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Day: 4 May 2015

Graduate tax still a long-term option, says Chuka Umunna

Written by Jennifer Sterne on . Posted in News.

The Mancunion interviewed Chuka Umunna ahead of the General Election this coming Thursday. Before Parliament dissolved, Mr Umunna was a Labour MP for Streatham and hopes to be re-elected again come Thursday. Umunna studied Law at the University of Manchester and since 2011 has been Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. This position covers a wide range of issues including business, enterprise, science, and importantly for the readers of The Mancunion, Higher Education policy. I questioned Mr Umunna on a wide range of issues he would be in control of if the Labour Party were to form a government after May 7th.

Speaking to The Northern Echo back in January, Mr Umunna said, “we will not be able to go straight to a graduate tax—but getting there as soon as possible is my priority.” I therefore opened the interview with the shadow Business Secretary by questioning him on whether he still believed this was the best policy, or whether he was now in favour of university tuition fees being reduced to £6000, as is now the manifesto pledge of The Labour Party. Mr Umunna told me that “in an ideal world we’d have a more progressive system and that’s why, in terms of the principle of the graduate tax, it is something that we are very much still in favour of.”

However he continued by saying, “we don’t want to promise anything that we can’t deliver,” in line with Ed Miliband, who on the last of the television election specials last Thursday, said the Labour Party would rather “under-promise and over-deliver.” Chuka explained that “what we know that we can deliver is a reduction in fees from £9000 to £6000 a year.”

Mr Umunna accepted that “the current system is not sustainable in the long term”; however he continued by saying that “what we believe we can deliver is the tuition fee reduction now” therefore “what we know, we can do for the course of this parliament.”

Chuka was also keen to mention something he believes it is often missed off reports: “We are going to be increasing the maintenance grant from £3400 to £3800, which should benefit around half of students.”

Students would benefit under Labour’s tuition fee plans if they are entering Higher Education from September 2016, or are in the middle of a course at this time.

The policy of lowering fees was criticized back in February by 20 Vice-Chancellors in a letter to The Times, who said that it would create a £10 billion hole in revenues over the next government. In response to these worries, Mr Umunna said “it is a properly funded commitment, and it has been welcomed by various different Vice-Chancellors.”

Staying on the topic of Vice-Chancellors, I then spoke to Mr Umunna on the contentious subject of Vice-Chancellors’ pay. Back in March The Mancunion covered the story that university bosses are earning on average £260000 per year, the top ten earning between £392000 and £623000. The story also highlighted the lack of transparency involved in setting these pay levels. The University of Manchester, as an example, refused to share copies of the minutes of their remuneration committee, tasked with determining the pay of the Vice-Chancellor and senior post holders. Current Business Secretary Vince Cable said such pay levels were “hard to swallow.”

When asked what he thought of these pay levels and whether he believed there should be more transparency Mr Umunna said: “we’ve argued for more transparency in terms of the pay of senior executives in the private sector, because it helps grow levels of trust but also it is healthy to have transparency. I think therefore the same principles should apply to university Vice-Chancellors’ pay and, frankly, if you’re delivering the goods and getting the results for the students in the university, then you have nothing to be afraid of in terms of transparency.”

We then moved away from the topic of Higher Education to address the growing issue of the skills gap and its impact upon the UK’s manufacturing sector. A government report at the end of last year highlighted how many industries are suffering due to an ageing workforce, with a stark example being that 70 per cent of highly skilled nuclear workers are due to retire by 2025. I therefore questioned Mr Umunna on whether tackling this issue was all about encouraging young people to take up vocational training options, or whether he thought to fix the real issue we need to encourage more investment into manufacturing to create the jobs for these students.

“The first thing is, we want to ensure that people are doing the course and gaining the qualifications that employers need; we need to make sure that young people are aware of the opportunities out there and frankly, this government’s massacred careers advice throughout the course of this Parliament, which is why we are going to introduce proper careers advice services for young people, where they will get access to one-to-one careers advice from the age of 11. At the moment there’s a national careers advice service but that provides advice just to adults, we want to make sure that young people get a look in.

