There was a point last night, where we Hammers feared for our ability to stare down insalubrious circumstances. Heap after heap of steaming indie land-fill had rolled down the hillside, direct from the semen-scented bedrooms of the Unabrowed. One lumped knuckle after another was brushed against guitar-strings. One Stella-ravaged vocal chord after another vibrated meaninglessly, firing us impossible orders to dance to their slumping sludge. The hands-behind-the-back shuffling was as relentless as a pulsing ocean of nuclear waste, the discarded syringes bobbing up and down in chorus. It was so bad, Loop and Coc skipped over the road to
Playtime to take a look at what the Bohemians were up to. We were shocked to observe that Ginger Joel had undergone a significant haircut, and looked quite the Hip-2B-Squared. There was some shouty big-lady-voice indie riffola from Birds v Planes, but it wasn't quite our specialist subject. We returned to the sweaty Abode with heavy hearts. But we need not have worried so much.
We'd been described as an "oddball
electronic/poetry/pop party Gestapo" and what tiny 
reputation we enjoyed had been sketched out in opposition to anything that sounds a bit Quoasis-y. There were sound problems, which meant Goatboy couldn't really hear himself at any point; but by the time we took to the corner of the room (and stood behind some massive, shiny new bass-bins, which we tried really hard not to bust with our sonic magnificence) our artsy posse had established themselves and the majority of the neo-Mods had fucked off to New Brighton sands. The mood was good. Coc's voice kept within the bag, and the lone toothless heckler was dealt with such suave pleasantry that he clamped his gob within a couple of tunes. We fuzzy felt the auld sense of improbable victory, and the gates of perception were swinging from their hinges. Complicated handshakes were exchanged with new Hammerfans, and The Canteen told us we were welcome any time, even if we had cut down their closing DJ set to naught but a tune or two.
We've been horribly ungrateful in our description of the other bands to be honest, we know that. But it's a therapeutic outpouring, you understand? You can find out more about The Canteen
here. It's only been trucking since the year turned 9, so a few more months of shaking itself like a polaroid picture should result in some interesting developments.
Credit Crunch Fucks Moose In Car Park
22 Chwefror 2009, 12:16 - Hammer HQ, Manchorlton
Break out the jim-jams, motherlickers!
Antifolk, Antifolk, Antifolk. Whisper the word three times in the mirror, and Hermes Trismegus will appear, carve his initials into your quivering pelvis and pin you to the wall with his human cannon. Or somesuch. But before the he/she godling leaves,
she/he will lean into your ear and whisper a terrible tale about the time the Cymro-Norman hybrids swept down from the high country and laid waste to the cramped cafes and grubby newsagents of the Charing Cross Road.
London has been reduced to a smoking ruin once
again by our terrible wrath. We gripped the attention of those peepers and lugholes with our unique brand of bad jazz/folk/hip-hop/punk/spoken puke fusion. We were a stage packed with Welsh John Cooper Clarkes, noodling on bass guitars, pushing out the warped funk and the needling think. Sweat dripped from every cabaret-infected pore. Tendons stretched to tearing point, as we muscularly shepherded discordant genres into a happy whole. Unfortunately, our blazing trail along the FutureMusik autobahn slid into the gravel track with another burst voicebox. This is becoming tiresome, my young Jedi. Perhaps some poodle rock voice coaching is in order. Maybe I should send a distress pigeon to the waddling heart attack that is Meatloaf. We're just short-changing the kids, you know?
It was a highly illustrative trip however. Not so much for the music this time, as we played the cunt hand very heavily and spent the entire pre-set period drinking and chatting with seldom-seen friends in a room with a pool table. And it was nice to travel there and back in the same vehicle again, rather than helicoptering in with our girlfriends and wives like the crownly-princed supergroupsters we am't.
