unpublished teeth & tongue review from November 2014

TEETH & TONGUE AT SHADOW ELECTRIC WITH KANGAROO SKULL, THE ANCIENTS + TIME FOR DREAMS + KEITH DEVERELL (projections) and FULL UGLY DJs

With an unprecedented rain presentation ongoing in the world outside there were clearly concerns amongst the Teeth and Tongue contingent particularly that no-one was going to show up however great the lineup at the Shadow Electric, a remarkable but in the scheme of things pretty out-of-the-way venue right on the edge of Abbotsford. After all, it was not a launch or a ‘special’ event, other than the exceptional fact than we were all alive at that moment and wished to commune in a listenable environment. Irregardless the place was already impressively populated when Time for Dreams took the stage early in the evening.

This two-piece spearhead the shoegaze renewal with that very 21^st century innovation of a looped and ‘generated’ backing (not sure what was bringing the rhythm but Tom Carlyon had at least ten pedals of various descriptions on offer). Of course this kind of set up means all songs have to have extended intros which are actually just getting the loops and shit in order. Amanda Roff was barefoot and her bass was at times booming and at others muddy but given the weather you couldn’t call that inappropriate. Things progressed well until the end of the set, with what Roff described as ‘our final thing’, and then it took off, and while it was uncertain whether she was singing about being ‘high on religion’, or a ‘high population’, or perhaps ‘hi, I’m an engine’ the main thrust came from a soaring 80s glam stadium rock exercise which managed to marry firstly a Neil Young ‘Everyone Knows…’ vibe with that weird ‘chinesey’ sound you used to get in keyboard-based bands of thirty years ago. That was a triumph.

The Ancients’ Jonathan Michell’s banter sprinkled throughout their set on this remarkable evening was possibly some of the least inspirational ever uttered aside from nothing, on the other hand, if you go looking for inspiration in band banter you were probably in trouble long beforehand. The group – one of the finest, hands down – presented a thick pastiche of subtly re-rendered takes on previously released songs and material presently being worked up for a new album. Two instrumentals emerged thus, one a pounding, esoteric and double-barrelled supercharged ‘Ride of the Valkyries’-styled sturm und drang powderkeg played as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry might conduct an orchestra comprised of members of Can and Black Sabbath… until its second part, which comes closer to seventies Lou Reed’s full sonic potential as only dreamt by Tony Visconti after a surfeit of pina coladas with Amanda Lear. An extraordinarily glamorous band brimming with sex appeal, The Ancients have no problem uniting the sounds of the traditional church organ (very appropriate at that place of pain and shame that is the Abbotsford Convent) with a jig in the style of Big Country. They cannot be underestimated and their 2015 album is already one of next year’s best.

A moment to mention the Full Ugly DJs this evening. It is always advisable when DJing to play as much Prefab Sprout as one can. The lilting, wry observations of singer-songwriter Paddy MacAloon, facilitated into the near-mainstream as they were by a distinguished cohort such as Everything But the Girl and Aztec Camera, do not get enough dancefloor action in this day and age and should, in fact, be compulsory particularly the song ‘Appetite’, which was not played this evening but fuckin’ should have been. Nonetheless, excellent selections.

Kangaroo Skull evoked a woodpecker in a rifle range. No-one knew how to dance to this but thought they could anyway.

