Getintothis‘ resident misery guts Jon Davies manages to round off Liverpool Sound City 2011 with a night of glee. No, really.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this year’s weekender, as you could probably sense in my previous reviews, and even though I’ve been given a couple of cracking bands to watch on Thursday and Friday, I’ve not been emanating the usual good vibes.
What I needed was a real fist-pumper of an evening to bring me back up to speed…
…So to finish off this year’s Sound City I was left with the dregs of the festival…
No, wait, I think this was my favourite show! The Zanzibar hosted Moshi Moshi showcase, began off with Frankie Muniz‘s post-Malcolm project Beat Connection from Seattle.
Say what you want about inauthenticity, indie boys showing fleeting interest in auto-tune and ‘pop’ music, but the duo ultimately put out some real jams, full of classic housey texture, four-to-the-floor beats and loads of fun.
There’s still a lot of the music routed in bands like Vampire Weekend, Dirty Projectors, Toro y Moi, but the embrace of R&B has been the most refreshing thing in indie, even if it has been going strong for nearly two years, it’s still feeling new compared to the majority of ready-weathered lad rock bands, something Liverpool is so guilty of.
Next up was Idiot Glee, who pedalled a similar line to Beat Connection, in a way, but to not such brilliant results.
All the same as his set went on one-man band James Friley‘s lonesome blue-eyed soul became more endearing, including a Bill Withers cover, and a quite lovely accident with his equipment that looped some heavy feedback under his soft-synth noodlings.
There are better bands that do comparable music (No Kids, Glass Ghost (seriously check them both out)) but there’s something quite beautifully candid to be found in Idiot Glee.
I was mildly gutted to have to leave halfway through TEETH!‘s set, but if punkish electroclash is you’re thing, give ’em a go.
Despite being a trio from Dalston (they’re also that kind of band, too) they wouldn’t be too out of place coming from the same scene as Abe Vigoda and No Age, because like Beat Connection, they eschew artsy nonchalance and unnecessary gothic obsession for youthful, innocent fun.
For sure, not everyone’s cup of tea, and judging by the numbers at the Zanzibar, Industry Whoppers had better places to be, but I can definitely see them touring with some top Stateside alt-rock bands soon enough.
Sound City was then polished off for me by stepping in as guest DJ at Happy Endings, forcing me to miss out the traditional round-robin pat-on-the-back afterparty in place of spinning some Inner City and Kenny Loggins…
