Head Space Daily Words...

Every now and then we need a little lift in life, whether that be a night down the pub, a meal out, a trip to the cinema - whatever your choice may be. Last Thursday night's pick me up was seeing the joyfully discordant, yet utterly harmonious guitar band Hinds play KOKO in Camden Town. A Madrid based band, Hinds is a four piece made up of three Spaniards and one Dutch member and these girls know how to perform and put on a show.

This was their biggest gig to date, played in front of a packed out venue and a fully receptive audience willing them to be fantastic. There were a couple of moments early in their set when the band seemed quite humbled and slightly taken aback by the fervour and bouncing sea of bodies that was in front of them.

The joy that radiated from the band though was tangible. They are living their dream and this was a night when the realisation truly hit home. How mind blowing to see 1500 people all on your side, wanting to hear your music, willing it to be great - and they did not disappoint.

Their album Leave Me Alone, (which I own on trainspotters yellow vinyl,) is excellent with very lo-fi production values, which is not a criticism but the sound they were trying to create. At times this can seem a touch chaotic but just as it feels like the album is about to go musically off the rails, it pulls itself together to stay on course. Live however, Hinds take it to another level. Whilst the album can have a slightly random feel, playing live they are  as tight as a pair of Usain Bolt's shorts.

The two founder members, Carlota Cosials and Ana Garcia Perrote are the guitarists/vocalists providing the ebullient and occasionally discordant harmonies, whilst the bass, calmly plucked by Ade Martin  and drums joyously smacked by Amber Grimbergen give the balance and steer the Hinds sound perfectly on course. Amber must have face ache as she simply did not stop smiling, whilst Ade, like many of the bassists that I see, took a more low key role in the performance, growing into the show as it went on. What is it about bassists and their karma? The unknown Mortal Orchestra bass player is another prime example, serenely propelling the sound forwards.

These girls have some tasty hooks and infectious tunes and if they carry on the way they are going, they may really go places. I wish they were playing at Green Man this August. You never know, it may still happen!!  

Their set was an uplifting pleasure and it kept on building.  A communal surge of musical enjoyment grew in intensity as the band cranked it up, culminating in the brilliant Castigadas En El Granero (see HSD Tune.) The band returned for an encore, to play what is already one of my favourite intrumentals, Solar Gap and I don't know what the final track was, other than it was a joyful on stage invasion of their mates who were over from Madrid. Hinds finished their set and invited everyone to the after show party at The Lexington. If only I wasn't old enough to be their father and in need of my beauty sleep.

What a joyful gig it had been. I hope Hinds are able to give me another one of life's little pick me ups in the near future...

Head Space Daily Image...

Hinds do their thing at Koko last Thursday...

Head Space Daily Tune...

Castigadas En El Granero - Hinds


Hinds rounded off their set on Thursday night at KOKO with this track. The place was a frenzy...

 
Garden - Hinds

The opening track on Hnds album Leave Me Alone perfectly sums up what they are about...

Head Space Daily Words...

My working week was a full on frenzy which ended abruptly on Friday at 5.45PM, at which point I moved into a different mode of existence. On Saturday morning I was in football manager mode, coaching my U11s team at the local park. In the afternoon I was on dad mode, taking my eldest son and a group of his friends to a 5 a side football pitch in Crossharbour, to celebrate his fourteenth birthday. Whilst they played I went to the pub to plot my line up for Sundays game. After pizza and cake back home and following a rousing rendition of happy birthday, I moved into music lover mode for Saturday evening. I was going to the Roundhouse in Camden to see Matthew E White officially end his Fresh Blood tour. It really was a fantastic gig, with guest appearances aplenty. Natalie Prass duetted on Why Don't You Believe In Me, Rebecca Taylor from Slow Club put in an appearance and Deep Throat Choir accompanied White on three tracks. It was uplifting stuff. At the end of the gig I bought a vinyl copy of Fresh Blood (having only had it on MP3 previously) and entered starstruck fan boy mode as Matthew E White signed my album. This morning was an early start with a 40 minute car journey for a 10.30 kick off in Dartford. I was back in manager mode and when our opponents arrived with too few players to be able to play the game, meaning our journey had been wasted, I could easily have gone into angry man mode. It's nothing a listen to the Fresh Blood album won't sort out and I will reset the dial back to working mode on Monday morning...

