Sound City 2009

From The Fly

Secret Songs And Sonic Snogs

May 22 2009 12:00 pm, Joe Shooman

Liverpool Sound City 2009 is now in full swing, now becoming an established part of the city’s musical consciousness and a conference, too, in the grand and honoured tradition. Why, even The Fly’s own Liverpool correspondent Stephen Kelly has been giving it large, appearing on panels about the state of the music biz even whilst constructing some fine reviews that shall appear both on this site and subsequently in the magazine itself.

There’s quite a few of us Fly-heads here which gives us an opportunity to see as many of the best acts as possible – given there’s so much damned great stuff to try and watch, it’s impossible for just one man to catch em all, like musical pokemons or some such.

 

Undeniably one of the pleasures of Liverpool Music Week – and events like it – is the fact that you can wander around in town, wristbanded-up, and just follow your ears. In every corner of every bar it seems there’s music going on, from the likes of Juliette Lewis and Metronomy in the bigger gigs to a host of exciting upcoming acts like Peter & The Wolf, Indica Ritual and loadsa others. See our fab Great Escape coverage for a prime example of fizzing around in the company of some of the greatest contemporary acts of our - and any other - era.

 

And even beyond the 'official' lineups, often there’s quite some fun to be had. Witness last night, for example, and an absolute treat.

 

So, hanging around in the back of a gig in the Leaf Café in the fab new Contemporary Urban Centre (CUC) we were, when a singer and songwriter called Chris and producer/collaborator Rob appeared and invited a few bods up to the studio on the sixth floor. Grolsch was promised so obviously we were happy to accept.

What we found was a surprise but a very welcome one, in the form of an unexpected warm-up performance from a brand new band called Hallo… I Love You! The predominately studio-crafted act is bolstered to a five-piece live who purvey a decidedly joyous line in sweet, but not sickly, loved-up pop. There’s an indie edge to matters, of course, with live bass and guitar boosting the Moogs, keyboards and close-harmony skippy vocals, but I guess the word is unabashed. They were great and support Little Boots in the O2 Academy tonight (Friday) so if you’re around try and catch them.

 

The CUC itself is something of a marvellous thing – a reimagined old factory in one of Liverpool’s slowly regenerating areas. A hop and skip from where the new Picket is, this multi-floor marvel has three ace bars and restaurants on the ground floor, and above that dance, film, recording studios and loads of cool stuff going on. It’s really one of the triumphs of the city (or to be more exact the people with the vision to get it off the ground) and quite possibly the first step in a proper regeneration of that area. It’s not difficult to imagine, or to dream, that in five – ten – fifteen years time the area down near the docks can slowly change from old car parts warehouses and dingy factories into something entirely more bohemian and café-life-ish. There’s space here waiting for ideas and investment and with a little foresight it could well kick Liverpool up yet another level. Now all that useless Capital Of Culture façade is over, the real work starts.

 

And as long as there are people like Liverpool Sound City involved, the future looks damned decent from here. Bring it on.