bor-der-ville bor-der-ville
borderville
bor-der-ville bor-der-ville
borderville
bor-der-ville bor-der-ville
borderville
BOR-DER-VILLE BOR-DER-VILLE
BORDERVILLLLLLLE.
Lyrically, it wasn’t the greatest start to gig I ever saw. Written down like that, it looks a bit like a football chant, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Staccato bass and drums, whirling keyboards and wailing guitar, I suddenly realised this wasn’t the opening song to a gig, it was the overture. Which is something I’d never seen before on that stage.
Last night, I went for dinner with friends and one of them said something I’ve heard a lot – probably the most commonheld opinion throughout music lovers the world over – ‘I don’t like musicals’. I’ve personally never said that, because I’d be lying, but I absolutely understand the sentiment. I’m always a little surprised how many people hold that feeling as a blanket rule because there are so many different musicals. And what is a musical? Theatre punctuated by song. I guess that’s too much of a live display of emotion for most people. I must admit that despite my not-too-begrudging admiration of the form, I don’t think I’ve been to see a live musical in a long time. I saw that dreadful Queen one about 6 years ago. That was enough for a decade, probably. But I have fond memories of musicals from childhood. I loved Little Shop of Horrors and Grease, my first trip to London’s West End was to see Return to the Forbidden Planet, which was ace and then, on my 15th birthday, my sister bought me the video of the Rocky Horror Picture Show – which blew my mind – but thankfully not enough to turn into a more formal version of fan.
But what do you do with musicals after that? It’s almost a lifestyle choice. I didn’t want to be a person who goes to musicals – those gushing, lovey, doe-eyed…. bleurgh. There’s an inherent naffness to musical theatre which has never surmounted the brilliance of it’s own form. So I stayed away.
When I moved back to Oxford in the early 00′s, I quickly got back into the music scene I’d loved as a teenager. I was always impressed by pretty much every band I saw. I actually relished finding a band I could dislike. One of the bands that I really didn’t like was Sexy Breakfast. They were so bad, I’ve mentally blocked any recollection of what they actually sounded like, but it was bad, I have confidence in that memory. Also, it was a stupid fucking name for a band. And… they were stupid. I first met them because they wanted me to direct a video for them. I found Joe, the lead singer, very creepy. He had a strange giggle that punctuated most of his sentences and seemed to have an undeserved swagger. He might have been alright were it not for his cohort Phil. I shook hands with Phil and immediately regretted it. I’ve never wanted to stick my hand into a boiling pot of caustic soda before or since but it was the worst handshake of my life. The warm, sticky hand that probably hadn’t been washed in 6 weeks. Through each pore oozed a treacly alcohol and drug sweat that had no doubt passed through a film of urine, semen and general cock-touching hand funk. I found him the most disgusting human I’d pretty much ever met. They both appeared to be coming down of some kind of binge, they were younger than me by half a decade but the bags under their eyes told a different story. Their idea for a video was ridiculous, self-indulgent and unachievable on no-budget. I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. I heard a few weeks later that they were splitting up. I was glad.
Somehow over the course of the next year, I made good friends with Phil. An endearing car-crash of a human being at the time, I learned how to deal with him, not to let him touch me, and grew very fond of him. He spent a while living in a boat with no windows eating a diet consisting entirely of slow-cooked onions. When you get past the shabby, bumbling exterior, there’s a lot going on. He didn’t express himself well but his thoughts were amazing and musically, he’s one of the more interesting people I’ve ever met. He’s always aiming for some kind of art or experimentation. He seems to have no desire for success or riches, even for a fanbase or a body of work. He just likes being around musicians and making music. He’s been involved with more bands and projects than anyone I’ve ever met. Walking away once he’s achieved what he wanted, usually before even a demo has been recorded.
He once tried to explain Borderville to me, before they played any gigs. It sounded like the ramblings of a drunkard (in my defence, it was…) I couldn’t work out if he was talking about a band or a book or a play. He kept talking not about the band but about the story. Borderville was a mythical place existing between Oxford and Cambridge… people were trapped there… It made no sense but the passion he had for it meant that there was no way I was going to be missing that gig.
