Mao Conquered as Grimes' Empire Spreads

Grimes - Mao Livehouse, Shanghai

Claire Boucher, the 25-year-old Vancouver native behind Grimes, recently gave an interview in which she claimed "the Grimes thing is getting kind of out of hand... getting too big". The multi-instrumentalist also hit out at the industry figures who oversaw last year's mammoth tours of America and Europe, dubbing them "evil".

Grimes: Frustrated?

Any possible disaffection with the music industry is certainly well hidden, however, as Grimes arrives in Shanghai as part of the city's JUE Festival. Instead, the all-conquering Canadian songstress turns in a show rich in energy and technical flair. Tracks from last year's beguiling Oblivion are combined with older songs from Boucher's spell on Arbutus records, along with some intriguing new material, in a confident performance. This is more than enough to excite an enthusiastic, diverse crowd at the wonderfully-titled Mao Livehouse.

After a support set from Ami Dang, which seems to consist of a single delay pedal echoing the interminable pain of a migraine sufferer, Grimes takes the stage to rapturous applause. Opening number 'Symphonia IX (My Wait Is U)' stands out on Oblivion as a hypnotic testament to despair and obsession, and the song's brooding power allows Grimes to enrapture the audience from the outset.

Grimes: Dazzling

In the wake of this opener, other tracks from last year's 4AD debut are warmly received by a nearly-full Livehouse. Former single 'Genesis' is delivered with surprising force, with Boucher lurching maniacally side-to-side behind her arsenal of keyboards and synths. Crossover hit 'Oblivion' sparks obligatory moshpits, with the crowd spurred on by a handful of local dancers who take the stage.

However, Grimes is perhaps at her most impressive in the show's intimate moments. The looping vocals on 'Skin' betray a deep longing for connection, while 'Vowels = Space and Time' is transformed onstage into a slow-paced, claustrophobic heartbreaker. 'My Sister Says The Saddest Things', meanwhile, is a welcome throwback to Grimes' more oblique early work.

Boucher, in a move which suggests she is becoming more comfortable in the manic world of her musical alter-ego, concludes a fine performance by showcasing new material. The unnamed final song is a surging, three-minute blast of surprisingly violent electro-angst which reduces the front rows of the audience to a frenzy. Grimes stands back and nods her head in silent approval. Maybe 2012 was just the beginning.

FOUR STARS    

The Shanghai Derby, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Shenxin

Upon seeing a yellow cockerel on a blue jersey, your mind may be flooded with fond memories of Gallic footballing genius. You will recall the surgical penalty-box precision of Michel Platini, the dazzling dribbles of a young Franck Ribery, or the silken touch of Zinedine Zidane. Be happy, dear reader, because you have never witnessed Shanghai Shenxin.

Platini: nothing to do with Shenxin

Shenxin recently adopted a blue kit, cockerels and all, as part of a rather radical shift in club identity. Having enjoyed eight moderately successful seasons in Jiangxi province as Nanchang Bayi Hengyuan Football Club, the club's directors decided to uproot the club some 450 miles to Shanghai. Wimbledon fans thought they had it bad. Not content with infuriating football fans in Nanchang, Shenxin managed to wind up traditional Shanghainese soccer powerhouse Shenhua FC by changing the colours of their jerseys to match Shenhua's own blue kits. Shenhua fans responded in kind by nicknaming the city's new team "the wandering cocks".

It was against this tumultuous backdrop that the first Shanghai derby of the season got underway. Still feeling the effects of St. Patrick's Day celebrations, your correspondent arrived at Shenxin's Yuanshen Stadium with only ten minutes to spare before the scheduled kick-off time. This being a Chinese sporting event, I had grossly underestimated the amount of time it would take to secure a genuine match ticket. I was informed by a number of supporters that the game had sold out, and the ticket office was indeed closed. After some haggling on the part of a more skilled Mandarin speaker than myself, we were able to get a touted ticket for 80 RMB (about eight pounds). When we finally took our seats, however, it was a surprise that the sold-out stadium was perhaps two thirds full.

