Opening with Girl Is On My Mind from Rubber Factory, which merges through a passionate solo into Set You Free from Thickfreakness, they instantly showed the packed audience who is in charge tonight.

The set spans through their entire career covering any album from The Big Come Up to Attack & Release. The newest songs, remodelled to preserve their typical abrasive sound uniform, keep me and the rest of the audience ecstatic throughout the entire set.
The closure with I Got Mine, latest album and tonight’s best moment, sounds so powerful that you wonder how two guys can achieve such soundness.
Aptly the soulful Lies is left out, it wouldn’t fit, and the encore opens with a rearranged guitar version of Psychotic Girl, the banjo left in the dressing room.

Symbolically, the Gibson firebird left by Johnny Winter on this stage after his encore a couple of weeks before, was picked up by Dan Auerbach. Plugged to some Made in Russia pedals is let loose to sound wildly. With a drummer as impressive as Patrick Carney, hammering the 4/4 so heavily on the bass drum to feel the beer dancing in your stomach, nothing else is needed. The Black Keys are an astonishing live garage-blues duo. Don’t tell Danger Mouse, this is the apotheosis of analogical sound in the digital era.

Meet the Black Keys here [website] [myspace]

Phototip

There are countless duos emerging on the music landscape.
Two likely reasons, a trend for simpler and steadier beats and a way to save money. With the record industry close to bankrupt and the need to fulfil an increasing demand for live acts, duos are a cheapest solution.

Photographing duos isn’t straightforward, particularly when they stop playing in your local pub and move to bigger venues. There isn’t an easy solution to catch two people dispersed on a wide stage.

You essentially have two opposite options.

One is to move to the side of the stage and mount a longer lens.
If you frame both, because of the flattened perspective this lenses give, they will look closer than effectively are. Think at sport photographs to visualize what I mean. I rarely like telephoto shots, they don’t give the viewer that feeling of being into the scene, but it can be used creatively using details to frame the subject.

The other option is to stay close and mount a lens wide enough to include both.
The problem here is that you may need a very wide lens, ending with a picture with the pair on each side. This composition, lacking a centre of attention usually looks dispersive.
Better if you wait a moment to get the couple stepping closer and interacting.

If neither works out, don’t despair, you can always mount in a single frame two separate shots!

Is it a privilege to photograph Johnny Winter?
I must be frank I am not sure any longer.

A famous Italian song translate somehow as “…All heroes are young and beautiful…”. Unconsciously I must have believed it.

I am a blues fan. I was looking forward to this; approaching Johnny Winter is not only the closest I could get to Muddy Waters in 2008 (he played and produced Muddy’s latest albums) he is a key part of blues history in his own.

Winter became one of my legends since a schoolmate passed me a tape with his version of Johnny B. Goode. It was more than 20 years ago, one of the first guitarists I fell in love and one of the reasons I am still in love with this music.

Johnny Winter influence on the blues is substantial. He is the one who picked Texas blues heritage into rockland keeping alive a path paved by the likes of Lightinin’ Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Freddy King. He is the one who inspired Stevie Ray Vaughan. Stevie, a teenager when Jimi and Johnny were changing respectively rock and blues history, needed just a few years to write the ultimate chapter about electric blues guitar.

1969 was his year.
In 1969, after few years in the band of his brother Edgar, the 25th years old Johnny signed with Columbia and published two landmark blues-rock albums.
Johnny Winter his first, is the bluesy one, the one where Lightnin’ Hopkins and Sonny Boy Williamson got an electric restyling.
Second Winter, is the definite ovation. Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode rocks as ever and Dylan’s Highway 61 revisited is indeed revisited again. Johnny rousing slide guitar U-turns on Highway 61 and heads Dylan’s masterpiece toward south, back to blues-land. With him, a huge crowd of aficionados follows, charmed by minor pentatonic grooves.

Despite people forgot it, mainly because it is unpublished on official releases, Johnny Winter was on the Woodstock line-up. His long white albino hair, his cowboy hat and the Gibson firebird sunburst guitar are a key figure in the visual imaginary of rock-blues explosion, seen on any stage around that time.

So why such an overwhelming sensation of demise at the Astoria?

When I saw Johnny arriving on stage, barely walking and quickly sitting on a chair, my hero’s icon collapsed in the twinkling of an eye. All the images I had in my mind roll by as if I was looking from a window of a time machine. Today he is an old man, his white long hair the last shiny thing on his shattered face. The years of drugs and excesses all well recorded on his bent, tattooed, skinny body.
I realised that my picture of Johnny Winter was stuck to 1969.

