No Age, Male Bonding & Abe Vigoda – XOYO, London. 14/10/2010

Four reasons as to why I was excited about this show: The first being it was my first time at East London’s latest hipster club/venue, XOYO, and ticking off new venues one’s attended is always fun, right? No? Just me then... Well in that case I better swiftly get on with the other three reasons and that was simply Abe Vigoda, London’s very own Male Bonding and headline act, No Age. Unsurprisingly, a bill as consistent as that meant the night was sold out and the packed crowd were getting stuck in to the loudness and intensity of all three bands from the start.

Despite initially thinking that Male Bonding were the opening act I was surprised to see Californian Tropicana punks Abe Vigoda take to the stage first (that will be the last time I’ll ever use the word ‘Tropicana’ to describe a band, I promise). They played a set that focused more towards their latest offering ‘Crush’, with some older tracks to boot. For an opening act I have to give kudos to the sound guys at XOYO for making their performance sound bang on.

Male Bonding have always had their hardcore followers but this performance showed that the Dalston trio have come on leaps and bounds in terms of popularity, not only in London but across the Atlantic as well. They launched straight into ‘All Things This Way’ and continued the next 30 minutes with hits from this year’s outstanding debut LP ‘Nothing Hurts’. It has been a pleasure to see this band improve with each performance over the past year, with this show being apparently the loudest to play at the venue to date, even surpassing tonight’s headliners, No Age. The sardine like moshing atmosphere showed that Male Bonding could probably headline a show to a crowd of this size without their being any awkwardness.

No Age was, of course, the final act, closing their mammoth world tour with Sub Pop label mates Male Bonding. The chaos amongst the crowd began as soon as the Los Angeles duo (trio in terms of the night’s live performance) took to the stage. Beginning with a massive build up into ‘Life Prowler’, which coincidently is the opener on this year’s stunning ‘Everything in Between’ LP. Even at this stage the crowd were bouncing around in sync to Dean Spunt’s drum pounding and scrawling vocal. They then followed this intro track with ‘Nouns’ ‘Teen Creeps’, which received a raucous reaction. The carnage amongst the London punk kidz didn’t stop throughout an intense set that was dominated with tracks from ‘Everything in Between’. Being located by the steps on the side of the stage it was refreshing to get a decent view of the crowd going crazy, as well as the band.


From a musical perspective No Age seemed to drift in and out of consistency in the tempo of this performance and you could tell that some of the slower cuts like ‘Valley Hump Crush’ and ‘Chem Trails’ vocally sounded a bit off key, in a not so deliberate way. Not that the majority of the spectators cared one bit, and in all honesty that barely lowered my opinion of the gig but if I was to make one negative point that would be it.

If I was to single out one particular highlight it would be linked to a week that had been dominated by the news story involving the heroic rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. Spunt and Randy Randell climaxed their set fittingly with ‘Miner’, added with Spunt’s continuous chanting of “We’re all fucking alive!” and constant stage diving featuring the band themselves made it a really epic moment at a pretty intense gig.

Words: Freddy Rothman

Abe Vigoda - 'Throwing Shade' Video

Abe Vigoda - Throwing Shade from Bella Union on Vimeo.

Here is the video to Abe Vigoda's latest single Throwing Shade.

Abe Vigoda are touring the country in support of their new album Crush which came out this week.

Saturday 9 October – OXFORD – OX4 Festival

Tuesday 12 October – LONDON – Cargo

Wednesday 13 October – BRIGHTON – Audio

Thursday 14 October – LONDON – XOYO (with No Age)

And back again in November…

Tuesday 9 November - GLASGOW - Captain's Rest

Wednesday 10 November - YORK - The Duchess

Thursday 11 November - SHEFFIELD – Harley

Friday 12 November - MANCHESTER - Islington Mill

Saturday 13 November - LEEDS - Brudenell Social Club

Sunday 14 November - NOTTINGHAM - Spex Fest @ Bodega

Monday 15 November - LIVERPOOL - The Shipping Forecast

Tuesday 16 November - BIRMINGHAM - Hare and Hounds

Thursday 18 November - CARDIFF - Buffalo Bar

Abe Vigoda - Crush [Bella Union]

