Music Writings by CL

V/Vm - Sometimes Good Things Happen, Album Review 2002. Full Review, Click Here. And once again,  V/VM  decide to treat us to some of the worst music ever made. Or is that the best? What's right and what's wrong? Sometimes Good Things Happen  is a VERY loud album. No, it's a VERY quiet album. Well, it's both. Probably. You see,  V/VM  have knocked up two versions of the album: one is right and one is wrong, but which one is which? Do you know, and if you buy it, do you think you'll know whether ear-splitting noise is right, Mechanical Ambience is wrong? Who knows? You may get to hear that  The Truth is Dead  as a slab of distorting noise, you may hear it as eerie soundwaves, but either way you'll hear it as a curiosity and possibly as an annoyance. It may not be pleasurable, but it's good. Or is that bad?

Chilly Gonzales Interview - 'Boxing Balls & Apes', 2002. Full Interview, Click Here. 30 year Jason Beck first tasted fame as the lead vocalist in a Canadian rock band ‘Son’. Disillusioned with the music industry, he eventually split from the band and started recording under the alias Gonzales.  Thus a star was born.  Signed to cool German label Kitty-Yo, he recorded an astonishing debut album ‘Gonzales uber Alles’, followed up with and EP with labelmate Peaches, and a hip hop pop album ‘The Entertainist’ with some members of the Digital Hardcore community.  It seemed Gonzales’ star was rising, but it’s his new album Gonzales III: Presidential Suite that is going to see Jason Beck’s alter ego go huge. When I told my friend I had to see Gonzales, she replied, “Oh I love them”  Is it a case of there being certain aspects that make ‘Gonzales’? Maybe she means Gonzales and his ego, or Gonzales the seventies group who had the hit ‘I haven’t sto

Chilly Gonzales Ft. Feist - Manchester Hop & Grape, 2002. Full Review, Click Here. Call Chilly Gonzales what you want, the Worst M.C, Prankster fly, but you can't call him boring. The Gonzales live experience is one that puts most to shame.  You get dedication, passion, comedy and five costume changes, and it never slides into Butlins style cabaret, or high camp. Schemes and Variations kicks off proceedings, armed with only two melodikas and current sidekick Feist, it's stripped down from it's electro-funk origins, and turned into something that wouldn't sound amiss from the soundtrack to the film Amelie! Many tracks appear as an altered version, be it <b>Why don't we dissapear, from Gonzales Uber Alles as a tender duet with Feist, or Take me to Broadway as a dirty electro-funk epic, Gonzales knows how to keep a crowd both transfixed and in the mood for partying, as Chilly and Fei

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion / The International Noise Conspiracy, Manchester University 2002. Full Review, Click Here. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have just released their latest album ‘Plastic Fang’ and have taken to the road in support of it, bringing along The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the International Noise Conspiracy for the ride. Having caught the tail end of The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s set due to Mancunian traffic, for TINC started the night off for us by showing the Manchester audience how to create and almighty mix of rock and politics whilst avoiding the cheese factor. Smash It Up, Up For Sale…. They all steamroll along from a band who look as if they just have stepped out of school, even though they have been going in one for m or another for nearly a decade. It feels as though the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have been going forever, but that doesn’t stop them blasting through many highlights from their often glorious, often drab past. Songs

Alec Empire - Intelligence and Sacrifice, Album Review 2002. Full Review, Click Here. "Destiny won't speak in slogans" It's been 10 years since  Alec Empire 's band  Atari Teenage Riot  burst from the Berlin underground, spawning a record label which offered freedom for many like minded artists who were fed up with the a mucic scene on the verge of an monotonous implosion. Digital Hardcore was born. Towards the end of the last millennium, things weren't looking too good,  ATR  were collectively burning out, and the elitist underground couldn't cope. The backlash had begun. The backlash was dealt with by using only silence. All the while the rumour mill did it's thing, circling and achieving nothing more than creeping snobbery. But whilst all this was happening,  Alec Empire  was writing and recording his 'debut' album proper, _Intelligence and Sacrifice. The first thing you notice on listening to this double cd, is that the son