JAY REATARD - WATCH ME FALL

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Jay Lindsey of deep-south American town Memphis, TN is a proper punk rock hero. He writes from the heart, no pretence, straight from the heart. He doesn’t believe in himself, but he believes in punk rock. Not punk rock music as such – Watch Me Fall is more pop punk or even power pop than it is punk rock – but more punk rock: the mentality. Do loads, work with cool people, be in unsuccessful bands, get referenced by really famous people… make the NME Cool List. Yep.

For a man who has been involved in over 23 album releases and loads of singles and things on top of that. A man who released records for Sonic Youth and Deerhunter, and who averages 150 live shows a year to often bewildered crowds. For a man used to being ignored by the mainstream, releasing his first record on a ‘major’ must be a difficult step. Will people hate me for it? Have I sold out? Is this the beginning of the end? Watch Me Fall.

But Jay doesn’t fall. Watch Me Fall is his debut album proper, on Matador – a respectable berth for anyone – and has twelve good songs on it. The album opens with 'It Ain’t Gonna Save Me' – a barefaced ode to what once was, and a fearful glance at what is to come: “All is lost, there is no hope, all is lost, you can’t go home, all is lost there is no hope for me.”

He continues in this fashion, chugging guitars and solid tinny drum noises hint at some underlying triumphalism. The second track Before I Was Caught is optimistic, but the title gives away its regretfullness – This is old optimism from before he was caught, now he’s not so sure. Reatard believes an album should work together; that iTunes is ruining the album, and so it’s no surprise that Watch Me Fall develops thematically and smoothly.

From 'Can’t Do It Anymore' and 'Faking It' his anger at himself spread out to the rest of us – the final three songs on the record: 'My Reality', 'Hang Them All' and 'There Is No Sun' have stopped blaming himself, and started to bemoan the world. This is not a depressing record, this is a depressed man fighting to be hold on and be heard.

There is much to be learned from this man.

Saturday 30/05/09 Primavera Sound Festival, Day Three @ Parc Del Forum, Barcelona

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Saturday saw us traipsing around Barcelona searching for a pub to watch the FA Cup Final in before settling on the Black Horse just near Parc Ciutadella – a pub which had earlier in the week shown the Championship play off final; that’s dedication. Good match. Solid football played by both, but Chelsea had the quality to hold off Everton’s opportunism. Rock Music.

As we get in we are treated to the countrified croonings of Minnesota’s The Jayhawks. They play quite standard country rock of about 20 years ago, for what feels like ages. It’s inoffensive stuff, and perhaps the perhaps the perfect lead up to the big guy, Neil Young, on the same stage.

But before Neil can put everything on hold, there’s time for Herman Dune to do his thing over on the Rockdelux. David-Ivar certainly delivered a happy set of French joy. Stand out track I Wish That I could See You Soon had everybody dancing and smiling like only a simple love song can. Also it was hard to ignore how much the drummer looked like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator.

Then it was time for Mr. Neil Young and everything stopped. Between nine o’clock and ten thirty there was nothing else. Everyone in the whole festival was watching Neil do his thing on the Estrella Damm stage. It was quite a feeling. There he is – the silver haired king of rock music. This is what the people want. Just glance around and where before people could wander relatively freely around the site, now they were a mass of people.

Neil said nothing to the crowd, no attempt at Spanish: no attempt at interaction even. Perhaps he’s decided it just isn’t worth it any more, or perhaps he just doesn’t have anything left to say. His voice is still spot on, with that delicate edge making it so soulful when he sing about the trials of life. When he wrote Heart of Gold he wasn’t old… now he literally is getting old, and he’s not going down quietly. Well done Neil.

Far be it for Liars to be upstaged, Angus thanks Neil Young for opening for them and then smashes into a pulsing set. He is like Todd Trainer – all snake hips and clothes that weren’t meant to be on his body (he finishes the set topless with one trouser leg rolled up. The thunderous ‘tribal’ drums are like a paracetamol advert. The vocals are wailed joy. The crowd erupts when they announce “you’re lucky. We haven’t done this for a long time: we’re gonna play one from our very first record.” They don’t give us mr you’re on fire mr, but Grown Men Don’t Fall In The River Just Like That is amazing nonetheless!

So that’s it for Primavera Sound then… and amazing festival it has to be said. Forty thousand people is just right. Six stages is just right. The mix of music is just right. The Spanish weather is absolutely spot on.