Standing 30 cm away from his frail body, listening to the blues in a quite empty theatre (the balcony was even close) on a 1st of May which had just been a hard working day, condensed so many discouraging truths that my night was permeated by a feeling of misery that didn’t leave me until the morning after.

Inside the Astoria an old man sings and proves that the devil isn’t available to trade for any bluesman’s soul. He plays a music from the past for few people trapped in their past. Audience’s worn-out T-shirts tell stories about their golden age. Beer bellies and the rare, grey, long hair left tell about their present. No much more than a caricature.

Johnny Winter left rock few years ago to play the blues. The concert opens with Freddy King instrumental classic Hideaway, supported by guitarist Paul Nelson, than they carry on as a trio with just drum and bass. His hands play the guitar so instinctively to seem automatic. His eyes stare into the distance, his mind lost in unreachable thoughts. Is the magic of the blues, a music that comes from archetypal regions of bluesmen minds, a music from the inside.

Johnny’s voice is feeble but present, singing the blues is more difficult than playing it, he still sings the blues but looks tired. Instrumental sections are recurrent and fluid.
The concert finds its peaks when immortal hits are played, more Freddy King with I’m Tore down, Jimi Hendrix’s Red House, his own Johnny Guitar and the immortal closure, finally leaving his odd instrument to embark into his “slide journey” on the Gibson firebird for Highway 61 revisited. It’s the end of the night.

Is it the end of blues?
Despite Johnny Winter perseverance, Buddy Guy passion, Eric Clapton fondness and John Mayall love, blues is not living its strongest period.
Willie Dixon’s said “blues is the root everything else is the fruit”, it looks the fruits are blooming but root is desiccating. Few musicians for few people, no youngsters, a difficult future.

I am optimist. I’ll be right here at the Astoria for the Black Keys in a short while, I hope they prove me wrong, I hope the blues can find a renaissance. I hope the rumours that the Astoria might be saved become a certainty.

“Go Go,
Go Johnny Go
Go Go,
Johnny B. Goode”

(Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry)

Johnny winter is online here [website] [myspace]

Photo tip

It’s black, it’s old, it’s dirt. What you can reach is filthy and sticky, what you can’t is full of dust and cobwebs.
It has the mixer desk trapped into a odd egg-shaped metal cage.
It has a Keith Moon bar serving junk food but to get there you have to adventure through a maze of stairs.
It has some very wanted tables on the edge of the balcony.
It has stalls with the only bouncing floor I have ever experienced.
It has the oddest basement toilets; saturate with a strong hurine smell, partially hidden by burning incense sticks and cheap perfumes scent. If you go for a wee you’ll meet a man standing down there. He hopes you wash your hands offering soap and a full range of Eau de Cologne for a tip.

It is The Astoria. It is the quintessential rock venue in London.
Since 1927 the most coveted theatre in town. The place you have to play before being considered a real band. A must-play location.
The Astoria hosted the most legendary and raucous gigs in rock history, from Nirvana to the last Manic Street Preachers legendary concert with Richey.
It was recently chosen by U2, Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, Oasis, Manics and Radiohead to play low-key shows.

Photography-wise it has the perfect two thousands people capacity with probably the best photo-pit in London. Large and comfortable, you can move along the stage which is big but not too big, high but not too high.

You get to the pit walking through the stalls, no side entrances. You get out of it after 3 songs and the policy leaves you into the theatre, with your bag. If you got a photo-pass you automatically have the gig for free, no cloakroom, no-one kicking you out.

Bad news, the Astoria is going to be tore down to leave space to a(nother) tube line.
So please join the 37.000 people who already signed the petition to save the Astoria.
London needs the Astoria much more than another train.
[save the astoria]

“The tears burnin’
Tears burnin’ me
Tears burnin’ me way down in my heart

I’m gonna buy this town
I’m gonna buy this town,

Well I wait around the train station
Waitin’ for that train
Waitin’ for the train, yeah
Take me, yeah, from this lonesome place”

(freely adapted from Hear my train a-comin’ – Jimi Hendrix)

Tell me
I can’t think right
Am I going home tonight
Or staying here?
(Tindersticks, Sleepy Song)

I constantly state I don’t believe in reunions, comebacks, one-off events. I see them covered by nostalgia, by not accepting getting older and anxiously trying to cling to a past that has gone. Even less I can stand bands that reunite and produce a new album to culminate in a tour that doesn’t give much space to old favourites.

