BRISTOL BIG JEFF: CUTTING FROM THE EDGE (FEBRUARY 2011)
Hello everybody and welcome to the New Year. I spent NYE with Pulled apart By Horses, Turbowolf, Idles and Jaws of A Giant at the Fleece. It was much fun and consisted of lots of stage invasions and me doing and impromptu rap with Pulled apart By Horses! I spent the first few days of January hibernating and procrastinating, as per usual it is a slow month, with most of the nights spent in front of the computer screen chatting to people on Facebook about what 2011 will hold for us all. I predict that this year will probably see my ego completely over-inflate and pop like a pin pricked whoopie cusion – due to the early amount of press I have been receiving since the interactive documentary went live www.bigjeffdocumentary.co.uk. I also had some of my personal art work put on display at a little exhibition in an empty shop space on the bottom of Park St and I’m already getting good reactions to my work! Pretty much the only music action I saw in the first week of the year was a black Metal show with Traces, Austere, and Rosicurian. I don’t go to many metal shows not because I don’t like metal, I love metal – I just don’t know who is good really, because most of the stuff i tend to know about is more alternative indie based music. Out of the three bands, Austere were my favourites, this was partly due to the way they mixed post rock (akin to Pelican) with Isis style Doom metal guitar riffs that crashed and swirled. It was a bit like being taken on a magic carpet ride of sounds. Further into January, I enjoyed a hefty dose of acoustic folk punk mixed in with this story-telling talents from Jack Terricloth, Dave Haus and former Hold Steady keyboardist Franz Nicolay, as they cracked open stories about traveling across the states and being hobos; all three of these guys were equally as entertaining as each other. January has given the chance to make my one regular trip to the St George’s Hall for the Bristol Acoustic Festival. St George’s Hall is one of the most beautiful venues in Bristol, it emulates that Royal feeling with its huge dome poking out, just off of Park Street. As per usual there were too many highlights to really list them all, amongst them were Festival regulars The Cedar, Beth Porter, Daisy Chapman, Moscow Drug Club, Something of The Night, The Duckworths, Eyebrow, Owl in the Sun and Collin Smith. I must admit that at least two of those acts made me cry, call me a wuss but something about certain instruments or types of voices in big echoey rooms that brings a tear to my eye. Then for something completely different, I checked out Bristol hardcore kids Bats About Bats, who headlined a rather stellar local night of hardcore punk rock and Queercore before I got to post-garage rock it with The Walkmen, be spaced out by Esben and the Witch, and finally see Connan Mockasin supporting Metronomy at the Thekla. If You are unaware of Connan then all I can say is that he is responsible for one of the most interesting, if not down right weird, Psychadelic-Blues pop albums of last year in Please Turn Me Into The Snat, with songs about made up magical lands and strange characters, his imagination is almost child like. Finally, I Alt-Countried it with Band of Horses at the Academy. February is where things will really hot up gigs wise where I will hot footing it around Bristol, playing a human game of Baggettell, highlights will no doubt include The Joy Formidable, Wire, Phantom Band, Janelle Monae (so excited about seeing her because she is like the female equivilant of Prince!), Mogwai, Gay For Jonny Depp (The Ultimate Queercore band, I will say this if you are easliy scared then it is probably best avoiding this show), The Computers, Lulu and The Lampshades, Darkstar, Japanese Voyuers and the Metal Hammer tour amongst many other shows! I’ll probably end up hospitalising myself this year!
