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Review: 'Sterling Roswell Band, Seth Faergolzia's Multibird'
'And Owen & The Eyeballs Live at The Windmill'   

-  Album: 'In Brixton'
-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '21.7.16.'

Our Rating:
This was Blang 66 which was the launch show for the Sterling Roswell Band's new single on Blang the brilliant Atom Brain Monster Rock as well as the last night of Seth Faergolzia's Multibird's first European tour, which was more than enough reason to get on down to Brixton for this show.

I got in a little way into Owen & The Eyeballs set and the first thing that struck me about them was how they looked, as they were all in uniforms sort of, as they all had on Poncho's, the Saxophonist was sporting a Winnie The pooh Poncho, while the singer and bass player had on a Transformers robots in disguise one and the Guitarist had on a space invaders one as well as a massive brain headpiece I didn't figure out the Drummers Poncho I'm afraid. Still they were honking away and reminded me of They Came from the Stars I Saw Them but sans the keyboards and gadgets mayhem. The first song I heard all of was about the moon and was sort of abstract indie funk and a lot of fun with it.

Pizza Babies had some well odd lyrics and a sort of Anti dance folk feel and enough oddness to make them rather compelling, if I was about 25 years younger they may well have become my new favourite band as they really should appeal to a crowd of 20 somethings. The song about Sofa's kept up the slight wonky dance feel and had some great parping sax in it.

They closed with a song about playing prince or whatever it was about it kept the crowd dancing and having a lot of fun which is something Owen & The Eyeballs certainly were and are worth seeing just for the slight absurdity factor they have going on.

After the break it was time for Seth Faergolzia's Multibird who looked like a cross between Zolar X and Steely Dan and had come all the way from Rochester NY a town with a reasonably cool musical history. Seth for anyone who doesn't recognize his name used to be in Dufus and yes it is that is Dufus and not Doofus who are a whole other kettle of fish.

Well they are one of those bands that every song is like a mini rock operetta often in four or 5 parts with all sorts of episodic musical interludes and what I guess are in jokes so that they ended up reminding me of 10cc crossed with Jethro Tull and some sacred harp style gospel singing melded to some sort of frippertronics nonsense they were confusing to my ears.

They were obviously very tight indeed and knew how to play this immensely complicated music but it almost all left me cold. About as palatable as they got was on Garbage Night about going out scouring the streets for stuff other folks have put on the kerb, it had some good lyrics and harmonies among the madness and the musical and nervous breakdowns they seemed to be having.

The Sacred Harp element of the band's sound was at the fore of the song they started in the crowd that might have been called Walk & Stand Up. The percussive call and response start was cool and then they went back on stage and took it in so many directions at once that the plot was totally lost sadly. By this point I was thinking about going and sitting outside for the rest of the set, but I stayed with them and the Rubber Band song was ok in places and mind numbingly odd and bad in other places, if only they could edit themselves more effectively as this was a couple of good songs encased in 3 terrible songs I was lost at what they were trying to do.
They finished with a Dufus "classic" that had a few people singing along to it but that left me totally cold as had much of the bands set. If you like really overcomplicated music then you may love this lot. I can live without them thanks.

Still Multibird were soon flushed out of my ears by the space rock monster sound of the Sterling Roswell Band who tonight are a trio with Claire Harrison on Synths and Martin Langshaw ex of Perfect Disaster on drums. They open with the band's latest single Atom Brain Monster Rock and this time Sterling is using a sample off of his phone as well as his table of effects pedals and boxes that his guitar is going through to take us out to the stratosphere and hammer home the hatred and bile many of us feel towards our now thankfully departed prime Minister Call me Dave.

Next up was the propulsive brain melder of Rocket Ship to the Stars that was melded with the lyrics to Radar Eyes like some sort of Lysergic explosion as Martin pummelled his drums with a maraca and a mallet rather than sticks to really beef up the drum sound as the space noises coming out of the synths blasted us out there somewhere. Karma 1 didn't let up the spaced out sounds as Sterling pressed pedals and twiddled knobs to great effect while playing his guitar and singing while these days performing in the grand Spacemen 3 style, yes he was sitting down to help his ankle to keep recovering from his recent accident.

Venus Honey Dew had some venomously whispered vocals peeking through the wall of spaced out noise that was lifting us all up it was also the softest song of the set. Before they paid tribute to the fallen Legend Alan Vega whose Suicide, Spacemen 3 were supporting the first time I saw Sterling Play all those years ago with a monster spaced out epic version of Suicide that warped and weaved in and out of Girl like it was sashaying around the room in a fur coat dripping with diamonds and drinking champagne luscious and totally in the spirit of Alan Vega.

Dragonfly Neon Rainbow had the slightest hint of the Box tops mainly in Sterling Singing as I think it was Claire who found the bass button at one point during this and the whole room shook like an earthquake of noise had just erupted it was a real rush to the senses. Then they all went for a full on assault at Nobody Loves The Hulk That had walls of effects driven along by the ever steady drums just tripping the place out.

They then closed with a reprise of Atom Brain Monster Rock that was more like the 12" spaceship version it was psychedelicized to a different level unlike call me Dave's Paul Smith suits. Before it really had us all shaking about as it came to its cacophonous ending and they said good night.

Well they had to come back for an encore and after some consulting in the band they went into Ode To the Godz that at times sounded like Martin was playing a different song to Sterling and yet it worked together perfectly well to try to haul us all back in from Venus or where ever they hell we'd tripped off too. A great close to another great Sterling Roswell set.
  author: simonovitch

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