No, the extra dimension came from a visit to a studio in Ladbroke Grove (a scion
of the Londinium geographical cult based in a clay-line basin close to the
continental European states). There we met with one
Jamie T
and his producer (an e
rstwhile Snowdonia-rambling chum of the many-headed Polyteknikon by the name of
Tom Stanley) and whet our
brainbuds with a taste of the limp regime of the recording lounge. Tom
seemed one of nature's gentleman. Apparently, he formerly engineered for
Stephen Street, and is now rolling up a significant chunk of Chewits in a respectable ball of a portfolio. There was even a guy to make the
tea, though he didn't seem to be watching the correct amount of porn to be doing
his job properly.
Tom slapped on the demo that Loopol had been slaving over in his Wilson-esque way in the front room at Apple Tree Studios for days and days. "It Dont Matter Know" and "That Fat Little Emperor!" were played and deemed "bonkers". It didn't sound too bad, truth be told, but no copy was requested, and no sweaty management company has 'phoned us in the last few hours, promising to make us the next Bay City Rollers. Tears have soaked our collective pillow over that; you can only imagine the volume of them.
Then it was just time for an overnight stop at Big Willy's, friend of
Cassetteboy on the Champion Hill in Camberwell, and a spot of pub cricket on the
bus back to Bloomsbury, where the police had pulled over the Hondamaschine
"shit-heap" and shown us a weirdly corkscrew subterreanean parking place where
we wouldn't offend the neighbours.
Perhaps not the usual intellectual spoils
from a trip to the Capital, but always more than worthwhile nonetheless. That
stuff about a torched district of the West End was indulgence of the old
poetic jazzmatazz,, you understand.
Flame on!
Jeff Bridges Starts Second Career As Industrial Dentist
13 Chwefror 2009, 12:40 - Taurus Heights, West Deadsbury
Gum up your hippy mouths, ya fucksticks, and herald the hoover of the Lord!
Gwyneth Paltrow is an attractive woman. Scarlett Johanssen is a devastatingly beautiful woman. Tom Hanks is a dough-faced aberration. One of those kids are doing their own thing; and so are we Hammers.
With Coc currently taking multitasking to new depths, simultaneously doing no work for no pay whilst also doing nothing of any real creative worth, Delicate Hammers are reaching out across Offa's Dyke, touching fingers to the fronds and mossy beach-heads of the home country. Wales. Wales is the country to which we refer.
Another night of playing music in the
long-established band format, this time at the newly-located wellspring of
the burgeoning Trof empire, situated off the student hump in Fallowfield. We were supporting visiting Cardiff scenesters and all-round nice wrestlers,
King Alexander, who recommended that we try and get in touch with some venues in Cardiff about a triumphal return to the Land of Our Mithers.
They were noisy and cute and clever and sounding a bit like Young Knives if
they'd come from Olympia, WA, and their CDs had penises drawn all over them,
which you might not have expected. Who could've expected that? Apparently they
are only intermittently involved with Clwb Ifor Bach and all that stuff, but if
there's ever anyone wants to see women playing music in Wales, their cords are
tugged. Them and Katherine Jenkins presumably. That was the chat.
Our own set
went OK. We were a little like caged mammoths, blaring our tusky cacophony in
the face of some quiet drinkers. Even the cabaret lounge stuff didn't so much
go over people's heads as shockwave their scalps off. It took an age and a day
to get the monitors working, but Trof is a nice wee venue. Hope we draw straws
there again someday.
Isn't it your time for Fiddler's Green?
Love Letters To God Found In
Disused Portacabin
1 Chwefror 2009, 16:15 - Hammer HQ, Manchorlton
The anoraks are dead; long live the anoraks!
Before time rolls the boulder shut on another Hammer escapade, please allow us to describe the events of the Blowout just gone, this last Saturday at the Irish Centre.
We were effectively headlining. We had set aside a full forty minutes or so of tunes with which to entertain and appal those assembled.
We shat muddy rainbows of hopeful expectation after our wall-to-wall media
coverage on the preceding Friday. Coc in particular felt foreshadowed and a little brow-beaten by his own appearance in the MEN, stalked by shadowy images of knuckle-sweeping Dry-lizards bellowing their love of Those Unabrowed Fucks From The Lumpen North.
