FAG : Saturday September 3rd. Fractured and The Shimura Curves

-- emsk (vomit.quif...), August 8th, 2005.

you realise of course that you run the risk of "drinking things" being forcibly drunk by a HORRIBLE DOG don't say we didn't warn you

Backstage gets crowded enough without all our rubbish gear in there as well.

http://bloggers.ja.bz/katou/archives/hooch-thumb.jpg

Kate - yes no probs. I'll check with Andy and Id tonight, but they're usually fine about it. We have a Marshall JCM-900 100W for guitar and a big trace elliot mutha for bass. We might have a Roland Cube with us if I play some guitar too.

Cool. This will be excellent and rock indeed. (God, that sounds like such a Ned-ism.)

I've seen Shimura Curves go heavy metal before and totally approve!

DAS IS NICHT MEIN NEUFRIEND!!! DAS IS NICHT MINE NEUFRIEND!!!

NEUFREND!!! NEUFREND!!!!!

::insert terrifying Germanic Valkyrie scream here::

wait, no there hasn't! (You and AMP headbanging aside...)

(I'm not sure she actually has a bass amp - we tried to use hers at practice but it, also, was blown. Maybe Mr. Knight has one we can borrow. Which will be an excuse to get Mr. Knight out of the house to pester him about maths and dronerock.)

I'm in France.

Kate, I'm never going to see your band.

Ever.

:-(

But point taken, I should probably post about it to the 22 list.

Cuh.

Friends getting married, parents' wedding aniversary... sheesh! It's not my fault people insist on this love and marriage bullshit.

Oh, my!

Surely you mean bump!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

::weeps bitter tears::

Ha-ha, sounds like you are being a good manager, Emsk and earning your 15%. (Well, 15% of pink wine at least, tee hee.)

(Lex, we will just fill you with one of our rider bottles of pink wine and I'm sure you'll be dancing on the ceiling in no time. And no, you can not ride home in the tour van because we do not have one.)

Yes I should be able to come along. It's high time I saw Fractured and I'm also intrigued by Diary.

No, not going to Iggy tonight - will have waaaayyy too much of that later this week with my sisX0r. In fact, not doing anything except rehearsing because we have ONLY TWO WEEKS UNTIL THE GIG!!!! and I will have no time to rehearse because I will be too busy drinking with my sisX0r (and Iggy). Argh. And I've written two new songs. Which we will never learn in time.

Well, maybe Noyfriend because Krautrock is so easy to play.

http://www.antique-dog-pictures.co.uk/images/sight/irish-wolfhound.jpg

That goes for you, too, Chuck! Humph!

http://www.bullandgate.co.uk/listings.html

Looks like you're a spangle pop frenzy. We're dry wit & infectious punk rockery.

Funnily enough, I accidentally clicked on the "Fractured" weblink on that page, and learn that their keyboardist "Dave Clark" was tempted into the band by means of a 1975 tube of ... spangles...

I need to go guitar stuff shopping this weekend.

No we are bloody not. I did not agree to that. I refuse to associated with "doing a rude smirk".

2. I will be carrying a GUITAR and a LAPTOP and a GIG BAG FULL OF NEW PEDALS which I do not want to either have to drag around all day, or else watch like a hawk/worry about. I don't want to have to make two trips. Or drop stuff anywhere out of my constant hawk-like gaze considering the manner in which the last gigbag disappeared.

Might have to get H3l3n and/or L@ur3nc3 to come along to the gig itself to terrify the boy bands with OMG way too many intimidating women in room.

Anna YHM.

yes please. We're a man band, though...I think.

I hope the Shimura massive will hang around for a bit to see us instead of going to find kool and trendy things to do elsewhere. I have been asking our folks to come early to see the SC's, so *should* be a decent crowd. Will anyone have a camera? If so, pls take some pics of us!!

We'd better have a rehearsal I suppose.

40 years of marriage is not a crisis - it's a bloody miracle, and is quite rightly being celebrated this weekend with first class travel on the Eurostar, shitloads of tasty Parisien cuisine, and buckets of fine wine, champagne and cognac.

Stick that in your bull, and your gate. So ner ;-)

SHIMURA CURVES : 9.15-ish
FRACTURED : 10.00 ish

According to the blurb from the B&G, anyway.

