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THE LETHMACHEN MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013:
FRIDAY, 13th DECEMBER
& SATURDAY 14th DECEMBER
LETHMACHEN PARISH HALL
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Friday 13th Main Stage
The Governess
Dean Childe presents The Heirlooms
Juliet Antenna
Teenage Pregnancy
The Bascules
Cock Doktor
Saturday 14th Main Stage
Neon Gutters & The Restless BeeKeepers
The Red Deeps
Murder Rosso
Stephanie Pierce
The Spastic Colons
Eves On Skis
Friday 13th The Marquee
Vital Statistix (Dance Troupe)
The Unimaginable Ian Kent (Magician)
Frank & His Frantic Friends From The Attic (Puppet Show)
Saturday 14th The Marquee
Lethmachen Primary School Choir
Mr Duddy (Clown)
Ricky Brown & Black Shuck (Ventriloquist)
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LIVE REVIEW – Juliette Antenna / Teenage Pregnancy, Lethmachen Parish Hall (Friday, 23rd September 2011)
Rising like a phoenix from fiery chaos, schoolgirl punks Teenage Pregnancy are now a completely different prospect to when this reviewer last caught their live act, nine months ago. Where once they resembled an entertaining car crash rather than a functioning unit, challenging the audience to identify a song amongst the carnage, tonight their predatory zeal is impregnable. A strangled battle cry introduces the band as they immediately launch into ‘Damn Rebel Bitches’, the title track of their pending mini album. Cue a frenzy of Burundi drumming, call and response chants, and lyrics cribbed from a book about Jacobite female warriors. Their artistic development is most evident in the guitar technique of Chrissy Linton, no longer thrashing blindly at her instrument but punctuating each song with savage yet cerebral splinters of noise. ‘This next song is dedicated to our Prime Minister elect…only he wasn’t’ snarls lead vocalist Carol, steering the group into their most virulent yet most tuneful number ‘Public Schoolboy Skin’. Of course it wouldn’t be the same Teenage Pregnancy we first got a crush on if a few of the old glam stompers didn’t get their chance to glitter, and sure enough they find time for ‘Who Put My Party On Facebook?’ and ‘(Let’s Invite) Your Older Brother’s Friends’. Maturity is a dirty word, but Teenage Pregnancy flirt outrageously with the notion, particularly during the set closer, the rhythm section (Danielle on bass, Shelina on drums) bringing a touch of Lovers Rock to the traditional folk song ‘Gently Johnny’.
‘Thank you to my firebrand sisters’ acknowledges Juliette Antenna in a deadpan monotone as she succeeds to the stage, the lighting reduced to a pale blue spotlight. Although she has only been living and performing in Lethmachen for the last two years, a loyal local following has already built up around this enigmatic performer, and an awed hush greets her stately but succinct chansons. Born in Cherbourg, Miss Antenna relocated to England when recruited as an international sales rep for a marketing company in Lethmachen. Deciding she hated the job but was fascinated by our town, Juliette changed career path and began working part time in the local library, a role she enthusiastically compares to ‘sleeping in a cemetery’. On tonight’s evidence, Lethmachen’s peculiar ‘ambience’ is increasingly influencing her songwriting. In contrast to her support act, Miss Antenna appears to be subtly rescinding control rather than aspiring to grasp it. If the set is still dominated by familiar, austere torch songs such as ‘Yesterday I Saw Tomorrow’ and ‘Home Before Midnight’, the newer numbers reveal a friction and fragility not previously apparent. The pinnacle of this approach is forthcoming single ‘Dead Joe Le Taxi’, an epic ten minute piece which is at once an ode to her beloved poete maudits (specifically Rimbaud and Baudelaire) and also a vision of a Saturday night on the town as a season in hell (she must have been to Chiaroscuro’s!). Beginning as a spoken word prose poem (‘The Cars Will Be Here Soon/Black Taxis/Carrion Of The Night/Crawling like a Funeral Parade/Towards the Dreadful Dawn/Carrying us Closer To Home/Nearer To Death…’), a propulsive rhythm slowly builds around Juliette’s doom haunted voice, the beat suddenly dropping away at unexpected intervals to be replaced by what sounds like a recording of a funeral march. I imagine this is what the end of the world will sound like. Yet Juliette Antenna remains motionless throughout, humanely defiant, her gaze fixed in the middle distance, perhaps seeing something the rest of us have missed.
Teenage Pregnancy release their debut mini album ‘Damn Rebel Bitches’ in November on Fraudulent Medium Records (www.fraudulentmediumrecords.com). Tracklisting: ‘Damn Rebel Bitches’/’Public Schoolboy Skin’/’(Let’s Invite) Your Older Brother’s Friends’/’Who Put My Party On Facebook?’/’Keystage Sex’/ (I’ve Got A) Phantom Pregnancy’/’Don’t Be My Mirror’/’Gently Johnny’
Juliette Antenna’s new single: ‘Dead Joe Le Taxi’/’Sleeping In A Cemetery’ is out soon.