Sold-out stadium with chain smokers in foreground

Even more frustrating than our seated position behind four middle-aged chain smokers was that fact that we had missed what turned out to be the game's only goal. Internet video highlights inform me that Michael Marrone, Shenxin's twice-capped Australian international, dwelt on the ball too long and presented Shenhua the chance to launch a swift counter-attack. Shenhua's Syrian forward Firas Al-Khatib did well to hold up play before sliding a pass to Patricio Toranzo, who supplied a neat finish. 1-0 to Shenhua.

This early goal set a pattern for the rest of the match to follow, with Shenxin's sloppy errors when in possession allowing Shenhua to break at pace. That these errors were forced by a defence marshaled by the 40-year-old Rolando Schiavi only highlights Shenxin's lack of potency in attack. Even more embarrassing for Shenxin was their profligacy from set pieces, with the crowd groaning as free kicks and corners were repeatedly walloped over the heads of attackers and out for throw-ins.

It was ironic, then, that the nearest Shenxin would come to an equaliser would be from a dead ball. Brazilian striker Kieza, who had hitherto done little, connected with a floated free kick to plant a firm header past Wang Delei in the Shenhua goal. The offside flag was raised, however, with replays suggesting a close but correct call. This is refreshing in China, where the standard of refereeing sometimes compares unfavourably with the British Sunday leagues.

The only other major refereeing call in a tense second half was more straightforward, as Shenxin's Xu Wen saw red after sliding in on Schiavi with the sort of two-footed horror lunge usually accompanied with a cry of "Keanoooo". Wen trudged off the pitch with the taunts of Shenhua fans, who made up the majority of the crowd despite playing away, ringing in his ears. In a slightly more amusing accompaniment to a chant which roughly translates as "Shenxin filthy cunt", a number of Shenhua's ultras also pelted the departing defender with rubber chickens thrown from the stands.

Shanghai Shenhua's "Blue Boys" ultras

Shenhua, while not particularly impressive on the night, always looked in control of the match and saw out the game with relative ease. Their fans will be impressed with Schiavi, who while possessing Davie Weir-class pace, nevertheless reads the game well and made a number of important challenges. Wang Delei looked assured in goal, while Al-Khatib looks to have added energy and guile to the forward line.

Shenxin, despite their derby-day defeat, can at least take solace in finding a new fan. While their relocation, complete with changing kit colours, represents everything wrong with modern football, I found the squad's collective ineptitude to be rather endearing. This team, which only escaped relegation from the Chinese top-flight due to Dalian Shide's financial implosion, frequently struggled to string four passes together against their local rivals. Their strikers are lightweight, their midfielders prosaic and their defenders blessed with goldfish attention spans, but it is Pudong's team. And as long as I reside on the East bank of the river, they shall have my support. The tainted memories of French footballing perfection are a small price to pay.      

A loveletter to Don DeLillo

Dear Don,

I remember when I first clapped eyes on you. It was one of those Sunday afternoons of humid drizzle and public transport and I was in Darlington waiting for someone or something. In Waterstones, I was scanning the rows of fiction, seeking out a new paperback to distract me from a degree in English literature. I spotted Underworld, 827 pages looming mid-shelf and mighty.

I picked it up, fingers stretching to feel all that weight in my right hand. The blurb was enticing, drawing me in with promises of 'gloriously symphonic storytelling' and a 'panoramic vision of America'. The subject matter, too, got me going: sports, stand-up comedy, AIDS and Vietnam. The myth of rebirth through violence. Then I saw the price: £13.99. Fuck that.

I tried to walk away. I took up with other writers, buried my desire beneath the lightweight novels of David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. They were cheap floozies, microwave meals when I needed a banquet. Satisfaction eluded me.