“We need to sort out [the fact] that we don’t have enough people coming out of the system with the technical skills that employers tell us they need, which is why we’re guaranteeing young people who get the grades at school an apprenticeship if that’s what they want to do after they have left.”

Mr Umunna hadn’t yet indicated whether his party would also look into encouraging manufacturing investment alongside these plans. He was therefore questioned further.

He responded: “It’s a question of working strategically with the different sectors to grow their industries—so, for example, if you look at the car industry, the problem with that industry is… that we’re very good as assembling cars but we haven’t sufficiently developed the supply chain of the businesses that make the parts.”

He suggested that the only way this can be resolved would be by “working in partnership with the industry to grow and develop the supply chain by making sure people have the skills.”

In their manifesto, Labour have proposed to “ban exploititive zero-hours contracts,” which proposes that anyone working “regular hours for more than 12 weeks will have the right to a regular contract.” I posed the possibility that under this proposal an employer could sack someone on this contract in their eleventh week to prevent them ever getting a regular contract.

Mr Umunna made reference to personal experience to explain why he believed this was an unlikely scenario: “In practice, talking from my own professional experience—I used to be an employment lawyer—employers do not habitually sack employees who in time become entitled to some employment rights.”

He continued by citing research conducted into the zero-hours issue by the former head of Human Resources at Morrisons, saying his findings were that “employers wouldn’t do that—not least because if you’ve got somebody on a regular pattern for 11 weeks, as an employer you have to invest a lot of time and resources in training that employee up and so obviously if you just get rid of them on the twelfth week that money would have been wasted.”

In response to a question as to why zero-hours contracts couldn’t be banned altogether, he said they have completed “a consultation both with employees, trade unions and employers on this issue, and the consensus was not to abolish them altogether, because while they are used to exploit [some] people, there are some students that are often cited, for whom that arrangement can be acceptable and works OK for them.

“There are some employees who actually quite like the arrangement, and obviously that’s only where they are not being exploited under them and they’re not carrying all the risk, so they’re not, for example, having shifts cancelled at the last minute—that’s what we will have to stop.”

I then inquired whether, alongside the attention on zero-hours contracts, short-hour contracts would also be given attention. For example, this interviewer cited experience of many friends who work on four-hour contracts, when in fact they regularly work over 40.

Mr Umunna said that it should be the case that, “if they’ve got an employment contract that is four hours, under the law, if they have been working forty hours a week regularly for a long time, it would be quite straightforward for them to argue that their contract had been changed. It is less easy to do that if you are on a zero-hours contract”.

However he continued by accepting that “there’s no denying it that in some senses, trying to ensure fairness in a workplace when there are employers who will insist on trying to get over the rules that are put in place to ensure fairness, is a bit like running up a down escalator, and we’re always happy to think and review the situation to make sure we’ve got the right balance. If we see further abuses then obviously we’ll take action.” He added, “the reason that zero-hours [contracts] became such an issue is because actually we changed the rules around agency workers, so that if you had been working after 12 weeks as an agency worker you would get similar rights to those doing exactly the same job but who had a permanent position in your workplace. It was partly in response to us stopping this kind of abuse, of the agency situation, that there was a growth in zero-hours contracts.”

As many young people are unaware of the current employment laws that he had referenced and what they are entitled to as employees, I put to Mr Umunna whether better communication was needed for all employees of their employment rights. He responded, “one of our proposals is to make sure that if someone is put on a zero-hours contract they are told that they are on a zero-hours contract. A lot of people don’t actually realise that they’re on them.”

Mr Umunna had opened the interview by apologizing for the fact that another rapidly approaching engagement meant that our interview had to be limited to seven or eight minutes. I therefore knew we were on sticky ground when, as we approached 13 minutes, we tried to ask him about how to best tackle the BME attainment gap at university level. I was keen to explore this, as earlier last month Mr Umunna told the London Evening Standard that he wanted to see 1 in 7 company directors coming from black or minority ethnic backgrounds.

Unfortunately, time had beaten us and he quickly commented on an important issue that “If you’re a black or minority ethnic young person you’re much more likely to be unemployed. We’ve got to make sure before we can even look at pay that we’ve sorted out the unemployment issue around different diverse communities and then of course we’ve got to look to close the pay gap too.”