The guys at Blowout thought our landfill-taunting was hilarious, chortling on
the bus as we offered to publically separate The Courteeners from their
shoulders. We were itching to pump open some large balloons, and were hoping
we'd enjoy an audience to match. We hoped a tiny legend would be born that
night. We were the secondmost successful performance on the night.
First
prize, a trip for two to Weston-super-Mare incidentally, went to these young
shining buckstags,
The HeebieJeebies
from Rotherham, England. They had
the kind of jumping jive that the Kidz want these days. They were scruffy and
hairy and skinny, but not in that annoying way that tossbags in the high
street do it. There was that small African flavour that leaks everywhere these days, but I couldn't hold that against them. It was understandable that they might be standing on the
shoulder of Monkeys; but they wore the trackie tops lightly and with energy
and fun, and - why do I feel as though I'm writing some kind of end-of-term
assessment on some glossy-eyed adolescent?On the other hand, Yer Hammers
didn't quite clinch the many-fingered prize as adeptly as we'd hoped. There's
something about hanging around for ages before you play that we haven't quiet
gotten the smell of yet. There's some thread that we haven't teased out yet,
that we haven't been able to throw out to the adoring audience and draw them
in when we play for longer than a few tunes. Are we a novelty comedy band?
Questions, questions - raining down. Blowout was another one of those nights -
there were icy cool patches were we piqued the interest of the Tuborg-quaffing
masses, but there were fogs too. And the words dried up a little, formed an
unprotective skin on top. That rarely happens, and it never helps.
So we
look to the seagull-splattered horizon again. Later this month, we slip into
the dry dock at The 12 Bar again as part of the
Winter Anti-Folk Festival.
Thundering down the M1 we will be. We'll tear those downtown sophisticates a
new arthole, we will.
Watch for the smoke signals.
Man Found Morally Undermined By B of the Brown
24 Ionawr 2009, 16:15 - Hammer HQ, Manchorlton
Dark cherry centres swirl about the yoghurt with evil intent.
Every eighteen months or so, Mistress Fortune approaches your shiny Hammers and offers us some shiny bright jewel. In 2006, it was Rob da Bank, his ponytail obviously tied a little too tight. In 2007, we pranced about outside Hammer HQ and had our picture taken alongside an article for the lustily-headlined South Manchester Reporter. 2008 kind of slipped us by a little, as we continued to scratch out some gigs (some good, some excellent) and record more music that is waiting to be mixed. Now, in 2009, we make our entrance on the Manchester Evening News stage. You can read all about everything
here.
We're not sure we quite agreed with everything David Sue had to say about us.
We're not quite sure that we agree with everything David Sue said that we had to
say about us. "Kings for the night"? Sheesh, and sheesh again, our brothers. But
the spite we spit, buddies, is genuine; the acid we keep behind our tongues to
swill all over our enemies, The Cunteeners, Twisted Sister Wheel, Quoasis, is
still rotting away our blunt, grey fillings. When will we get to clear our
throats? We are Iron Men! We've got fat troughs in the palms of our sweaty
hands, slowly dripping lines of history. Our private jet has pulled in on the
tarmac, but we are still waiting to tumble out and kiss the black stuff before
climbing into our HumdrumVees and plunging the thumbs back in our puckering
arses. The momentum will fade away again, and it has always faded away.
But in
the meantime, we have at least a small amount of history to stow in our tiny
treasure chests. The Fiction Non Fiction gig went none too badly, though
unfortunately The Generalissimos were absent, due to the Gaz 500 blinding
himself in one eye either with a tiny bit of metal or a haemorrhageous
hangover, depending on who you believe. The Yellhounds played the usual dirty
junkyard blues that middle-aged men with interesting facial hair spend hour
after hour perfecting in overly-ventilated garages. Then they go out and find
some funky hat to wear or something. So we'll forget about
that.
Only Those 1,2,3,4s (or The One Thousand Two Hundred And Thirty-Four
Ess, as my Abode Speakmistress calls it) fulfilled the inches that their
promise pinches. Past escapades had been a little within the orchestral pop
boundaries, but The Tiger Lounge perhaps had wallpaper that inspired clearer
ideas. The backline thumped and crashed with a Zeppelin pomp. Vocals rippled
smooth and sweetly over the top. All clicked.