Live Review: The Heirlooms, Lethmachen Parish Hall (Sunday, 5th June 2011)
A local institution, for three decades now Dean Childe has reigned supreme as Lethmachen’s king of light entertainment. Originally hailing from neighbouring village of Flinchley, Dean and his wife Marsha ‘Flower’ Childe first settled in the town in the early eighties, and soon established themselves on the local cabaret circuit. Performing as Flower & Dean, the duo built up a loyal following covering popular easy listening tunes from past decades. Keen to develop the act, and with musical talent obviously running in the family, Dean encouraged the couple’s children to join them on stage as soon as they were old enough. Thus over the years the husband and wife singing team evolved into a full blown family band, beginning with the additions of eldest daughter Rainbeaux on drums and son Gawain on guitar. Middle child Skip was the next to sign up, adopting the bass, and the most recent recruitments have been the young twins Blaze and Starr on keyboards and percussion respectively. Under the moniker Dino & The Heirlooms the group expanded their routine to incorporate comic sketches alongside the musical numbers, as well as closing each show with a soliloquy of homespun wisdom penned by Dean. Although on the surface the band’s career appeared to be prospering, it was not long before unsettling rumours began to circulate that all was not well behind the scenes, rumours apparently verified when Marsha Childe chose to leave the group and indeed the town. For a time the family’s career seemed to hang in the balance, with performances cancelled and personal appearances and touring schedules drastically curtailed. Fortunately this now appears to have merely been a period of recuperation and re-evaluation, as last week it was announced to the local press that the band would re-emerge as simply The Heirlooms, with Dean leaving centre stage to take up a supervisory role in the wings.
Intrigued about how this new arrangement would affect the chemistry of the band, I managed to catch Dean for a quick interview, just before the new line-up were about to take the stage at the Parish Hall. Due to time constraints our conversation was a little hurried, yet although Mr Childe appeared distracted and somewhat excitable, he still managed to offer a few tantalising hints about what the future had to offer. ‘Tonight you are about to witness a transition, perhaps even an initiation,’ he explained, ‘Things had to change, they were changing anyway. I was in a dark cocoon, but I heard the music, and crawled after it towards the light’. Whilst evasive, even defensive about the details of the new musical direction, Dean was at pains to stress The Heirlooms are still essentially his artistic vision. ‘Once the monkey stopped dancing, he grew wings and learned to fly. And when the world saw the stripes across his hide, they recognised the King Bee and bowed down before him, and he spoke to them in the colours of music. You understand what I’m saying? This is my masterwork. This is The Spirit of the Beehive.’ Breaking off the interview without further explanation, Dean disappeared backstage, and I took my place amongst the gathering crowd. The Parish Hall was unusually busy for a Sunday night, typically reserved for bingo nights or book readings, and the average age of the clientele was clearly younger than customary. Drifting through the throng I sense that the attraction was no longer simply the element of kitsch appeal the Childe family have always held, there is also a morbid expectation, fuelled by local gossip, that we are about to witness some kind of artistic and domestic catastrophe.
When the curtain finally opens, the first impression is of business as usual, the only difference being Gawain assuming the role of lead vocalist from his father. The set list is fairly unadventurous, comprising the usual array of cover versions presented in an endearingly haphazard style, complete with occasional false starts and wrong notes. Perhaps the presentation suffers a little from Gawain’s slightly bland delivery, yet there seems to be nothing to suggest either a great departure or an impending disaster. Then, without warning, just as the band’s version of ‘Macarthur Park’ begins to peter out prematurely, the curtain abruptly descends. Confusion begins to spread amongst the crowd, who are uncertain if that was their cue to depart. Suddenly, a single spotlight appears, illuminating the front of the stage, and the murmuring falls silent. A few seconds pass, before Dean himself sweeps out theatrically from between the curtains and embarks on a rambling monologue designed to introduce the second half of the show. Echoing elements of our earlier interview, he consistently reminds the audience that what we are about to hear will not only be completely different to what has gone before, but also completely different to anything we have ever experienced. Surveying the crowd, I observe bemusement on people’s faces as Dean makes oblique references to the breakdown of human relationships, and the life cycle of the bumble bee, an analogy which seems to have inspired this new musical direction. At times there are stifled outbreaks of nervous laughter as the speech drags on uncomfortably. Nevertheless, by the time Dean vanishes back behind the curtain, I can sense the tension and expectation spiralling, the crowd fascinated to witness whatever could be coming next.
As the curtain pulls back for a second time, you are immediately aware of a change in atmosphere. Some have commented that recent Heirlooms shows have appeared a little subdued, yet nothing could have prepared us for this new solemnity we are now greeted with, the eyes of each band member fixed intently on their instrument, evidently anxious not to further provoke the frequent dictates hissed from the wings. The evening’s second set opens with a pulsating instrumental (I later learn called ‘Pheromone 1’) that gradually blossoms into a cascade of found noise. This is certainly a stylistic departure, and the crowd, initially stunned, belatedly react with rapturous applause. If the next couple of tracks (‘Heart Like A Sunflower’, ‘Royal Jelly’) fall superficially within familiar terrain, the sort of psychedelic easy listening Flower & Dean made their name with back in the day, they still have a more ornate and baroque texture than anything attempted in the past. Half a dozen new, original songs follow over the next half hours or so, the compositions running the stylistic gamut from twelve bar blues (‘Drone Laying Queen’) to a sort of freeform rockabilly (‘I Think I’m Pupating!’), from Weimar cabaret (‘Dancing In Circles’) to burnt out folk (‘Hollow Trees Are Now My Home’). By the time they close with another, plaintive, instrumental (‘Pheromone 3’) it is clear that Dean Childe has steered The Heirlooms into unknown territory. On tonight’s evidence this is a commendable move but also an artistic gamble, considering that some band members were visibly struggling with the songs musical complexity and abstract lyrical content.
