Still Ill

[juliet]

I have lost my voice. This is Not Good.

General Khaki rocked massively - definitely worth going along, despite lurgy. Singer/guitarist wound up playing from on top of the crowd, kind of pressed against the ceiling. Top stuff. Much impressed generally - everyone should go see them! Tight, fast, fun, and with actual *tunes* making an appearance.

Sadly, none of these things applied to Kids Who Tell On Other Kids Are Dead Kids (the band before), who were basically unmitigated shite. Not together at all, no sense of timing or rhythm, just messy/chaotic in a very bad way. They appear to have fallen for that old cliche 'punk means not having to be able to play'. ERROR. For about 10-20 seconds every song there was a brief glimpse of some sort of potential, but then it disappeared again underneath the unpleasant mess.

No idea about the last lot owing as how I went home to nurse my sore throat & lack of voice. Sniffle. Off to bed now, in the vain hope that tomorrow I will be better.

Comments

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Hope you get well soon!

[martinv.livejournal.com]

But surely punk is partially about not having to be able to play, or be "together." Plus Kids are ace. Etc.

[juliet]

No, you see, this is the Great Myth. The decent punk bands all *can* play, and *do* know what each other are doing (or could, & did, for those sadly no longer with us). It takes a reasonable amount of talent to be able to sound chaotic but good at the same time. Kids, sadly, do not (at least currently) have this. There was the odd flash of possible good stuff, so they might yet improve, but not if they keep believing that punk=crap. Especially when defining 'crap' as 'singing out of tune' & 'having no semblance of any sort of sense of rhythm whatsoever'. It's a shame, cos they *could* do good punk.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

This all depends on whether we're talking about punk as genre or punk as attitude. I think the former is pretty much untenable. I like music with tunes as much as the next guy, but there's a community spirit to punk as I see it, which the 'here's a chord, and another, and another, now form a band' attitude. That's not to say you're going to produce music I want to listen to with this philosophy; invariably you won't. I just think there's a certain something in it...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Probably to do with the fact that they hardly ever practice. I thought it was one of the best sets I've seen them play actually - but then again I was right at the front in the thick of it and it was kinda hard not to get caught up in the \m/ RAWK.

I guess whether you like Kids... depends on how much you like At The Drive-In.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

They did actually have some quite sophisticated rhythms going on in one or two of their songs, if you were listening carefully. No idea what the lyrics were, though, cos I couldn't hear them. OTOH I was the wrong side of the PA, at the front.

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

Hehe, just looking back on LJ and I had lost my voice on Thursday too so you were in good company. I had to give a paper at a conference with no voice which was Not Good :-) See you soon.