So said, it regularly happens that I cannot resist to some of these events specially when one of my stars decide to shine again.
The typical night ends with me going back home swearing to myself: “never again!”

There are exceptions. Tindersticks superlative concert at the London Royal Festival Hall demolished all my narrow-minded thesis.
Their only British performance in this short tour promoting Hungry Saw, their first album in 5 years, was definitely a shiny night.
Despite the concert opened with the first seven tracks in the order of the last album, it was immediately clear that tonight’s show was not about the set-list but about creating a memorable experience.

Tindersticks didn’t opt for a greatest hits comeback tour, but showed off their most recent music, dosed with pearls from the past, with the clear message that they are on top form and don’t need to stick to the safe hits.
On stage the original members, Stuart Staples, David Boulter and Neil Fraser, brought an impressive ensemble of fifteen elements, including strings, brasses, keyboards and anything else that could help building their distinctive gloomy atmospheres.

Staples inimitable deep voice is the heart of the group and his link with the rest of the band and the orchestra is so perfect to look instinctive. This regardless of the fact their latest London show is almost two years away and in the meanwhile a new rhythm session replaced the original elements.

2 hours, 2 encores and 22 songs later, the concert closes in style. The notes of She’s gone from their masterpiece second album resound in the flawless acoustic of the renovated Royal Festival Hall persuading me that reunions could be worth.
Rock music can be adult and convincing at the same time, without being a parody, without the need to dream “those old good days”.

By the way, those days were in Nottingham in the mid of the nineties, hence in the middle of indie-guitar Brit-pop. Tindersticks managed to elude all the clichés that were assaulting the charts to build a group so bright that shone of its own light.

Dipping their musical taste into darkness, nocturnal romanticism and literate lyrics they composed songs that synthesize Leonard Cohen dark poetry with Bad Seeds sinister magnificence, Scott Walker baroque orchestrations with Ian Curtis nihilistic depression.

Since the first homonymous album to the recent Hungry Saw, their seventh (not including a couple of soundtrack and Stuart Staples solo works), Tindersticks music is a unique mixture of songwriting harmonized with sophisticated arrangements.
The guitar parts are heightened by lush string pieces, sharp trumpet interventions and an elegant drumming that bring this band where Nick Cave may be if either Blixa Bargeld (in the past) or Warren Ellis (nowadays) weren’t joined to the Bad Seeds with the conscious aim to limit his inclination to grandiosity.

An entire trend of new music in recent years has to credit Tindersticks. From the nocturnal, melancholic rock of Cousteau, The National, Devastations or iLiKETRAiNS; from ex-pulp retro sound of Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley; from the sumptuous Rufus Wainwright and the several Canadian bands leading the chamber pop renaissance; the number of artists that formed a band after listening to Tindersticks’ albums is countless.

Unsurprisingly, with such a revival of gloomy, adult rock getting its way towards the mainstream, Tindersticks are not left alone on the road.
Nick Cave is living a wonderful second youth whichever part he plays, legends as Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits face their reluctance to touring and are about to walk the stages for the first time in years.
It is a wonderful period to be melancholic!

If you want to listen to more of the English best kept musical secret, Tindersticks are here [myspace] [website] [gigography]

Photo tip

All-Seated theatres are not the best place for concert photographers.
In addition to all the usual problems, there are some more that can appear without notice.

To begin, you usually don’t know from which spot you will be shooting. It is not guaranteed you are in front of the stage. You could be either at the end of the stalls, usually in big arenas, or in the mixer position, as Eels required, or midway back along the isle, as Nick Cave demanded.
As a consequence, my first advice is to carry with you that heavy telephoto lens, just in case.

Then you are lucky if you are allowed 3 songs before being kicked off the theatre (Nick Cave is first song only).
Take also into account that if you don’t have a ticket, you have very few chances to stay in for the show, your only luck is a spare seat.

If you are in the front, since theatres have better acoustic and all seated event are generally quieter, your camera shutter can disturb the audience and the musicians.

The most amusing and embarrassing experience I ever had at a gig was when Kings of Convenience stopped the music to ask: “Hey Mr Photographer, how long do you still have to photograph?”

The reason why it is not always possible to shoot from the front is because, in addition to the artists, your presence disturbs people sitting in the first rows.
Fair enough, I am sympathetic with them. I would be upset to find someone moving in front of me once I got a first row ticket.
The consequence is that you work both with a guilty feeling and the anxiety that someone is about to get upset with you, which is distressing.
You also tend to stoop along the stage and sense a pressure to be quick anytime you stand… in a word you can’t concentrate.

