Garlic
Live at Royal Park Cellars on Friday, 23rd March 2001
Despite having come down with the latest illness to be going around Leeds, I still tried my hardest to wrap up and get out to see London's Garlic, who were invited back to Leeds by Panama Promotions after being witnessed playing a storming set at the opening Strychnine Lounge.
A quick phone call to the venue revealed they'd be onstage at just after 9pm, so my plans were carefully laid out. I arrived at the Royal Park Cellars bang on time, but actually managed to greet the first song of opening act Being 747, due to the night's schedule being severely delayed. More of Being 747 later.
Garlic can be summed up quite easily... Pavement. Now this is where the split begins and the room divides. There are those people who like Pavement. Then there are the few who like Pavement, but don't want to see anyone sound similar; finally there are those who don't like Pavement at all. Put yourself in one of those categories, and you should know whether you'd like Garlic.
I'm in the first category, and would pay to see this band play anywhere; in my opinion they are good songwriters and have some more-than-decent and catchy tunes. Their recent sampler for their forthcoming album is a perfect example of the Garlic repertoire. In addition to the four songs on the CD - all single release quality songs - they also have one or two others that could quite easily have been on there. Admittedly, their set includes one or two fillers, which failed to excite me in any way - but that, I think, is to be expected.
Here as some quotes:
"Fucking brilliant - get them to play Josephs Well!"
"Who the fuck do they think they are... Pavement? Terrible" said one person, "I like Pavement, they're good" said his friend.
"Can they get sued for that set?"
Ahhh, the subjectivity of opinions.
Back to the openers and Dave Cooke, former vocalist with Landspeed Loungers, returned with his new full band Being 747. The previous incarnation of this band was simply Dave as a solo artist, but this time he was joined by the Morricone brothers, Paul and Steve from Scaramanga Six.
To tell you the truth, the debut gig wasn't that bad at all and certainly didn't sound anything like the Loungers. Actually, Being 747 sounded more like Scaramanga Six with a different vocalist: the same organ sound and bass lines, though not as heavy nor as alternative as the Six. There were a few dodgy moments, including the opening chord of the set which I heard as I wandered down the steps into the venue. I hope that the wall distorted my impression, but I actually thought "Oh god, what's that?" Anyway, it was simply a minor blip, most of the time I liked what I heard.
Someone tried to create a one-liner indication of the band's sound, which deserves writing down simply because I couldn't think of one myself. "Imagine The Fall meets Pretenders".