Geeking Out With Los Campesinos!

May 21, 2008 by william alberque  Send to a Friend

Los Campesinos! have energy to burn. I don’t know how they do it. These performances must be exhausting, but I suppose it’s all still fresh, having only formed just over two years ago. Their live show tonight is a little like the Go! Team on too much caffeine, strange and wonderful noises erupting from a stage strewn with random toy pianos, plastic bits and bobs, drums and guitars. Each of their brilliantly twisted jump-along, shout-along songs fires out of the speakers at floor-shaking volume, with the occasional breathless break for lead singer Gareth Campesinos to say hello to the crowd. The upstairs at the Cat is crowded, and giving it right back to the band, with far more enthusiasm than I’d have thought after arriving at the club in the full sunshine of a beautiful Washington May afternoon to interview a member of the band.

It was then, still tired from a hard week at work, that I was sitting on a couch, astounded at the frank and direct friendliness of Ellen Campesinos; talking about science fiction, Wales, Canada and touring. She’s a really lovely girl (I mean, really, really lovely), but not from Cardiff. I wanted to touch on Cardiff and the great indie music of Wales (e.g., Teen Anthems and the Young Marble Giants), but aside from a mutual disdain for Welsh Britpop (e.g., Stereophonics), it was only Helen Love that this native Bristolian and I both knew.
Outside of Wales, she likes Sky Larrkin (look for the single, “One of Two”), the Luvvers, Johnny Foreigner…good lord, she’s a music geek!

“And, I’m a massive sci-fi fan. American sci-fi is amazing.”

Really, like?

“Well, I don’t want to say the obvious, but…Buffy, Angel, Fire-Fly, Star Trek: the Next Generation,”

oh, so nothing obvious, then,

“and Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

MST3000? Really? Okay, now I’m in love…

Ah, back to the music – I ask about the reception she’s seen on tour so far – she says U.S. crowds have been far kinder to the band than those in the UK, and the sales have been better as well. She recalls vividly the smell of popcorn throughout the building during their gig in Brooklyn, as well as great shows in Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia. Her memory of specific shows (off-loading through a drunken and still-dancing audience at Making Time) is pretty amazing. Not quite as surprising once I find out she was close to graduating with her journalism degree from the university in Cardiff before she, Neil Campesinos and Ollie Campesinos (did I mention they do the whole Swell Maps/Ramones/Pastels/Pavement thing with their last names?) started the band. And, it will probably surprise no one that none of them were classically-trained musicians. Indeed, according to Ellen, only Harriet Campesinos is a trained musician.

It’s odd to think that they wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Canada. Broken Social Scene’s David Newfield has been the knob twiddler from the start, and he can be described as…eclectic? He got to hear them for the first time when they attached themselves to the Montreal band’s Cardiff show, six months into their career.

“It was our sixth gig, at the Point, and Alecks dad showed up with a video camera. I definitely don’t want to see that video…”

A few months later, they had a debut single on Witchita, the label that brought you Bloc Party, and it was off to the races. Now, Ellen and the rest of the Campesinos! are bordering on stardom, at least in the States.

“I never imagined myself doing this. It was only the Summer after my second year at uni when we signed a record deal. If someone had told me five years ago, I would be in a band, I would have said, ‘That’s ridiculous!’”

Gareth Campesinos’ incredibly verbose spoken/sung bits make these songs work, so when he bursts into, “when you play pass the parcel with human body parts,” at the beginning of “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives,” I don’t know what it means, but I’m already in some kind of seventh heaven. They’ve just played the epic, mind-blowing, “You! Me! Dancing!,” and the wear of being 12 songs into the set is beginning to show. “Parties,” however, acts nicely as an epinephrine shot to the leg, and I’m dancing yet again. The set has covered the older favorites, including “Don’t Tell Me to Do the Math(s),” “The International Tweexcore Underground,” and “Frontwards,” all with the appropriate levels of unspeakable weirdness.

Earlier I asked Ellen about the debut album, and how that felt to actually have a full album to her name in the shops.

“When it came out in February 2008, we were in Amsterdam. We were so excited, but we’d recorded it the previous summer, which just seemed like such a long time ago. It was so great to finally have it out, and to be able to tour on it, finally!”

Early gigs, reflecting their DIY ethic, included some, as she describes them, “post-rock songs.” Ellen laughs,

“no, really! We were just jamming, and I suppose it was a lot more fun for us than it was for the crowds. I remember I was reading our early gig reviews obsessively, but after we played London for the first time, people were posting, ‘please drop the post-rock.’”

New tracks, including the debut single from the album, “Death to Los Campesinos!,” and the new single, “My Year in Lists,” keep the floor moving. Others (yes, I stole the setlist), like “Broken Hearbeats Sound Like Breakbeats,” “Knee Deep at ATP,” “Drop it Doe Eyes,” “We Are All Accelerated Readers,” “…And We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes in Unison,” are fun, but don’t come off live as infectious as the freakish fun of their earlier music. Still, it could just be that this is the first time I’m hearing them – it took me a bit to warm up to their first few singles, too (collected on the Sticking Fingers into Sockets CD). Besides, you’ve got to admire a band that has the audacity to name a song, “This Is How You Spell, ‘HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics.’” Easily one of the best song titles ever, up there with “I’m Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You,” and “You Are the Generation that Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve.” Anyway.

The crowd is ridiculous, smiling, jumping, singing along, and the band responds marvelously. Everyone’s having so much fun, and the idea of punk – anyone can be in a band, one two three, go! – is reinforced one more time, marvelously for everyone in attendance. There’s no crowd surfing, though. Ellen told me about one time at the Mercury Lounge,

“I’m from Barcelona were in the crowd – very nice guys, by the way, and suddenly they picked up Gareth and started surfing him around the crowd!”

This is a band that definitely brings out passions, love or hate, from listeners, but the high proportion of other bands they’ve become fast friends with speaks to their quality, in spite of the lack of formal training, and their utter lack of pretension.

Ellen mentions that she’s tried to stop reading cruel personal comments about her on their videos on YouTube (WHAT?!), but that her sister Emily serves as her internet angel, slapping down the mean comments.

“I can’t let myself get hurt, because sometimes, I read the criticisms, and I agree with them.”

Speaking of LC!’s fans, she is quite obviously moved and in a little bit of awe.

“I’m amazed when people put up pictures from our gigs, and post on all the message boards, including our band blog. They come to as many of our gigs as they can, and put so much effort into us. I’m just in awe of them. To put so much energy into supporting a band – supporting us…”

Los Campesinos! close with “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks,” and I stand at the side of the stage and marvel at the fun on display. I pause to reflect that I’m breathless from the relentless jumping and shouting that filled the past hour. And I’m hoping to spend more time with them, to meet Gareth and find out how he comes up with these insane lyrics. They might not be a chart sensation in the UK, but they know their audience, and they keep ‘em happy. What more can you ask for?

It was a good show. Hope you didn’t miss it.

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