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secret fireworks

a music blog with a northern irish twist

 

changing rss feeds...

I just realised that those of you on RSS feeds might not have gotten any articles for a while now! We haven't forgotten about ye. Check out the new website at

www.secretfireworks.tk

to get the new articles, the new news and the new interviews :D

Patrick

By Patrick
On Saturday 22 August 2009
At Saturday, August 22, 2009
Comments :
 
 

a movie script ending: will mcconnell's bandwidth films


I've been a Bandwidth Films fanboy ever since I saw the National acoustic session: there's nothing over the top about the videos Will McConnell produces. You create a simple situation, throw a band in the mix and film it. Inventiveness. however, is key for Bandwidth. Who would have thought about throwing Silhouette into a Citroen people carrier? It reminds me of Arcade Fire's Neon Bible in a lift.



We recently covered Pocket Promise's awesome video for I Burnt The Roller Disco on Secret Fireworks and it's the same sort of idea. While I'm not a fan of Panama Kings Will recently released a video for "Golden Recruit" but his finest work was also one of the first music videos Bandwidth produced. "The Evening Angels Gather Here" is a brilliant concept, projecting lyrics and leftover project footage onto a moving backdrop. It just works so well.



One of the most interesting developments from Bandwidth in the past two months or so has been the "In Stores Now" series. Take a relatively small band, put them in an unusual shop or location within Belfast and let them perform one track. Escape Act's performance was one of the better ones but in my eyes the best one by far was the John Shelly and the Creatures video embedded below. The sound is gorgeous, the band are inventive (using a vinegar bottle on a slide guitar, salt shakers etc) and there's a great circular shot that brings in the entire chip shop. Bandwidth may not win Oscars any time soon but we should be damn proud of them.




Check out the ASIWYFA live performance on www.bandwidthfilms.com right now or just click on the link in the blogroll!

 
 

we're moving!

I've been working on the new version of Secret Fireworks for a while now and it's nearly ready for primetime. You won't have to do anything: the address will the same but the design will be radically different. It looks like a proper media outlet now, all I need to do is to get the writing quality up to that standard now!


I'm covering John Shelly and The Creatures on the 4th of August and Joe Echo on the 5th (both dates in Auntie Annies), as well as going to the Pocket Promise album launch party in the Menagerie which features Kowalski and The Good Fight on the 6th of August. I'll also be covering the Saturday MONIO festival featuring David Holmes, SixStarHotel, LaFaro (those lads must be thinking I'm stalking them) and The Vals amongst other excellent acts for BBC Across The Line: you'll be able to catch me on Monday night's show and the review will be up on the BBC ATL blog.

We'll have articles on B.O.Y, Building Pictures, A Plastic Rose and Cardigan Drive as well as a hilarious interview from John Shelly and the Creatures (featuring Seven Summits as well) from the Trans festival. Don't forget I'm always looking for new material, new suggestions and anything you're interested in: fire me an email at patrick@secretfireworks.tk and I'll get back to you!

Patrick

By Patrick
On Wednesday 29 July 2009
At Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Comments :
 
 

secret fireworks @ glasgowbury: and so i watch you from afar

"What are you doing here? We're an instrumental punk rock band from the North Coast!". Tony Wright may be a little caught up in the moment on stage but he asks a valid question: how the hell can such a band become so darn big on the local scene in such a short space of time? The band admitted that the Glasgowbury show would be the biggest to date, but most observers were pretty confident that they would deliver.

And how they delivered.

The National's "Start A War" may be an unusual introduction for a band, but it gets the audience excited to say the least. There's rapturous applause as Tony, Rory, Chris and Johnny take to the stage and begin with "The Voiceless", a melody that soars into the night sky and provides calm before the storm that is Chris Wee, hammering the drums like there's no tomorrow. The strobe lights are flashing on and on as the crowd dance in the mud while I'm covered in dirt after I jump up and down at the finale of the track.

"S is for Salamander" is starting to become a staple part of an ASIWYFA set and although it's fairly rough around the ages the crowd seem to warm to it. The track was played for the first time as part of a session for Radio 1 and it certainly is a grower. With a few inevitable tweaks we could have another brilliant track on our hands. ATL seem to love it, for sure. "D is for Django" is another new track and while it's even rougher around the edges it's super. I love the jazzy drum part from Chris and the crazy bassline provided by Johnny: nobody could ever really accuse the band of just setting their amp volume to 11 and chugging away but this track is something special and something very different from material we've heard before. A ballsy track, it's very adventurous but it goes down very well.

