Irish Times C4O review (1 Viewer)

[Keeror]

Originally posted by pete
now that we've established that it's ok not to like everything that gets released, would anyone like to write some reviews again?

The problem is/was that (Dr. J excepted) one got the feeling that no-one ever read the reviews, and no-one ever bothered to start a thread like this discussing reviews. Writers being, like musicians, trapped in a perpetual state of infancy, tend to wither away if they don't get constant attention.

come back Dr. J

I'd love to know wherehe went to, I really would.

 

[pete]

Well. Now. There's a question.

The Jimmy Cake, The Connect 4 Orchestra
The Cobblestone, 26 October 2000

The Connect-4 Orchestra’s absence was keenly felt during the summer, as was the absence of a number of other bands to whom we were treated to regularly at the start of the year, the C-4O, The Redneck Manifesto, Bambi, Female Hercules, the list goes on. Never having been in the Cobblestones before or at the Smithfield market, my excellent and uncanny sense of direction got myself and Ali there just as Connect-4 took the stage. This is a band that has not disappointed me yet. The only thing I was disappointed with was the sound. It was much too low even for a band who can be as mellow as the Connect-4 Orchestra. They are one of those rare bands who have the capacity to catch your breath, make your heart beat faster or slower according to their music. Because their was a sound limit, it meant a band who, at the Blond Redhead gig, played out of their skins, were relegated to just background music over which you could hear people’s voices almost clearer than the music. Given what was to come later, that was a travesty.

That’s not to say Connect-4’s music was bad, on the contrary, it was excellent and a lot of people’s heads turned when they played the songs people were familiar with, but the teeth had been taken from their music and to their credit, they coped well and managed to sound damn good. They sat down and played like it was no different from any other gig. There was a real jazz club feel to the place. There were curtains hanging with lovely paintings on them, low lights and the ceiling could have been altered a little to allow people up to dance, perhaps it was a little more reminiscent of Cabaret. There was no Michael York or dancing girls though.

It’s unfair to any band with the talent the C4O have, to be playing the jazz club version of muzak, as the level of sound rarely rose above that. It was hard for the crowd to get enthusiastic and for the band to put a mark on people, to make them think next day, ‘ They were good! ‘ Like the first time they played. It’s also hard for a band, even though they have a fan-base, to try reach out to people when this happens. I was disappointed that the bass sounded like it was coming from my crappy stereo and wasn’t hurting my ears. I can’t wait to see them with Cerberus Shoal, hopefully where the soundman will give them a proper accounting.

I’m going to get myself into a lot of trouble here and may Jebus have mercy on my soul if they ever find out who I am, but the Jimmy Cake are one of the worst bands I have ever seen. There actually very little I want to say except that instead of just the guy sitting on the floor wearing the clown nose, they all should have been wearing them. I can stand a lot of things but there are some things I can’t. For example, recently in a shopping centre whose name shall remain nameless (Dunnes Stores), a young eighteen year old girl sat at the cash register with her sixteen year old friend packing bags. The conversation went something like this.

‘ The parties they have here at Christmas are great. Did you hear about last year? ‘
‘ No, tell us! ‘
‘ You didn’t hear? About me and Greg? ‘
‘ No, tell us! ‘
‘ I can’t here. ‘
‘ Aww, go on, tell us! ‘
‘ You didn’t hear I was with him? ‘
‘ No, tell us! ‘
‘ I can’t. I’ll tell you later. ‘
‘ No, tell us now, there’s no one listening. ‘

And I’m standing there listening to this, and on and on it went in the most whiney and nasal of voices. I can’t stand that sort of thing. . The Jimmy Cake I couldn’t stand either. They were the musical equivalent of this conversation: annoying. It was mutton dressed up as lamb. I saw them once before in Eamonn Doran’s and when I left, all I could think of was I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the new Godspeed You Black Emperor album to hear it done properly.

I like jazz, a lot of experimental music, old industrial, not the Slipknot type, Skinny Puppy’s Last Rights kind of ear bleeding music, but why so many people would get on stage and play what they did and smile afterwards, is beyond me. This, of course, is only my opinion, some people obviously like that sort of thing, they do or they wouldn’t play it, and I have no doubt I will be slaughtered for saying all of this, and after all, this is Dublin and I’m not allowed to have an opinion. And my opinion is that they should have paid us to listen to them. It reminded me of when I saw Luc and the Platelets, we all thought they were tuning up or sound checking but they were actually playing. At least you could have a laugh about that. It seemed that they were perpetrating an elaborate musical joke at our expense, and worse, it was an in-joke.

