Starpaw

About me:

Hello, So nice to see you! Have you lost weight? You look amazing!

So you've stumbled across my little corner of the web, perhaps by accident or maybe I gave you the address. You might have come in search of music reviews or maybe just to check out what the hell a young slip on an indie kid has to say for himself.

But I'm getting ahead of myself already. I'm Jason, otherwise known as Starpaw here on the interweb, a 22 year old aspiring journalist rom Hull, I can't remember a time when I wasn't writing or scribbling away in some tatty notebook.In terms of my published work I've been writing for the last four years for various local magazines, interviewing bands and writing features. Like everyone else I'd love to be able to make a living from what I love doing.

Anyway, I digress..

I'm curently writing for the Hul counter culture magazine Tenfoot City knocking out music reviews, interviews and occasionally news articles. This issue coming out on December 7th will feature articles on Awash With Antler and iconcur

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Gig Highlights: December and January:

Tues 9th December- The Sesh with ballroom rock band Black and White Tango and Tenfoot city stars Jesus Stole My Girlfriend @ Linnet and Lark

Tues 16th December- Thomas Truax- Mad scientist turned musician wheels out sister spinster and the Hornicator! @ The Adelphi

Sat 20th December- DIY Hi5 Special with live music from The Rocky Nest, Leeds Based Penny Broadhurst and The Maffickers, this months music stars Awash With Antler and the excellent Mammal Hum @ The Adelphi

Sun 25th January- Punk, Crust and Hardcore all dayer lead by the punker then thou Kill Youth Culture lead by the king of the punks, Jim Sorrow @ The Lamp

An Expansive and Ambitious Sound but it’s still a…

Man Made Noise

“You had a little plastic pony hidden in your room, I took a match to it’s mane just to smell the fumes” “I didn’t really ever stop making music” explains ex-Ernest frontman, Terence James Dunn on the origins of his new solo project, Man Made Noise and it’s gestation in the period following the break up of his former band, Ernest. He’s a man for who, it seems, making music is as necessary for him as breathing and eating is to the likes of you and I. “I’m always writing and recording so I had ideas sat at the back of my mind and on disc, which were kinda busting to get out and when we wrapped up the band, even before, it was a bit like a floodgate opening.”

For the last few years Mr Dunn proved he had a knack for penning a tune with psychedelic Hedon based rock outfit Ernest, creating huge sprawling rock-soundscapes filled with twists and turns as they took the listener on a musical journey. Now, as Man Made Noise his more sombre tunes conjure up images of a lone man in a recording studio, tormented and fractured after having to start all over again, after the demise of his last band. Which is bollocks actually, but why let that stand in the way of such an excellent image! “We had essentially run our course as a band. Although we were in talks with a big label in Japan for licensing our forthcoming album, we weren’t really seeing eye to eye on a lot of things, which often dissolved into petty disagreements and rages” explains Dunn about the split, “It’s something a lot of bands suffer from, so to preserve our friendship we decided to part company. We are all cracking mates still, which is a nice thing to be able to say”

Throughout this demo there are definite Eels influences, with a hint of sadness and introspection in Dunn’s voice, the melancholic sound of Badly Drawn Boy happily sharing studio space with Ben Folds Five and Elliot Smith. His trademark cryptic turn of phrase within his lyrics shines through on every track, engaging the listener and urging them to bring their own ideas and interpretations to the songs. Lyrics that sounds both autobiographical and wide open to interpretation in the same instance, with Dunn tenderly proclaiming for example; “You had a little plastic pony hidden in your room, I took a match to it’s mane just to smell the fumes” which appear on the quintessentially English, delicate piano-driven “Lead Balloon”. A track he is particularly proud of. “I’m not naturally a piano player but I’ve been teaching myself over the last few years” he says, “So to hear it committed to tape, sounding so atmospheric and sweet, was actually a joy. Its a simple track but it really captures my mood at the time.”

Another thing that strikes you about his new solo outing is the sheer expanse and ambition to his music. The sheer range of styles, skipping effortlessly from the soulful “Lead Balloon” to the proggy, funked-up bassline heavy “One Gallon Drum” all the way to the furious rock spirit of his newest track, “Photocopy Machine”. Not surprising for a man who is still in the middle of a round the world trip, hovering up new experiences in far-off lands. “The song styles vary so much that I thought I might have lost the continuity of the overall record” admits Dunn, “But that is what most people have appreciated and described as the most outstanding quality of the collection. I guess without the compromises you have to make in a band regarding other peoples opinions, the whole process quickens and the rate at which you can reach completion, improves in most instances”

Find out more:

myspace.com/itsmanmadnoise

Jason Karlson.