Head Space Daily Image...

This is a shot from the Matthew E White gig. The guy nearest to us was using sign language to sign every song for any deaf people in the audience. I have never seen this at a gig before and it is a fantastic idea. Why shouldn't deaf people be able to enjoy music?

Head Space Daily Tune...

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Head Space Daily Words...

It is almost two weeks since the passing of David Bowie and on my journeys to and from work I have been pouring Bowie’s music into my ears and absorbing it like never before. The albums I own are Hunky Dory, The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Diamond Dogs and Young Americans as well as a Singles Collection. During the week of his death, 6Music became a Bowie shrine – and rightly so. When a person so musically and culturally significant is gone, they have to be celebrated and remembered.

When Space Oddity was released in 1969, I was not on this planet. Hunky Dory was two years old and Ziggy Stardust had been released then superseded by Aladdin Sane in 1973, the year I was born. I can’t claim to have been there at the time, moved by what I heard or awestruck by the persona presented. Instead, Bowie has been a presence that I have always been aware of from a young age. He must have seemed quite a strange, and almost dangerous character when I was too young to appreciate who he was.  Familiar with images of Bowie and his bright orange hair, tight fitting patterned outfits and lightning bolt makeup, being referred to as Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke, it must have all been very confusing.

In 1983, one of my clearest memories was when he was momentarily 'Motown cover Bowie', dancing in a long raincoat with Mick Jagger in the Dancing In The Street video. The only Bowie record I bought as a kid was the 7” of Lets Dance, which was released in 1983 and ten years later, when I was exclusively into dance music I bought the 12” of Jump They Say, for the Leftfield remix.

Bowie was a presence. You knew his music and could sing along to the choruses of all the hits. It permeated your psyche without you even knowing it. The albums I mentioned at the start of these words are fantastic pieces of work and along with the Berlin three of Low, Heroes and Lodger, were all released in the 1970s. They were all there to be discovered and devoured. In the 1980s and 1990s, I was following my own musical trajectory and discovering my own sound, largely dance and soul based music, which is why the first Bowie album to catch my interest was Young Americans when he was in his coked out soul boy phase. Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory soon followed and both are stone cold classics. The albums all stand alone but are united by containing incredibly memorable songs which are simultaneously musically brilliant and sing along pop/rock anthems. Bowie’s image changed more than the music across these albums, although there was obvious musical development and progression. The point of Bowie was always to change and morph and re-present himself as something else.

I saw the David Bowie…Is exhibition at the V&A a couple of years ago and it was a vast collection of who he had been and what he had become. The items were more than mere memorabilia but were artefacts presenting a life developed through music, art and culture.

Without an artist like Bowie putting our feelings into words, telling his stories and developing his artistic personality in front of our very eyes, modern music art and culture cannot move forward, or does so at a far slower and less flamboyant pace. A force like his is needed to give people the confidence and belief to positively express themselves, whoever they are, wherever they may be and whatever their background. Which begs the question, where is the next Bowie? Such artists will be harder to come by on the commercial conveyor belt as not much is allowed to be spontaneous anymore. Talent is bred in the petri dish of the Brit School, stage school and TV talent shows. Nothing grows naturally.

When someone passes, you feel a sense of guilt and my only wish is that I had listened to David Bowie’s music more often and had a wider knowledge of his work. Judging by the fact that he is number one in the current album chart, with nine of his other albums in the Top 40, many other people have had the same thought. Once the vinyl copies of Black Star have been replenished in London’s record shops, I shall become a proud owner. 2016 will be the year of David Bowie...

Head Space Daily Tune...

David Bowie - Fill Your Heart

Starting out all Motownesque, this is one of my favourite and perhaps lesser known tracks from Hunky Dory, which becomes a joyful romp of Bowie happiness...  

David Bowie - Soul Love

Another lesser played track, this time off the Ziggy Stardust album. The strange vulnerability and sadness of Bowie's voice really comes through...

David Bowie - Right

Bowie is at his most slick and soulful on Right which has great vocal and musical arrangement. Superb...

Head Space Daily Image...

The shop window of Sister Ray Records on Berwick Street...

A photo I took at the David Bowie...Is exhibition at the V&A in June 2013...