Hang on… Sonic Youth are playing? Jesus this is good. Kim Gordon howls while Thurston shakes. Hey Joni and Crème Brulee hit the spot just right, while the big tunes are a little less readily available. From where we are this might as well be the 80s as they look like a bunch of students introducing the world to proper punk rock music. The crowd is awash with smug grins, happy to have been treated to some enormous bands to cap of this fine festival.

Friday 29/05/09 Primavera Sound Festival, Day Two @ Parc Del Forum, Barcelona

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Day Two was the top day - non-stop hits from evening ‘til morning. The sun was shining high in the sky and even the industrial wastelands around the site look pretty in Spanish dusk. The day kicked off musically with the Vivian Girls whose washed out, fuck you we don’t care punk played perfectly in the Spanish sun peeping through the weird structure surrounding the Pitchfork stage. Playful chatting about hitch-hikers they’d grabbed in Leeds made us jealous. These girls are great, we want to hang out with them.

Art Brut are a reasonable joke that’s gone horribly wrong. Eddie Argos came onto the Estrella Damm stage with a fresh new album in his pocket and the world of confidence. Art Brut have one album’s worth of good songs – that’s all they ever really threatened to have, but then they got big, and now they’ve got three albums and they’re playing the ‘main’ stage at Primavera. They are the low point of the weekend: their songs don’t matter any more, they’ve lost themselves.

Sunn 0))) are so unfathomably far away from Art Brut in everything they are doing that it is painful. They are two massive men. They are one huge wall of speakers. They are wave after wave… after… wave… of grind. They played The Grimmrobe Demos from start to finish in the weekend’s only Don’t Look Back series show for ATP. They played wearing their trademark capes and shrouded in smoke. They’re notes were difficult to pick out amid gut-wrenching feedback and white noise. What began as a jam-packed auditorium thinned quickly. You get the impression that that is what they wanted: they view that as a win! Their music makes you think, it forces you to think hard – it’s claustrophobic and inquisitive. Watching them is a challenge rather than a pleasure – and it’s the succeeding that brings the happiness.

We gathered our thoughts, and what was left of our souls to run over for Jarvis. He followed Art Brut on the ‘main’ stage and came on like the hero he is. He’s full of hot moves still, and good tunes (maybe not that good, but good nonetheless) and now he’s got Steve Albini’s trademark crunch in there too. He paraded round the stage grandly, his voice sounded spot on and his chat was the best yet – “what does that banner say? Can I wear it?”

The Dan Deacon Ensemble were something else over on the Pitchfork stage with drums pulsing like The Boredoms and synths flying high, while Deacon himself – a sort of hyperactive musical savant – careered around trying to organize awkward fun, and getting frustrated when the Spanish didn’t understand his 100mph stream of English instructions. After the second unsuccessful attempt to organize a dance battle Deacon’s commitment swung from quaint to annoying and Albini called from the ATP stage.

Shellac were immense, crashing through a monster set, full of hits (yet sorely lacking Prayer To God and Watch Song). They almost eschewed their usual question session in favour of more hits allowing one question – “why haven’t you played Watch Song?”… well? Todd Trainer was incredible as always – like a sexual lizard. And Albini and Weston’s vocals filled with the same bile they’ve always had, and will always have.

Thursday 28/05/09 Primavera Sound Festival, Day One @ Parc Del Forum, Barcelona

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Some kids over the road were happily setting off cherry bombs as we dragged ourselves out of bed to prepare for the first day of the festival proper. You see, on Wednesday 27th – the day before Primavera Sound – Barcelona erupted into a war zone. All it took was a cheeky Sam Eto’o toe-poke and a clinical Lionel Messi header to clinch the first treble Spain has ever seen for the club who has perhaps deserved it longer than any other.

But I’m talking football, and we’re here for rock music, right? Primavera Sounds is like a Spanish ATP with the Grange Hill nostalgia of Butlins chalets replaced by the eery stillness of the Parc Del Forum, and the blissful ridiculousness of the old Camber Sands beach replaced by the brazen flesh party of Barcelona’s man-made beach.

The music is pretty much the same – there’s even an ATP stage at Primavera, where Lightning Bolt are playing when we make our first sweep of the site. And yes, they are playing on a stage. The inevitable has happened: they caved. They grew up (a bit) and now they play safe sets on stages. Their sets are still crazed bang-ups but the magic has dissipated some.

