With my final exams LOOMING like a giant loomy thing, I was desperate for an excuse to leave revision behind and do... absolutely anything else. Having tidied my bedroom to a clinical standard, put in some serious hours on ISS Pro Evolution 2 and made a number of unnecessarily elaborate meals, I told myself that I, like, NEEDED, to take some time off and go see a band. I mean for GOD'S SAKE, I'd even visited the library for a few hours the day before. If I didn't relax, have a beer and see some live music the relentless pace would do me in, of that I had little doubt. A Parisman gig at the Well, rather lamely advertised as some sort of 'Leeds vs. Manchester' Battle Royale, seemed to fit the bill.
First up, weighing in at six surly Mancs and a couple of synths, were Indigo Dub who set the tone for the rest of the night, but were definitely the least proficient out of all four bands. They had some good grooves and were technically competent, but they didn't really have their own sound. They seemed to use samples purely so they could say they used samples rather than because they added anything to the tracks, and memorable melodies were in short supply throughout their set.
One of the most rewarding aspects of attending live music events is the appearance of that rare creature, The Unexpectedly Good Band. Said band might, at best, have been vaguely familiar to the gig goer as he/she walked through the doors to the venue, but the lack of any real expectations makes a sighting of this animal all the more enjoyable. As previously stated I was at the Well to watch Parisman. I'd also heard a little bit about Nylon Pylon, through some brief mentions in the NME, but, other than seeing their name on a couple of Joseph's Well flyers, I knew sod all about Brazil.
Unlike the rest of the acts that night, Brazil were sans synth and sampler, which, to be honest, was rather nice. Post Britpop but pre-The Strokes, the prevailing attitude was that being 'just' a guitar band was boring. This led to some groups adding various electronic instruments, or even DJs, to their line-up (hello Four Day Hombre) for no real reason. When it worked, as with Parisman for example, it was great, but there are few things more lame than seeing a band grasping at some distant sense of someone else's idea of 'cool' by adding random electronic bleeps and squelches on to an otherwise bog standard pop track. Brazil resisted the temptation to add superfluous nonsense but their songs were far from bog standard. They possessed one of the best frontmen I'd seen at the time, although the whole band were great to watch. After only a couple of tunes they were so sweaty they looked like Andrew W.K. after a weekend of PARTYING HARD. I'm not sure what model it was, but I distinctly remember loving the guitarist's white guitar. More importantly I also distinctly remember the majority of the band's songs, which stuck in the head on first listen and refused to budge. Tracks like "Sister Volume" and "Flatline" are up there with the very best music ever to have come out of Leeds in my opinion.
After a brief visit to the bar we returned to the gig room for Nylon Pylon. I was hoping for good things from the band, but they were a bit disappointing. They played music in a similar style to Parisman, but with more of a slick electronic sound which I found a tiny bit dull. Their songs weren't particularly memorable and the melodies seemed to have been added as an afterthought, with each track being more concerned with showcasing the range of sounds each of the three (!) synth players could tease from their instrument.
Parisman put in a solid performance as headliners, although their set wasn't as good as it had been last time I saw them at the Well in February. I was at the gig with Mike and Sug from Novacain and, as we all loved an earlier track, "Shoestring", from the demo tape Parisman recorded around the time we played together at the Rose & Crown pub in late 1999, we started shouting out for it. I say "we", I mean "I started shouting out for it". Except I didn't know it was called "Shoestring" at the time as my copy of the demo tape didn't have a track listing... "Shoestring's" opening line was "Saul was a man, who lived like a King" so I reasoned that the song must be called "Saul". I shouted this so much that Shaun asked what on earth I was talking about after the third song. Completely coincidentally, despite the fact that they hadn't played the track for about a year, Parisman actually played a revamped version of "Shoestring" later in the set. It fit the style of their newer material but didn't have the same charm as the original version. After the show I found out the song's correct name and that the first line was actually "Someone was a man, who lived like a King". Hmm... Cracking tune though.
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