Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

From Chapel Club to the Palace via The Hare and Hounds.

Chapel Club - Retro

Last April, without knowing a great deal about them beforehand, I went to see the Chapel Club at The Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton. After the gig I must confess I came away a little under whelmed and really none the wiser. All I'd gleaned about Chapel Club was they seemed to like birds (of the feathered kind) and they were unapologetically, incontrovertibly and unquestionably RETRO. RETRO with a capital Ruh! And this RETROness was a problem, for me anyway. You see when you're an old tosser who've already lived and breathed; heard and seen all the reconstituted, regurgitated, MUZO-RETRO references that are being fired at you, its hard not to wince and then wince some more.

Nine months later though I have to admit I was wrong about Chapel Club. On the surface they seem to be following in the footfalls of a whole series of bands, notably amongst the many, The Horrors (The Good), White Lies (The Bad) and The Editors (The Ugly); ploughing remorselessly the '80's RETRO trough of Joy Division, The Bunnymen, Birthday Party, Bauhaus, New Order etc. But unlike the aforementioned troika Chapel Club's choices of sound and method aren't as narrowly defined. They're more expansive than The Horrors, definitely not as bland as White Lies and certainly not as singularly derivative as The Editors.

But what does this RETRO thing really mean? Does it mean that every single heart piecing melody, chord crunching progression, left field musical device, timeless tune and profound image laden lyric have already been written? Has it all been done before? Did Beethoven really use up all the best riffs? Did Robert Johnson really find a secret chord? Where's Mr Originality nowadays? Is there nothing new to be discovered, nothing new to be gleaned? Are we destined to be on a slow repeat ad infinitum? Does RETRO always equal retrograde? Well the answer is, Yes and No. RETRO music is all very well and good as long as the original gets subverted, perverted, transmuted, reinvigorated, reconstituted, shaken down, shaken up, revamped and redesigned. Otherwise the answer is no, and retro is just a rather large YAWN.

Jerry Dammers was on the idiot box the other night freely testifying to being the inventor of RETRO music. He reckons that when The Specials started to re-work Jamaican SKA, he (or they) inadvertently invented the new musical genre of RETRO. That's very nice idea of course, but he'd forgotten about the small London based combo called the Rolling Stones, who along with John Mayall Bluesbreakers and just about every one else in the South East of England in the early 60's, plundered (or re-presented) the Blues. If that wasn't RETRO, well I'll be f***ked Jerry…………...anyway let's move on.

Palace - & Wintering

Lined up looking as if they've just stepped off the set of The Smiths video for "Ask", and with Morrissey's flowers in the foreground, and a touch of the Brothers Quay "in colour" about it all, the cover of "PALACE" perfectly encapsulates the rich 80's eclectic RETRO confection that can be heard within. The album neatly links together the three singles proper, "Surfacing" that borrows the cheesy hook from "Dream a Little Dream" and paints it indelibly black; the Moz like machinations of "O Maybe I"; and the oscillation inducing "All the Eastern Girls". Ian McCulloch is here in spades on "White Knight Positions" Chris Martin on "After the Flood" and Scott Walker on "Paper Thin". There's a massive dollop of New Order's "Love Vigilantes" (riff wise) on "Blind" - and there's a few other Morrissey-esque melodramatic lyrical moments here for good measure too.

But does all this musical and lyrical referencing, that at times borders on pastiche, really matter? I think not. At no time on PALACE do Chapel Club paint themselves into an inescapable corner, their RETROness rather than being particular or singular is boundless, and the quality and execution of the songs is always strong enough to win the day. Is "Palace" an album or a collection of songs? I'm not really sure, yet, but what I am certain of is that the standard release of "PALACE" without the "Wintering EP" - which includes the songs "Bodies" (no definitely not a Sex Pistols cover) and the preposterously long but charming "Widows", is a much lesser product. Will you get Chapel Club without the "Wintering EP"? Perhaps you will. But personally these 4 extra tracks are deal clinchers! So if you've gone standard class, sell it and upgrade, or download the EP, either way it's worth the extra KA$H.