Dimensions Festival announces full line-up

Written by Lowell Clarke on . Posted in Music.

As the end of the university year looms closer and the grass on the other side of exams gets greener, the excitement for summer builds and builds. If you’re planning on going to Dimensions festival, that excitement will soon be reaching a critical level after a brand new wave of acts were announced a few days ago.

The new names include Juan Atkins, Underground Resistance presents Timeline live, Âme, Boddika, Loefah, Floating Points (DJ set), BADBADNOTGOOD, Objekt, Space Dimension Controller, Petar Dundov, Ilija Rudman, Randall, Waajeed, Eliphino and many more, who join the already revealed Four Tet Live, Little Dragon and Floating Points Live who headline the Dimensions Opening Concert, with George Clinton / Parliament / Funkadelic, Moodymann, Ben Klock, Lil Louis, Mala, Gerd Janson, Dusky, Mount Kimbie (DJ set), Blawan, John Talabot, Surgeon, Bicep, Rødhåd, Hessle Audio: Ben UFO, Pearson Sound and Pangaea, Daniele Baldelli, Motor City Drum Ensemble, Osunlade and many more at the festival itself.

Keep an eye out for our review after the festival and until then you can read our preview of Dimensions festival, along with the rest of our European Festival review here

Live: The Leisure Society

Written by Cordelia Milward on . Posted in Music.

20th April

The Deaf Institute

7/10

The evening of the hottest day of the year so far couldn’t be better accompanied than by the reassuring sweetness of The Leisure Society. ‘Outside In’ opens their set with an instant summer anthem, honing in on the stamping piano and uplifting chorus. Having only released their most recent album The Fine Art of Hanging On this month, The Leisure Society have hardly given us a chance to consume their new songs. But as a most infectiously likeable band, they call us into welcoming arms with tune after tune of harmless and sunny bliss.

I’m often wary of a flute, especially when shoved on the side of a small stage with a fiddle. Its not unlikable, but often inoffensive and tame. Yet in ‘Nothing Like This’ the flute is no sound filler like the tambourine or a hand bell, rather it flirtatiously bounces off the violin, creating an energetic duo forcing them into centre stage. They own that stage.

“This song was inspired by a visit to the Hastings Fisherman’s Museum”, announces front man Nick Hemming introducing ‘Tall Black Cabins’, “that’s got pop hit written all over it.” The coolest thing about The Leisure Society is their complete awareness of how very uncool they are. An admiring audience of worshipping 50-somethings ought not to be snubbed, and it’s definitely refreshing to see them sing along and fist pump in unashamed adoration. They’re captivated by the older songs such as ‘This Phantom Life’ which acts like a narcotic, disdaining scepticism with invigorating hope.

Finally dropping into the audience for an acoustic rendition of ‘Pancake Day’, rotating the room to give everyone their own private performance, they reach new levels of quaint (there was even an unaccompanied verse of just whistling). There’s no reading between the lines here, it’s merely unadulterated leisure listening perfect for giving you a taste of your future middle ages. And you know what? If I’m still having as much fun as those grey haired fist pumpers were, I can’t bloody wait.

Live: Bipolar Sunshine

Written by Robert Firth on . Posted in Music.

17th April

The Ritz

5/10

It is a packed out Ritz which welcomes Manchester’s own Adio Marchant, alias Bipolar Sunshine home, on the last date of his 2015 tour. Foreshadowing his entrance is a vibe-y onstage light installation, spelling out “BIPOLAR SUNSHINE”, which sets up the ambience for the music ahead.

Indeed, vibes seem all important to Marchant. In a set sparsely punctuated with talking, he manages to occupy most of what there is with remarks about the “feeling” and the “scene”. Maybe this is to make up for the lack of significant feeling in his performance as a whole. Whilst the catchy refrain “do it like that, do it like that” in ‘Deckchairs on the Moon’ is brimming with upbeat rhythm, the deck chair brought out for it seemed to be nothing more than a visual sugar fix.