DIARY DATE
Diary return to headline on Saturday 3rd September. Material coming out of their ears they claim which is music to ours. Imagine any Fall backing band at it's most brutally subtle (50, 000 Fall fans might understand that one!) and add John Plant's satirical observations and meandering poetic gems, anything from stalking double glazing salesmen to rats on trains riding all the way to Upminster, and you've got arguably one of the most stunning acts of genius ever to grace this venue. Fractured make for a top double bill. A similar lyrical flask unscrewed and offered to all in screw on cup/caps with a backing more akin to the Ramones/Buzzcocks school of chugging power chords and raucos OTT delivery. Shimura Curves slightly more subtle and almost ghost-like twisted St Etienne like dance-pop, The Beloved meets Girls At Our Best also features along with the slightly Ska-rd Clash-like dub punk sounds of The Redeemers Croydon based concrete jungle punx.

Load in is at 5. Definitely at 5pm sharp. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Rehearsal last night was a bit strange, with half the band deciding to be Kate Bush and half the band me deciding to be The Stooges. I heart my new pedals. I *really* heart our new harmonies!

You might have to do the talking to the B&G people. And find out who we pester to get paid! And er... what other sorts of things do managers do?

Fetch the mic stand and set it up again when I get in an Iggy-style rage and throw it across the studio. ;-)

Kate - I confirmed with Andy that you can use his Marshall combo. It's actually not a JCM800, it's the AFG one which is part valve, part tranny. Anyway it's a noisy beast. We're using Diary's bass rig, as ours is still sick. There would be no problem with you using it too.

Nice one on the amp. I played a JCM800 at rehearsal the other day and it nearly blew the other ladies out of the studio! Oh dear.

I just need to go home and do a good sleep, which I've not done in weeks, it seems. :-(

(OK, the Dorchester was horrible, but that was Pop's fault.)

You sneeze, or even BLINK and the waiter brings over another tray of drinks. It's astonishing.

(apologies if this is addressed upthread - too lazy to click 'show all messages' and read through them)

...actually I have been to a dinner at the Dorchester while at Univ. We got wasted and stole some huge potted plants from reception. Or was that the Waldorf?

You would remember the Dorchester. It's truly hideous - the outside is quite nice art deco, but the inside is just guilded hell. I've never seen so much gold this side of Versailles.

This morning I found a stray orange feather in my bed. It looked so sordid.

Thanks to everyone who came down! Hurrah! Sorry I was nervous and running around like chicken sans head and didn't really get to talk to anyone for longer than 5 minutes before going "oh no, I need to do my make up/tune my guitar/turn in the guest list..."

I had a really fun time! One of those gigs where I almost wished I could have been in the audience rather than the show, because I kept turning around and my bandmates would have turned into the Three Graces, prancing about in fine Electroclash fashion. And The Lex! In the feather boa! Best gig moment yet!

I really enjoyed Fractured, they had me laughing my ass off (plop, plop), all good fun and lovely boys to boot.

Did anyone get any pictures? I just want to prove to my mum that I do occasionally smile onstage. Honest, mum.

The Shimura Curves - seriously brilliant stuff, ladies. I was SO impressed with the songs, the total POPness and of course you all looked fantastic! Could you post the setlist - I'd love to know the names of all of the songs. At least 5 of them (actually the first 5, IIRC) had me gasping with awe at the sheer pop songcraft. Kate - your guitar playing was inspiring and the Jaguar sounded lovely. I really enjoyed the song where you were playing a snaky lead line - you played it with a reverby surf sound for most of the song and then fuzzed it up near the end. Nice! I also enjoyed the snappy rhythm work on the opener. Hey, I'm getting all muso here....so I'll stop. Anyway, great stuff! I hope we can do a gig with you again sometime.

**I really enjoyed Fractured, they had me laughing my ass off (plop, plop), all good fun and lovely boys to boot**

That's very kind.It was probably our most enjoyable gig and the best we've played. If the audience are with us after a few songs we tend to go for all out fun and frenzy, and it seemed to work out pretty well on Sat. A couple of people asked for songs to play out - I will get stuff to you, Matt and Anna. Next stop in the world tour is AFC Wimbledon on Friday Sept 16th. http://www.giveandgo.co.uk/ (Indie-progsters? I don't know about that!). Come along and give us some support.

I'd love to gig with you sometime.

Wow, thanks Dr. C - we've changed our set order all around, so let's see if I can remember the first five songs. the first one was definitely Thoughtworm then the one with the snakey guitar is OPC (Other People's Cigarettes) and then Elephants and then the really gay disco one that The Lex danced to was Insecurities Trader and after that, I forget, because, well, being an idiot, I didn't make set lists (!) - would have been maybe Mother, Stronger (not a Britney cover, unfortunately), Lost Rivers of Clerkenwell but I know that we ended with Magnus/Sexx Viking (delete according to whether we are speaking to each other or not).

