tim bowness - 26/08/15 boston music room

Just back from the excellent Tim Bowness gig at the Boston Music Room in Tufnell Park, London. Why Tim isn't appearing on much bigger stages I'll never know, because his songs are astonishing, the performances are powerful and heartfelt, and he really deserves to be better known. 

For the moment though I'm enjoying the low key gigs, the intimate surroundings and the feeling that Tim and his band are playing for me, just me. And this is key to understanding why I love seeing and hearing a Tim Bowness live performance. 

From the earliest days of no-man Tim's songs have had peculiarly personal quality about them. Regardless of the subject matter, I always get the same feeling from most of his songs, a feeling that the song is addressed directly to me, no-one else, just me. Which is why so many of Tim's songs simultaneously bring comfort and also sometimes tears. In concert that feeling is lessened, as I am surrounded by a couple of hundred other people, but not entirely gone. I was right at the front, just as I was last year at the Borderline, right underneath Tim's mic stand. A fantastic view of everything that happened on stage and close enough to almost forget that there was an audience behind me. A wonderful feeling. 

The evening opened with Colin Edwin creating some soundscapes on his shiny red bass as Andrew Booker gently shimmered the cymbals. As Mike Bearpark joined them on guitar, Booker's drumming gradually became more insistent, harder and wilder, until a ferocious groove had been created. This improvised piece, perhaps 15 minutes long, was the support act, and actually worked extremely well in setting the mood. 

A short break and the trio were back accompanied by Stephen Bennett on keyboards and 'some Tim bloke' as Edwin had mentioned earlier. They launched into "The Great Electric Teenage Dream' which was considerably more powerful and pounding than on record. Tim and Stephen were really screaming out the vocals at the end. Immediately there was the sense that this band were going to rock. Hard. And so they did. As if to emphasise their rock credentials Tim even leaped into the air at the song's conclusion - but immediately followed it with a self-deprecating 'that's what we call theatrics.' Keeping the momentum going with "The Warm Up Man Forever' and "Press Reset", the brutal second half of which was one of the many highlights of the night, the energy levels were at maximum. 

"Sing To Me" followed, one of my favourites from the new album Stupid Things That Mean The World. As with pretty much everything that was played tonight, this was another track which came across far more forcefully onstage. A stunning guitar solo from Professor Bearpark - in fact Mike's guitaring was terrific all night, switching from ambient cries to powerchords or squealing solos with ease. 

As well as tracks from Tim's two recent albums we were also treated to some no-man songs - "Time Travel In Texas", no longer the scratchy, shuffly track from Wild Opera but now a muscular, thumping and downright funky work out. Later in the set we had another Wild Opera song - "Housewives Hooked On Heroin" which had been thoroughly made over into a dark and dirty slice of rock. 

Before that though were a couple more from the new album - a lovely rendition of "Know That You Were Loved", although half the audience wasn't paying attention and started clapping as the coda began, which drew a mild telling off from Tim once the song had properly finished. And then the title track - the performance of which made me realise what a wonderfully catchy song it is, and if this world was a better place then "Stupid Things That Mean The World" would be a massive hit single. 

My absolute highlight of the night was the gorgeous "Dancing For You" - it's such a pretty song, such a melancholy song, such an emotional song - another brilliant solo from Mike, some beautiful keyboarding from Stephen, and Tim delivering a vocal that really got to me. Even if the rest of the show had been rubbish then I'd have been happy to have heard "Dancing For You". But the rest of the show was just as good. Another treat - "The Me I Knew" from My Hotel Year, Tim's first solo album - vastly different from the sparse original, now with complex percussion and bass, and a delightful keyboard intro. 

The main set ended with "Smiler At 50", dark and brooding, a real sense of aggression barely restrained, and as the apocalyptic coda began Tim jumped from the stage and nimbly ran through the audience as the monolithic slabs of noise poured from the stage behind him. 

How do you follow that? Well, they encored with the brilliant no-man track "All The Blue Changes". I love the way the song begins gently but insistently with Andrew Booker rapping out the rhythm, but over the course of the song everything rises in intensity, noise accumulating upon noise creating a maelstrom of music which I never want to end. 

And that was it - a cracking gig, a very appreciative audience and a band that absolutely delivered. It's such a shame that they don't play more shows. 

As I was leaving I was surprised to see Tim Bowness hanging around the merch table, so I was able to shake his hand and thank him both for the show, and for all the years of pleasure and comfort his music has given me. And will hopefully continue to do for many many years to come. 

nico - again

It's summery, I'm back from my holiday and feeling chilled and relaxed. So what music do I reach for?

Nico.

Why on earth do I choose her? Surely some of the least summery and relaxing music I own...

But, bizarrely, and going against all rational logic, that's what I'm playing today. I started with Nico's June 1985 performance at the Chelsea Town Hall, and this was followed by her April 1986 concert in Tokyo. Two gigs, less than a year apart, with virtually the same musicians and set list, but sounding surprisingly different. 

The over-riding impression from both recordings is that there’s lots of slightly bizarre and sometimes inappropriate percussion, gently tinkling piano, and slabs of cheap sounding 1980's synth. And behind it all, ignoring all of the seemingly extraneous music, is the unsteady pulse of the harmonium and Nico’s phrasing, which is sometimes entirely unconnected from the song that’s attempting to be played.

She plays her harmonium and sings in her own sweet time, and nothing can stop her. The rest of the musicians just have to somehow work around her idiosyncratic ideas of timing and rhythm. Sometimes this means simply banging away at a relentless beat in the hope that sometimes Nico might accidentally fall into line with the music – a song like “Tananore” or “Fearfully In Danger” kind of works like this. The band tries to shoehorn the wayward melody into their solid rhythm. Usually this fails and the crashing percussion ploughs relentlessly on regardless. 

Sometimes though, songs with a more obvious sense of melody and a more conventional structure, such as the terrific “My Heart Is Empty” really need Nico to be in-synch with the rhythm of the song. She actually does this in Tokyo, and as a result we get one of the best and most powerful renditions of this track that I've ever heard. The version at Chelsea finds her doing her own thing and Jim Young’s piano is kind of attempting to drag her back to the beat and failing miserably. The result is a muddle of a song where the band and the singer are only occasionally on the same page. Yet it’s still weirdly listenable and somehow even quite impressive. Quite how this is possible is one of the enduring mysteries of Nico's music. There are many of these 1980s live recordings, and frankly many of them ought to be almost unlistenable, but unaccountably that simply isn't the case. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Chelsea show, intended to showcase her then new album Camera Obscura, is the more tentative of the two performances. Many of the songs played were new to the set and there was the extra pressure of the show being at a fairly prestigious location, and attended by the press. The Tokyo gig is, by contrast, clearly more relaxed, the songs have been road tested for some time, the band have worked up some excellent arrangements and the whole set is delivered with more assurance, more confidence. The newer songs come across very well in Tokyo, with a particularly solid "Win A Few" - other highlights include the always wonderful "Sixty / Forty" and the aforementioned "My Heart Is Empty". But for me, the best track of this show is a delightfully jazzy "Das Lied Vom Einsamen Madchen", with Young's sparkling piano and some snappy percussion underpinning an excellent vocal performance from Nico.

At both gigs the oldies like “Femme Fatale” are always more assured, and the straight harmonium tracks like “Secret Side” or “Janitor Of Lunacy” are dependably brilliant. And it’s great that Nico revived one of my favourites, “You Forget To Answer”, which she wrote after the death of Jim Morrison. Good old Nico, always guaranteed to cheer us all up!