The cover of Gary Jule’s ‘Mad World’ thrown in in the middle of the set is the only indication of something more complex. It mixes up the slightly banal delivery of hopeful sounding melodies with something moodier in the emphasised bass line. However, the set’s predictability isn’t to take away from Marchant’s ability to captivate the crowd, especially in the memorable choruses of hits like ‘Where Did The Love Go’. Nevertheless the set that barely surpasses forty-five minutes does little to stir the audience to any higher echelons, and is limited to a one song, timid encore.

Ultimately, it isn’t the performance’s musical intricacies which are lasting imprints of Bipolar Sunshine’s set. The visual aspect – Marchant’s dip dyed blue hair, the accompanying band’s white suits, and musical collaborator Jazz Purple’s dungarees – are what stick out. Oddly it is the music, not performance, which dominates Marchant’s shows though.

So what is this visual candy masking? The answer seems to be in the crowd. They’re engaged, but in a stumbling sort of way, chatting throughout and buying drinks right up until the encore. Recorded, Bipolar Sunshine’s music can be charged, moving. Live, the songs take on the hue of telephone hold music. I’m left half-full or half-empty, whichever, there is something lacking. It is nice but forgettable.

Live: Mounties

Written by Paul Norris on . Posted in Music.

17th April

The Deaf Institute

5/10

Canadian indie supergroup Mounties failed to impress at a near empty Deaf Institute. The release of their debut full-length album Thrash Rock Legacy a year ago signalled a bright future for the outfit with a collection of charging indie rock. In fact, opener ‘Pretty Respectable’ reflects the spirit of the album well with a tantalising synth hook, catchy lyrics and driving bassline.

However, after the opener the band fail to catch the attention of the crowd for long spells. ‘Feeling Low’ sounds messy, which is more to do with the song itself rather than poor performance as there is just too much texture for it to translate well live. ‘Waking Up On Time’ is a lovely studio song transmitting great summery vibes with fantastic synth melodies and airy vocals, but once again the song fails to translate well to a live setting. It seems the band want to rock-up their songs for live performances, yet in doing so they lose the delicacies that make their music so appealing.

Despite this, the gig does pick up quite well towards the end with a sequence of songs that of much better quality. ‘If This Dance Catches On’ is a driven guitar-led piece of indie rock that lifts the mood and even inspires the audience to put on their dancing shoes for the rest of the set. ‘Headphones’ is a foot-tapping singalong that is a good song despite some rather naff lyrics. However, by far the band’s best song is closing number ‘Tokyo Summer’ which shows the true potential of the band to infuse their brand of indie with bursting synth melodies and catchy vocals.

Don’t write off Mounties as they do have lots of potential and future material is definitely something to look forward to, but their live performance was not as impressive as their studio material and it must be said that their Friday night slot at the Deaf Institute was ultimately a wasted opportunity.

Interview: Rhino Bucket

Written by Stephen Miller on . Posted in Music.

Georg Dolivo, along with the rest of Rhino Bucket, are all set to embark on the 2015 Monsters of Rock Cruise to the Bahamas later this month. This cruise – four days full of sea, sun and rock star debauchery – will inevitably bring a whole new meaning to ‘rock the boat’. They will be joined by some of rock ‘n’ roll’s most legendary names of the last 30 years or so. Tesla, Europe, Night Ranger, Extreme, Kix and many more are all confirmed for what is a rather unusual performance concept, but it’s a gig that clearly has a certain appeal to bands and solo acts every year, including Georg. “It’s four days of non-stop rock ‘n’ roll, beers and sunshine. Why not do it?” Fair point. No-one can really argue with that.

When Georg formed Rhino Bucket in Van Nuys, California in 1988, the likes of Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen were already gaining internationally-acclaimed success. Not that I intentionally brought it up to rub it in his face, of course. It’s difficult to place a finger on why Rhino Bucket didn’t join them and ‘take off’ in the mainstream, and I’m not the only one. “If I knew the answer to that, I would be a millionaire. Actually, there quite a few great bands that didn’t get the success that they deserved. For example, Junkyard, Sea Hags, The Hangmen, Darling Cruel, LSD, The Unforgiven, etc.” Georg, though, is not one to dwell on any notion of what could have been. “If you pick up a guitar purely for financial reasons, you’re heading down the wrong path. It takes a passion. I’m proud that after all these years; we are still touring, still making records, still a band.”