The odd-but-effective ‘tropical punk’ tag couldn’t have fitted Abe Vigoda’s last album, 2008’s Skeleton, any better: it was a humid, sticky morass of delay-drenched noise, wrapped in glistening melodic tendrils that seemed to recede almost as soon as they became fully audible. That it was still possible to detect a keen pop suss in there somewhere - buried deep beneath the foggy surface - was largely testament to a skilful synthesis of influences. Although that record still retained very obvious ties to the lo-fi punk thrash of their LA contemporaries No Age and HEALTH, the spidery guitar figures that skated across its surface betrayed a soft spot for the luminous glow of Disintegration-era Cure.

So when the follow-up Crush swoons onto the stereo, all crystal shards of synth and reverb-heavy drum hits, it’s immediately obvious that the legacy of the eighties has further wormed its way into Abe Vigoda’s sonic arsenal. Opener ‘Sequins’ evokes a sort of muted glamour, Michael Vidal’s vocals taking on an affected, Anglophile edge largely absent before, and the slo-mo pulse of ‘Repeating Angel’ is gloriously sulky, adding hints of grey to their usual palette of aquamarine and deep orange. It’s initially a slight shock to hear the sheer exuberance that marked their earlier music toned down slightly in favour of a more measured – though no less passionate – equivalent; the first couple of listens leave a slightly placeless feel, as though they’ve begun travelling down a new path but haven’t quite reached a solid destination yet. It becomes increasingly apparent with repeated listens, though, that Crush shares the same complexity and depth as its predecessor – it just takes a little longer to sink in. ‘Dream Of My Love (Chasing After You)’ cruises along at a brisk dancefloor pace before exploding in a whirl of hyperchromatic guitar tone, and ‘November’ operates as a kind of bridge between their early and late music, shifting gears as rapidly as anything on Skeleton but with far greater sophistication.

Still, while there’s no lack of the old Abe Vigoda on Crush, its finest moments come when they begin to explore new regions entirely. The album’s final three songs make for a fearsome triptych, both a snapshot of the band now and a hopeful indicator of directions they might take next. ‘To Tears’ is a shimmering slice of glam-pop, Vidal throwing dramatic shapes over an instrumental background that constantly shifts like a slowly rotated kaleidoscope. Closer ‘We Have To Mask’ is a slo-mo electronic curveball that recalls Bowie, but the album’s absolute highlight is ‘Beverly Slope’, which drowns The Cure’s ‘A Forest’ in an ocean of globally-warmed floodwater. Vocals drift quietly through the murk, leaving rippling trails in their wake, but trebly squalls of guitar threaten to overwhelm them entirely throughout; the result seems far shorter than its three-minute runtime. It’s at moments like these that Crush makes most sense, mutating the chaotic thrash of their earlier music into a smoother but no less mind-altering form. ‘Tropical post-punk’, perhaps.

Words : Rory Gibb

Abe Vigoda announce London headline show

With new album well on the way, the much changed four piece have announced a headline show at Cargo and two more dates.

Tuesday 12 October – LONDON – Cargo (£8)

Wednesday 13 October – BRIGHTON – Audio (£8)

Thursday 14 October – LONDON – XOYO (with No Age)

Abe Vigoda set to relese third album 'Crush'

Bella Union newbies Abe Vigoda created quite a stir last year with their second album Skeleton, an infectious 'tropical' take on Lo-Fi. The LA quartet are now set to raise the bar even further with the addition of synthesizers and much more emphasis on a broader production scale, Crush will see Abe Vigoda develop their sound in crazy, unexpected ways.

Have a listen to to hear how much these guys have changed.

Throwing Shade

Crush is released on September the 20th