A lot of things were said to me that night and I wish I could say I came up with them but I didn’t. One was about the guy who looked like Krusty the clown, ‘ No, ‘ someone said, ‘ He’s just a clown. ‘ Or the second best one, the first is unrepeatable, which was a crack about the admission price, which was a steep £5, ‘ I hope they’ll use the money to finish their music lessons! ‘ Unkind? Possibly, but I have little sympathy, perhaps they were trying to stimulate us intellectually, ‘ You didn’t understand it! ‘ Your damn right I didn’t. One of the members of the band was over heard saying ‘ We’re fake jazz. ‘ Fake ass more like!

Yes, the musicians should enjoy themselves, they be doing what they do if they don’t enjoy themselves. But at the expense of the audience? That’s a joke taken too far, but more, these guys were. Give me the early 1980’s Einsturzende Neubaten, there was music you could bang pots and pans to.

- Dr. J

 

[pete]

Was followed up by:

A Review Of Dr. J's Review
12 December 2000


There are certain things taken for granted amongst the pathetic rubble that passes for Dublin’s scene and it’s incumbent revue. High ideas and pretension make for a large part, skinny boys with shaven heads, bad geetar “music” and hypnotically nauseating electronica make up the rest. This we know, this we accept. But now, there is an uglier, more insidious device by which to hand the judgements down: Bad, bad English.

This review let me down from sentence one. I came into the review hoping, perhaps to enlightened (not likely) perhaps to see if there is a voice to match my own out there, to see if the malediction of angular musical debris that is the Jimmy Cake sounds as bloatedly self important to anyone else. Thus I entered into the pact of reviewer and reader willingly. Thusly, my first mistake was made.

As an opening sentence, never mind paragraph, Dr J’s prolix name dropping reads like an illiterate Tara Palmer Tomkinson script. “The Connect-4 Orchestra’s absence was keenly felt during the summer, as was the absence of a number of other bands to whom we were treated to regularly at the start of the year, the C-4O, The Redneck Manifesto, Bambi, Female Hercules, the list goes on.” It lumbers like a fat elk up a steep hill, badly resolved, facilely littered with how-cool-am-I sentiment. Indeed, the list does not go on. More’s the shame. It set my teeth on edge.

Disappointingly, grammar and punctuation seem merely affectation to the aforementioned Dr. The sentence … “They are one of those rare bands who have the capacity to catch your breath, make your heart beat faster or slower according to their music….” Sounds like the puerile poetry of some dyslexic heroin addict. He goes onto to complain of the relatively Spartan surrounds of the Cobblestone, wherein the music was relegated to just background music over which you could hear people’s voices almost clearer than the music. And then proceeds to laud with: There was a real jazz club feel to the place. There were curtains hanging with lovely paintings on them, low lights and the ceiling could have been altered a little to allow people up to dance, perhaps it was a little more reminiscent of Cabaret. There was no Michael York or dancing girls though. This sentence in fact provided a double whammy of self exhalation: here I am, look, I also know films. I know who Michael York is. Ohhh, cabaret, oohhhh Liza Minelli’s teeth. Ohhh, big fucking deal.


Dr J’s perilously sycophantic wankathon that is his Connect Four Orchestra review never rises above a contempt for the lack of volume, a nimble name drop here, a complaint as to the level of other peoples conversation. Unfair to the band, he cries, to have to play in these conditions. Surely, if the C4O can’t arrest the attention of a load of talking ponces, then it was probably just as well they were inaudible. Here we are intercepted by a more metaphysical conundrum: why do people pay their money to talk to other idiots and not listen to the band? Perhaps the band were shite and the good Doctor is talking through his inviting come-hither-C4O hole. Perhaps people were ignoring them for all they were worth? Eh?

