#175songs

Portishead have a very different approach to sampling especially when it came to the drums on Dummy.

There is a distinctive boom to the drums that was achieved in a number of ways. They would record the drums (or other instruments/Beth), press that recording to vinyl then rerecord from the vinyl. This gave an old school hip hop feel to the samples without having to find old beats that fitted perfectly. This also often resulted in surface noise on the sample, adding another intricacy to the rhythms.

The other technique is to slow down what are presumably stock breakbeats as they are quite explicit about the samples they used on the album.

For Mysterons, Clive Dreamer is credited as the drummer so I assume the first technique was used.

Very strangely, I first saw Trencher at a dance music festival. This was my first year at Glade. Most of the stages were psy-trance or generally down-tempo house music plus the known acts and bands on the main stage. Then there was the Overkill stage playing Wrong Music. This consisted of gabba, glitch, unhappy hardcore and even more odd things.

Trencher were billed as ‘the UK’s Lightning Bolt’, I thought it would be best to go along since I had already missed Lightning Bolt on several occasions.

I was introduced to The Decemberists in the lead up to Sleater-Kinney’s day at All Tomorrow’s Parties. Which isn’t surprising as both bands originate from Portland.

First time I saw Rolo Tomassi was in the Barn at Truck Festival.

I have never been so enchanted by a screaming teenage girl. I could not believe the noise that was coming out of this girl who was aggressively throwing herself around the stage. And it’s not just all about Eva Spence, the rest of the band are really impressive. Instant tempo and time signature changes, even complete changes of style out of nowhere. It’s all a bit too clever for me really.

I'd always had a casual fancy for System of a Down from hearing songs at various rock nights.

This should be the Pink Floyd version but they don't seem to have played it live and EMI don't want us to listen to their music on You Tube. So instead we have a version by Low.

This song was a snap pick for the Pink Floyd tribute night. It's a bit awkward because I wanted to integrate You'll Never Walk Alone into the song. Changing to it at the end would have been a pain in the ass so I decided to rearrange it a bit. The idea was to start the song with You'll Never Walk Alone and then at the climax, start playing Fearless.

I had hoped for some audience participation, maybe I could encourage everyone to sing along at the climax for a rousing lead into Fearless - I was not prepared for what happened. It turns out that a lot of people know You'll Never Walk Alone, a lot better than I do. I'd got as far as "When you walk..." And half the room was already singing along, I was so stunned I instantly forgot all the words and the chords. I had no idea what I was doing, the crowd generally quietened as I was standing there doing nothing. I was so relieved after the chorus so I could start playing a song I knew how to play. The rest of Fearless went pretty well. Not exactly my finest moment at a gig.

My favourite song off Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It's such an epic and diverse album - I especially like the brutality of this song.