The 100 Club, one of London’s premier and historical venues sits obliviously amongst the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street. Positioned awkwardly next to an Anne Summers, the downstairs establishment is only noticeable due to the growing queue outside. This week on the 27thApril, it was home to lively Brighton five-piece Fickle Friends and the talented KYKO as support.
KYKO, aka Scott Verrill, is a South London raised musician far beyond his years. Fusing funky rhythms and relatively soulful lyrics, the youngster revels in the experience and can only come across as casually confident. Backed by a full band, the multi-instrumental Verrill explores African drum beats, summery melodies whilst maintaining a minimalist, lo-fi indie core. The result is something that has gained traction on BBC Introducing lately, and would not be out of place on a Made In Chelsea soundtrack (you know, that sort of thing). Running through tunes such as ‘Mexico’ and ‘Native’, the set is fun and bouncy, with the only pause being for some punter to fall off his mate’s shoulders.
The night does however belong to Fickle Friends. Only just returning to the UK, the band are backed with pink and blue and a new lighting rig evoking an 80s brand to match the evolving indie-pop. Taking to the stage, the band launch straight into usual set-opener and fan favourite ‘Say No More’ – the first song of an hour long set, which craftily and refreshingly balances up-tempo peaks and slower moments. Lead singer Natassja Shiner dominates the stage, baggy t-shirt and all. After a weak and unobtrusive start to her vocals, she eases into it quickly and soon finds top form, working through ‘Could Be Wrong’. The audience mixes in with the laid back atmosphere, contributing to a lot of fun and also a few awkward moments in-between songs – there were people on shoulders thrusting umbrellas in the air, there were irritating mosh pits (I mean, seriously), there were also balloons and glitter thrown on stage.
Written on the road, new tune ‘Cry Baby’ goes down a treat; a modern take on groove and pop. The band continue to thrive, pushing back any doubts of excessive travel – “I think we may have jet lag, but fuck it”. The sound is well balanced and impossible not to dance to, and dance the audience did. With their lustre and resourcefulness in electronic exploration and synth-pop sensibilities, the band maintain strong bass grooves and compact pop melodies. ‘Play’and ‘Freak’ are perfect examples of the 80s inspired new era – flirting with the old school but remaining contemporary throughout. Fickle Friends’ sound is even bigger live, with percussion and bass leading from the front. Looking around the venue, I could not see one person with arms folded – that’s the effect, infectious dance and an uncompromising desire to sing along.
Instagram - @richmaver
Over halfway and the show is taken down a notch with a striking rendition of ‘Paris’; performed under dimmed lights and intentionally much slower than on record. The song builds into a gratifying crescendo before finishing abruptly to move into oldie ‘For You’. This section of the set is dominated by the guitars with disco-tinged inflections. Following on from a technical halt, “Our keys have turned off… it’s a recurring theme at our gigs”, the band swiftly and almost perfectly deliver ‘Brooklyn’ and personal favourite ‘Velvet’. The latter leading to the whole place jumping up and down in tandem. ‘Velvet’is arguably the blueprint to any great pop tune, using simple catchy dance beats to work in tandem with harmonious lilts and a memorable chorus. Finishing in wild fashion, the set is closed by new single ‘Swim’. Before beginning, Natassja revises the lines to the song as a solo in order to envision a huge singalong. The result - half the audience belting the lyrics back at her, the other half throwing themselves around the room (some in time, others far too aggressively). A group of teens successfully storm the stage, and to the amusement of everyone else, are thrown directly back off.
It’s a strong and powerful set, full of energy. Fickle Friends win you over early doors and don’t let go. The sign of a great set.
Fickle Friends played: Say No More Could Be Wrong Cry Baby Play Freak Paris For You Brooklyn Velvet Swim Written by – Richard Maver (@richmaver)
It seems bad to start a live review by referencing an artist that has nothing to do with band playing, but the first thing that strikes you as you walk into the 100 club is the similarity in the demographic of the audience, and the overall feeling of excited adulation, to a Mac Demarco show. But whereas Mac arouses this reaction through sheer force of personality, Alex Giannascoli, AKA Alex G, does it through the sheer power of his song-writing. One of the most prolific artists of the past couple of years, Alex has made a name for himself by producing cool, laid-back yet truly emotional songs, and indirectly become a ‘generation X’ pin-up for a swathe of disenchanted indie kids.
