Review: Duchess Says at Norwich Arts Centre, 14/12/11

Duchess Says at Norwich Arts Centre, 14/12/11 (support from Throwing Up)
Genre: Indie/electro-punk

Kicking off the night's festivities are London three piece Throwing Up. Their brand of punk is pretty old school and it's a wonderfully dirty sound. Good crunchy guitars, solid riffs and catchy vocals. That said, the songs tended to sound a little samey. The crowd seemed to be enjoying it though.

Moving on from their set, Canadian electro-punks Duchess Says took to the stage. Oh my, what a set. Vocalist Annie-Claude Deschênes dances like a madwoman and she bloody well enjoys it. The audience had no choice but to get involved - although to be fair, I don't think anyone objected to dancing with Deschênes and I really doubt anyone would've declined her invitations for everyone to climb up on the stage while she danced around the floor. Topping off a set that nearly resulted in me getting throttled by a mic cable as Deschênes led an adoring crowd around the room, the encore ended out in the foyer, more than half the crowd having followed Deschênes out there. In between that and the party poppers that were handed out halfway through the set, it's hard to find fault with both her and the rest of the band's exuberant energy. The same goes for the music - amazingly good fun and very easy to dance to. In short, a brilliant set and quite possibly the best gig I've ever been to.

To end, have a couple of photos and a short clip of Duchess Says - apologies for poor quality phone pictures. The first is vocalist Annie-Claude, just after she almost throttled me (accidentally) with the mic cable.

Then a generic performance shot.

And finally a short clip of them during the stage invasion, which wasn't exactly an invasion, during the song Black Flag. Nice to see the sound recording quality is slightly better than the image quality...

I reeeeeally need to start taking my camera to gigs...

Current Love: Cut Ribbons' new single

Just look at it! It's so pretty. Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of pink, but it's a cassette. A pretty, awesome sounding, pink cassette.

You can check out the single (Side A) on Soundcloud and the demos (Side B) on Bandcamp. Then go and get yerself one of these pretties from Club Kissability.

That is all. Just had to share the pretties. On a side note, I have a t-shirt with that print on it. It's made of awesome. Just have to wait till I get home at the weekend to steal my parents' cassette player.

Band of the Week: Me And The Mountain and assorted other scrummies

Today's Band of the Week comes in the form of audio-visual goodness. Hurray for music videos. First up, the new lyric video for Me and the Mountain's This Is What You Do.

And then this from Rise Against. I've never really listened to them before, but a friend posted the link on Facebook yesterday and, well, it made an impact.

Then this gorgeousness from Kill Hannah (who just happen to be one of my favourite bands).

Goryness from dark cabaret lovelies Birdeatsbaby:

And finally, fun pirate metal from Alestorm.

Randomness: Christmas songs

Oh, yes, it's that time of the year, so I thought I'd share some Christmassy goodness.

First up, the best Christmas song ever. In my opinion, obviously. Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty McColl.

That's probably my favourite, but it's in close competition with this work of brilliance from Tim Minchin. Personally, I think this song pins down what Christmas actually means to a lot of people nowadays and it is a genuinely beautiful song.

What next? Let's go with I Believe In Father Christmas by Greg Lake and A Spaceman Came Travelling by Chris de Burgh.

I'd include some of my favourite carols in this post, but I'd struggle to find versions I actually like. I do, however, highly recommened checking out The Sussex Carol, a song I'm led to believe is less well known outside the UK. It's a lovely little song.

Instead, we'll finish with this just-released EP from the delightful Aamir al-Loki. Ahhh, re-imagined Christmas carols are always fun

Band of the Week: Cut Ribbons and Fever Fever

Oh good heavens, Band of the Week? Yes indeed, my lovely non-existent readers. This week we have scrummies in the form of Welsh indie rockers Cut Ribbons and Norwich art punks Fever Fever. In (the most likely) case that you haven't read my review of Fight Like Apes' gig at the Arts Centre, these two bands were the support acts. If you haven't read the review - read it NAOW.

So, first up, Cut Ribbons. In my review, I described them as non-descript indie rock, save for the male-female dual vocals. I take that back. Their live show was great, really great but I think I came to the non-descript conclusion too quickly. So, OK, there really isn't anything particularly new about Cut Ribbons, but how often do you find a band that does have that? What they do is really nice indie rock, with lovely vocals and some awesome sing-along-able bits. Have a listen:

Cut Ribbons by Kissability

And then go check out their Bandcamp, where you can download their demos EP for free. Their new single White Horses is out 26th December and will be available HERE.

Next up, Fever Fever. Three people making a lot of noise. Dual female vocals as well, which is awesome. Raucous and generally pretty damn awesome. Although I should point out that it seems to be very hard to translate their live energy to disc. That said, their recorded material is still brilliant. Check out the free download Teeth on Bandcamp, then I recommend getting hold of the Bloodless EP and new single Pins.




Aaaaaand, I think that'll do for now. Have a listen and pass it on.

One last little bonus - this only just came out today. Cut Ribbons' first video for White Horses.


White Horses from Cut Ribbons on Vimeo.