I’m tired, I’m confused, I’m dirty and I’m hungry, and five yards away my girlfriend is trying to sleep… Guess I better review these demos, then.
Latest Reviews
13-08-2010 Demos – Issue 27
13-08-2010 Tom DiCillo, When You’re Strange
What can be said about the Doors’ back story that hasn’t already been covered? The truth, for a start.
28-07-2010 Wavves – King of the Beach
There could hardly be a more apt sounding death knell for lo-fi indie garage than Nathan Williams’ infantile pop farts. Both the genre and Wavves itself have been due a backlash for some time now.
27-07-2010 M.I.A. – /\/\ /\ Y /\
In another universe, parallel to ours but not too distant, Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam is the pivotal character in Pulp’s ‘Common People’.
27-07-2010 Sleigh Bells – Treats
Everyone seems to hear something different in the kind of piercing racket that only the pairing of a former hardcore guitarist and an ex-girl group singer could produce
Reviews
Dan Sartain / The Luminaire, London
Cult status certain for rockabilly Dan Sartain
Words Graham Russell
On his first UK release in 2005, Birmingham, Alabama greaser punk Dan Sartain - a former gas station attendant discovered by Rocket From The Crypt - convincingly introduced himself as a brooding, tough but sensitive 1950s Cry Baby bad boy type. "Hey, hey I'm gonna kiss your mouth," he snarled, "I've got a lips and tongue that will knock you out," and, at the time, everyone called him the post punk Johnny Cash. In truth, Sartain's soaring voice sounds nothing like Cash's cavernous baritone, but I Walk The Line was in the cinemas then and most indie rock critics' frame of reference doesn't extend to Gene Vincent, let alone Charlie Feathers. Sartain's songs, swathed in echo, sounded instantly familiar in the best way, like music reverberating out of the world's coolest jukebox, with lyrics torn from a James Dean juvenile delinquent movie, awash in heart break and often featuring switchblades.
Seeing Sartain on stage for first time in two years, I'm struck again by how diminutive and ridiculously fresh-faced he is. At 26, he could still pass for a teenager, especially now he's shorn off the sleazy pencil-line Pachuco moustache (worthy of Esquerita) he used to rock. Live, he burns away anything extraneous in his mondo primitive / minimalist hybrid of fifties rockabilly and sixties garage punk. Previously I'd seen him completely alone, just backing himself on guitar. Tonight he's augmented by a drummer and bassist. It doesn't make much difference: Sartain's fluid, slashing and emotive twang-y guitar and wailing voice dominate, drenched in ringing distortion.
Tonight's terse adrenaline-jolt short set includes a sprinkling of familiar songs ('Flight of The Finch', 'Walk Among The Cobras', 'Replacement Man') and lots of exciting-sounding new unreleased material. Sartain is no purist or revivalist: without ever trying to slavishly emulate, he evokes the spirit of early Sun Records. In 2006, I got the impression hopes were being pinned Sartain to become the next White Stripes-style breakthrough phenomenon and, at the height of the garage punk explosion, he toured with both White Stripes and The Hives. The crossover hasn't happened yet. The diverse and imaginative influences Sartain draws upon (Joe Meek, Gene Vincent, Alice Cooper, Mexican mariachi music) don't get you on Radio 1 or T4. Judging by the reception he gets in London, though, cult stardom seems assured.
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