Smoke Jaguar

While I'm sure that there are many people for whom the guitar seems like a tired and dated means of musical expression, I'm still a firm believer in the elemental, primal power of the (mainly) six-stringed beast, especially when ravaged through a pile of effects and a nice hefty amp. Smoke Jaguar, for all their unassuming appearance and low-key profile, make playing the guitar into just the kind of exciting, heart-wrenching, ear-splittingly loud, emotional explosion that I love so much.



A duo consisting of Kevin McCarvel (once seen manning the racks at Volcanic Tongue) and Stuart Crutchfield, the free-flowing Smoke Jaguar made only their second ever live appearance at the end of November down in the depths of the 13th Note's basement, after an earlier evisceration at the (currently much quieter!) Halt Bar Hijack just less than a year earlier. The twin-guitar, uncompromisingly feedback-drenched, assault on the senses that they treated the select few to both times stands testament to many hours of jammed-out improvised familiarity between the two players, with walls of piercing amplifier scream and keening Haino-influenced stringed sadness enveloping the room.



There are two beautifully hand-made CD-Rs available on the band's own Nyali Recordings label (one documenting the stunning Halt Bar performance), which will be branching out in 2010 with forthcoming releases planned from Ben Hall's Trauma and Masami Kawaguchi's New Rock Syndicate.



Smoke Jaguar are yet another one of the wholly admirable and exciting underground noises going on in Glasgow, a potent, quietly creeping force, so please keep your eyes and ears peeled.

More Smoke Jaguar photos from the 13th Note.

Minor Successes (a.k.a. Blowing One's Own Trumpet)

In the last few weeks, I've had a number of minor publishing successes. First was the eagerly-anticipated (at least by me) appearance of a couple of my Instal 2009 photos in the May 2009 issue of The Wire (Issue 303) to accompany David Keenan's review of the event.





This was my second time in The Wire, following a photo of mine of Kan Mikami from his first 3-night residency at Cafe OTO being used to to illustrate another live review in the November 2008 issue (Issue 297).



Next up, a couple of weeks ago, I received word from the Trembling Bells that one of my promotional photos of them, shot in the Clyde Tunnel at the turn of the year, had been used in the New York Times for a short piece on the band in one of the paper's weekend art supplements (12th April 2009 edition), complete with a named credit for the photo! Quite exciting and certainly an illustrious publication to be added to the CV.



Perhaps less high-brow, though no less widely seen, was the use of one of my photos of Alasdair Roberts shot in Singer earlier this year, to go with an interview and album review in The Sun newspaper. Unfortunately this time the photo wasn't credited, a sadly all too common occurrence.



Lastly, back on the subject of the Trembling Bells, I received my copies of their debut album Carbeth, complete with one of my photographs spread across the inside of the CD gatefold. It's a beautiful piece of packaging anyway, and a great album to boot (just check out Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's glowing accolade on the front if you're in any doubt).

Unearthly Trance, Ramesses & Black Sun

Last Friday, in addition to making a brief appearance at the Trembling Bells album launch, my main weekend-launching excitement was to head down into the bowels of the 13th Note's Notecave for some brutal metal heaviness courtesy of New York's Unearthly Trance, their Dorsetshire tour buddies Ramesses and local stalwarts Black Sun.

Heavy it most certainly was, with a crushing performance from Black Sun kicking things off in grand style - a pair of 7 foot tall amps piloted by these guys is quite an intimidating sight in the 13th Note's tiny basement space. When I first saw Black Sun, way back when, I admit I wasn't convinced, but I've completely come round to their sheer unrelenting power and look forward to hearing more of the new material that they gave us a sneak peek of.



Next up were Ramesses, who I have to say I wasn't particularly taken by, sadly. I really like the couple of older CD EPs that I've heard, but I just wasn't feeling it from them on the night, as they seemed to lack the monolithic punch that both Black Sun and Unearthly Trance served up. Still, they were sporting perhaps the biggest cymbal known to man, so it certainly wasn't all lost.



Finishing up the night were headliners Unearthly Trance, hailing from Brooklyn, who launched straight into some ferocious feedback and sludgy riffing and played a wonderfully dynamic set taking in sludge, breakneck crust punk and funereal doom metal, all played as heavy-as-hell. It was my first encounter with them, so I'll definitely be checking out their last album "Electrocution" in particular, which seems to have gathered much praise since its release last year.



More Unearthly Trance, Ramesses and Black Sun photos.

Trembling Bells

I've known, and respected the musical prowess of, drummer extraordinaire Alex Neilson for a while now, so I was very pleased when, back at the beginning of the year, he asked me to do some work with his current band, Trembling Bells. With next week (Monday 27th April 2009 to be precise) seeing the release of their debut album "Carbeth" on Honest Jon's Records, I thought that the time was right to post a wee entry about them.



After a strong history of free and improvised playing, Alex Neilson formed Trembling Bells as an outlet to explore his song-based ambitions and desires, which the group does via a traditional yet, at the same time, somehow free folk-rock sound, most akin to classic British groups like Fairport Convention in particular.



