Bells Clanging

Last Friday night I sat in the back room of the Railway Club having a drink and waiting for the music to start. I was there to see Bells Clanging; a show that I hoped would cleanse my headspace as last week was the beginning of Christmas carol onslaught 2008. The first week of many to be top-heavy with glossy pop retreads of lousy 50’s era seasonal jingles, with the occasional original version thrown in to remind you that they were almost uniformly awful to begin with. For me, Christmas music (Vince Guilardi’s ‘It’s Christmas Charlie Brown’ theme music aside) is something that can only be enjoyed by people desperate to reinforce the appearance of holiday cheer. People who have never worked a retail job where you can’t escape any of these horrible tunes no matter how hard you try.

Bells Clanging have a surprising and delicate sound composed of high, brittle melodies. It’s hypnotic and shifty pop, textured and spare. The first time I saw them play the band had a human rhythm section that has since departed; it’s more of a one man show now. Jason Starnes’ vocals accompanied by his own guitar, keyboard and an array of programmed beats.

There’s a Radiohead comparison to be made to Bells Clanging, but that’s probably just a lazy reaction to the sound of Mr. Starnes’ voice. I love Radiohead, but he tone of Bells’ songs and the nature of the melodies lack the sense of anxiety and doom that shroud Radiohead’s music. It’s emotive without digressing into vocal wankery, ambitious without being pretentious, joyous without being sappy.

I was humming the brilliant “Even Stars Burn Out” by B.C. as I headed to the men's room and was greeted by the sight of a wad of blood stained toilet paper rotating anti-clockwise in a toilet bowl constantly trying to refill itself. I love the Railway Club on a Friday night.

I returned to the back room, four men sat close by reaching the end of a loud aggressive drunkening. As they got up and prepared to walk out into the frigid arms of the evening one stood out as extra annoying. His skin was badly mottled with drink; a pork pie hat was pushed back over his broad greasy forehead. He wavered a short distance across the room where his much slimmer, more attractive Australian friend had found himself pulled into conversation with two women.

Loud boy pushed himself into their midst and heard his friend utter the word "virgin". He was clearly not going to let a little thing like a total lack of conversational context keep him from shoehorning his excess of charm into their lives. He pointed a sausage-like finger at his friend for emphasis as his beer breath washed over them like a toxic cloud.

“Virgin?” he shouted. “So what you’re trying to say here is that you’re a virgin?”

His friend squirmed visibly, tried desperately to acknowledge his friend and somehow maintain eye contact with the women as their orbs rotated disgustedly to the left.

“Yep. I, I guess that must be what I’m saying.” He said.

The question was repeated a few more times at greater volume and got the same response. Loud boy seemed frustrated that the ribs of his audience weren’t shattering under onslaught of convulsive laughter. He had become the anti-wingman but couldn’t see it. Another of his table mates collected him and guided him out with surprising and totally unearned gentleness. You could see the same word twisting its way out of everyone left in their wake. A potent phrase for annoying dude-bro motherfuckers like him, a word whose passage you can taste. We dubbed him Douchebag.

When you see a man like this in a bar, a man who no less than three times punctuated his drunken jackassery by throwing an imaginary woman across the table to mime fucking her roughly while slapping her invisible ass, there is no word that springs to mind faster. But I don’t think it’s all that fitting a description. Actual douchebags serve a purpose in the world and honestly, unlike a douchebag, when I looked at that guy I found it really hard to believe he'd be inserted into a woman, ever.

I eventually left the back room of the Railway and pushed myself near the front of the stage for the set. Bells’ songs start more gently now without the drum kit banging away. The songs don’t have the incessant energy that live drums can provide, but rather draw you in with how simply, heartbreakingly pretty they are. The show had the immeasurable benefit of the great Kris Hooper on second guitar providing a restrained tone of mixed chime and bite and Leanne Coughlin playing keys and providing a lovely harmonic counterpoint. Choreography was provided by the hypnotic blinking of LED lights racing back and forth across the drum machines.

Their music made all the douchebag pain go far, far away. I’d like to see them play several more times as the holiday approaches, if for no other reason than to provide actual beautiful sound to wash away the taste of Christmas’ musical NutraSweet.

Slowly My Poor Brain Engages

Slight delay over the last few weeks, basically because I’m lazy. I’m trying to finish something off to post here and it’s not quite coming together. In the meantime, here’s a little light music.

Tremble before the awesome power of the Hex Dispensers.

There's No Time To Lose

Well, that’s a relief.

At one point while they were still counting the votes the TV news coverage cut to a split screen of the Obama and McCain crowds waiting for the results to come in. The Obama crowd milled about, tense and hopeful, the McCain footage didn’t show the crowd, just some Nashville wonk strumming his way through a plaintive country ballad. It was the perfect soundtrack for a generation of sociopathic neo-cons weeping and counting what remains of their money before they ooze off in disgrace.

For once it appears voting for hope and change trumps hate and fear. Toby Keith's Album Sales Are Going to Plummet.