Indeed I managed to grab a few words with two of the musicians as they were exiting the venue, and it is clear they themselves will need time to adjust to the new direction. Rainbeaux, who informs me she know likes to be known as Rachel, said ‘It’s interesting to experiment, but I’m not sure how long things will last, I hope to go to university before it’s too late’. Gary (formerly Gawain) echoed the feelings of everyone present when he commented ‘I didn’t know what to think when I heard these new songs, it’s like nothing we’ve ever done before, but I guess dad knows what he’s doing!’
Angelina Dyer (Lethmachen)
The Spirit of the Beehive album should be available on Fraudulent Medium in the autumn, please check their website for details: www.fraudulentmediumrecords.com
Proposed tracklisting: Pheromone 1 (Release)/Heart Like A Sunflower/Royal Jelly/From Honey To Pollen/House of Wax (Where We Brood)/Pheromone 2 (Alarm)/Drone Laying Queen/(We Can’t Go On) Superseding Each Other/I Think I’m Pupating!/Autumn Flight/Swarming (Primary)/Dancing In Circles/Bee My Young Nurse Bee/I Got Stung/Hollow Trees (Are Now My Home)/The Afterswarm/Queenless/Calm Amongst The Smoke/Damaged Wings/Pheromone 3 (Fade)
LIVE REVIEW – The Bascules, Lethmachen Parish Hall (Friday, 27th May 2011)
As the Bascules pick up their instruments late on a unseasonably hot may evening at The Parish Hall, Poor-Boy Sutton walks up to his appointed position at the front of the stage and looks out at the packed audience. ‘Lend me your ears’, he says. This speaks of generosity, of course; he wants you to know he cannot do this alone. Yet Sutton is a challenging figure, and this is no cosy coming together. With a flickering smile and raised eyebrow, his body luxuriant in the knowledge that it is free from threat, he could be exhorting money in a dinner queue; if ears are to be lent tonight, it is highly unlikely that they will be returned. And then, too soon, it seems for anyone to have adequately prepared, all four of them are off, lurching into ‘Last’, the first sea-legged, fiercely directed, song of a 40 minute set.
Sutton is in good voice, he spits and he soars, but if a criticism can be made it is that some of the tenderness he brings to the bands recordings is lost to the live performance. To his left, Byron Bay cultivates an air of delighted detachment, throwing out relentless and repetitious lines on his guitar, each restatement bursting with surprise and vivacity. On the other side of the stage, Victoria Franks is channelling Jah Wobble, ringing out spare and floor-rattling bass that lurches off in new directions at soon as it locks into a rhythm that feels inescapable, essaying a kind of modernity that moves the band outside their garage roots. For the most part Franks keeps her head down, her long hair swaying round her bass. Yet when the somewhat elderly drummer known only as The Word drills out the wonky-glitter-stomp of single ‘Raise the Bascules’ mid-set, the hair is thrown back and she joins Poor-Boy at the mic, all the while throwing off signatures of fuzzed bass, and pulling audiences members onto the stage. She ends the song with her nine year old daughter on her shoulders, and the Hall at her feet. For the last two songs, the ragged, pummelling brightness gives way to something more fragile, but no less intense. White Pick sees The Word’s repertoire reduced to a single snare hit, as Byron Bay summons quiet, desperate feedback, and Sutton, gradually slumping towards the floor, is given the space to let his vocals whisper and crack over a slow-burning lyric: ‘the egg-white, raw-white/of skull and spume and spray/bodiless the hot white/just beyond the day’. The Word keeps to his single snare for the last song, slapping out a brisk march, underpinned by a lurching bass and intermittent bursts of guitar noise. Sutton is back on his feet, leaning into the mic, eyes wide, mouth leering: ‘Frock-coated, silk throated avatar/ much quoted, port-bloated avatar. Avatar! AVATAR!” . There follows a list of contemporary male celebrities, including Stephen Fry, Jeremy Clarkson, Damien Hirst and Alan Moore. I have no idea what links them, but I really think they should watch out.
The lights come on, and everyone is smiling. On the way out, the foyer is full of stalls; campaigns in support of arts funding and Lethmachen library, campaigns against tuition fees and News International, vintage clothes stalls, Fraudulent Medium, and a sign up for overnight clubbing in London. This is the first time I’ve seen this in The Parish Hall, and suspect The Bascules have a hand in it. They can come again.
The Basqules released their first single last January: Raise the Bascules!/ Stafford Witch Speaks/ White Pick,
An album is out towards the end of the year.
Kevin Devon (Lethmachen)
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