The band consists of Alex Neilson on drums and vocals, Lavinia Blackwall (who has also worked with Alex as Directing Hand) on vocals, guitars and keyboard, fellow Glasgow-based singer/song-writer and solo guitarist Ben Reynolds on guitar, harmonica and vocals and Simon Shaw (of Lucky Luke) on bass and vocals.

I first met the band on the cold cold cusp of the new year for a photoshoot based at Alex Neilson's flat in Glasgow's southside, where I was lucky enough to be the private audience of a short live set in the intimate bedroom rehearsal space.



We then took a wander down into the dank depths of the graffiti-strewn Clyde Tunnel for some suitably gangster-esque portraits.



A couple of months later I finally caught the group at one of a number of Glasgow shows, when they played a great headline set at the Captain's Rest.



Having just completed a short UK tour, you may just have missed Trembling Bells, for a little while at least, but definitely keep an eye out for them passing by again and for their album, particularly the wonderful photography on the inside of the CD gatefold!

More Trembling Bells photographs.

Aaron Dilloway and Nate Young et al

Friday night saw an early-starting Wolf Eyes-related extravaganza at Stereo, organised by Sick Head Tapes (the label of a certain Mr. Ruaraidh Sanachan), and a very grand night it was.

First up was a short but no-less-great set of cosmic keyboard loops, drones and noise from Nackt Insecten, playing down on the floor amongst the masses.



Next up was a new collaboration between everyone's (well, almost everyone's) favourite avant-folk recluse Richard Youngs and Volcanic Tongue's "first woman of wail" Heather Leigh-Murray, with the pair of them playing an extended free-rock guitar and vocal duel, featuring some particularly nice playing from Richard Youngs and a final few minutes highlight where their improvising really came together.



Wolf Eyes' Nate Young then kicked off for the out-of-towners, with a sublimely sinister solo shot of creepy droney darkness and spoken-word vocalising.



Last on the official bill was Aaron Dilloway, ex-fellow Wolf Eyes member, and absolute master of the art of tape manipulations and the application of oral contact mics. He played a beautifully restrained and hypnotic set, all too wonderful and subtly accomplished for one to be at all upset at the lack of the perhaps expected manic noise.



With the night still young however, we were lucky enough to be treated to an amazing impromptu duo set from Aaron Dilloway and Nate Young, with Dilloway processing Young's beat poetry and harmonica playing through vast barrages of echo and delay alongside his masterful tape loop and synth manipulations, producing what must have been the highlight of an already pretty special evening.



More photographs from the night can be seen here.

From The Archives #1

I'm sure there's a whole bunch of other stuff I should have been doing, but, while sitting at home a lot more than usual following a cycling accident the other week, I've been digging out and uploading some never-before-seen gig photographs from the archives, for your viewing pleasure.

From way back in July 2007, there are a couple of shots from an absolutely incredible Converge gig upstairs at the Barfly (R.I.P., or should that be "good riddance", perhaps!), which was one of the hottest, sweatiest and most mental shows I can remember being at.



Jumping forward to October 2007 and there's some photos from New York noise/punk rockers Unsane who played a great heavy-ass show at the much-loved Nice N Sleazy. Both of these gigs (Converge and Unsane) were surprises to me, in that they were bands that I'd never given much thought to before, but was then pretty much blown away by on seeing them live, just like it should be.



About a week later and I was back upstairs at the Barfly (hack, spit) again, this time to see my favourite Liverpudlian retro synth krautrock outfit Kling Klang run through their heavy-riffing motorik stuff.



Finally, for now, we jump forward to the relatively recent times of May 2008 and to the much more salubrious Òran Mór in Glasgow's West End, where I got myself lost in the psychedelic sensory overload of Animal Collective's rhythmic psych-noise-pop jams, ably supported by the impressively ever-prolific Bradford Cox in his solo Atlas Sound incarnation. A grand night.





Follow the links, or click on the images above to see more photos.

I've also been adding the bands and gigs to my Crimson Glow Photography Index, which I hope makes it easier to browse bands and find the photographs that you're after.

As always, there's a whole lot more to come as I gradually dig through the archives, so keep your eyes peeled for more goodies.

Glasgow Implodes 4

A couple of weeks ago, beloved local indie fleapit the 13th Note (and I mean that in the most positive way, of course) played host to the 4th annual Glasgow Implodes festival, an all-day extravaganza of noise, drone, destruction and generally glorious sonic weirdness organised by the local At War With False Noise record label.



Unfortunately I was working, so didn't make it down to experience the fun till about 6:30pm, but still managed to catch a bunch of really great, exciting stuff and had a top-class Saturday night hunkered down in the Notecave.



Highlights for me were the theatrical noise-maulings of 80s pop classics by Atomized, the new project from Russell of Black Sun and Lea Cummings, a.k.a. Kylie Minoise, of the Kovorox Sound label; Gruel's blood-splattered, cowl-wearing, cow-skull wielding heavy-as-hell sludgy riffing; the true-to-form no change, no dynamics, no entertainment Harsh Noise Wall of France's Vomir, complete with plastic bin liners; and the nights headliners Skullflower, who, even an amp down, were like being caught in a sensual heady-smelling psychedelic wind tunnel (and that's a very good thing).





More Glasgow Implodes 4 photographs.