Then perhaps fittingly it’s over to Marnie Stern to kick things off tapping and yelping her way through a dynamite set of hits, while her enigmatic bassist smolders before thanking the crowd and saying “I never thought we’d be doing this, you have no idea!”

Over on the Rockdelux stage we catch a glimpse of the reformed Vaselines, just in time to hear Molly’s Lips before returning to the ATP stage for a strangely compelling set of balls out of the bath rock music from legends The Jesus Lizard. They are tight as hell and despite the weakness of David Yow’s voice these days, they still rock hard and fast and he finds the time to throw himself into the crowd head first.

Our first visit to the Pitchfork stage is another welcome surprise as The Bug produce the best dance action of the fest so far. Flow Dan spits some incomprehensible jams while the beats bounce like my non-international bankcard. It was a shame when they were cut short during Poison Dart, but that said, it didn’t have the same punch without Warrior Queen’s vox on it. Then it’s over to the ‘Main’ stage (Primavera doesn’t really do ‘Main’ but this is the one Neil Young is playing on Friday and so I suppose this is it) for an impressive, if stunted slice of another of the festival’s reformers; MBV, before heading back to Pitchfork for the days big winner: Ponytail.

Molly and co. put in a storming set of genuine party tunes reducing us en masse into a writhing mess. 7 Souls, Beg Waves and Late For School all set smiles alight, and when I throw my arm around Molly and tell her “that was an AWESOME set, you guys rock!” later on in the night, I fucking mean it dammit!

Post-Ponytail we freaked out to some smashing visuals from Aphex Twin including murmuring references to Windowlicker before witnessing part of the now fabled Wavves breakdown and then spiralling off into the night chatting Champions League could have beens with Spanish folks on the metro. Good start for sure!

CONDO FUCKS - FUCKBOOK

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Six albums down the line Condo Fucks are still blazing out rock ‘n’ roll grimery with heterosexual abandon. Whether new album Fuckbook is actually a nod to a new fad that’s sweeping The USA of America called Facebook remains to be seen. But if it’s anything like as visceral and all-conquering as the Fucks themselves then the UK has something to look forward to.

If you haven’t heard of the CFs before then worry not because you may still recognise some tracks here. They’ve ripped through an album of covers for their Fuckbook, grabbing songs from across the ages and giving them the Condo treatment. They’ve taken everything from the Beach Boys to Richard Hell and pulled no punches.

They feature all three current members of the band Yo La Tengo.

Hang on… that means they ARE Yo La Tengo.

But Yo La Tengo do nice songs, and dreamy songs. Yeh, they are punk rock, they sure ain’t Condo Fucks. But they are.

Condo Fucks is the side project/alter-ego/schizophrenic realisation of Yo La Tengo’s James McNew, Georgia Hubley (known here as Georgia Condo) and Ira Kaplan (here as Kid Condo) where they indulge their love of the cover, and combine it with a clear desire for the dirty.

Fuckbook rocks. It’s gritty and skronky in the extreme. It sounds like they’ve come up with the tracklist at breakfast, recorded it over lunch (using breaks between singing duty to guzzle some petrol and hammers), thought about mastering it at teatime, but instead just released it, and it’s great for it.

Some tracks are brilliantly recognisable – Ira’s and James’ take on the Beach Boys’ Shut Down takes the sheen of the original in cracking style, then Georgia takes lead on a rendition of The Troggs’ With A Girl Like You that makes you want to get up and ‘ba ba ba’ along like it hasn’t gone out of fashion.

In the immortal (who knows whether they actually wrote them, but who cares!) words of The Hartford Advocate, The Condo Fucks are “one of the best bands Connecticut has to offer.” Fact.

MARY CHOCOLATIER - EASTER COLLECTION

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Mary Chocolatier have been making chocolate for 90 years, hail from Brussels in Belgium – some might call the home of fine chocolate – and have been producing chocolate by Royal Warrant since1942. With a pedigree like this you’d be forgiven for expecting something rather special: Milk Tray this is not, but do they measure up? And is their Easter Collection worth your hard-earned dollar?