In all those years of touring and making records, Rhino Bucket’s sound has drawn unsurprising comparisons to rock ‘n’ roll compatriots and juggernauts, AC/DC. A comparison which, and quite rightly so, Georg is happy to embrace. “To a certain degree, we were all fans of early AC/DC, probably more so for Greg Fields [original lead guitarist until 1996] and myself. As young men drinking and fighting in the streets of Van Nuys, they were the sound-track to our lives.” The AC/DC connection goes far beyond stylistic similarities, as Rhino Bucket had a former AC/DC drummer behind the sticks for two albums. Simon Wright, originally from Oldham in Greater Manchester, appeared on Rhino Bucket’s 1994 album PAIN, and The Hardest Town in 2009. It’s a small world in which who you know, counts. “Our original drummer left the band, and his wife knew Simon’s wife, and a couple of phone calls later, we got together and jammed. It worked instantly and he has been a good friend ever since.”

You would be forgiven for thinking that by having a former AC/DC drummer on their books, he should have worked wonders for their reputation. Sadly, that didn’t appear to be the case. “I’m not sure it did anything to raise or lower our profile. Hmm, maybe it did, as everyone is a fan of Simon, myself included.” I ask Georg what he knows about the music scene in Manchester, having worked so closely with Simon. “I don’t know much about the Manchester music scene, but I do know that the greatest football team that has ever existed resides there at Old Trafford, Manchester United!” A man who is more First Division than Joy Division, it seems. Or maybe he’s just, Simply Red? “Oh yeah, I’m a life long Manchester United fan. My favourite players were Roy Keane and George Best. I secretly hope that Cristiano will come back to us.” He’s not the only one. “But I doubt that will happen.“ Again, he’s not the only one. “Paul Scholes was the best midfielder of his generation, and Ryan Giggs should be spanked for what he did to his brother.” Spanking, though, I’m sure was one of the many things that got him in to trouble in the first place.

Football aside, Rhino Bucket haven’t performed in the UK for what is coming up to ten years now. With a strong rock fan-base that would welcome and embrace Rhino Bucket with open arms, there should be no issues with coming over and playing a few UK gigs, should there? “Ah, England and their lovely border agents… Three of the guys were deported in 2005 because of a lack of work permits for a gig we were supposed to do in Manchester. I wasn’t as I’m a EU citizen [Finland]. Although the promoter offered to come down and pay for the permits, the agent wouldn’t have it, and thus the deportation. When we were back at the airport, 12 hours later, they handed us tickets for only the guys being deported, leaving me stranded.” Having a lack of permits may not be as much of a ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ reason for not being allowed to perform here as, say, throwing televisions out of hotel windows (I know, very clichéd), but Georg hopes that one day, Rhino Bucket can return. “We would love to play in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but until someone with enough clout and legal knowledge to make that happen comes forth, I’m afraid we shall remain ‘persona non grata’ in Great Britain.”

Unfortunately, the setbacks do not end there. “We do not have the rights to our first two albums, which were on Reprise/Warner Bros. Records. For quite a while, they were out of print, but a couple of years ago Rhino Records, not affiliated with us in any way, re-released them on iTunes. Legally, they have to send us reports every three months but they have yet to send a single one. So again, legally we should receive full ownership of the first two albums as a result. But, we do not have the financial resources to take on the lawyers at Warner Bros. and they simply ignore us and continue to sell our first two records on iTunes with out sending a single royalty report.” For any band, the music ‘industry’ can be a very dangerous game to play. In all his years with Rhino Bucket, Georg has accumulated enough wisdom and experience, both good and bad, to write an entire series of books, never mind just one. His simple advice to new bands is to “lawyer up and trust no one. Not everyone is a crook, but everyone is there to make money, including your lawyer. So make sure everything is in writing and crystal clear. And also remember, there is not a single person who you will ever meet that works at any record company that you yourself couldn’t do a better job than what they do. It’s the crime of the century, they call musicians clueless but they themselves are as dumb as dirt.”