Argh, did I forget anything? We've got our first recording session the first weekend of October. Blimey, which songs should we record?

please record stronger, please.

and shut up i have had a very very stressful and busy fortnight! i am allowed to nod off in special circumstances.

(Though it is strange how audience and band often disagree on what the "best" songs are. I think our favourite to perform is probably Magnus/Sexx Viking (that song really needs a new name))

Barima totally owes me though.

Nah, man, I think you need more gaying up and this is a step in the right direction. You're on your own now.

I mean, come one! It's at Cargo! Everyone at Cargo is supposed to dance. Isn't it a dance venue?

you mean the arch that leads from main bar to the dancey bit?

Mais, oui.

Thanks, K. How many songs do I have to dance to onstage? No feather boas though, I fancy a cape or some George Clinton-type ish.

One cannot gay up on one's own.

Shimura Curves at Cargo, omg: the last time I went there at night was for non-Vitalic! You are in exalted company indeed. B and I have to wear co-ordinated outfits of some sort.

(then again, I keep promising to wear my frock coats but it's always too hot.)

Emsk, you probably can - I don't know yet if it's a private party or a public party or what. Will find out for you (and I'm sure it would be OK if you came) but don't want to go inviting loads of people until I find out if partycrashers would be rude or welcomed. x-post - Anna has just answered you!

http://www.aimath.org/WWN/qptsurface2/articles/html/21a/img62.gif

the curves (as we call them) made everyone happy. kate's programming was great, suited the dancey popness of the girls but also sounded like it had the potential to transform into something Other, be that droney goodness or bleepy weirdness or anything in between. good, yes. joined-up, intelligent lyrics as well.

fractured also good in an adverts meet i, ludicrous kind of way. punk and funny. singer loses punk points for having an obviously ironed crease down the front of his t-shirt though. 8)

(think the bull and gate are going after the maths crowd - the mandlebrot set are playing there next week sometime)

(and only three of us, i think, made it to both the friday and saturday gigs. we = hardcore.)

singer loses punk points for having an obviously ironed crease down the front of his t-shirt though

Surely that was a fold? (I know folding isn't that punk either.) I liked him, he had a cute smile and was polite when I came out with a stream of over-tired rubbish (I'm really not helping the punk cred here am I?)

CARGO - SEPT 27 Charlie.

Hurrah for the hardcore who made it to both! (Anna was also one of your number, so she makes four!) x-post with Anna AGAIN!!! Dammit, girl!

(robster was the other)

Thanks! Being mentioned in the same breath as the Adverts is awesome!

**singer loses punk points for having an obviously ironed crease down the front of his t-shirt though.**

HAHAHA! Did he really? That's it he's OUT.

**Oh my, Fractured are playing at AFCW!! How strange. I wouldn't reveal your Chelsea-supportingness to too many people, Doc :)**

When Jeff (singer with ironed shirt) spoke to the promoter the talk naturally turned to football and he told him that we had fans of Shrewsbury,Bournemouth and Grimsby in the band. The first two are true, but apparently I'm the Grimsby fan! Actually I have nothing to be ashamed of in my support for CFC, as I first started supporting them in 1970, aged 8, and first saw them in 1973. I am no Johnny come-lately, but I take the point that perhaps it's best to keep it under my hat, as it were. Anyway, come and see us a week on Friday.

I don't suppose anyone has any photos of Sat, do they?

Dr C, there was a guy with a digital camera knocking around, but God knows who he was.

http://www.aimath.org/WWN/qptsurface2/articles/html/21a/img62.gif

that's kinda funny, because not only does that make sense to me, but i know the authors of that article quite well. it's just a trace of frobenius on some etale cohomology, you know?

(Why can no one ever get our name right? Either The Shimura Curves or Shimura Curve, both of which are wrong. Plural Curves, but no definite article. Why is that so hard?)

THIS IS PART OF WHAT I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT!!!!!!!

*ducks*

I was thinking it was more in homage to Throwing Muses (another band sans The who always get one stuck on.)

Anyway, the definate article makes sure no-one confuses you with any other Shimura Curve knocking about.

I just feel like I've done my time in The bands after The Lollies and The Kissing Time.

The only other band I ever had this problem with was The Dreaming Spires, who had a definite article that people forever left out, because I guess shoegazing bands weren't supposed to have definite articles. I don't know.

(as in: question mark part of the name, a la The Alan Bown! in the '60s)

Actually, I can't think of a single shoegazer band with a definite article. Not even the minor ones, like The Revolver or The Spitfire. The Hurricane Number One?

I rest my case!

Where where you on Saturday, Marcello? I was looking out for you!

