Young Marble Giants
27th May, 2007, Clyro Court, Hay-On-Wye Festival
For a devoted music obsessive, (a few notches further down the road than a mere fan), a major part of life is the cult of the list. We have top songs and albums for each occasion, top artists to go drinking with, top bands to hear underwater, in a prison and during sex. There are lists for everything. We are a secretive breed that has a network of contacts, like Freemasons, so that we know how safe we are to discuss the genius of Springsteen or just how fucking cool Serge Gainsbourg was. I have many friends who would laugh at me with ridicule for either of these assertions. These friends know nothing. These friends can still tell me what is number one in the charts. Or they are blessed with blinkers, listening only to lad’s anthems or punk or folk rock or anything with a whispered vocal and a pedal steal guitar. There is no glory in being a fan – that suggests something you indulge in during your spare time. Music to us is as a needed as breathing, as appreciated as walking, and as natural as wretching whenever Phil Collins comes on the radio.
Well, I am proud to say that my record collection stretches throughout anything that is good, that is the only criteria, and a few musical journeys that are less than good. Bad almost. And because of this I am one of those that have had to stretch the list obsession thinner and thinner in order to incorporate all of my tastes. And it was this Sunday night just past that another new list occurred to me. Stood damp with aching legs, a can of Red Stripe in one hand, in the curious venue that is Clyro Court, sited directly at the arse of the stately home that was the original inspiration for Hound of the Baskervilles, I was shuffling around this occasion in my mind.
The opportunity to see the Young Marble Giants was too much even for my lazy legs. The gig was billed as part of the Hay-on-Wye literary festival but was in fact placed further away from the festival site than any event in its twenty-year history. There was no shuttle service, no taxis available. The rain fell from the sky in sheets. Two miles from my camp site, one of the finest Indie bands the British Isles has ever produced were tucking their children up in bed, kissing their spouses goodnight and preparing to take the stage for what should have been labelled one of the most important one off shows of many years.
And the gig turned out to be as intimate as a practice session by a middle aged pub band. Stuart Moxham spoke over our heads between songs to the sound guy, as always trying to find that crisp hushed perfection that their only album (1980’s Colossal Youth) comes so close to achieving. So warm was the occasion at times I felt like an intruder at first but soon realised something I had missed all these years when listening to the record: YMG is all about comfort. In the cute unsure vocals and precise musicianship you are being invited into a private world, and it is all the more thrilling for it. They were hushed, perhaps slightly nervous, but overall this was the finest low-fi gig I have ever attended (and there was a time in my early twenties when I attended very little else.) The Moxham Brothers are masters of their art, sweeping symphonic bass lines and carefully edgy guitar parts feeling their way around the edges of the music. In the centre is Allison Statton’s perfect Indie vocal, sexy, decidedly eighties, it has that charm of being better than the melody and sitting nervously on top of the backing.
This was harking back to a time when true Indie music existed and the labels that made it up signed bands that were exciting, original, edgy, and wanted them to explore themselves rather than explore a market. This is how the likes of Young Marble Giants managed to create their startlingly poignant music; this is how Ian Curtis touched into his own genius, how I have the privilege to own records by the likes of The Popguns and Spearmint. The best bands around today are replicating this feel in a large shiny corporate oxygen mask. As Brian Eno has said, it is quite depressing to think music has not really moved on from 1980, we just keep doing Talking Heads and Roxy Music over and over again.
Which brings me back to my list. I thought to myself, how many bands would I walk two miles in the rain to see live? The Smiths? Josef K? Husker Du? All I know is that I was willing to do it to see Young Marble Giants before the gig, and after it, if they were to do this again in another twenty odd years, I would walk further.