Sketches from our Photographer
Posted by Ryan in July's Magazine
Ryan McGoverne is an everpresent at the Leith Festival music strand, which requires the constitution of Oliver Reed, Lee Marvin and Ernest Hemingway combined. Mr McGoverne is in recovery.
White Heath – the opening salvo of my Leith Festival gig spree – deliver an inventive and excitable mixture of Arcade Fire and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, they’re ambitious, dynamic, and an intriguing live act. The diminutive singer stands centre stage pounding on a big bass drum, flanked by a violinist, trombonist, guitarist, and a keyboard player who forgetfully hasn’t plugged his keyboard in. Stage front, Gordon Munro, chair of Leith Festival and popular politico-man about town, dances as only politicians can dance. What might loosely be termed ‘The Watusi.’ Delta Mainline close the evening with Spaceman 3 shamanic drone rock versus a boogie-woogie blues band in a late night mid-western truck stop, all, trust me, good things.
The terrifyingly titled ‘ska-funk night,’ has ruby and The Emeralds opening, a bovine funk band garbed in zany outfits. They epitomise that cultural nadir when Flea from Red Hot Chilli Peppers played slap bass, naked, with a sock on his cock. The Dull Fudds follow, a Borders band fronted by three girls and one lucky drummer boy. Frenetic, folk pop played with infectious abandon. The crowd lap it up, “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes!” demands Nelly, and the crowd look on, tempted.
Hirsute troubadour Chris Bradley has captured the heart of our editor, so enamoured is our great leader that en route to the gig at the Dockers, he manages to sashay past the Alan Breck without succumbing. Bradley’s gig was a thing of charm. With full backing band he plays a solid set of country soaked compositions worthy of Bright Eyes. Occasionally veering menacingly close to James Blunt territory, and attempting a few high notes that were at least one testicle out of his range, Chris ultimately pulls it off with a woozy grace, a flawed gem of a gig.
Noise Night at Queen Charlotte rooms was a mixed bag (of power tools). Ali Robertson and Dora Doll make a succession of wholly uninvolving plinky plonky noises, the highlight being when the kettle whistled alongside a lowing cow while someone closed a cutlery drawer. Scrim’s noise builds to a sonic shift, a swirl of feedback cuts to the fury of a wind tunnel – it’s their Westlife key change moment, when the balladeering bozos step up from their stools – and it feels like being strapped to the nose of an airplane. Interesting, but somehow faintly obvious. Muscletusk, a clear favourite of the venue owner, are an absurdist joy. Mysterious boxes emit thrums that swell and layer, noisescome out of guitars that have no business coming out of guitars, and the drummer hits his kit as fast and as hard as he can. The drone volume increases, cracked samples emerge from the cacophony, and dizzyingly the drumming gets harder, faster and louder. The ungodly squall is breathless, vicious and thrilling, kind of like Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’ had he let loose a few rounds from his cherished rifles into the mix.
The Bum-Clocks self demote to second on the bill, because mum’s in town and she wants an early night. Erstwhile soap star Tam Dean Burn snarls his way through Rabbie Burns via Iggy Pop. Literate and punk, Tam makes for a captivating front man. Malcolm ross’s guitar work is as spellbindingly absorbent as Jack White’s, and not even ‘that bloke off the telly’ singing songs about nine inch penises in front of his mum can distract from it. Sellotape open proceedings with great promise, fractured art-punk that wouldn’t sound out of place on Yeah Yeah Yeah’s debut EP. From that opening the gig never quite takes off, and singer Viki’s performance is frustratingly restrained. A dipsomaniac dash across Leith ensues to catch the close of Little Doses’ gig. Sporting a new line-up, and a new haircut for The Leither cover star Kirsten, their sound is confident, dusky power pop and, crucially, the haircut is an entirely charming elfin crop.
These popsters can all be seen in a venue near you, and MyTwitterSpaceBook, I am very sure, will give you the skinny…
Note: You can check our more of Ryan’s Leither Photography on our Flickr Photostream:
& even more can be found on his own website: ryanmcgoverne.co.uk