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| The Windmill in Brixton |
I just listened to
Eunuchs’ Harbour Century, and the entire time I was rather overwhelmed
by the thought: thank goodness the Windmill “scene” is basically dead. For those
who don’t know, the Windmill is a venue in south London that spawned a “rich”
musical environment at the turn of the decade. Successful bands launched by the
scene include Black Midi, Black Country New Road, and Squid, those three in
descending order of critical and commercial success.
Black Midi started out somewhat impressively, with songs like “Near DT, MI” and “953” stylishly reviving Slint and 70s prog, and capable members (especially drummer Morgan Simpson) dazzling with complex chords and tight polyrhythmic passages. This band was the face of experimental English rock until their breakup this past year. And lo, they mostly sucked. They abandoned their hardcore pretenses after their first album to their peril, covering up the lazy, forgettable songs of Cavalcade and Hellfire with jazzy King Crimson-esque orchestration. Vocalist Geordie Greep boasts one of the worst voices in all of music: novel at first, it quickly becomes apparent that his singing is less Broadway and more Hollywood, or, even more accurately, children’s-cartoon-villain, worthy perhaps of a thirty-second tune but nothing more. His samba-inspired solo album The New Sound proves with insubstantial songs and terrible lyrics that he was indeed the heart of the band in its latter days; it moreover showed that he is not a performer, nor even a mere imitator, just a complete imposter.
Black Country New Road
was (is, actually) somehow even worse. They’re like Black Midi but without the
musical talent. While listening one cannot shake the image of some upper middle
class liberal arts students, each of whom played his/her respective instrument for
a few years in high school band, getting together to make something “artsy”. The
Slint-esque “Sunglasses” kicked off their career, and what is interesting in
the song is ruined by the “emotional” vocals and lyrics. Isaac Woods’ voice is “ugly
crying” incarnate, conjuring a certain tightness in the listener, like being a
guest at a stranger’s house while they’re in the middle of a fight. This group
also quickly abandoned hardcore stylizations, crafting instead long and boring Godspeed
You! Black Emperor-inspired tunes on Ants from Up There. Watch a video
of them playing live; they look like they’re all strung out on Xanax and don’t
want to be there, like they should be at group therapy instead, they look like
they smell like a hospital.
Squid is the only worthwhile band of the whole enterprise. They are original, talented, with a distinct sound and purposeful songs. Commanding, zany, and hysterical vocals, funky and unpretentious grooves, the tight braiding and carouseling of the instruments, songs that successfully articulate neurosis and desperation all characterize Bright Green Field, the group's first album. Their material since has been substandard, but still far more listenable than the other bands. Why were they the least acclaimed, the least fawned over? Because they were clearly the best. The Windmill scene is emblematic of British “culture” and its tendency toward favouring the thing with more veneer than substance, more façade than face. From the Beatles to David Bowie, from Queen to Bauhaus, from Radiohead to Oasis, they have consistently raised the impersonator to the top, leaving the true acts off to the side (no small matter, since many of the world's greatest bands are from the UK). Americans, on the other hand, tend to like shittier artists, but they also like better ones.
For the record, the Eunuchs album was very much like Black Midi or BCNR because of similar inspirations and instrumentation, and because it contained mostly forgettable fluff, although the vocalist was much better than either Greep or Wood. But this album, released just last year, was mostly panned, by critics and audiences alike, indicating that this false and pretentious brand of rock is officially out of style. Thank goodness.
