Ross Stranraer-Elking, Head of Reviews,
writes:
As I write this, my
fingers they tremble from electric static energy hanging in the air here in
Corsham..
Part of this energy comes from my own being, as within the last hour I have
had the great honour of being at tonight's already legendary performance of
The Bears at Chippenham's Old Road Tavern.
The
Bears at the Old Road Tavern, Chippenham.
Thursday, the 2nd of September, 2004.
Written by Ross Stranraer-Elking.
"To say The Bears
were "quite good" tonight would be like saying "the moon is
quite big", or that "the sun is quite hot".
If The Bears were the sea, we would all be drowned and there would be no
Great Ark to save us.
Tonight, Chrys
Jestico-Fear was the
very personification of true, ruthless Art Through Force.
The Bohemian Warrior King.
And as for Matthew James
Paish, he was totally cool.
Ice cold accuracy like an assassin with a secret to keep and a single bullet
made entirely of pure daylight.
He played the twangers, the dirties and the smooths like Secretfingers.
Matthew James, son of Paish, totally cool The Bears, valley of Swindon.
The World has never before seen such a majestic and wholesome blend of
foliagenous, velvet cavelove.
As The Bears started their set, I felt like Eternity could go either way; I
felt as if my destiny were a spider, treading the sharp blade
of the knife.
I felt as if my very being had been shrunken down and concentrated so densely
that I would fit comfortably inside the pure, white Iron Cross on
Jestico-Fear's
guitar.
I felt that as the windchimes clanged and hummed, the end of my life had
been heralded and my next of kin alerted.
This is how I felt to begin with.
I could hear "To
Bring You My Love" with a low, buzzing sorrow, which weaved its way
into the cracks in the bricks of my body and shook them open with low,
gentle vibrations.
The cracks in my life were open, like wounds, for all the World to see.
But I was not ashamed.
No, I was not scared.
As Jestico-Fear sang those now
famous words, in a low, unnerving but completely hypnotising tone, I could
feel the mountains looming over me, I could feel the seas beneath me.
I felt as if I had been cast down from the Heavens and as if I had lain with
the Dæmons.
I wanted Woden to come closer, for our time felt near.
The close of the song
aroused surprisingly loud applause and guttural, masculine cheers from the
Tavern.
I was awoken and now I was alerted.
Good thing too, for I was about to learn that all things are made of gods.
"Mr. Bad".
First time played live.
Very dirty, very rough, but quite effective, for it sent a high wave of
confusion through the barn as fast as the Speed of Murder.
"Mr. Bad"'s verses were blurry, dirty, and disorientating, but his
instrumental bridges were perfect and as accurate as a fingerprint; due, of
course, to Matthew James Paish, who all night continued to dictate the
emotions of the audience.
A handful of the audience were clearly discomforted by the effect of
"Mr. Bad"'s voice, and they escaped, like rats from the gaze of
two mighty cobras, and right then, I felt that I, standing there in the
barn, mesmerised by the beauty of everything I was feeling right now - that
I was a member of a superior race.
As "Mr. Bad"
came to a close, Jestico-Fear spoke to us and asked us if we'd gotten rid of all
of the morons yet.
"Yes!" I cried, having seen them leave with my own eyes.
Scuttling away they went; sportsjackets, baseballcaps and lager in hand.
I didn't care if they were off to drown themselves like unwanted children,
but I was distracted from this thought by Jestico-Fear's promise that it was now
time to start and to have some fun.
Having seen The Bears so many times, I know what that means.
It means Golden Brown, and indeed it did, but first, there was a little
surprise for us, the fans.
The first Radiohead song
of the night was "Subterranean Homesick Alien".
It came out beautifully, but felt less peaceful that the original.
The song had been stripped bare, and instead of the guitar sounding like
clean chrome, it sounded like copper pipes painted with dark red, peeling
paint.
It sounded much darker and more ominous, in a starkly honest and nigh-on
disturbing way.
The way the sound echoed around the barn made us all feel that someone,
something, was hovering above the clouds above and watching us with
telepathy.
Watching us from inside.
The others liked "Subterranean Homesick Alien", for they knew it,
but it made me feel a way The Bears had never made me feel.
It felt like a warning.
Fortunately, as always, The Bears had the perfect remedy.
It was the drug I needed to calm my fears.
"Golden Brown"
is a crowdpleaser of the first degree, but that is not to say that that is
all there is to it.
When The Bears play it, it feels like familiar, warm, brown syrup being
poured into my ears through a large sieve with broad holes.
Occasionally, lumps of Solid fall into my brain, causing a blip of
consciousness and a moment of pain, but immediately I am soothed, and this is
exactly how The Bears spin this song.
It is really an expression of Pleasure and Pain.
I realised this for the first time, about three months ago, and I have since
written an essay about why The Bears might do this and for how long they
have been doing it.
The following is an extract from my essay:
"I think it is much like an initiationceremony.
Through manipulating our senses and leaving us unharmed, when they could
have half killed us, The Bears establish trust and this brings us
closer to The Bears; therefore closer to their sounds, and therefore, closer
to their ideas - their messages.
Golden Brown is about opposites, but it is also packed full of messages.