-- last train (petethane...), September 6th, 2005.

You really don't want to know, Dr C (not for sinister reasons, but because the reasons I didn't make it to the B&G were boring ones).

How were Diary? Did Ben & Esther show up?

xpost

Yes Diary were musically v.interesting. But post-set beer was calling.

**Please record a proper version of Collina so I can play it at Seal okthxbye.**

Matt we have a very good version from the mixing desk at the B&G. That might be good enough to play out? Let me know if you want it.

http://www.playlouder.com/feature/+its-the-moffat-s-0/

The Pipettes comparison makes me SO CROSS that I can't even speak. (calling The Lollies "proto-Pipettes" is a bit like calling Radiohead "proto-Travis") But he's such a sexist cunt he mentions Diary having a "drummeress" - does he go to a Doctoress when he's ill?

Argh, now I remember why I just shouldn't read my own press, it just makes me so cross. Like a band can't be flirty and female, but also dark/intelligent at the same time? Grrrr.

A later jaunt takes us to another haunt we've not haunted for a while as, contrary to some of the more scurrilous rumours that were rumbling at the start of the year, the Bull & Gate is still very much with us, and playing host to some stuff best filed under "chuffing remarkable". For instance, they're hosting what we discover - and could perhaps have guessed - is the fifth ever gig by Shimura Curves, an offshoot of early-noughties proto-Pipettes The Lollies, and what rum larks these are. The look is rather more TV's Bad Girls Go On A Day Trip To ATP than Girls Aloud, but, ooh!, those harmonies! It's a four-way fiesta! The whole affair's mighty lo in fi-ness and, dare we say, low in finesse, but there's some starkly dark songwriting at play that sits teasingly ill at ease with their Bananarama bounciness and very own feather-boa-flapping guest Bez figure. Verrrrry selective appeal, we reckon, but, with some inevitability, we rather admire the Curves.

But not as much as we fall for The Fractured. "Where is my mind? Where is my mind? I lost it at a Pixies gig in 1989!" You might well assume from a lyric like that that they're not exactly springy of chickenness. You'd have a point. Still, there's an oddly Albarny charm to their lead singer (we're reminded of when Damon actually did cut a charming figure in his human form, of course), a not-wholly-self-conscious punkoid ramshackleness to their tuneage, and, in their favour, loads and loads of songs that are fantastically, caustically comical and still find room to quote Philip Larkin. Smart! They may very well be scuppering their own prospects by having a song called 'We're The Support Band', but it actually serves them very well indeed. Firstly, it thaws anyone in the building who'd been off-put by the Inspirals tendencies of the organist - not a problem for everyone, inevitably, but a noticeable feature. Second, it's their funniest offering by far. And third, it hammers home why we think they're as great as they are: to all intents and purposes, they're Art Brut's dads!

Anyway, I've calmed down now. I will not read my own press. I will not read my own press. I will not read my own press.

(And even if Dr. C is Clint Boon, at least the review wasn't about what *he* was wearing.)

Anyway, I'm over it now. Emsk is right, it's SSRI withdrawl comedown.

I am heartily encouraged by Clint Boon reference, especially since organ isn't really my instrument. Wait until they hear me on guitar!

Should I get a bowl haircut?

Dr C = yes!

Heh heh, see, that's what Jane Lollie used to do when we got bad press - she'd review the reviewers, and, having been a subeditor for many years, she could get quite vicious. It was hillarious.

Have read emails, agree with Francis re: pipettes comparison, but cannot spend too long in hotmail at current desk (ILE could be anything).

I guess what hurts is that there is a grain of truth in the Lollies/Pipettes comparison, especially with early Lollies stuff. But it's like... dude, get the CHRONOLOGY right. We were ripping off the Shangri-Las and trying to synchronise our handclaps and our guitar playing when the Pipettes were still writing their GCSEs.

I mean, my personal opinion is that the Pipettes are just kind of ... missing something that makes that genre of music appealing to me. (The Schla La Las definitely do have it - I guess it's that sense of *fun* - of it being a world of their own that they are inviting you into, while the Pipettes just come off like dress up dolls.) BUT FOR GODS SAKE, THE LOLLIES WERE THERE FIRST!!!!

Not true!

A bit of shameless self promo here:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3366/3640308669_aa89343170.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3528/3723436904_aed6c9af3b.jpg?v=0

We're launching our new single and it's the first gig with the new line-up. Proxy Music are a Roxy Music tribute band who play stuff from Eno-era Roxy, and The Fallen Leaves are fantastic garagey pop-punk. We're on at 8.30/8.45 ish.