Teeth and Tongue owe nothing to anybody. The argument continues whether Jess Cornelius has a right to continually promote the group as a solo project that just happens to feature four other hard-working and talented musicians who have consolidated into a stunningly fine and fluid collective; it’s a solo project the same way you and I are solo projects, but we still need other people and even Margaret (‘there is no such thing as society’) Thatcher played with a team. Marc Reguiero-McKelvie, one of the world’s most inventive and eloquent guitar players, is an integral part not just of the T&T sound but also the dynamic core of each song; when he enters the fray it’s like taking your shades off in the art gallery. Listen to his work with his solo project Popolice and his other band New Estate if you haven’t. And if JC is going to continue to insist she is Teeth and Tongue, she should consider that (a) even if she is, Teeth and Tongue wouldn’t be half as good without the other players, Marc in particular and (b) giving Marc half the front cover of the Tambourine album suggests she knows this whether she knew it or not. None of this is germane to Teeth and Tongue’s show at Abbotsford, except it’s germane to Teeth and Tongue altogether. So T&T will close the set with a cover of ‘Total Control’, which JC will sing with deft passion alongside the utterly complimentary and beguiling second vocalist Jade McInally, and you know she has in no way lost that control, except then Marc comes in half way through and gives a whole new reading to the song’s possibilities.

The jungle vibe to so many of the Teeth and Tongue set at the moment is visceral and hard-leaning. There is a My Life in the Bush of Ghosts sense to the whole, with a kind of throbbing jitteriness that counters the goth sensibility of the layered, searing set (nods to the foul ‘Kokomo’ aside). Only last week the amazing Pauline Murray was doing a very, very, very, low, low key tour, and it’s Murray’s work with Martin Hannett as the Invisible Girls thirty years ago that provides one great touchstone for the current T&T sounds. I mean they probably haven’t heard it. Except it’s everywhere in the culture now.

In sum at the end of the day, a brilliant night of realised potential. Thank you all for coming. It worked. 

* note from late 2024: I have absolutely, utterly, no recollection whatsoever of this show - none. 

killing thatcher

Margaret Thatcher was a poisonous automaton, and the very best interpretation that could be made of her behaviour and attitudes is that she was severely misguided in a way that kind of set her understanding of the universe at probably a very early age where up was down and vice-versa. 

I can’t recall why on earth I decided to purchase the audiobook of Rory Carroll’s Killing Thatcher however as I have never had a strong interest in the intricacies of the Irish struggles, etc, only an innate sympathy, not because I have anything other than antipathy for patriotism or even religious affiliations but of course I can see the ways in which a British presence in Ireland is a retrograde oppression (the worst kind of oppression). Also, British history is pox. I really should write down my motivations for getting involved in things as life almost always moves on and I forget. However, also, it doesn’t matter. 

 

It's a good book, and it’s a good example of how to make history gripping,* though of course it’s a story that would be hard to fluff – the ins and outs of the IRA plot to kill Thatcher at the Conservative conference in Brighton in 1984. Carroll appropriately paints all players (eg the IRA, the Conservatives) as equal pawns in a conflict they’ve inherited, rather than instigated although Thatcher with her robotic ‘strength’ in the face of near death (or anything) is a horrorshow who gives every impression that, if she had been killed in the bombing, she wouldn’t have noticed. The stories of others who were injured are sensitively told and naturally excruciating to hear about. 

 

As you can see I haven’t got to the end yet. I’m in part 3, which looks at the slow and steady (I’m assuming) process by which the bomber is (I’m assuming) caught. Carroll makes a good fist of turning people, whose jobs are just to be cogs in a machine, into inherently interesting and engaging people, with little biographical fragments and explanations for turns of phrase and approaches, that make you feel like you kind of know them, although you're really filling in most of the detail yourself. All these men – ok, there are two or three women – have a place in one of two power structures (UK government vs IRA) and the two power structures seemingly found/find value in keeping the battle going – as per The Wire, as per the three nations in 1984. Ultimately it’s not even my place to have sympathies but I am always going to be hostile to British imperialism (actually any imperialism). 

 

Fortunately none of this shizzle is ‘about’ me. Actually that’s probably the best bit of the whole book for me – thank Christ I wasn’t born in the British Isles! Though I have to say Ireland is one of my favourite places in the world, a superb country I want to see more of and hopefully will – quite soon. I know that’s a glib way to end but as I always say, this is my blog, not a review I wrote for Casual Supine Dickhead magazine where the glib endings have to have a cast-iron bottom. 

*as in - gripping like a thriller, as opposed to engaging like history often is