Tonight’s set draws from the highlights of his 4 albums, naturally leaning heavily on recently released ‘Beach Music’ and break-out LP ‘DSU’. Taking to the stage in a low-key manner, Giannascoli and band faff around setting up before launching into the one-two punch of ‘Beach Music’ singles ‘Bug’ and ‘Kicker’. Live, he may be shorn of the auxiliary effects and instruments that permeate his recorded work, i.e. the haunting piano and washy organ are missing, equally so the daft/genius vocal effects he relies on are not replicated, but stripped back to a simple guitar-guitar-bass-drums set-up the quality of his tunes still shines through.
This is not a photo from the night, just an example of what it could've looked like, my photographer had to bail last minute...
The first indication of the uber-enthusiastic nature of the 200 or so strong crowd (which leads Alex to remark "oh my god, you guys are soooo receptive…" in a quasi-stoner drawl at one stage) is when the frontman turns to his band and mouths "Black?". This subtle hint is enough for the super-fans, who seem to outnumber casual watchers at least 3 to 1, to know he is about to launch into DSU highlight ‘Black Hair’.
An intense performance of sultry ‘Beach Music’ track ‘Salt’ soon follows. On record this is a bit of a 'meh' track for me to be honest, but live it makes a lot more sense, and the sinister moment when the crowd slowly sings ‘Don’t. Make. Me. Hurt. You.’ back at G is a weirdly dark communal moment. A similarly transcendental occasion is reserved for ‘Trick’ tune ‘Forever’- the audience humming the lead guitar line so loudly you can hardly hear it, before descending into one of the most up-beat and poppy choruses in his canon.
The problem with releasing around 50 tracks in such a short period of time is that it gives fans so many tracks to choose from when deciding their own favourite; contending with members of the crowd making a case for ‘their songs’ Alex announces "well, we’ve got a setlist so we’ll play through that ‘cos we worked it out, but then we’ll do an encore and you can shout stuff you want to hear", which obviously gets a great response.
But as he said, there’s the business of the main set to conclude. DSU songs ‘Sorry’, ‘Icehead’, ‘Boy’ and 'Soaker' all go down really well, and so does epic (as far as Alex G does epic) ‘Beach Music’ closer ‘Snot’. The last song of the set is ‘Trick’ opener ‘Memory’, a low-key yet powerful ending. But this is not really the ending, as Giannascoli makes true on his promise of returning for an encore.
Fielding manic yells from the crowd, the band take a moment to collect themselves before performing three rarity tracks then launching into the crowd-pleasing trio of ‘Harvey’, ‘Animals’ and the moving ‘Change’, whose painfully beautiful repeated outro refrain of ‘I don’t like how things change’ rolls wonderfully over the vacant space left by the absence of bass and drums. As the track finishes, it seems an apt closing to an electrifying show, as the solemn moment this track provides captivates the audience for a second…. Then the drummer unexpectedly pies Alex with a plate of creamy pudding, inciting playful cheers from the crowd. And they’re not letting him leave the stage just yet, insisting on a second encore to which the band duly agrees, performing a rousing and extended version of ‘DSU’ opener ‘After Ur Gone’.
The show really is now over, one hour and twenty minutes in which the standard never drops for a second. Alex G truly wins over an audience so enthralled to him that there was no real need to even win them over in the first place. Songs, stage-presence and a real connection to his fans- Alex G is a complete package, and on the basis of this show will surely build on his recent signing to Domino and establish himself further as one of the most important indie characters out there.
The Garden are one of the most exciting young bands right now, live and recorded. From Orange County in California, the twins have built a name for themselves at home and across the pond but still show no signs of slowing down. Whilst on tour with Warpaint, the duo are playing a one of show at London's prestigious 100 Club where a sold out show get the chance to go wild to The Garden's unique style and stage performance.
Photo by Nathan McLaren-Stewart
Nathan McLaren-Stewart sat down with the band backstage before the band played to 350 sweaty fans to talk about playing rooms that hold up to 5000 people, their unique sound and girls stealing their jackets. When you come to the UK does it feel like you have already established that support you have back home in America or do you think that's something you need to work on?
Wyatt: I think here and back home, both support systems aren't fully established. I think they're on their way and I think that the UK is in the same position as America. Like, regarding us, the amount of people coming to our shows is growing at a very steady pace and, I mean, we really just hope it continues, but it's fairly the same.
Before The Garden you had a band called The Identical Heads...
Wyatt: Yeah, that wasn't necessarily a band it was more just a quick little project that lasted about a month.
Fletcher: It was just a bedroom project between us.