The crux of the matter ensues, the Good Doctors searing review of the amply numbered Jimmy Cake. Perhaps fear of attrition makes him utter: may Jebus have mercy on my soul if they ever find out who I am. May Jesus have mercy on all our measly souls if anyone actually gives a fuck. Insulting the Jimmy Cake is like writing your name in urine in the snow. Natural. Tempting. Fun.

They are one of the worst bands he has ever seen. And given the infinitesimal repertoire his ramblings propound toward, the Good Doctor has seen everybody worth a bean in the known universe. So, he’d know then.

Suddenly, when it seems if things might be getting spicy, we go from the ridiculous to the utterly ridiculous. The reportage of some conversation over heard in Dunnes fucking Stores. Two girls talking shop. The verbatim dialogue finishes: ‘ No, tell us now, there’s no one listening. ‘ to which the doctor replies: And I’m standing there listening to this. So all we have garnered from this segue is that girls don’t seem to be able to recognise the existence of the Good Doctor. Perhaps a cry for acceptance? To be ushered into the undifferentiated ego mass that is those who get the girl, the joke, the Jimmy Cake. In short, those of us who exist.

(I would like to point out at this stage that I myself do not subscribe, generally, but I’m better at it.)

Dunnes Stores dispensed with, Dr. J imparts: he cannot stand the Jimmy Cake. He had seen them once before and left. A show my good self was at in fact. So why, oh why…. Did he bother staying for the show? When he left, all he could think of was the new GYBE album to hear “it” done properly. Hear what done properly? The half insane ramblings of collected idolatrists and alcoholics, the dream track of the criminally demented and the invidiously boring? What exactly is it GYBE do? Perhaps this is a rant for a later date, just the timing of the interpolation would seem to reflect some similarity between the bands. So much further from the truth this could not be. Anyway…

The Doctor then, in true, gentrification-of-scene mode gives us a list of the kind of music he’s into. Look at me. I’m so open minded. Harken unto my vast spectrum of taste. He likes, variously, Jazz, experimental music, industrial. In fact, he probably owns a Tortoise album.

The reviewers cardinal sin is to utter the following: This, of course, is only my opinion,. Egad man, that’s the whole fucking point of the oeuvre. Don’t end up like a rapist claiming: I just like sex that way… it may not be everyone’s bag. The minute the review becomes apologetic, defending it’s opinions, no matter how badly put, it invalidates the entire significance of the kind of hackneyed, cod-journalism that is the review. The Doctor has here sent the Ranters Movement back a full decade. At least have the courage of your ill formed, negligently tendered convictions.

Worse still, knowing the his review may be deemed by quarters apoplectic to be the ramblings of an idiot, he attempts to back up his sentiment with “quotes” from other “people” who happened to be at the gig: Use the money to finish the music lessons. Oh, ha ha ha ha ha ha. I think I burst my rectum I was laughing so fucking much. Surely a man of such catholic musical taste would never assume one needs to be coached to an established code to make music. Surely you can’t be saying: get to grade twelve and then we’ll talk?

Here we have abundant nails with which to bang upon the lid of this reviews particular coffin. An underhanded poke at the admission price begs the, not unreasonable, question, why did you pay the money? When you obviously already knew you didn’t like the band? And when, an obvious C4O acolyte, knew they would be playing with Cerebus shoals later on? Why oh why? Perhaps the good doctor entered the arena with an agenda. The mission: annihilate the Cake. If so, why the apologetic poise? Why the :this is Dublin and no one’s allowed to have an opinion crap? Why not have your fucking cake and eat it to. Say it like this. The Jimmy cake are me dogs gick. There you go.

Being at the gig the worst, most damming thing to happen that night, was, at the end of their paltry “set”, the majority of the, obviously deaf, audience clamoured for an encore. The doctor says: “Yes, the musicians should enjoy themselves, they be doing what they do if they don’t enjoy themselves. But at the expense of the audience?” The audience seemed to be into it, so validation lacking, the Doctor is lowered to the level of the common tabloid journo. Let me make something up to back up my claims. For shame, sir, for shame.

And as for the: this is Dublin and you’re not allowed to have an opinion jibe: Opinions are like arseholes. The pubs in Dublin are full of them.

- Hector Grey

Come back, Dr. J.

 

[old]

Hey Ro, your Joan Of Arse bit was printed in the new Slate!

