Author Archive
The Blow Ups @ The Loft @ The Nag’s Head, High Wycombe – 040609
by soulcatcher on Jun.07, 2009, under Rock
TBU visited High Wycombe for the first time last Thursday to open in a great lineup including Melodee Rockmore and Slashed Seat Affair. Both these other bands were great and you owe it to yourselves to go look them up on MySpace and check out their stuff live but for now I’ll just be concentrating on the TBU part of the gig because they’re just too good and time is short.
TBU, if you don’t know already are a 4-piece comprising of Kelly BlowUps on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Arda Payir on Bass, Marc Weber on Lead Guitar and Cem Andre on Drums. Their songs have strong melodies and centre around alternative rock but occasionally dip into oldskool punk.
I’ve been following the band for nearly 2 years and know all their songs inside out but still like to listen to their stuff live a great deal. The set list has changed quite a bit over the last year or so, moving away from their more punky roots and towards a new effect-driven and more contemporary sound although some of the old favourites still remain.
Every set is invariably opened by the 2 minute ‘Black Out’ (their ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ if you like), the opening riff of which could easily feel at home on something from 1977. It’s short, to the point, immediately memorable and utterly brilliant. The next 28 or so minutes are filled with an enjoyable variety of great songs. ‘Without Your Love’, an ode to relationship uncertainty lyrically but which is carried along by melodic and rhythmic optimism is fantastic – Pop-tastic ‘I Don’t Wanna Talk About It’ rocks hard with a big smile and has a great solo – The quiet number of the set ‘Choke’ let’s everyone have a bit of a breather before we’re plunged into the current high-point of the set (in my opinion at least) ‘Stake Through The Heart’ which is lyrically another complicated relationship type affair and musically a barrage of everything that a 21st century rock song should contain. There are other more contemporary-sounding songs in the set, becoming more and more the rule rather than the exception but some punk examples keep sneaking back in, which is not a bad thing at all when they’re as infectious as ‘Yeah Yeah’, which could easily have been lifted of Blondie’s eponymous debut, but wasn’t and the great set-closer ‘Superhero’ which is, after much of the lyrically heavy songs in the set a real tonic, even though perhaps the underlying metaphor is still one of longing.
Sombre lyrical undertones aside, The Blow Ups current set is far from depressing and I would urge anyone who enjoys decent song-based rock ‘n’ roll to check them out as they are, in my opinion, one of the greatest unsigned bands playing this type of music in London right now.
Life may be trying its hardest to be miserable enough these days without we need to wallow in music that echoes this trend. TBU are fun and Kelly as a focal point is amazing to watch, if a little sweary at times. 
The Blow Ups are playing next on the 19th June at the excellent Cafe De Paris off Piccadilly Circus.
See you there!
Magenta @ The Peel – 300509
by soulcatcher on Jun.01, 2009, under Rock, Uncategorized
My favourite progressive rock band?
Well if you *possibly* remove the ‘progressive metal’ branch of the genre I would say, most probably yes!
Magenta snuck up on me. I’ve been quite into a few bands of this type for a while now and while I’m obviously not die-hard enough to have discovered them until their appearance at The Peel last year, pleasant memories of that performance have stuck with me ever since. In fact I remember mentioning after that gig to a gear-lugging Dan Fry the relatively fresh-faced bass player in the band that I considered that performance to be the best I’d seen there, beating even Richie Kotzen’s electrifying set from a few years back.
Even though I generally live on a slightly edgier side of prog, appreciating the likes of Dream Theater, Symphony X and Redemption far more than the less ‘exciting’ efforts of the likes of Yes and Genesis, and I would classify Magenta, in a lot of cases to be as far from Metal than these bands, I have to say that I never find them to be boring.
I wasn’t mentally track-skipping any of their performance on Saturday night. Sure there are quiet bits but they’re just long enough before a liviler section comes along and before that starts to grate on the ears we’re taking a break again. I realise this level of perfect balance is going to be different for everyone – all I can say is that for me, it’s pretty much spot-on.
Melody is sooooo important to me as well. Hooks are king. I love complex stuff and it’s really rewarding to ‘learn’ to listen to a challenging piece of prog – knowing where all the odd bits are that throw the first-time listener but some bands take this to extremes and forget that a good tune or motif can give an honest ‘life’ to a song and bring it into balance. Not so Magenta.
There are plenty of tricky little bits to keep a moderate prog fan happy but this is tempered by some absolutely gloriously melodic motifs that your granny could join in with. In a good way!
I could go on for a good while longer talking more about this band but I think I’ve done enough here to recommend it to anyone who likes ‘good’ music. Check out their latest album ‘Metamorphosis’ and believe me when I say, they’re just as impressive live. The Peel is a small venue and while it’s got a reasonably good PA, the sheer quality of this band’s sound in a venue this size was unbelievable.
Check them out live or recorded. Believe me when I say you won’t be sorry.