Wyatt: We had a few other bands that actually played shows and put out records.
So when you were in those bands and you made that transition in to The Garden was there any musical influences you kept or was it just fresh ideas?
Wyatt: With The Garden it was all about creating a very primal and raw sound and just going off that and I think it has just evolved to this day and the whole point is to just keep on growing with it and trying different things, going in different directions, it doesn't even have to necessarily be music. It's just building upon that, really.
You have mentioned in the past that your music has been influenced by your dad as he was in a band. Where does your style and stage presence come from?
Fletcher: None of our music we do now is influenced by our dad but the music we listened to growing up was influenced by our dad, like some of our early influences but nothing we do now is from our father. It's kind of something we've done on our own. But you know, old influences may be the backbone of what we do now. Stuff that got us where we are, as far as listening to music, you could say they came from my dad.
Wyatt: Yeah, he had a big CD collection.
Was the music you listened to growing up primarily punk or was there a wide range of genres?
Wyatt: It was definitely a wide range, for sure. A lot of rap, a lot of punk, a lot of electronic, a lot of jungle kind of music. I mean, there was a real variety of a lot of different things but I think the important thing is to take a little bit from each and then drop it into your little pot and then make it your own.
You mentioned electronic. I watched a short documentary you did with Dazed and Confused Magazine and there are parts of that when you're messing about and in your house and you're using keyboards to create these weird but cool beats. Is that something you see yourself going into more when you sit down to create your follow up to 'The Life and Times of a Paperclip'?
Wyatt: Yeah! It's been relatively prominent not necessarily on record but regarding live performances. The electronic base of what we are has been pretty prominent in the past couple of years.
Fletcher: Yeah, we put out a record about two years ago that had two full electronic tracks on it but I think it gets overlooked a lot, but we had electronic in our view for a long time and it's becoming more prominent... Not taking over but it's definitely becoming prominent.
Wyatt: It's just all a part of expanding , you know. Like, we never want to be seen as just a bass and drums band. We would much rather expand into a lot of different things. On the new album we have coming out we have piano and we have violins on it and all kinds of different stuff. We just never want to stay the same and we'd rather not be pigeoned holed into some kind of genre of some sort, like garage rock or anything like that, you know.
Fletcher: [Laughs] We always get pinned as garage rock and lo-fi.
Wyatt: It's because we're associated with the label Burger Records. If you came to our show then you would realise that we're not garage rock when we're rapping over jungle tracks [laughs].
Yeah, I have seen videos of you guys performing live before and you do seem to jump into the crowd a lot and it's cool to see a band be able to change between genres.
Wyatt: Thanks!
Fletcher: That's where it becomes more of like an experiment for us. Trying new things. On the first album we ever started doing the electronic stuff on I was scared shitless because I didn't know what the fuck was going to happen. I had never done it before. I had never even sang before because I was always behind the drums but I'm so used to it now so it's become part of the set. It's interesting to test yourself.
Wyatt: And to a lot of people this could be too big of a change and we could lose people that like our music at the moment but to us it doesn't really matter because we wanna just keep going and electronic is not the last thing that we will add in to The Garden. The Garden is open to whatever is surrounding it so we're just gonna keep moving and keep adding things in. For us it's just all good fun and creative really.
Photo by Nathan McLaren-Stewart
Is The Garden something you ever planned on making a career out of and being able to come over to the UK and Europe? Was that something that was in your head or was it just initially another bedroom project?
Fletcher: I never thought of it as something that could potentially grow because when we started it it wasn't our main thing, it was just a side project of a different band we had so it has definitely grown a lot.
Wyatt: But the whole point now is to be creative and to grow. We want to keep doing different things and we want to keep trying different kind of showcases like bigger shows and different kinds of smaller shows. It's all about expanding for us and career wise, yeah, I mean, if this provides it for a little while then good but if it doesn't then it doesn't.
Fletcher: Yeah, if it ends up helping us out money-wise then cool, but you know, at the end of the day we're still doing what we're doing. It's never aimed towards money or aimed towards success, it's just it is what we're doing.
Wyatt: And we wouldn't keep coming over here to the UK, to Europe and places like that... I don't think we could keep coming over here if we didn't have a solid game plan. If we were just wondering about then no one would want to invest any time into helping us out [laughs].
I get what you mean. You're on tour with Warpaint at the moment...
Fletcher: Yeah, and we're doing some one off shows like this one tonight [at 100 Club, London].