Despite the troubles with their first two albums, Rhino Bucket are in the process of making a new one. “We have a good number of songs written and are scheduled to record this summer”. Writing songs, as well as worshipping Manchester United, is one of Georg’s great pastimes. “There is a certain excitement in getting a song down and then visualising how it will be realised in recording and then received live”. Not one to deviate from a proven musical formula, Georg says that any new album is “always going to be straight ahead, bang your head rock ‘n’ roll!” Not that it should come as any surprise. Rhino Bucket have powered through the last 27 years without any pretence to be anything other than a great rock ‘n’ roll band, playing the music they love, to people who love to hear it. They are amongst the last of a dying breed, but there is no chance of this rhino kicking the bucket (sorry) any time soon.

Album: George FitzGerald – Fading Love

Written by Bradley West on . Posted in Music.

Released 27th April, 2015

Domino Records

8/10

A lot of people write songs after break-ups, and George FitzGerald just broke up with predictable dance music. Due to this, Fading Love may not be what you expect. Considering the path taken to get to his debut LP, the content and message of this album are a stark departure from the last five years of singles produced by the Berlin based DJ/Producer.

The most obvious difference to anything prior is the pace and overall feel of the album. Fading Love is quite melancholy, and starts at a low, ambient base with ‘About Time’, featuring a prominent set of specially written vocals, rather than the predictable ‘sample vocal’ of popular tracks. The following song, ‘Full Circle’, the first single to be released from the album, also features the gentle vocals of Oli Bayston of Boxed In. This and ‘Crystalize’, are arguably the most similar to FitzGerald’s earlier work, but with good reason. They manage to allude to the more tactile, ambient nature of the rest of the album in an attempt to draw inexperienced listeners in towards a different, more leftfield approach to dance music. By doing this, Fading Love could be mentioned in the same breath as some Orbital releases, and parallels can also clearly be drawn to Jon Hopkins’s more recent work through tracks like ‘Your Two Faces’. Some FitzGerald trademarks are still present however, but are visibly more measured, like the subdued bassline of ‘Full Circle’.

Although the album lasts only 40 minutes, it has the feel of a, dark, night long set through the low ominous synths that undercut so many tracks. This really sets the album apart, as it carefully controls the energy levels, allowing them to flow through each track into the next, giving the whole album a clear narrative.

Ultimately, it’s an excellent post night out album, ideal for the slow return to normal after the club-ready dance music and huge basslines have finished, and the love affair with the night before is over.

Club: Daniel Avery

Written by Bradley West on . Posted in Music.

28th March

Soup Kitchen

7/10

Coming off the back of the extremely successful debut album, Drone Logic, in addition to an excellent collection of remixes, expectations for Daniel Avery’s show at Soup Kitchen were high. With a small but strong supporting lineup including a set from underground techno pioneer, Volte-Face, the show was poised to be a heavyweight set of performances in an intimate atmosphere.

The night began with John Loveless playing some percussion rich, bassy techno, which was perhaps a little heavy for an early slot. Volte-Face followed this with much of the same, but with more variation, incorporating more ambient tracks with rolling synths that appeared to sit a lot better with the mixed crowd that had turned out.

The beginning of Daniel Avery’s set was unclear, as he hovered around the decks for a while before actually appearing to start, giving the night a very casual, house party style feel that was only amplified by the stripped back, basement setting of Soup Kitchen. This seemed appropriate for Avery, as it completely fitted his nonchalant, seemingly indifferent style of performance. When he did visibly get underway, he displayed excellent track selection and really appeared to give the crowd what they wanted and expected from him.

Most of the tracks played in his 2-hour slot were either originals or remixes from his album, some of which he used to test the crowd with, such as Matt Walsh’s remix of ‘Free Floating’. Although this could be construed as the lazy option, the positive response showed that it was obviously what the crowd wanted to hear. The end of the set had a fairly odd feel to it, as whether out of confusion or just poor selection, the last half hour was entirely made up of tracks that were in their own right, incredible closers. The track that actually closed out the night was the KiNK remix of ‘Knowing We’ll Be Here’, arguably the best finisher of the tracks played.

