Tag: Neutral Milk Hotel

Manchester Venue 87 Albert Hall – Part 2

One of the undeniable quirks of Albert Hall is the sheer size of the building and the multiple floors. A case in point is the extraordinary distance to access the lavatories which are situated in a veritable Bermuda Triangle maze of corridors in the basement, where it is rather easy to lose your bearings!

On 17/05/14 I recall us having a chippy tea on Cross Street and then watching the end of the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Hull which the former team won in extra time, before heading down to Manchester Albert Hall to watch the enigmatic Neutral Milk Hotel.

I had first discovered the band years after their breakup via reading an annual review pamphlet distributed by Piccadilly Records which listed them in several subscribers influential list. They hailed from Louisiana and their driving force was Jeff Mangum and their initial period of existence was from 1989 to 1998 before reforming for a couple of years in 2013.  

Their popularity in their initial phase resulting in them dropping off the map and heading into a hiatus and Jeff becoming a virtual recluse. Their music is ‘marmite’ to many punters, as it contains many unusual instruments such as a singing saw, uilleann pipes and the lesser spotted ‘zanzithophone’ which translates as a Casio digital horn. It also contains strange otherworldly lyrics, and they were cited as a resultant huge influence on bands that followed such as Arcade Fire and the Decemberists.  

My view on their landmark second album ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ is that is idiosyncratic, life affirming but also in equal parts deeply unsettling. It was fascinating to hear it converted to a live setting and some of their tracks had moments of genius about them.

Neutral Milk Hotel’s unique album cover. Image Credit Pinterest.

Because they had literally disappeared for such a sustained period and gained a degree of mythical status, many of their fans in the interim had developed into ardent zealots of their art, to the point that Uncle George observed on the evening that it felt a tad ‘insidious’. It was all in all a fascinating evening and the resultant people watch was almost as entertaining as the band.       

The following June I saw the ever-excellent Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for the fifth time with my personal favourite being when they astonishingly played five minutes’ walk away from where I lived in a small club in Preston called the Mill.

It was a glorious summers evening and despite being in an indoor venue the sun was angling through the many decorative windows to provide an elegant backdrop to their performance on stage. The band revel in long performances, quite often over two hours and flip consummately between straight up rock tracks like ‘Whatever Happened to my Rock N Roll (Punk Song)’ to countrified acoustic tracks such as ‘Complicated Situation’. They were in fantastic form on the evening and all things combined it resulted in becoming my gig of the year for 2015.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Image Credit myfreewallpapers.net

My next visit was as part of the Dot-to-Dot festival roster in 2018. To add to the many things Covid was responsible for is the fact that it sadly cancelled the Manchester leg of the Dot-to-Dot event, and it is now only held in Bristol and Nottingham. I really miss this event as it provided a great opportunity to visit some more obscure venues and also achieve some serious steps totals as it encompasses venues all across the city in one day!   

The other unusual element it allowed was to visit venues during daylight hours when they are at times virtually deserted which is slightly disconcerting as you are so used to venues being busy just prior to an evening show. The band on stage were No Hot Ashes from Stockport who had been receiving some hype locally but for me they didn’t justify it. The following year they released their only album ‘Hardship Starship’ and in 2020 decided to take an unspecified hiatus but Covid intervened again to cancel forever their two planned farewell shows.

In 2019 I saw Suede for the first time, and I have always been a tad ambivalent about the music but many gigs I have attended in the last five years are because we are now just down the road from Manchester, so why the hell not! Brett Anderson remains quite an engaging front man and they put on a decent performance without really moving me. I was left with the conundrum afterwards of whether I respected him or not for having the temerity to still wear tight leather pants at his age!

Manchester Venue 59 Sound Control – Part 3

There was an understandable backlash when the closure of Sound Control was announced, and a petition launched by one Preston punter (not me!), but they obviously do have damn fine tastes in that city! However as is often the way against commercial organisations, it was all in the end ultimately futile.

The next gig in the Sound Control Music Room in May 2013 was an interesting one. As we exited the station around 6pm we witnessed some activity outside the venue and grabbed the opportunity to check on stage times as the gig that evening was a dual headlining tour. As we enquired, a transit van rolled up and an intrigued observer jumped out and joined in the chat for us to then discover it was Patrick Stickles, the lead singer of Titus Andronicus.

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Titus Andronicus on stage. Image Credit buffablog.com

I first picked up on this unique band in 2008 via their remarkable but somewhat demented debut album Airing of Grievances, which was favourably reviewed at the time as the sound of a ‘violent, overblown and irreverent’ indie band, I have read many lesser appraisals. The band themselves were once in a Shakespeare musical question clue on University Challenge, unsurprisingly unrecognised by the University team. Titus was also the name chosen for the lead character in the remarkable Gormenghast Trilogy.

They were formed in New Jersey in 2005 and have cited Neutral Milk Hotel as an influence and you can hear that very band pervading through their musical output. They were strange but enjoyable and to exemplify this, their bassist in the middle of the set proceeded to impart a rambling surreal tasteless gag and without any preamble after it launched straight into the next thunderous tune.

In the gap between bands, we retired to the bar and whilst endeavouring to get served we were assailed by a random but regular holler of Hold Steady, the shouts emanated from a chap called Nigel who had recognised us from a recent gig, and we proceeded to see him sporadically at further gigs and chatted about music and his allegiance to Charlton FC. It was rapidly turning into a slightly odd evening.

Now I was once referenced in the NME review as one of a ‘couple of dodgy individuals pogoing at the front’ at a Snuff gig at Preston Caribbean Club in 1990, a quote I will be eternally proud of! However, I had never yet been featured in an NME photo, just missing out at a Screaming Blue Messiahs gig at Manchester International as I must have stepped back from stage as the camera clicked.

The main band this night was again F##ked Up who were in good nick with their lead singer Pink Eyes who has a habit of marauding the moshpit. There was a panoramic picture of him in the crowd in the famous music magazine next week. I hungrily scoured the hundred people pictured but would you credit it I was a yard to the left off camera; it was obviously never destined to be!

Three years later in 2016 I went to see the Connecticut post rock band The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. They were in the mould of luminaries such as Maybe She Will and Explosions in the Sky. They had entered my galaxy via their debut album ‘Whenever, if Ever’. They were an enjoyable interesting proposition live.

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The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. Image Credit godisinthetvzine.co.uk

My final gig was my own sabbatical to the venue as it took place 15 days before its closure on 01/12/17. I had only been resident in Manchester for three months so was still somewhat in a bit of a haze, so it was good to have a merry band of six over from Preston to see the legendary Rocket from the Crypt. We made the obligatory visit to the Noodle Bar down Oxford Road before discovering Refuge bar for the first time as it always thought previously it was part of the hotel!

Rocket were understandably a step down from the level of their astounding gigs in the mid-late 90’s but as ever were good value and my pal Paul Wilson obtained a selfie with the frontman Speedo post-gig. The boys headed back on the Preston train whilst I was still encountering the strangeness of a 10-minute commute back to the rental, though there was a detour to the midnight Tesco that evening for much needed unhealthy snacks!