I bought Underworld eventually, after the longing grew too sharp to resist. I was floored by what I read. Even in the opening chapters, a reader can feel the novel moving through the gears, an unnerving momentum building. In the story's most affecting passages, particularly those set in the housing projects of New York, the richness of the prose can be unbearable. That such poetry, describing an urban netherworld ravaged by poverty and disease, can be sustained for such an extended period of time is shocking. More impressive, however, is the orchestral scope of the plot: dividing like a Pershing missile to touch upon different decades, continents, generations and genders. The novel transports us to a lost world of grand narratives and superpowers, moral certainties and nationwide paranoias. The Cold War is not so much recalled as replayed in flawless stereo.

While your other novels lack this same ambition, they nevertheless capture the spirit of the age with similar veracity. Mao II evokes the directionless mass hysteria of the early 1990s, dragging the reader from New York to Beirut via London in the process. Cosmopolis, published in 2003, manages to foresee the global financial crash from the backseat of an investment banker's limousine. White Noise, meanwhile, mocks the omnipresence of advertising, as Hitler Studies professor Jack Gladney's personal crisis is regularly interrupted to make room for television and radio commercials.

This conflict between the private and public realm is a recurring feature in many of your novels. Soren Kierkegaard encouraged us to 'Reveal the eternal darkness that broods deep inside you', and you frequently craft characters who struggle to suppress their ugliest instincts. That some of them do manage to uphold their mask of sanity instills your work with a strange kind of hope. We may all be pigs, but some of us at least care for our sows and piglets.

We need this hope now more than ever. We're in deep trouble: economic stagnation, political apathy, mass unemployment, Seth MacFarlane hosting the Academy Awards, Bret Easton Ellis' twitter account.

The world really needs a Don DeLillo novel in 2013.

I need a Don DeLillo novel in 2013.

Yours,
Thomas McMahon    

Will not hold weight.

Music videos used to be brilliant. Going round to your mate's house before school to watch a bit of Kerrang! or MTV2 on sky, and getting into impassioned arguments over whether or not The Others genuinely were the saviors of British punk music. Pretending to watch Fall Out Boy videos "to take the piss", although some well-repressed part of your being actually enjoyed their anthemic choruses. Or, best of all, staying up late in the hope of seeing the uncensored version of 50 Cent's P.I.M.P. "by accident" on Channel U.

There were funny videos, too, usually made to accompany the music of technically inept chancers who would never have made it if their Uncles hadn't been so well-connected in the entertainment industry (hey there, We Are Scientists). Remarkably, some of these funny videos transcended their quarter-hourly rotation on VH1 to become initially entertaining but quickly grating house party "favourites", as everyone who has ever bro-danced to this little beauty will attest. Then there was the tragic case of the Beastie Boys, whose reliably entertaining videos in their later career eventually came to eclipse the groundbreaking hip-hop of their earlier albums in the public consciousness.

Occasionally, some good bands made some very good videos, but the great bands of my formative years mainly stuck to the tried and tested "blokes playing instruments in a big room" formula which has endured since Joy Division immemorial.

However, with the onset of iTunes, illegal downloading, and spending 3 hours every day looking at your own profile on facebook, bands have to try harder than ever make their videos stand out from the crowd. The following video from Titus Andronicus, who both of my readers will recognise as my Favourite Band in The Universe, shows some of the disastrous consequences of this overexertion.

The 'In a Big City' video is nothing less than a self-indulgent shambles. Director Isaac Ravishankara appears to have tried to rewrite Taxi Driver for the Urban Outfitters generation - an effort I applaud - but has instead crafted something more akin to Oldboy director Park Chan-Wook remixing Richard Ashcroft's infamous stroll down the road. Lead singer Patrick Stickles is forced to walk through public parks singing lyrics like "lifeless automaton, feeling like a ghost" as the rest of his band stumble a few steps behind, looking understandably embarrassed. More infuriating, however, is the director's decision to contrast Stickles' psychotic glare with the sort of soft-focus rural cinematography most commonly found in the B-rolls of second year film students. The ending, meanwhile, manages to invoke both the September 11th terrorist attacks and Coldplay without giving any sense of meaning or resolution. Perhaps a band such as Titus Andronicus - which specialises in making music to listen to while carving names into hollowpoint bullets - is not naturally suited to the medium of the promotional video, but in this case even a black screen would be a more welcome visual accompaniment.

