The Founder Volume 5 Issue 4

The Founder | Thursday 4 November 2010
E X T R A
15
Music
Oh!gunquit and
Barringtone at
Tommy’s bar
David Bowman
You could be forgiven for rolling
your eyes at the skinny-jeaned
hipsters who filed their way into
Tommy’s bar on the evening of
October 14th. Some were in tweed,
others in scarves, despite knowing
full well that the cramped
venue would soon be transformed
into that sweaty furnace where
self-respect goes to die amongst
some of the most extreme forms of
(ironically?) terrible dance moves
(many executed by yours truly) that
Holloway has to offer.
But far from desiring to see the
bescarved DJ caught in the needle
of his decks and dragged in an
ever-shrinking spiral towards his
aggressively retro vinyl, he actually
managed to play an excellent set
of 60’s tunes that had the audience
well and truly warmed up for when
Oh!gunquit took to the stage.
Despite the crowd’s earlier
enthusiasm, Oh!gunquit had to
milk every morsel of zeal out of the
now cross-armed mass. However,
if anyone was up to the task, it
was lead singer Wanda Smacksome,
who went to every length
to eventually earn an encore. She
pushed bored-looking crowd members,
she hula-hooped, she walked
around on her knees; hell, she even
climbed onto the PA and was good
enough to flash us a boob. There
was even audience participation
when Smacksome offered up her
hula-hoop and a particularly keen
gig-goer leapt forth, proceeding
gyrate with a conviction that can
only really be understood by those
privileged enough to be in attendance
that night.
Theatrics aside, Oh!gunquit do
make some extremely good and
presence and a male/female vocal
dynamic somewhat reminiscent of
the B-52’s with a surf-rock twist.
Their set may have seemed a little
on the short side but what they
lacked in quantity they most certainly
made up for in quality, with
an unusually tight performance for
such a dynamic show.
The recurring problem with Love
To Make Noise shows is that after
the first set, everyone tends to go
outside to smoke and enthuse about
the band that’s been on, which
meant that when Barringtone came
to the stage, Tommy’s bar was by no
means at capacity. What also didn’t
help was the lack of gig etiquette
displayed by many of those in attendance,
who were happy to talk
the entire way through a set that
was already going to be very much
an uphill battle, following on from
Oh!gunquits’s impeccable performance.
Despite this, they battled on
with an up-tempo and, dare I say,
vibrant set that was only lacking in
as far as a response from the crowd
was concerned, possibly due to
their awkward time signatures that
made it a mission to dance to, or
perhaps simply because the impractically
warm clothing choices had
forced so many people out into the
Photo: Max Cambridge
cool of the smoking area.
Either way, you couldn’t help but
be impressed by the precision of
their performance and feel a little
sorry for them as they informed us
that they were “truly very grateful”
for the lacklustre applause they
were offered as they left the stage.
The next LTMN event at Tommy’s
bar is scheduled for late November/
early December.
Review: Sufjan Stevens
All Delighted People
Sufjan Stevens released ‘All Delighted
People’ without announcement.
With a few months worth of
progress reports the norm from artists
now, this was a distinctly Sufjan
move. One day in August his fans
were blasting ‘Illinois’, wishing for a
proper follow up, and the next, they
had a Simon & Garfunkel-sampling,
nearly hour long, eight track
EP that was packed with everything
you might expect from a Sufjan recording.
The music was dense and
complex, the lyrics haunting and
honest, hitting emotional chords it
feels Sufjan is only capable of. ‘All
Delighted People’ made for a lot of
delighted fans.
Still, the context of the release
would make little sense if it weren’t
Matt Grifferty
for the subsequent release of the
full length ‘The Age of Adz’. With
that LP now understood as a departure
for Stevens, the release of ‘All
Delighted People’ is understandable.
It is the Sufjan his fans have
come to know and love, before his
sonic escape. On ‘From the Mouth
of Gabriel’ he may be asking an
ex-lover to “forget about the past”,
but he could just as well be asking
his fans.
The album serves less as homage
to ‘The Sounds of Silence’, as
his website suggested it would,
than it does to Sufjan’s past work.
Despite the bombastic nature of his
music, you would never call Stevens
indulgent. Everything always seems
to work perfectly. The eponymous
track, its “classic rock version” and
‘Djohariah’ all suffer from being
overlong. The tracks are not
without their merits, certainly ‘All
Delighted People’ is on the whole
brilliant, but their length impedes
revisiting.
The standouts here are ‘Enchanted
Ghost’, ‘Heirloom’ and ‘From
the Mouth of Gabriel’. Deserving
attention is ‘Arnika’, which simmers
brilliantly, swells in moments, but
suffers from its placement on the
track list.
“And if it pleases you to leave
me, just go,” he repeats through
‘Enchanted Ghost’, a track where he
seems to be reminiscing over the
final moments before a break-up.
Between acoustic strumming, a
soft electric guitar and piano that
emerges and echoes loneliness,
he is wounded and pleading, but
ultimately defeated.
‘Heirloom’ may be the shortest
and least complex of the EP, but
these turn out to be strengths as
they allow the lyrics to take centre
stage. While most seem deliberately
vague, they build until he asks,
“So do you think I came to fight?
And do I always think I’m right?”
In what appears to all intents and
purposes a break-up record, Sufjan
never falls to Kanye West standards.
The complexity of his situation
is never sacrificed for theatre.
On ‘Heirloom’, this is admirably
realised.
Sufjan Stevens’ religious belief
appears on occasion in his music,
but ‘From the Mouth of Gabriel’
invokes biblical imagery for reasons
only Sufjan may understand. “You
probably should, but I won’t let
you run away,” he says just too
weakly for you to believe him
capable of such possessive behaviour.
The song seems designed for
misdirection, with faces changing,
attempted suicides and scenes from
the planet Mars. The choral backing
operates perfectly, surrounding and
complimenting Sufjan’s vocal performance.
It is their performance
here (along with Sufjan’s direction),
and on the rest of album, that lend
beauty and weight to an otherwise
sad and quiet affair.
“I’m tired of life,” Sufjan sings
believably in ‘Anrika’. He may be
tired of waiting for someone, but
he still seems to be courting their
understanding. While the song
swells musically at its centre, it is
the conclusion that echoes. Here,
he darkly leaves the door open for
more conflict, saying, “No I’m not
afraid of death or strife or injury,
accidents, they are my friends.”
While other tracks may not have
been mentioned, each certainly
deserves attention. ‘Djorariah’
finishes with five beautiful minutes
written to his suffering sister and
‘All Delighted People’ might be the
best track on the album if it was cut
by three minutes. On the whole, ‘All
Delighted People’ is a flawed but
welcome addition to Stevens’ catalogue.
It deserves attention and one
can only hope it is not forgotten in
the shadow of ‘The Age of Adz’.