"Finer temptress / Through the ages, she's heading West" sounds to
me like the contrast of Lust and Loss.
One may lust after a woman, but the more one lusts, the further
away she moves, and then, again, the more one lusts.
This song is about opposites and paradoxes; in some ways, our "Finer
Temptress" is the ultimate paradox; she is fantasy and she represents
sexual gratification, but she is also unrequiting and sexually
frustrating."
My theories were proven
by watching the way that many a young girl danced saucily as The Bears
played "Golden Brown".
I watched them move alluringly, but I also watched the Watchers;
This song is really for the Lookers.
In one eye of the Looker,
I saw hope, but in the other I saw a terrible look of anguish.
The Bears do that with these people; they gather dual emotions, they
separate them and they then set the emotions off against each other in
the greatest internal War of All Time.
Pleasure versus Pain; Positive force against Negative.
The hope, or course, is to ultimately become a one-eyed, objective
Being of Peace.
"Woden, come closer", as Jestico-Fear had sung in the first song of the
evening.
Woden, the Anglo-Saxon god of Wisdom, Objectivity and Peace, and from
this, Woden gains his Awesome Power.
Jestico-Fear has said before that he doesn't see gods as external beings, but that
he sees them as inner gods; parts of ourselves which can be spoken to and
used, as well as parts of ourselves which can be given the freedom to
protect us.
"All things are made of gods".
I felt tonight that The Bears had harnessed this Power of Woden and that the
third member of the band was the Anglo-Saxon god himself.
Later, I spotted the "Os", the Nordic Rune which represents Woden,
Wisdom and Communication, cut into the pendulum of Jestico-Fear 's windchime.
Jestico-Fear likes his unusual decoration, but his subtle decision to display this
Rune onstage is really a reference to the harnessing of the power to
communicate;
Communication is, after all, what The Bears are about.
Next on the script was a
little break from the pressures of the previous pieces.
"Brimful of Asha" is really nothing more than a pop song, slowed
down, and turned into pure, meaningless musical sound.
For this reason, a mist of euphoria rose up in our hearts and The Bears gave
us all a chance to let go of excessive energy.
Some took the opportunity to dance, others to clap, and some even shouted
and chanted.
Others, like The Bears, let smiles beam from their faces like basketsunshine.
After a brief technical
hitch, in which the microphone plug partially removed itself from the
socket, baffling both Matthew James and Jestico-Fear for nearly two minutes whilst
they erroneously traced the microphone's wire to Matthew James's
guitar, before finding the true plug and making sure it was all the way in,
The Bears played their second Radiohead cover of the night; "You And
Whose Army?".
It would be a lie to say that this piece was not amazing.
Matthew James was melodic, melancholy, and his gentle strumming took our
aggression down to a level which took us within an inch of our lives.
The highlight of the song, and one of the highlights of the whole night was
when Jestico-Fear revealed two handbells from behind a roadsign reading simply
"FLOODS" and rang these bells loudly in time with the music;
it created a very atmospheric feeling of village emergency.
He then played his guitar with the smaller of the two, like a small,
brass, percussive plectrum.
The original script was
ended with "Bundesdrögen", which was very nice because I have
never seen The Bears close with it.
It was great; short, punchy, dirty, and clearly very well rehearsed.
The Bears can't go wrong with this song, and it's encouraging to see "Bundesdrögen"
taking on a life of its own.
The second verse is almost never sung any more, and it has become a largely
instrumental piece which is simply introduced with words in the first verse.
I personally think that the "Bundesdrögen" music has a voice of
its own, and I have for a while felt that the original lyrics interfere with
its natural rhythms.
At the close of the
song, Jestico-Fear announced that it was the end, but the audience were very
enthusiastic for one more song, so The Bears played a straight version of
"Paranoid Android" to much cheer.
The Bears left the Tavern tonight victorious, encouraged, and visibly a
different band to that which we saw over a year ago at the Corsham
Alternative Festival.
In those days, The Bears were a fusion of mediaeval folk, pine-wooden
schoolhall psychedelic fuzz and controlled aggression, but still the
dedicated disciples of Bohemian art that they are today.
These days, The Bears are cool, old professionals of the experimental world.
They are too familiar to the heart to be described as "avant-garde",
but they are too different to fit comfortably into any other genre.
For the time being, The Bears are still happy to be known as an
"experimental two-piece", as I heard them quite poetically
described afterwards by a member of the audience who had no prior knowledge
of The Bears.
The Bears' strength
is still their power to communicate the philosophy of musical expression;
flawlessly exhibiting how they believe music should be, what it should do,
and what it definitely should not be.
They also entertain better than ever; there is a confidence with them now
which has clearly developed over the last year.
The Bears are no longer worried whether or not they will be understood; no,
they know they will be by some, but not by others, and this does not worry
them anymore.
The Bears would be as comfortable with their art if the World worshipped
them as they would be if only they liked their work.
There is an overwhelming atmosphere about The Bears now, and it stems from
the knowledge that they know truth.
We can expect more
appearances like tonight's in the near future, and as ever, The Bears' World
is becoming increasingly clear and this makes their future very bright
indeed.
- Ross Stranraer-Elking.
2nd of September, 2004 CE.