A one. A two. A 1234

Wow! Two posts in one calender year, eh! And more to come too. Heady stuff. Anyhoo, Friday May 6th 2011. A day that shall go down in infamy. Why? Cos Shane P. Carter bought his Last Train To Brockville tour to windy Wellington, Bar Bodega to be precise. And why was this so damn noteworthy, I hear you ask? Well. Well, for the first time in forever, Mr Carter, currently plying his trade under the Dimmer moniker, has decided to dip his toes into his wonderfully vast back catalogue of tunes from his previous musical entities. Y'know, bands like Bored Games, Double Happys, Straitjacket Fits. Those tunes. He's always seemed to be a forward thinking fella has our Shane and when one of his bands ends, clean slate, don't look back. So the fact that he was playing these songs was more than reason enough to head down to the Bodge on a chilly Friday. I mean, some of these songs ain't been played for over 20 years. You'd want a piece of that right. Right? Especially given the band Carter had assembled. Gary Sullivan on drums. Vaughan Williams on bass. As they say, 'nuff said.

Bodega was packed, really packed. I turned up late-ish and struggled to find a spot where A) my view wasn't ruined by that bloody pillar in the middle of the dance floor and B) I wasn't surrounded by those dickheads who spend their hard earned cash to go to a gig and have loud conversations about sweet fuck all. I struggled, but I managed it. I didn't have to wait too long for Carter and band to step on stage and proceed to tear through Grate, a song off the first Fits album. Magnificent, it was. I had my doubts when I heard Carter was only touring as a three piece, would he be able to pull off the epic Fits material, not to mention the early Dimmer stuff he was gonna be playing, without the help of an extra guitarist. I need not have worried, Shane Carter is more than good enough to carry it off and with THAT rhythm section behind him, y'know. Next up we got a Double Happys number, Big Fat Elvis, before Done came along and slayed the crowd. A couple of songs later, we got the one song that had no writing input from Mr Carter. I Don't Wanna See You Again is an old Double Happys tune, written by Wayne Elsey, who is sadly no longer with us. Shane, obviously a little emotional about playing this tune, pointed out how cool he thought the song was and didn't we all agree. I certainly did. Next, we were transported to the early part of this century, as Shane and co unleashed a few early Dimmer tunes for our collective enjoyment. Dawns Closing In hadn't been played for about 10 years, mostly cos people liked to talk through this subtle, rather quiet number. Thankfully, the assembled were respectful this time. Then, my highlight of the night, Crystalator. My god, I've witnessed some great renditions of this song over the years, but this time, it was just EPIC! The lighting, with blue strobes and plenty of smoke, was perfect. The rhythm section was sublime and pummelling at the same time, and Shane was wringing seven shades of who knows what from that guitar of his. Just incredible. The fact that the next song, She Speeds, quite possibly my favourite New Zealand song in the world, ever, was somewhat of an anti-climax (that is to say, fucking awesome, BTW), says it all methinks. A couple more tunes, then the band headed back stage, job done. But, the crowd were not satisfied and demanded an encore, which the band duly delivered. First up, we got the oldest song of the night, Joe 90, a song by Shane's first band, the Bored Games, and a song that Shane is somewhat embarrassed by. Why, I do not know, its a fun tune. He even turned the microphone around so the front row could sing the last chorus. Then, Carter did something nasty. He gave us a choice. Did we want him to play Life In One Chord, or would we rather he played If I Were You. I know!!!! Anyways, he called for a show of hands and got roughly an even number of votes for both songs (rather than a sign of division amongst the audience, I think most of us were possibly voting for both songs. I know I was, teeheehee), so Shane, good fella that he is, did the decent thing and played both of them. Finally, we got the usual epic version of Seed from the first Dimmer album and Shane and the boys left us to return home, stunned by what we had just witnessed.

What I liked most about the set was how Shane and co were subtly changing the songs, nothing radical, just enough to keep things interesting for both the band and the audience. For example, Fits tune APS was played in straight time, as opposed to the shuffle timing of the studio version. A great night. And, for the first and possibly last time on All This Useless Information, a set list:-

Grate

Big Fat Elvis

Done

Needles and Plastic

APS

Some Fantasy

I Don't Wanna See You Again

Dawns Closing In

Crystalator

She Speeds

Randolfs Coming Home

Dialing A Prayer

------------------------

Joe 90

Life In One Chord

If I Were You

Seed

Before I go, a couple of shout outs. First up, if you are one of those folks who regularly attends gigs here in Wellington, you will probably seen a good friend of mine, Shaun Jones, taking the odd photo or six. You can check some of these photos out at his website http://www.shaunjonesphotography.com/ as well as any number of websites featuring photos from gigs. Well worth checking out, he does great work. Also, I recommend you head over to a new blog started by the man that coined (or possibly stole) the phrase "the worlds greatest Kiss tribute band, Kiss", which featured in my first ever blog post, Mr Liam McIndoe. The blog is call The Sound As Ever (http://thesoundasever.blogspot.com/). He's gonna review a bunch of old prog albums, but you'll find that out when you check his blog out. I used to share a stage with both of these lads, so you know you gotta check their stuff out.

Anyhoo, until next time, be good.

Guess who's back

Hello kids,

In the past I have made various threats regarding how often I'm gonna be updating this blog, threats I've not followed through on. That, however is about to change. Today, I shall be posting the first in a series of posts, where I shall reveal to all and sundry my Top 10 albums of the first ten years of this century, the "Noughties," in descending fashion. Hence, we shall start with number 10 in the list:-

Mogwai - Rock Action (2001)

I dunno, I resisted their charms for quite some time. It wasn't until I heard some tunes from the Scottish post-rockers 2nd album, Come On Die Young, that these guys made sense to me. That albums slightly more desolate soundscapes hadn't left my stereo for a while, when one hungover Saturday, I popped into one of my favourite record stores, with the express purpose of picking up a recent Teenage Fanclub album (Howdy). I got chatting with guy I knew who worked there, who asked if I was in a rush and could he play me a few things. Sure, I said. I can't remember all of what he played me, but I do remember leaving with not only the Fannies album I'd intended on buying, but also this album, Rock Action, as well as "All We Lost In The Fire" by Low.
Now, as much as I loved "Come On Die Young," I wasn't prepared for the revelation I experienced when I hit play on the CD player at the record store that hungover Saturday. Opener "Sinewave" starts off small and just builds and builds, swellingly gorgeous. From the moment this song started, I knew this album was gonna be a different ride compared to their previous album, an impression confirmed by second track "Take Me Somewhere Nice." Hell, as well as strings, this song had singing. As far as I knew, they'd not tried that before. Two songs were all I needed, I had to own this record.
Over the next few months, this album replaced it predecessor on heavy rotation on my stereo. I raved to friends about how great it was, fuck, some of them even bought it and fell in love with the album as much as I had. Every listen was a pleasure. I especially dug Dial:Revenge, featuring vocals from Gryff Rhys of Welsh nutters Super Furry Animals. 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong was another fav. But for me, the highlight of the album was its centre piece, You Don't Know Jesus. I could get lost in that song, it was so vast. Word of advice though, don't listen to this tune while sleep deprived and having just seen the film "Miracle Mile." Damn near had a freakout after attempting that one.
While the band themselves may not hold this album in such high regard and have made some fine albums since, this is the one I come back to.
Just majestic.

Stay tuned for number 9 in my top ten albums of the noughties, as well as my reviews of some recent albums and gigs (Warning : May contain excessive praise of one Mr Shane P Carter). Until then, take care and shit

Morgs