This venue is a lot smaller than the venue you're playing next week in London with Warpaint. How does that compare? You play a small show like this and then the next night you're playing in front of a couple of thousand people that maybe don't particularly know your music.
Wyatt: I think of it like this, this [100 Club] is where we are at right now but the Warpaint venues are where we could be at in a couple of years.
Fletcher: It's good fun. These shows are fucking fun and those shows are really interesting and weird.
Wyatt: Yeah, because it's relatively new territory so we kind of have to get used to it.
Fletcher: We have played a few shows that size but just a couple and to do it every night is really weird, and it's weird how you start to almost get used to it, you know? So it's weird and interesting... Smaller shows are just good fun and good shows.
Wyatt: But also it's a very natural step in progression. We have to play these kind of shows [supporting Warpaint] to get to the next step and in the end-all-be-all we just want to be in a creative place where we are really comfortable and right now we are just working on that.
Fletcher: It's always different. The small shows can be ten times more fun than the big shows and the big shows can be more fun than the small shows, it's just always different.
How are the Warpaint fans reacting to your set? Are you getting positive responses?
Fletcher: It's been hard to tell. You really need to pay attention to get a vibe because they are a very quiet crowd, even when Warpaint plays they are quiet so it's weird.
Wyatt: They are pretty polite!
Fletcher: We get good cheers after our songs and stuff but then they are very quiet in the middle of songs. You see a couple of kids dancing around but there is no pit, no stage dives but you know, it's a different world and it's something that we have just started to explore [laughs]. It's cool. We make do. We still play the same no matter what venue... we like jumping off shit!
Talking about live experiences, has there ever been any weird or unusual moments on stage?
Wyatt: I wouldn't say anything weird has happened...
Fletcher: We have had our fucking fair share of difficulties and problems on stage.
Wyatt: Yeah, I don't know why. With us you would think it was simple and very easy but there's always a lot of technical difficulties and then on the second hand sometimes there are people who take it a little bit too far and mess up our gear. The spend too much time on the stage and then mess up my gear and in turn I have to throw them off myself.
Fletcher: Yeah they jump around close to his [Wyatt] pedals and him and I are both just watching and watching and then there's just some weird noise, the person goes into the crowd and then his bass just isn't making any noise.
Wyatt: Just shit like that. I wouldn't say anything too bizarre... yet. There's been some fights and stuff like that and sometimes you have to protect yourself in some way [laughs].
Fletcher: We have to watch each other's backs sometimes. It doesn't happen all the time.
Wyatt: The last show in London was crazy. Not in a bad way, just everybody was on stage and sometimes you have to remember where you're at and kinda like keep your stuff together.
Fletcher: Some girl stole his [Wyatt] jacket.
Wyatt: She stole my jacket and then I found it on the street.
Fletcher: Yeah, we were just driving away and he saw some girl wearing his jacket and he just jumped out of the car and grabbed it and it was funny. And in Connecticut recently the owner of the club was heckling us and we ended up getting in a physical fight with him [laughs] so just shit happens.
Wyatt: It's a long story! We're not out to promote violence. We would never just hit someone in the face, unless they hit us first.
Fletcher: [Laughs] Yeah, something has to trigger us. We're not just like "hey, fuck you!" and hit people in the face, you know.
And on that note, thanks for talking to us! Hope the show goes well tonight and there aren't any fights!
Fletcher and Wyatt: Thanks!
Check out The Garden's video for "I Am A Woman" below:
You can catch them with Warpaint at the following dates:
March 24th - Glasgow, O2 Academy 25th - Gateshead, Sage 26th - London, Eventim Apollo
May 15th - Brighton, The Great Escape Festival
Words - Nathan McLaren-Stewart Photos - Nathan McLaren-Stewart
The night does however belong to Fickle Friends. Only just returning to the UK, the band are backed with pink and blue and a new lighting rig evoking an 80s brand to match the evolving indie-pop. Taking to the stage, the band launch straight into usual set-opener and fan favourite ‘Say No More’ – the first song of an hour long set, which craftily and refreshingly balances up-tempo peaks and slower moments. Lead singer Natassja Shiner dominates the stage, baggy t-shirt and all. After a weak and unobtrusive start to her vocals, she eases into it quickly and soon finds top form, working through ‘Could Be Wrong’. The audience mixes in with the laid back atmosphere, contributing to a lot of fun and also a few awkward moments in-between songs – there were people on shoulders thrusting umbrellas in the air, there were irritating mosh pits (I mean, seriously), there were also balloons and glitter thrown on stage.