As for us, I managed to keep
my vocal box in one piece, there was some drinking. Our latest tune "Donkey
Duty" went pretty nicely. And we appreciated all the practice we'd got playing "It Dont Matter, No" over and over again for some recording at Grey Larry's last October. Shit was tight.
Allah be correctly priced.
If Delicate Hammers Played in Dartmouth, Massachusetts...
20 Ionawr 2009, 15:03 - Hammer HQ, Manchorlton
Pardon us while we plaster on a false consciousness and plough through all this one more time.
We've all heard the rumours. A superintelligent race blown down from the stars like dandelion seeds, priming the earth below to belch furiously forth with the horrible, horrible future. We know how this story smells, and it sets the thick hairs standing up at the back of our knees.
Well, maybe this time we'd do well to believe. OK, so the eyes of the world are on Washington DC right now. Maybe that is exactly the moment that our watchful prodders into glory have been waiting for. A watched kettle never shifts between shimmering dimensions, does it?
Maybe the real revolution happens in the elsewhere. Maybe the fly-bloated, cash-sick, hope-strewn corpse of Mancunian creativity is the real maggot-bed for future wriggling life. Why not think about that for a moment or two?
In some ways, a great many of the auld voices have fallen silent over the fading years, blood in their wallets and puke running from the pockets of their retro-parkas. They are the mods, are they? Club them all to death with Ghanian sculptures, with million year old eggs found deep in the permafrozen Himalayan stretches! Show them the broad and mighty palm of this, our universe; let it flick their tiny ossified skeletons and rush our their innards into a broken champagne stain, a fleeting discoloration on the impassive flesh of time ignoble.
Here is the future! Here! Look! In the pages of City Life this Friday (23eg Ionawr) and on the bent wood of the
Tiger Lounge tonight. We are the true Obamas; we are the big Kahuanas! We are Delicate Hamas! We are the tanks they sent into Tianneman Square to clear up all the chairs that got left behind after that big meeting everybody had in 1989, all those smashed femurs they used to build the Olympic Palace. We are the Tuborg-soaked velveteen curtains at the
Irish Club, dripping with juju and boncontent.
So, go and take a gander, point a goose at City Life on Friday to trace the patterns of the gravy stains on our minds. Go and see Hammers smash the air about them together with shimmery pop experiments
The 1234s, hairy terrorists in the pay of punky chaos
The Generalissimos (now with added Ted!) and the enigmatic
Yellhounds at Fiction Non Fiction tonight at Tiger Lounge. Go and witness another Blowout blowing out, taking our shredded faces along with the rest of the collaterol damage.
Alternatively, if the laws of time and space and inertia prevent any of this from happening, please have a listen to the latest Cloudsounds podcast, which is
here and opens with another beautiful twist in our melons, "Cloud Sounds Jingell". And, let's be honest, it is a far-reaching and staunch outpost of the emissary of good taste and bitter thinks.
There are no pictures yet, but the "Manlier Sparks" will rise again.
Kiss, kiss. xx
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extremely posh types (including a dickwad blunderbuss of a man in RayBans entitled Dom that was a self-proclaimed ex-geek and Master of the Universe who congratulated us on our sixth-form "cleverness") and some crustier-looking musically-curious types. Initial negotiations with the soundman were a little fraught, as he seemed a bit bogged down in his ideas and experience. Or perhaps that was only Coc's fragile ego-creaking, as he made some kind of crack about singers? The velvet cushions twitched with our showbiz pulse that night, however, and we struck all the right poses. There was pieces of admiration sticking all over us. Some stunned member of the public approached us and told us how sweet and natural and personable we were as a performative experience, and who were we to disagree? We were the fucking band!
charm, we fizzed with relaxicity. Technology wove
towards us like a drunken wedding guest, left us stranded over the high watermark once or twice. Footage has been captured and is being kept alive on a