More Often Please
A double first for Pretty Shitty City here, its our first review (of The Bees at Sin City) and the first article for us from new contributor Stephen Ready.
In the current trend of nu rave (yuck) and the spate of “The…,” bands frequenting the mainstream music press as of late, the Bees act as somewhat of an anomaly in the current musical climate. Indeed they share a similarity in that they act as a primer to other genres much like The Klaxons are to rave or The Horrors are to frantic garage punk a la Cramps (although Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster pulled it off with more menace) However with the Bees their influences are harder to pin down as we are not offered a definitive sound. Rather the band jumble one sound with another with relative ease and in this sense are a gateway to much more than just one genre or sound.
The Bees first came into my own purview with songs like “Punchbag,” and “Minha Menina,” from the “Sunshine Hit Me,” album, brightening up dank mornings as a student in Cardiff. The sounds on “Sunshine Hit Me,” instantly brought to mind Tropicalia of course with the latter, but on this album there were obvious nods to hip hop, funk, jazz and folk in certain sections. Indeed at best the album intermingled sounds from bygone era’s and presented them fresh for a new ear.
All this leads to an artist like Candie Payne appearing as a natural selection for the support slot on the tour. Indeed, like the Bees, Candie Payne and her band from the first chords crafts a sound that cannot necessarily be pinned to one definitive artist. She wouldn’t have sounded entirely out of place in the first or second show of BBC Four’s Soul Brittania series with there being shades of sixties go-go parties and Julie Driscoll style vocals. In consideration, shame no one danced.
The Bees test-run a lot of their new material this evening and it is as Paul Butler states and Mr. Shitty City confirmed on the way down, it’s “a mix of the first and the second album,” this transpires into a superb evening of bright and enlivening music that easily makes the typical Swansea drizzle and gloom outside disappear for an hour or so. Although (for me) a bit top heavy on material from “Free the Bees,” and forthcoming album “Octopus,” the small crowd assembled in Sin City is privy to the melting pot of sounds abovementioned, and the Bees are receptive to a thoroughly receptive audience.
All we need are more people to actually show up and this could be a more frequent occurrence.
http://www.myspace.com/thebeesofficial
http://www.myspace.com/candiepayne
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 am
I would have to agree, although as my first experience of The Bees was with Free the Bees plenty of material off this album was a good thing.
February 23rd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I was surprised at how receptive the crowd were. I foolishly expected less from Swansea on a Tuesday night. Hopefully it was a success for the organisers too and we’ll see more of the same at Sin City. Despite early promise for the new club’s line-up, the bands seem a bit too metal orientated for my tastes.
March 9th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
theres ferw more indie bands suprises coming may and june , ive seen the bookings