Hare and Hounds - 13/02/2011

It's strange to be at the Horse and Hounds and not here to see a reggae band, I think last time I was here it was to see the Mighty Diamonds but I could be mighty wrong, I usually am, memory's shot you see. First off it's time for the number game. No tickets at the H&H all you need do is quote a three or four digit booking number and you get a stamp on your hand and ushered in. Oh shit! Not a clue. First I give the young girl (or operative) my debit card pin number, it doesn't work. Then I get desperate and say "154?" This is because I'd been listening to Wire's the third album "154" in the car on the way to the gig. She's not happy now. The queue is growing behind me. She looks through me with her dark pitying eyes, clears her throat and wonders to herself whether care in the community is such a good thing after all. Under pressure I splutter out three distinctly different and incoherent sounds. "Name?" She asks. "Ed" I reply. She sticks a big black tick on her sheet, stamps my hand with what I thought was an excessive amount of force and ushers me in.

Into the dark, overly warm, smoke drenched upstairs room I go. It's nothing like Robert Smith's "Upstairs Room" which was "Cool and bright. We can go up there in summer and dance all night" Oh well, who's turned up early to see David Lyre? Well first off there's student boy and student girl. They may well have arrived together but if Travis Bickle was here he'd have to say, "the way they were both relating, there was no connection whatsoever" She's certainly a girl afraid, chewing on her nails, taking micro sips of her drink, nervously pulling at her plat. The boy is talking nine to the dozen, on and on, to a slightly more attractive, slightly more forthcoming student type, her equine features probably mean she's called Jocasta, but I can't be sure. Even though I'm lip reading like crazy. The girl with the plat would like to kill Jocasta, right now! But it would be far too quick. She would like her to die in the same way she herself is dying inside right now, a death by a thousand cuts. Problem is she can hardly bear to look at Jocasta lest her own visage inadvertently betrays the darkness of her inner thoughts. Huh I wonder how it will end?

Ooops "David's Lyre" have been and gone. Phew now I need say nothing. Who else is here? Oh right the omnipresent (in Brum) baldpated geezer with the massively oversized……………camera, and the red haired woman (of middle years) with a note pad and biro in hand. I guess because he's got a camera in his hand that makes him a photographer, and because she's got a biro in her hand that makes her a journalist (spit). I've just been to the bogs where I had my cock in my hand does that make me a wa.....? Apparently it does.

10 o'clock was soon upon us and with "Depths" as an intro to herald their entrance, Chapel Club bustled through the audience and onto the stage. Lewis Bowman quickly confessed that it was Monday, this was Oxford, and that he was pissed. That wasn't a problem, "Surfacing" and "White Knight Positions" were detonated as 1&2 and it was enough to concentrate the mind, even in the now oven like conditions of the Hare & Hounds. Then, all of a sudden I realised there was something I hadn't picked up on when I saw Chapel Club last. Bassist Liam Arklie is one of us. He's got the vacant stage personae of Sidney V, the tattoo's of Paul Raven and the bass growl of JJ Burnel. Yeah Liam is definitely one of us, one of us, one of us!

With a diverse selection of 11 tracks or so in set list, its apparent Chapel Club now have more than enough ammunition to headline. "Bodies" held sway, "All the Eastern Girls" initiated several moments of argy bargy - the job was a goodun. The avert nature of their RETROness seemed to dissipate into an irrelevance as fifty minutes passed in the blinking of an eye. The black painted walls were dripped with condensation and the 200 odd souls seemed mightily pleased with what they'd received. But did these punters need to know that Scott Walker onced live in Brum or where the music of Chapel Club has arrived from, to be turned on? Probably not. And is imitation the highest form of flattery? In this case…….probably YES!