Lots of my other favourite bands have covered a variety of Joy Division songs at some point or another. Come to think of it, it took a surprisingly long time for me to hear a Joy Division song that was actually performed by Joy Division. I think their bleak miserabalist post punk indie racket has aged quite well. Probably explains why I'm listening to so much of it right now.
Saw these guys play the Fleece last week. Which turned out to be quite good timing, as the very next day they managed to drive their tour bus off a 30ft viaduct in the next town over. So we can say with some confidence that they play music better than they park. What else do we know about Baroness? They are from Savannah, Georgia. Frontman John Baizley also produces some very fine artwork, and has something of the ghost pirate aspect about him - in a certain light his head appears to be a skull with a beard. Which is cool. They play awesome metal which frequently spirals off on proggy tangents, without ever seeming like moronic headbangers or tedious beardstrokers. And they like that twin guitar thing that Thin Lizzy and Mastodon seem to like so much. Baroness are the greatest band in the world ever. Also the most hospitalised band in the world. Get well soon chaps. Thanks for the mindblowing gig, and sorry our fine weather, road networks and local geography all conspired to try and kill you.
In an old episode of Futurama, Bender confesses to Beck "I always dreamed of being a musician-poet who transcends genres even as he reinvents them, just like you." Bang on. But that makes the musician-poet's inclusion here a wee bit tricksy. Which Beck are we talking about? The lo-fi grunge country fuck-up from Mellow Gold? Maybe the channelling-the-spirit-of-Prince funk goblin from Midnite Vultures? Or perhaps the trash-hop noise-pop freakazoid from Odelay? Mostly, it's none of the above. Despite the recent rediscovery of a SNES sending me back to a time of swearing at tiny TVs, not revising for GCSE exams and listening to Mellow Gold on a permanent loop, it's the more recent Sea Change that has burrowed into my brain. Delicate, haunting isolation forms the backdrop for swelling strings, lilting country twangs and Beck's lonesome grumbling.
And Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997. That song rules.
As far as I can tell, grime is the delightfully Anglicised equivalent of US gangsta rap. It's all the product of urban decay, a life on the mean streets of wherever and doing whatever it takes to get by; but whilst exponents of the latter recount tales of drive-by shootings, carjacking and busting caps into domes, practitioners of the former tell of tagging bus stops and getting caught shoplifting at Tescos.
Probably.
I don't really know, I don't pay that much attention. But it does seem that further similarities can be found in the corruption of both genres; the gritty urban reality of their origins has been consumed by a swirling vortex of bling and bitches, leaving nothing but nauseating parodies.
Still, before everything went horribly wrong Roots Manuva kicked out a couple of blinding records filled with philosophy, reflection, minimalist beats and a ruined sports day.
