Getintothis

Deeper Cuts Festival 2019, Teeth of the Sea, HOUSEWIVES, Gum Takes Tooth: Phase One, Kazimier Garden

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Deeper Cuts Festival early doors in the Kazimier Garden

Getintothis launches our first festival on home turf, Deeper Cuts was everything we wished for and more, here’s our highlights and reflection on a tremendous happening in Liverpool. 

Three years and more than 300 bands since launching our monthly Deep Cuts nights it felt just about right to launch a full blown festival.

Sticking to our ethos – Deeper Cuts Festival was simply to host under the radar new music that we really love and champion on these very pages.

From bands or artists you may not have seen or heard before, but which have crossed the Getintothis radar in one form or another.

Starting off in Buyers Club and then more recently Phase One, the Deep Cuts nights have proved to be a mini success story. Music heads, A&R, record labels, musicians, regular followers and punters have turned up in healthy numbers to see what we’ve discovered on the first Thursday each month. We’ve built a solid community.

It was a natural progression, then, to see if we could take it one stage further with a full blown all day festival. And so, Deeper Cuts was born. Across three stages in Seel Street we took over Phase One, the Kazimier Garden and the Stockroom for a major event.

Here was a chance to curate an idyllic line up and show what we’re about.

There needs to be a disclaimer, though. We don’t usually review our own gigs. That seems a bit weird. But we can make exceptions. And this is one of them.

What follows is intended to be an honest review and not merely a self-congratulatory piece that merely bangs the drum for Getintothis. But with our Fantasy Music Billing (budgetary requirements, permitting) it was always gonna be a bit special.

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Although Baron Farg was officially the first act on the bill, spinning his Aphex Twin infused electronica in Kazimier Garden as a soundtrack to a sunny July Saturday, it was the New York Dolls type swagger of Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard in Phase One that kicked off the day proper.

As an indicator of what was to come this could hardly have been a better start.

The bar has been set incredibly high and there’s talks between Modern Sky record label after their set.

All out glam was on the menu with licks trading from Mark Bolan and T. Rex through to The Sweet and a dash of Suzi Quatro.

The Gear were up for it though and stormed through a glorious trans Atlantic psych set that oozed class.

“This next one’s a big one”, singer Callum Thompson said, as if the songs that came before were, in some way capable of being described as “smaller”.

Genuinely one of the real finds from Deep Cuts – a real force and one which left many heads chatting about these young Scousers with much excitement.

Douglas Savage is a Getintothis fave. He’s having a bit of a hard time in the Kaz Garden, though. He gets some attention, but this isn’t really ideal.

Too many people are invested in their pints and socialising, which is a shame because he’s a class act and his spoken word between songs gets a bit lost. We do love the one about the ‘fucking bees‘, though.

RongoRongo thumped Phase One with a series of uppercuts, doing what they do so well. It seems unnecessary to review them any more. They are so good at what they do. It’s all been said before on these pages and that debut album really can’t come soon enough.

Props to front man Mick‘s tremendous shirt and an ever improving vocal range.

It’s busy in the Kaz Garden in the early evening too as Ana Mae plays a gorgeous, stripped back acoustic set. “If I play a sad song, will you all still be happy?”

We get her version of The Killing Moon too. Splendid stuff.

As the sun begins to fade, LO FIVE brings melodic nuanced electronica to the table and it’s lapped up by those drinking pale ales in the Garden.

Glasgow’s Helicon give zero fucks. We know that because they’re giving out badges that say as much.

They probably get the prize for having travelled the furthest to be here – from Glasgow.

It’s a return visit, the band having last been in Liverpool for Psych Fest in 2016, and well worth it, too.

This Mogwai-esque psych assault, complete with occasional sitar was just the kind of off the wall we had hoped for. It was the set of the day for many people. Utterly superb.

The Garden is really bustling now for Aimee Steven’s slacker country-infused blues and the crowd is paying attention this time. It’s just the thing to go with an al fresco cocktail, or three – and another Liverpool talent worth keeping a trained ear on.

Perhaps the most anticipated set of the day arrives in the shape of Dream Machine All-Stars.

Having rocked up in a camper van spray-painted in a kaleidoscope of colours, the nine members proceed to turn the backstage area into a fog-induced haze bringing new meaning to the phrase ‘green room.’

This one off performance – for Thee Piatcions‘ Dave Cocks who passed away suddenly earlier this year – was assembled by drummer John Lynch of The Telescopes. And what a line up it was.

