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Day: 6 March 2012

Live: Django Django @ Deaf Institute

Written by Thomas McMahon on . Posted in Music.

Django Django
Deaf Institute
29th February
5 stars

As the encore begins, we are probably the youngest people in the music hall. The cool kids must be doing MDMA out of each other’s baseball caps somewhere else. Either way, Django Django have justified their slow-burning hype with a mesmeric live performance.

While the Edinburgh quartet’s self-titled debut album is a reasonably endearing electro effort, the band transforms into something altogether more impressive when on stage. Powered by a technically adept rhythm section, the group’s one-hour set turns inoffensive album tracks such as ‘Firewater’ into unstoppable, rabble-rousing juggernauts. The band’s myriad array of synths, meanwhile, are utilised with much greater confidence than on the LP. Even vocalist and guitarist Steven Neff delivers his lyrics with a surprising passion, contributing to a sound akin to No Age refereeing a gang fight between Animal Collective and Devo.

Impressively turned out in matching T-shirts, the band open with ‘Intro/Hail Bop’, a track which deploys the synths probably played when nuclear reactors go into meltdown before laughing it all off with a wonderfully anthemic chorus. This swaggering approach continues throughout the set, with the audience whipped into a frenzy by the time recent single ‘Default’ appears. ‘Firewater’, meanwhile, keeps the capacity crowd in motion to a deft bassline. The metronomic, cowbell-happy drumming of David Maclean, the group’s sometime producer, only adds to the momentum.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the performance, however, is the ease with which Django Django incorporate their more eccentric tendencies into the live show. Whether using halves of a coconut during ‘Love’s Dart’ or embracing traditional Egyptian melodies on ‘Skies Over Cairo’, these moments seem neither convoluted nor pretentious, but entirely appropriate. It is this rare capacity to combine art-rock flair with dance-punk passion that makes the group’s recent emergence so exciting. Go and see them next time they’re in town. Take your dad.

Django Django – Default

Feature: Independent Record Stores

Written by Jonathon Lewis on . Posted in Music.

Ever been to an independent record store? You’ll know if you have. The musty smell of vinyl, the hushed atmosphere of a library, the withering look you get from the guy on the desk when you ask if they’ve got the new Drums album in. Yeah? You mutter something about it not being for you, for a… a friend that’s it! But it’s too late, the damage is done and now you stand there awkwardly while the attendant loudly shouts  to his boss in the back to see if they’ve got what you want, raising the attention of your fellow shoppers whose eyes bore into the back of your head, silently cursing you for interrupting their private sanctum. Sounding familiar yet?

Now you’re leaning against the desk, trying to appear casual and acting like you know whats being played on the sound-system, flicking through flyers for bands whose names might as well be written in hieroglyphics and feeling incredibly out of place. You’re looking at your clothes that, even though you just bought them from Oxfam Vintage, may as well be from Topman with the word ‘wanker’ emblazoned across them compared to these people. Oh shit, why did I come here?  Oh shit! You’re looking at the door, then before you know it you’re half way down the street, running home to cancel your NME subscription and tear down your Strokes posters…

Independent record stores can be intimidating places the first time you go there but they’re actually pretty good once you get over the initial existential fright. With HMV on the slide and farming out more and more floor space in their stores to ‘Technology Supplies’, shops like these are becoming vital to a sustainable future for the record industry in a world where physical sales on the whole are plummeting. Manchester has some of the best Independent shops going and the people that work in them are always happy to have a chat, whether it’s about the latest releases or helping you find something that’s up your street. I once met an owner called Reg who helped me locate a goldmine of Blues records in his shop and regaled me with tales of his own gigging experience back in the day, showing me the scar on his knee (before I continue, I was NOT being groomed) from where a Hells Angel bit him for not playing his song request.  A lot of Manchester’s DJs work in these places too, so they’re pretty knowledgeable about where some of the best club nights are and if you get to know them, you’ll sometimes get the odd free ticket slipped your way. These shops also form a cornerstone of the local music scene, often pushing struggling local bands’ CDs more than those at the top of the charts, providing much needed exposure for fledgling bands instead of adding to the glut of marketing for the big names which has already reached saturation point in the mainstream media.

Consumer choice is still the name of the game and I, as yet, do not possess the means or the powers to coerce you by force to change your music buying trends, but if you get the chance, whether you’re passing down Oldham Street on your way for a drink or elsewhere, I implore you- check an independent record store out.

Record Store Day is held on April 21 2012. For more information, visit the Record Store Day website.

Eat Goody Review

Written by Lloyd Henning on . Posted in Food & Drink.

Forget deadlines, exams and awkward encounters with people who you’ve kanoodled with: lunch is the most troublesome part of university life. The inevitable point in the day where you face the stress, woe and palaver of choosing your noon-time epicurean fate.

Economically, one should really bring a packed lunch, ideally some envy-inducing monster baguette, oozing with silky smoked salmon and smooth cream cheese, but I find my hectic morning schedule of ignoring the alarm clock conflicts with this and any attempts to hastily throw something together results in lunch being a limp morsel of poorly spread marmite sandwiches.

Realising that my dependency on supermarket lunchtime deals had gone too far after I was buzzing with excitement about the possibilities of pre-made lunches outside of the ones available at Sainsburys’ when the new Morrisons opened up on campus. Even if you try every one sandwich available, you’ll find that they all just seem to taste like mayonnaise.

An end to this trouble is found up a seemingly secretive stairway next to the Sugden sports centre, a lunchtime haven of Korean food, Eat Goody (I have no idea why it needed to be suffixed with a ‘y’, but it certainly feels like it was the right decision to make).

After stepping into the wonderful world of Korean culture, you have the opportunity to pick your favourite mystery beverage. The ‘aloe vera drink’ is my favourite, maybe due to some masochistic pleasure derived from gulping down what is essentially shampoo. I recommend trying to choose a different drink every time: the rice punch is like a curiously fizzy rice-pudding laced with ginger and the real jelly found in the Korean Fanta puts those childhood panda-pop fraudsters to shame.

When it comes to filling your belly, there is a wonderfully exotic range of dishes to choose from and the lunch time deal is a very reasonable £3.95 and comes in a box like you see in Hollywood films? I’ll reemphasise that last part again, for almost the entirety of my life I was disappointed with the foil containers my far east takeout would arrive in, and now thanks to Eat Goody I can finally feel like I’m a Hollywood star in sunny California, whilst being a grotty student in grim Manchester.

Open for lunch during the week, each day is a different culinary conquest. The most excellent bibimbap is what I would call the burger and chips of Korean cuisine, with fresh vegetables and meat or tofu on a bed of rice, the general principle is to then cake it with a huge squidge of the piquant chili sauce and then whizz it around until it’s all been mixed up into a mess. It’s just like when you would mix up your ice cream in the bowl as a kid, but without the disappointment of being faced with a dairy soup.

The call of Eat Goody is mostly required is when I am ghastly hungover and making an appearance at university to only try and fool myself into believing I’m doing some work. When this is the case and my body is in dire need of sustenance I summon, for only a mere £1.20 extra, a whole coffee cup full off sweet chili chicken alongside the main, and I literally mean a coffee cup of chicken (however, I don’t quite recall seeing see that in any movie).

And you get to eat in a basement with a giant flat-screen glaring out K-Pop.

Food 9
Hangover treatment 8
Bonkers beverages 11

Eat Goody
1 Hillcourt Street,
Manchester,
M1 7HU

http://www.eatgoody.co.uk
0161 274 3000