If you still haven't gotten over The Smiths' breakup, this is the gig for you. However, those who have left their sensitive college days behind them probably want to give these losers a wide berth. Despite their 5 or so years together performing and recording, JoA has never gotten any better than mediocre. Lead singer The Bearded Lady writes lyrics so ironically maudlin that even Smog wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole. You wonder if he has to hide behind one of the stupidest psuedonyms ever in order to prevent people from torching his house and ridding Dublin of his incessant mopery. Do everyone a favour and skip this; maybe he'll finally take the hint and go away.

Jaysus, Beardo. How many people have you upset?

 

[ronan]

Originally posted by old
Hey Ro, your Joan Of Arse bit was printed in the new Slate!

yeah, but they never printed the photo of me beatin Beardo around the head with coldspoon records until he stuck his opinions back up his hole.


does everyone get that kranky when they turn 31?
HB, RH

 

[pete]

Originally posted by ronan
does everyone get that kranky when they turn 31?

yes.

prick.

 

[old]

Who's HB?

 

[ronan]

Originally posted by old
Who's HB?

as much as i'd like to say Hairy Bat, i actually meant 'appy 'irthday.

to himself, pip and young dermody.
what a day for the 'insular' rock scene, eh?

 

[barry]

i havent heared the album but i can just say that i think that the c40 are very good.
i saw them on now disco last week, and they seemed very nice.
its a pity that the times gave them a bad review but the irish times are full of old bastards!!
they probably though it was too loud or they couldn't hear the words. its not fair that a band should be compaered to the other bands it hangs around in.

anyway c40 should just go out and prove them wrong!!

they probably don't care about what the irish timesa say anyway

 

[eclectichoney]

for what it's worth (i.e. not very much...) i really really like chisel to the hip, and had seriously started giving out about the irish times review well before i saw this thread....not because they didn't like the album but because it was a shit review and i think that's what this whole thread's about.

 

[MDR]

The big mistake C4O made was asking everyone for their ideas for an album title and then sticking to the one they had anyway. The disappointment around Dublin that day was palpable. I never got over it and no doubt, neither did the Irish Times.

On the broader point I think some music is good and other not so good.

 

[leon-o-tron]

Sorry I think that last post is just bullshit. The big mistake is the album title? How does the title of an album make any difference to the music? I doubt the Irish Times guy made up his mind based on the title. I think the title is better than any of the others they threw around.

 

[sparse]

Originally posted by leon-o-tron
Sorry I think that last post is just bullshit. The big mistake is the album title? How does the title of an album make any difference to the music? I doubt the Irish Times guy made up his mind based on the title. I think the title is better than any of the others they threw around.

I think something got lost on someboby somewhere!

 

[silo]

Originally posted by leon-o-tron
Sorry I think that last post is just bullshit. The big mistake is the album title? How does the title of an album make any difference to the music? I doubt the Irish Times guy made up his mind based on the title. I think the title is better than any of the others they threw around.

!ironyyy

you do know what this yoke is for, don't you?

 

[Hector Grey]

high lair eee us.

 

[Speed Racer]

Originally posted by silo
happy, now you're talking shite.

the album is alright. competent. well-packaged. not as good as seeing them live.

what shit reasons for liking an album.

there's some good stuff on it, but really, the irish times fella has a point, and sarah has a point. we do sit around telling eachother we all think we're great. nobody wants to step on anyone's toes. i've been guilty of this as much as anyone else, but it's really got to the stage where people are afraid to say they don't like the jimmy cake or the c4o or the dudleys or whoever else because we're all being so nice.

now would one of you people please login as derek davis and agree with me.

I ACTUALLY AGREE WITH SILO! FUCKIN HELL. There's a new wave on the way, I thought the old one was gettin Stale, stinkin stale. There, I said it. Fuck the world and God help me.

 

[sparse]

Originally posted by Speed Racer
Fuck the world and God help me.

If God wouldn't help you no one will!

 

[silo]

dublin: the scene that celebrates its shelf.

 

[Hector Grey]

there's no cerebral in celebrate.

oh hold on.

 

[leon-o-tron]

Maybe something did get lost on me, what was it as I still haven't found it? The album title is taken from a line from a prank call for those not in the know. http://www.dudemasters.com/prankcalls/security1.zip