The Clauberg Opera

The Death of this city

“This record was not made to be played quietly. It is not an answer. It is a question” This album is not what you expect. The startling artwork adorning the cover of a solitary figure, head smashed against a blood smattered wall and the name Clauberg opera written in gothic font, a name forever linked with the atrocities of Auschwitz might give you the image of some by the numbers metal band out to shock with some gory artwork and a controversial name. Nothing could be further from reality. Clauberg Opera and “The Death of this city” are so exceptionally unlike anything you’ve ever heard before, bar nothing. It’s because “The death of this city” is the loudest, biggest, meanest fuck you in music right now. The band play masked, their identities hidden and disguised behind bandannas, scarf’s and the eccentric punk stage names J.Mayhem and Sidney Sorry.

“The Death of this city” offers nothing familiar, nothing for a new listener to latch onto. No lyrics, No verse/chorus song structure, no catchy hooks or “Killer riffs”. It casts the listener totally adrift in unknown territory with nothing comfy. Grabbing you by the throat and forcing them to pay attention. It’s an all out attack on the senses. Its claustrophobic atmosphere is brought about by the way it was recorded, one tiny room and three band members. “You’re genuinely pissed off when you can’t even move.” It was recorded with no technical tinkering, a tape recorder and only one open microphone recording everything meaning that nothing has been gone over and repeated more then twice in the whole record. Nothings perfect, the imperfect is what is so startling. Compared to the sleek and well-produced products being pressed, this is the truest rock and roll album in years, refusing to be restricted or tied down by a passing fad or convention. It’s rough and raw and passionate, imperfect, harsh and thrashy with parts on the verge of being swallowed up the sheer volume and ferocity of the music. Unrelenting, yet strangely beautiful. “It’s what’s missing from music at the moment” comment Mayhem “The mistakes.”

The unprocessed recording while helping express the conditions and ferocity in which it was recorded is also part of the bigger Clauberg Opera ethos. The band, intrigued by the output of the “Dogme 95” filmmakers, a group who set themselves guidelines on how their films can be made, set about giving themselves guidelines and rules to what could and could not be done on “The Death of this city” and then working to make the best music in and around this self imposed restrictions. Yet you never get the impression that any of this is gimmicky in any way or that the album is being strange just for the sake of it. The result of these rules is the most unconstrained and human recording. “We try to make hard for ourselves” they explain, “We tried to reinterpret the Dogme 95 movement for music. There are rules for that movement and people ask how can you make a film free of conventions when you’re setting rules for yourself? Experimental now has become a sort of by word for having either a syth or a keyboard player. I like the irony of setting rules for yourself and still make naturalistic music"

Another accomplishment resulting from the boundaries the band set themselves in an album totally devoid of any lyrics. Sidney Sorry and J Mayhem, through there bands before the Clauberg Opera had become well known for their lyric writing skills and decided to once again make it complicated for themselves by taking this element away. Far from revealing itself easily through lyrics the album relies solely on the instruments and soundscapes to tell it’s story. “We set out to soundtrack the apocalypse and thought of the most likely natural disaster, a flood and then wrote ‘The coming of the waters’. Most people don’t listen to the music they listen to the lyrics. It never used to be about the lyrics with Mozart! Then it was all about the music and performing soundscapes. In the last hundred years the attentions turned from music to the lyrics, so lets go back to how it was. We’ve done that now and accomplished what we set out to do, a lot of our new songs have lyrics which is the next stage” Winterkill is perhaps the most talked about track on the album. When the track hits its first peak it’s so severe you wonder if the opera could manage to play their instruments any louder or with more unrestrained, unchecked violence.“The best way to die would be taking it far on stage with the Clauberg Opera. We can’t get the violent side of us across yet, it will come across when we play live. It’s do or die. If you’re not going to go all the way then there’s no point.”

The Juxtaposition of corporate consumer jingles, exploding raw guitar fuzz and pounding drums is a striking element of the song and when the “always coca-cola” jingles gives way to what sounds like the heralding of the apocalypse it conjures up images of crowds rioting against the constant barrage of mindless corporate jingles and advertising, here showcasing the banal against the brilliant. You can feel the anger, the fury and resentment here. “When you go and make something that actually requires people to think about it, it pisses people off. It’s surprising how many not just negative, but violent reactions. When you put a coca-cola sample on your most popular song (winterkill), people don’t like it. They just don’t want anything political on controversial” There’s also little point in denying that it takes a while to get into. It hasn’t got the instant ten second appeal you’d find in your average set of rock songs. It wasn’t until my third listen that it all started to make sense. Yet the rewards you reap from persisting with it far outweigh any pleasure you’d get from something more accessible. Inside the sleeve the album carries a message to all the doubters and haters, “Fuck you, we have won” a bold uncompromising message to show the hardship and anguish in making this incomparable album. The blood sweat and tears that it took to bring this compelling dream to reality. “You get to a point where what you’re doing is more important then getting a reaction to it. You can make it like what’s on the cover on the NME this week or you can just go with it. Some people are going to be violently opposed to it and some people are going to be violently for it”

“Rock and roll on any level should be about violence, it should about anger and it should be about honesty, and that’s what we are. It’s supposed to be real and alive. We do what we feel”