With it's moody stares, choreographed stumbling and baffling slow-motion sequences, 'In a Big City' can be viewed as the ultimate proof that it is worse to try too hard than to not try at all. As an effective counterpoint, please consider a relatively recent video by The Soft Pack, who both of my readers will recognise as My Second-Favourite Band in the Universe.

This video, for 'Extinction', should be distributed to all emerging indie bands as a solid example of how to do it right. First of all, shoot it in black and white: it's cheaper and makes everybody look more handsome. Secondly, arch one's eyebrows (the Casablancas technique) at every opportunity: this is the postmodern wilderness of the 21st Century, guys, nothing and nobody actually matters all that much any more. Thirdly, add some oblique and ambiguous writing to the background: is "WILL NOT HOLD WEIGHT" a literal failure of the billboard or does it fit in with the song's rejection of responsibility and emotional diplomacy? I'm not sure, but it'll kick the youtube comments off very nicely.

Pretty Sweet - A REVIEW.

Pretty Sweet (2012) - Girl Skateboard Films / Chocolate Cinema

Four stars

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE

It's that time of the year again. The decorations go up, the first snow falls in Aberdeen and disgraced former Liberty X members show up to turn on your town's Christmas lights.

However, for the global skateboarding fraternity, the advent of Advent takes on even greater significance. Thrasher's Skater of the Year award looms on the horizon and the trickle of web videos becomes a full-blown deluge of full parts, tour compilations and clips of Theotis Beasley discussing his favourite heaphone brand.

Even that rarest of modern commodities, the feature-length DVD-release skateboarding film, arrives in time for Santa to order it directly from iTunes, depriving the North Pole's skater-owned shop of vital revenue. And with all due respect to the anarchic excellence on display in Baker's 'Bake and Destroy', the most eagerly anticipated full-length skate flick of 2012 has been Girl and Chocolate's collaborative effort, the confidently-titled 'Pretty Sweet'. Indeed, nothing less than another game-changer is expected, considering a combined back catalogue that reads: Mouse - The Chocolate Tour - Yeah Right! - The Hot Chocolate Tour - Fully Flared.

The film itself at first seems to play out like a typical Girl/Chocolate production, with another mind-blowing introductory sequence bearing the bombastic hallmarks of Hollywood's own Spike Jonze. Camera angles are skillfully selected and the resulting footage is edited by the redoubtable Ty Evans, who further vindicates his reputation as skateboard cinema's master craftsman. The special-effects flourishes which illuminated 2007's Fully Flared also return, although they are handled with rather less guile the second time around.

The first part is given to Chocolate's Vincent Alvarez, who doesn't so much kick off proceedings as drag them writhing out of a Range Rover before dousing them in petroleum and striking a match. Alvarez's raw speed and board control, combined with a startling array of switch tricks, have made him an internet hero even before his first full part and the hype is entirely justified. Spots ranging from marble manny pads to ancient Kona concrete - via myriad handrails - are attacked with equal gusto as NWA and Suicidal Tendencies make for a fittingly raucous soundtrack.

Next up is Cory Kennedy, who seems to attract a lot of criticism for a ledge-centric repertoire and, err, wearing Nike Stefan Janoskis. His part should silence all the critics, with Girl's newest pro adding some surprising handrail assaults to his trademark mix of fleet-footed tech miracles and languid lines. His trick selection suggests a growing maturity, too, with hurricane grinds and inward heels adding welcome variety. It's all soundtracked by some wonderfully unsexy American country-rock which you will be spotifying for the rest of the week.