They came on stage dressed like street urchins, students, gypsies and boat-people of pre-world war 1 Britain. Waistcoats and britches. Tweeds and silks. It made no sense but it was fantastic. And they launched into their overture. Two keyboards flanked the stage – the urgent pounding of Arthur House on stage right and the twisting virtuosity of Woody Woodhouse on the left. Thunderous drums at the back, Phil vacant-faced bobbing around on bass and at the front, flouncing, petulant, stomping and fucking rocking was Joe Swarbrick. A man transformed.
BOR-DER-VILLE BOR-DER-VILLE BORDERVILLE!
What band has the balls to open with a song whose lyrics consist entirely and only of the bands’ name? Uh… BORDERVILLE.
I watched transfixed through the whole set. Borderville weren’t a band but a musical too literary for the West End without a theatre to house it so frantically, magnificently, squashed into a band form for a gig setting. Musically, Rocky Horror is a good enough starting point but not in terms of subject matter. There’s a heavy glam content but it always avoids being kitsch. Joe wears his love of Bowie on his sleeve and there’s a Ziggy Stardust attitude lacing the whole thing. He’s not just a singer, he’s playing a part, maybe a few. Last year, when Borderville played at the church on Cornmarket Street, Joe performed ‘Lover I’m Finally Through’ as a drunk draped over Woody’s grand piano and it was genuinely funny and touching. A theatrical performance. But I’m skipping ahead of myself.
The problem with compressing a musical into a gig is that you lose the story. I’ve never understood what the Borderville story was meant to be, so was incredibly excited to hear that they would be performing their entire as-yet-unreleased album, in the correct order in a special gig on a boat. Phil organised gigs on boats. He also organised lunchtime gigs with free soup. That gig was easily in my top 5 gigs of all time. The setting of the steam boat chugging through Oxford’s waterways on a lazy summer Sunday afternoon. The music was amazing, the sequencing of the songs perfect. Great soundman, great sound, man. I’ve never been more excited for an album to be released. I wanted to own that set. I wanted to read the liner notes and understand. But it never happened.
As will happen with Phil, he drifted away to new pastures and Borderville went a bit odd. I would still kill for a copy of that album. I know they recorded it. It morphed into something else – as did the band. Arthur left too and it turned into a four-piece with the excellent, although apparently incongruous stylistically, Matt Halliday on bass. Be-suited and Be-quiffed, he ushered in an edgier dawn. When the album – Joy Through Work – finally surfaced, I didn’t like it. It’s an amazing album. It’s quite excellent. But it isn’t that album. It isn’t the set they played that day on the boat and I’ll never forgive them for that.
It’s amazing, though. Oh man, some of those songs – Blood on The Kitchen Floor, Flights, Short Sharp Shock… I mean, really it’s the sleeveless original cast recording record from the 70′s you find in a second hand vinyl shop and fall in love with but can find no information as to what the original production was. It’s Cabaret and Hedwig and A Chorus Line and student revues and burlesque and cabarets that you see and half-remember from old Edinburgh Festivals. A dusty memory of a musical you didn’t understand but enjoyed.
Borderville are now a different band to the canal-urchins of past. They’re the intergalactic, time-traveling house band of some eastern-European glam rock orgy who, having backed a procession of sleazy drag acts through a whole night of entertainment are allowed to perform their own material at 3am. They don’t belong to any venue, era or fanbase. A band out of time and space. But if you catch their show, it’ll be one of the fondest half-memories of your gig-going life.
They’ve just released their second album – a concept album based on Metamorphosis by Kafka. The final song on the album – Afterlife – is gorgeous. A beautiful ending to a beautiful unstaged musical. Part of me wants to grab Joe by the scruff of the neck and frog-march him to Cameron Mackintosh’s house and knock their heads together. Another part of me is rather happy that I don’t have to trek to a theatre and sit through some tedious drama waiting for these kick-ass moments of glam glory.
They’re quite simply one of the most exciting, intelligent and genre-defying bands ever to have come from Oxford. They’re completely unique, completely absorbing and fascinating and they’re real showmen. it’s such an unexpected blend of influences, combined so deftly and defiantly. I just fucking love this band.
You can stream both albums in full at www.borderville.com but don’t be a dick about it, if you like them buy them – Metamorphosis comes in some mad special packaging. It took me 20 minutes to put the CD back in.