Top end chocolates have a habit of making the same mistake that many top end eateries are guilty of – too much time on the fancy stuff, and not enough time on the basics. Show me a Trattoria that serves a simple, lightly browned, crisp yet moist, tangy yet sweet, ‘with cheese’ yet not cheesy, sensationally tasty margarita pizza and I’ll trust that the rest of their pizzas are exceptional too (in fact I’ll probably insist on trying them for that very same reason). Equally, show me a chocolatier who, with a single piece of smooth, rich, creamy-yet-caustic dark chocolate, can weaken my knees and the rest will almost always slot sweetly in to place.

Mary is that chocolatier. Her chocolate is weak-at-the-knees good – the sort of chocolate that could swing a marriage proposal; or in a more sedate setting could at least guarantee a second date.

The Easter collection features most of what you’d expect: big Easter bells, Bambi-esque bunnies, a big chicken and, of course, eggs; both big and small. They’re all cast in Mary’s dark chocolate and the chicken and egg (or should that be egg and chicken? Which came… forget it) can both be filled with a selection of chocolates from the Mary Chocolatier range, which is where it gets really decadent.

Choose from ganache, crème fraiche, liqueur, truffle, marzipan and many more. There’s subtle layers of flavour in the Badouin ganache where a light milk chocolate shell gives way to an even lighter, caramel-like milk chocolate ganache. There’s big slap-in-the-face flavours like the Truffe Fruits De Bois where the same milk chocolate hides what feels like a whole black forest gateaux. This is good stuff.

There’s an admirable amount of attention gone into the presentation here as well. The cunningly named Escargot is in the shape of a snail (Escargot is French for snail). Some of the ganache and praline range have images printed onto them, while elsewhere, in the crème fraiche and Marzipan ranges, others proudly sport a coffee bean or a walnut.

It can all get a bit much at times – big flavours and awkward combinations can sometimes leave you cold, but Mary encourages you to treat her wares like a fine cheese or wine: to take the time out to really savour the flavours, aromas and textures of each. But if that isn’t your style, just guzzling them all down should suffice to make for one of best Easter’s since the original.

Mary has just opened a new outlet at the Westbury Centre where you can try before you buy, and soak up the chocolate atmosphere, but if you fear you might not be able to control yourself you can also find out more, and order anything you choose online at www.marychocolate.co.uk or call (+44) 0208 749 2088 to order from anywhere in the known world. Be sure to order by April 12 for Easter.

ART BRUT - ART BRUT vs. SATAN

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Eddie Argos and co. are back in our ears after last year’s ‘amicable’ split from EMI, soon after the major label released the song Pump Up The Volume as a download without their say so. Art Brut vs. Satan is released on Cooking Vinyl, the home of The Prodigy, Heaven 17, Camper Van Beethoven, and now Art Brut. It’s a proud record label championing pioneers and poets like the Pixies and Billy Bragg, but whether Art Brut fit in there remains to be seen.

Eddie Argos is a poet though, isn’t he? - a modern day troubadour, telling us of his woes, his loves and his losses, with simple, pure, pop-punk verses? Like a Greater London Weezer Art Brut have won the hearts of a dedicated few while completely passing by the contented masses. Perhaps that’s why the split with EMI was so amicable – the imprint wanted world-beaters, Art Brut just wanted to write love songs.

So, have they still got it? Well, Art Brut vs. Satan opener Alcoholics Unanimous would say yes. It’s a balls out of the bath rant about a hangover. “Bring me tea, bring me coffee” bellows Argos with his typical snarl-less endearment.

The album is produced by Frank Black, of The Pixies and Frank Black fame, and is better for it. On The Passenger - a funny nod to Iggy and the Stooges that is literally about public transport - loose guitar noise gives way to Kim Deal-esque backing vox before in comes Argos to claim it back. Then on What A Rush more of Frank’s geetar whining squeals through the speakers. But this is a good thing, mos def.

Sadly, the album peters out. Argos continues to moan like a fifteen year old losing Emily Kane, but it starts to grate. DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes is great – probably the best track on the album (and I prefer Marvel and Strawberry) but by the time you get to Summer Job, via Am I Normal and (Chaka Demus & Pliers tribute) Twist & Shout to the painful Mysterious Bruises, it’s too much. 

It’s out of date. On Demon’s Out he’s shouting about pop music, the record buying public and reality TV. Come on Eddie, we’ve done that, the public don’t buy records any more. 

Slap Dash For No Cash is a raucous respite where he champions real, raw music; music where you can here their parents saying “turn it down, turn it down, TURN IT DOWN!” but it’s not enough to save the album. Despite some inspired moments, the record middling too often.