While Kennedy uses the video to transcend his reputation as the Great White Tech Robot Hope, Mike Mo Capaldi is rather more comfortable playing to type. An already-been-done song, YouTube-approved tech flips and an enduring avoidance of rails mean that Mike Mo fails to build upon his stunning debut part in Fully Flared.

As for the older guys, a lot of senior skateboarders' pro paychecks will be called into question as the likes of Gino Iannuci, Chris Roberts, Brian Anderson and Rick McCrank fail to muster full parts. Justin Eldridge's cameo is brief but diverting, as he does just enough to prove that nobody else skates rails quite like him. Mike Carroll, on the other hand, plays it safe with his trademark feebles and smiths - although he has probably earned the right to take it easy by now. Chico Brenes, 86, reveals life and creativity in his creaking bones in a delightfully latin-intoned part with Spain's Jesus Fernandez. Jeron Wilson, sharing space with the inimitable Brandon Biebel, also deserves credit for somehow managing to showcase his precocious talent while skating to Rick Ross and Meek Mill.

Most startlingly, Eric Koston only appears for a brief cameo in Guy Mariano's epic closing section, although his rather underwhelming footage (perhaps he's saving for the next Nike video) does at least allow viewers to catch their breath. Mariano fucking kills it. Not many people can get away with skating to a Kid Cudi cover, but Guy is certainly one of them, as skateboarding's comeback kid throws down one tech hammer after another. Some of the ledge NBDs are actually very ugly (front smith laser flip out, anybody?) but there is always another mind-blower just around the corner, including some memorable wallride combos. And as for the ender, well, just brace yourself.

Oh and then there's always Marc Johnson - who is, along with Geoff Rowley, probably the most consistently innovative and stylish skateboarder on the planet. After his three-song slog in Fully Flared, his new section is a masterpiece of skillful restraint, except for a few charming instances of Mullenesque street-freestyle. It's Marc Johnson skating to Bowie - it's never really going to be bad, is it?  

So, despite a number of Girl and Chocolate's big guns remaining holstered for the duration of the film (Rick McCrank - we demand closure), 'Pretty Sweet' is worthy of it's place next to 'Yeah Right' on your DVD shelf. The new guys are a breath of fresh air, and Mariano completes a comeback Lazarus would be proud of. The soundtrack is excellent and the editing, unsurprisingly, sets a new standard in the genre. For Girl/Chocolate films, however, the real acid test is whether it can mark a new epoch in the sport. It's too early to say, but I for one will be doing my level best to learn street 540s.

Addicks Ecstatic as Powell Inspires Promotion

Carl Jenkinson has not set the world alight since joining Arsenal last June. The young right back, eligible for both England and Finland, has featured in just eight league games and is yet to score. However, he deserves a great deal of credit for powering one club to an almost perfect season.

The sale of Jenkinson has funded an overhaul of the playing staff.

Jenkinson’s former employers, Charlton Athletic, invested the one million pounds received from the Gunners for the defender to completely overhaul the squad and secure an impressive automatic promotion. Eighteen new – albeit mostly free – players arrived at the Valley in the summer, with the ranks swelled by another ten loanees over the course of the season. Competing against more wealthy sides such as Huddersfield Town, Bournemouth and the two Sheffield clubs, manager Chris Powell has galvanised a mix of lower-league journeymen and academy products into a record-breaking outfit. Promotion was secured at Carlisle with an astonishing fifteenth away win of the season, surpassing anything in the South London club’s history.

Powell, a figure already popular amongst the fans from his playing days, has enhanced his reputation even further, despite a shaky start to his managerial career. After taking over from Phil Parkinson last January, Powell presided over four successive wins followed by an eleven match winless streak, leaving the Addicks mired in mid-table. However, the recently-appointed chairman Michael Slater saw fit to give the former England left-back chance to build his own squad, and the board’s faith has been repaid.