The complete All-Star squad was Jimmy Martin of Teeth of the Sea (guitar), Stephen Lawrie of The Telescopes (guitar), Dom Strett of Manalishi (guitar), Dave Gryphon of The Telescopes and Koolaid Electric Company (bass), Jacques Malchance of Barberos and Up It Up Records (keyboards/drones), Tom Fug of Gum Takes Tooth, Melting Hand and Luminous Bodies (drums), John Lynch of The Telescopes and Koolaid Electric Company (drums) and Jussi Brightmore of Gum Takes Tooth (percussion).

To say the stage was set would be an understatement – and for 45 minutes they shook Phase One to it’s very foundations. Mountains of layered guitars awash over textured synths amid the duel drumming of Fug and Lynch – the latter drumming while sparking up his spliff in between repetitions. Incredible.

Over in the Kaz Garden, the Stockroom is up and running and it’s absolutely rammed for Yammerer – their status as one of the North West’s best live bands is certainly catching on.

And they deliver a manic, almost crazed set in this smallest of Liverpool’s venues. It’s the perfect fit for them. We’ve seen them before, but this is a bit like having a riot in your front room at home.

Don’t invite the neighbours, it’s not required, they can hear perfectly well through the walls.

Housewives have more electronics than a Microsoft convention as well as an aversion to light. With near darkness engulfing the stage, the band flex percussion wizardry with saxophone fits and starts aligned to mind-bending time signatures.

It’s utterly beguiling and you find yourself lost in a maze of jazz-fuelled supersonics as vocalist Joseph Rafferty bounds up and down on the spot in his shorts. In a day of multiple highlights this is another one.

In Stockroom Video Nasties are at the other end of the music spectrum. It’s dark and uncompromising.

Their quite the sight too – a tustle of denim, beards and a mass of tattoos.

It seems so odd to see such an angry, thrashy band politely ask for a bit more bass in the monitor. But that’s what we have.

A thoroughly brilliant performance from a band from another band these pages have been championing from the off. While it’s hardly music for the M62 commute in the morning,live it just grabs. It’s addictive and compelling.

At which point, as we write this, the band asks if anyone has any drugs on them. They’ve read our mind.

Albums of 2019 so far featuring Gum Takes Tooth, Teeth of the Sea and many more

Manchester’s URF sadly play to a relatively quiet Stockroom to start with as the majority of the punters move to see headliners Teeth of the Sea in Phase One.

They’re deserving of much better. The brooding PJ Harvey type groove has to be a winner. It was to our ears and we’re keen to see them again.

It’s a shame there weren’t more to hear it. Odd how these things pan out. There was a trickle more people as the set went on, but we can’t help feeling for them. A fine band. We’re hoping to bring them back.

Teeth of the Sea, meanwhile, prove a big draw in Phase One. It’s not hard to see why.

Having released Wraith earlier this year through Rocket Recordings (label founder Chris Reeder spins records later on) the band have now amassed a serious arsenal of heavyweight tracks.

It’s intriguing to see how they pull off such dense, meticulous and wide-ranging sonics now that they operate as a trio – that they do it so well is quite the achievement. Songs bristle with grizzly electronics, thumping percussion and Jimmy Martin‘s killer riffs.

They’re cinematic but also a juggernaut of grooves which finds the dancefloor filling with a serious amount of heads bobbing to their widescreen death disco.

They close with their trademark death disco Responder – all 15 minutes of relentless, strident power closing with Sam Barton’s wall of trumpet squalls. It’s triumphant.

With the midnight hour passed fellow Rocket label heads Gum Takes Tooth hit the Phase One stage with a brutal assault of rhythmic punishment.

Relentless hardly covers it, and it’s exactly the kind of music fit to finish off the night – hyper-kinetic thuds and blinding electronic dissonance.

The cherry on top of this glorious occasion arrives in the shape of Karaoke Dungeon deep into the early hours of the morning.

Around 50 or more heads have managed to stay the pace, and while the Kazimier Garden still entertains revellers in the evening humidity, the Stockroom sees musicians from LONESAW, Ana Mae, HOUSEWIVES, Teeth of the Sea and Helicon watch revellers (or each other) take turns to sing all out bangers and big time ballads under the watchful eyes of the Fat Out team.

Picture the scene: LONESAW‘s Jezebel singing Sugababes with Ana Mae. Spine‘s Christopher singing Roy Orbison. Joel from Barberos donning a massive black wig while belting out Toni Braxton‘s Unbreak My Heart.

It was fucking hilarious. And fucking brilliant. And summed up a beautiful first Deeper Cuts Festival. Here’s to the next one.

Images from the Getintothis team of Lucy McLachlan, Warren Millar and Peter Goodbody

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