To minimize this there is not a lot I can suggest. Showing an imperturbable, unemotional attitude is not something teachable; either you don’t give a damn, and you’re OK, or you have to deal with the situation.

In the second case good practice is to advise the first row people that you are going to be there only for the first songs, they usually don’t know and this predispose them positively.
I saw photographers kneeling down and standing just to photograph. I wouldn’t recommend, it is at high risk of losing the right moment, which is never predictable.
Standing along the side aisles, with no one behind, is another nice move, that location also gives you good frames of the entire stage using a moderate wide-angle.
The last option I can think of is to smile generously to everyone you meet, it always work!

May and a bloody rainy UK. Let’s leave politics, unions and working class demonstrations behind and move to the wet north-west in search of some new music.

A band from Manchester which has a front-man named Liam, that looks like Noel (Gallagher) and plays his same guitar doesn’t start with the “original” label ticked, does it?
Before approaching The Courteeners’ music I had to convince myself that originality is not an uncompromising aspect of emerging bands. Tough start in a difficult age.
That British indie-guitar-rock is not living its most blossoming season, was clear even before these guys started recording their first single.
Listening to it, you can istantly perceive that their ideal format is Babyshambles but when, about one minute later, you find yourself missing Pete Doherty, you get a definite sign to start worrying.

Whichever nuance of the indie genre you go for nowadays, pop-ish or rock-ish, you’ll run into attempts to copycat recent success acts.
If Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong every single day disclose that Razorlight are their point of reference (I know it sounds weird but this is it!), the more ambitious, and inevitably less successful, Sons and Daughters try the impossible thing to convince Siouxsie is their mum.

A chapter on its own should be dedicated to the dramatic fate of what I call the K-effect.
The doom you are destined if you name your band with a K word. Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, Klaxons, Kooks and likely many more, a K-something name will automatic K-ill your chances to compose good tunes. Instead you’ll find yourself swallowed into a net of stupid refrains which you feel forced to use as chorus-fillers.

If I had teenage kids I would be anxious to know they want to form a rock band. The idea my children could end up covering the Hoosiers it’s scary enough to lock them in front of the TV 24/7 playing Guitar Hero on the Playstation.

The final goal of any band today is not music but either NME cover(age) or Jools Holland slots. Fantastic if you get both. I wonder why NME is losing thousands of readers and Jools is filling his “Later with…” line-up with old R&B singers and jazz legend commemorations. He even moved it to an earlier midweek, grandparent’s friendly, time.

The Courteeners are among the many predictable and unoriginal bands to have appeared in front of me in recent months. As you would have thought even if you don’t like the idea, clinging to well known cliché helps success. Their debut album St. Jude has just been a top five on the Brit charts. They got the cool NME cover and a Jonathan Ross appearance. Jools Holland and summer festivals surely will be their next stops.

Musically as heroic as Mancunian Don Quixotes, Courteeners insist on exploring whether there is an umpteenth free space in the Libertines-Babyshambles windmill. They must have fought with The View to get last cubicle left to be used as recording studio.

Curiously enough the first time I saw Courteeners, they opened for the Babyshambles. I thought they were quite bland, but playing the Brixton academy in front of Doherty’s fanatics isn’t an easy task.
Two months later they got their tour, and I got my second chance.
Unfortunately the only thing they boosted headlining an own tour was Liam’s arrogance which, I realized later, infuses the lyrics. It must have been Oasis’ lesson, but it isn’t adding any magnetism to me.

Texts are saturate with a defensive and arrogant attitude that you got out of insecure people, it definitely appeal many.

On the hit “Not Nineteen Forever” being rejected by a girl

“ - get your hand off my thigh - in the car she turned to me and said”

cause an offensive and violent reaction full of resentful anger

“…never mind you’ll probably never look that pretty again
You’re not nineteen forever pull yourselves together
I know it seems strange but things they change
older woman and ever so slightly younger man
…
youre not nineteen forever
it’s not me, you’re definitely not clever”

The same grudge flows through their other hit “Acrylic”

“Your just like plasticine being molded into a libertine dreamer, I feel so sorry for you, If you were 13 I’d let you off but your not you should know better. Ok Jackie if you got no spine, please vacate this city of mine”

To culminate in the classic jealousy driven pre-fight, meeting on “An ex is an ex for a reason”

“if I’m talking to you at the back of the club why does he walk past me?
and why does he