Perhaps the most important factor in Charlton’s promotion is the club’s shrewd moves in the summer transfer window. High earners such as Jose Semedo, Miguel Angel Llera and Therry Racon were offloaded and replaced by young, hungry talent. Ben Hamer, signed on a free transfer from Reading, has been a revelation in goal while centre back Michael Morrisson has recovered his best form after an indifferent spell at Sheffield Wednesday. Danny Green, meanwhile, has added guile on the right wing after being plucked from the relative obscurity of Dagenham and Redbridge. Perhaps the most surprising success story, however, is that of French forward Yann Kermorgant. An expensive flop under Nigel Pearson at Leicester City, Powell clearly saw enough from the 28-year-old during his spell as a coach at the King Power Stadium to offer the out-of-contract striker a new club. Ten league goals and a complementary partnership with the pacy Bradley Wright-Phillips have followed, and Kermorgant’s career has been resuscitated.

These additions have been supplemented by a number of effective loanees, with Hogan Ephraim and Dany N’Guessan both offering an injection of pace on the wings. Those players retained from Parkinson’s squad, meanwhile, have been rejuvenated under Powell. Johnnie Jackson, promoted to captain, has blossomed into an accomplished box-to-box midfielder, chipping in with thirteen league goals, including a decisive free-kick against Sheffield United. Up front, Wright-Phillips has shaken off his persistent injury problems to top the scoring charts with 22 goals.

Loan signings such as Hogan Ephraim have boosted the Addicks' promotion campaing

Despite a slight slump in March, the Addicks achieved promotion from League One after three long seasons with three games to spare. The obligatory pitch invasion occurred, with Powell and his squad embraced by travelling fans on the Brunton Park turf. So the next time Carl Jenkinson reluctantly cheers on Bacary Sagna from his heated seat on the Arsenal substitutes’ bench, he might find comfort in knowing he played a major part in a team in red and white’s recent triumph.  

Album Review: The Magnetic Fields, 'Love at the Bottom of the Sea'

Three stars

Love at the Bottom of the Sea, The Magnetic Fields' first album to be released since the end of the “no-synth trilogy” of the last three releases, is a confused, occasionally brilliant romp of an album. In a record that lasts little more than half an hour, Stephin Merritt's group throw together fifteen songs of varying quality in a maelstrom of manic creativity. This ramshackle approach produces an album which is undeniably enjoyable, albeit marred by irritating moments of contrived kookiness.

Must try harder

Perhaps the album's inconsistencies can be attributed to a hangover from the synth-less period which produced records as accomplished as Distortion. Indeed, the new album's opening track, 'Your Girlfriend's Face', seems overly keen to return the band to the electronic territory of their earlier work. The song sees Merritt's fine vocals overpowered by garish synthesizers, a problem which reoccurs later on 'The Machine in Your Hand'. Merritt, a songwriter usually renowned for his wit and charm, also lets down his redoubtable baritone delivery with some poor lyrics. On 'The Horrible Party', for example, he pleads with the listener to “Take me away from this horrible party and I will give you some money”. After considering the song's ridiculous oom-pah rhythm, they may be tempted to prolong his suffering.

Despite these flaws, the album nevertheless offers a number of examples of Merritt's mercurial talent. 'God Wants us to Wait' is a sharp satire on Christian chastity, while 'Andrew in Drag' evokes David Bowie while inverting sexual politics. The band's synths are deployed most skilfully in 'My Husband's Pied-A-Terre', with the track bursting unexpectedly into life after a beguiling opening. However, the album's outstanding moment is 'The Only Boy in Town', a delightfully poppy number which is good enough to bring The Beach Boys to mind. This surf-influenced track is perhaps the most compelling evidence that The Magnetic Fields are at their best when the synths take a back seat.