All in all, the gig was an excellent showcase of Daniel Avery’s production abilities, but failed to set my world alight, more as a result of his lack of charisma in an intimate gig, that seemed to necessitate it for the performance to really stand out.

Live: John Cooper Clarke

Written by Emily Castles on . Posted in Music.

21st March

O2 Apollo

9/10

John Cooper Clarke: a poet, a comedian, a punk, a Mancunian. You either love him, or you have probably never heard of him. Revolutionary in the 1970s, JCC earned the title of a ‘punk poet’, performing on the same bill as the likes of Manchester’s The Fall and Joy Division. Punk was a movement of anger and rebellion, its people were not expecting the love of poetry that JCC evoked in them. With a grittiness, rawness and comical crudeness that was a far cry from Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’, JCC made poetry accessible and enjoyable for a new and unsuspecting generation. Now marked as a legend in music, poetry and culture, JCC returned this month to his hometown and most loyal fan base for a memorable night of profanity and politics.

Opening with a poem dedicated to the guest list of the night, JCC proved his ability to write a brilliant and hilarious poem about even the most mundane of topics, humbly stating that he was “somewhat of a rhymer”. Over the course of the evening, he dipped in and out of an old and battered notebook filled with ingenious scribblings and anecdotes. The first half consisted of relatively new and unknown poems, JCC venturing into the world of limericks with ‘Necrophilia’, who said you can’t achieve comic perfection in two lines?! To the room’s excitement, JCC soon began trailing through his old classics such as ‘Pies’, ‘Chickentown’ (his most favourite after it appeared on The Sopranos), ‘Beasley Street’ and the biggest crowd pleaser, the gloriously despicable ‘Twat’. He also performed ‘Things are gonna get worse’ which as a poem about the effects of ageing, he crudely dedicated to the late Terry Pratchett, apologising for his infamous “lack of empathy”.

His often long and undirected ramblings did not please everyone, but for those who truly understand JCC, they know and accept that this is all part of the wonderful skinny-legged and big haired package. So if you are inclined to poetry that is both hilariously crude and profoundly real, check out JCC, there really is no one, nor will there ever be, like the legend himself.

Live: Karnivool

Written by Adam Rogers on . Posted in Music.

24th March

HMV Ritz

7/10

Australian quintet Karnivool began the end of their European tour, Divergence, in a powerful show performed at The Ritz. Support came in the form of UK tech-metallers Monuments performing mainly material from their second album, The Amanuensis. Monuments draw a reasonable crowd with a dedicated contingent of followers and set the progressive tone perfectly for the headliner, despite being overwhelmingly loud. Even with tickets still on the door, possibly due to the fact that many students have packed up for Easter, by the time Karnivool got to the stage the atmosphere could only be described as electric.

Opening with ‘C.O.T.E’ and ‘Shutterspeed’ from their first album Themata, singer Ian Kenny belts out lyrics with power whilst prowling the stage, only to have the audience chant them back louder. The whole band has such an epic, ethereal stage presence, and seem to have their game down to a T with some serious movement in the crowd as they progress through the grooves of ‘Roquefort’ and the anthemic ‘Themata’. The setlist is broken into three parts with each album the band have made played chronologically – the main set consisting of Themata, followed by Sound Awake, before five songs are played as an encore from 2013’s Asymmetry.

‘Goliath’ and ‘Deadman’ seem to be strong crowd-pleasers moving through the main set, however the energy of the audience seems to taper off throughout, despite the band never missing a beat. Karnivool seem to have a false start on the encore, opening with ‘Alpha Omega’, even though the roar of the crowd demanded something a little more energetic. The classic ‘We Are’ is played with a phenomenal drive and clarity not found in the studio version and brings the energy right back up for going in to ‘The Refusal’, which goes down a storm.

Finishing the gig with the brooding track ‘Aeons’, Karnivool put in a cracking performance and are clearly a very talented band with some weight under the belt. Although playing a chronological setlist seems an interesting thing to do, all of the energetic songs are out of the way quickly, with the set not quite recovering from this. Nevertheless Karnivool are a force to be reckoned with, and are a must see for any fan of rock or metal.