"A Little Solidarity" wasn't as good as we've come to expect from the band: there's just something missing from it. Perhaps the band are growing a little tired of playing it or perhaps it is just me but the energy that we had previously seen in the set wasn't there. However, the show stopping track of the night had to be "Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate". It sounds immense on the main stage: the question and answer guitars at the start, leading the audience into a false sense of security before all hell breaks loose and the band kick things up a notch. Tony seems to be loving the fact that there's two thousand or so people enraptured by every note the band play and manages to get the crowd to fill in for the choir in the middle of the song.

There's a beckoning hand and a few dozen musicians come onto the stage, standing in front of the microphones and getting ready to give the audience a hand. We've got A Plastic Rose naked on stage, more than a few bottles of Buckfast knocking about and a few musical instruments to boot. In fairness, the attempted singalong doesn't come off, but it's a damn nice effort. Those distant guitars and the bouncing bassline return to bid farewell to the audience... but we're having none of it.

The curfew was broken and we were treated to an extended version of Eat This City, Eat It Whole. It's a little symphony made up of various movements: the slow, contemplative beginning with the echoing guitars and the lovely bassline resembling some sort of post rock/punk James Bond theme tune. (If only.) Then, the lead guitar kicks it into overdrive and we get this dirty, dirty melody. It relaxes for a little bit, then we have the breakdown. The guitars and the bass chug in perfect synchronisation, building and building and building until it all goes a little haywire and it's Johnny's time to shine. The echoing guitars return, followed by a final push for the finish line and then a return to the reflective beginning before one final growl. This is sheer unadulterated bliss.

This isn't ASIWYFA's best performance to date (that honour is reserved for the mindblowing Mandela Hall show) but it's top notch. The willingness to take risks, the sheer energy and talent of the band make ASIWYFA true festival kings. They're a band born to play festivals. This is their machine, and nothing can stop it.

High point: The failed singalong. Yes, it didn't work out, but it encapsulates this band and this festival: the happy go lucky nature of most of the bands on the local scene and the general solidarity that exists here.
Low point: Surprisingly, "A Little Solidarity Goes A Long Way". It just felt a little muted compared to the rest of the set.
Final point: One of the revelations of recent years and one of the best albums of 2009, And So I Watch You From Afar are going to be huge. They're releasing a new EP in the next few months which will be hotly anticipated.

 
 

secret fireworks @ glasgowbury: lafaro

There are some things you can be sure of in this world: birth, death, and Dave and Herb Magee headbanging at exactly the same speed and time. LaFaro trotted out a typically dirty set full of swearing, contempt for "trendy people", contempt for "ugly people" and inappropriate jokes as well as some damn fine music.


Alan Lynn seems content to just go crazy when he sits in front of a drum kit, while the Magees and Jonny Black share vocal duties on "Leningrad". It's pretty furious stuff with the bassline chugging at a mile a minute, but the vocals are simply inaudible. You simply can't make out the words . "Chopper" is one of the harshest tracks I've ever heard, technical brilliance displayed by each and every band member at some point within the song. I got the feeling that they nearly wrote this song just so each of them could have some sort of solo. It's trashy, loud and proud.

Tuppenny Nudger is played by LaFaro, almost reluctantly due to the band's hatred of "trendy people". The same trendy people that run, buy and support AU, a magazine that recently voted Tuppenny Nudger the best track of the past five years on the local scene. It may be a boring riff, but it gets the crowd dancing and for once you can actually hear the nice harmonies from the second verse on. The band play a new track which starts with a soft melodic rock opening which leaves the crowd slightly confused: have LaFaro somehow turned into Snow Patrol? Thankfully
the introduction ends and it turns into another loud, brash, incomprehensible song.

The song of the set has to be "Girl Is A Drummer" which is an uptempo rock number with a great chorus and some top notch bass work from Herb. It has a guitar riff that reminds me of the Strokes but darker and dirtier. It's the sort of stuff you'll happily dance in the mud to, which we're all doing. Tony Wright from ASIWYFA comes onto the stage to help out with vocals on a track to much applause, and we're reminded he can actually sing as well as play a mean guitar.

High point: I was expecting it to be "Tuppenny Nudger" but it was "Girl Is A Drummer" simply for that awesome chorus.
Low point: Either when the Michael Jackson jokes were cracked or in the intro to a couple of the songs where the band start slagging off people. A few friends of mine who hadn't seen the band before thought they were more than a little condescending at times and that in the end distracts from the good music on display.
Final point: A great show as per usual from a band releasing their debut album in the next few months.