The band declared the tour is ‘a war for the soul of the universe’.
There is a book called ‘The Book of Leaves’ that, before it descends into cryptic horror nastiness, begins: ‘This is not for you.’
Which never put anyone off reading it; but people are put off by funny things. And despite one of the wildest bands on the wrong side of the Atlantic playing at The Cricketers, a non-descript Kingston pub, there are less than twenty people watching.
By all accounts their gigs across the UK have been ludicrously undersold, but The Icarus Line are otherwise preoccupied, declaring online: ‘This tour is a war for the soul of the universe.’
Dealing in souls and universes has made a fool out of a lot of people that weren’t Dante or Black Sabbath. Most people figure this out before they start. But in music the soul-market is a propeller to teen-girl crushes and the base of long-time cult adoration.
It’s what makes good music uncomfortable, and simultaneously obsessive. It’s Kurt Cobain’s sad eyes on a million Nirvana t-shirts, 20 years after his death; it’s Iggy Pop’s ‘The Idiot,’ the soundtrack to Ian Curtis’ suicide. It’s Joy Division and New Order, because while love might tear you apart, not even death can split up your band.
When The Icarus Line put out songs like ‘Don’t Let Me Save Your Soul,’ it doesn’t sound like delusions of grandeur. It’s a warning to the three deadhead fanboys lost in rapture by the amps that there will be no encore.
Too weird for the radio and too good for obscurity, since 2008 The Icarus Line have put out albums on a regular basis, making waves in the far-out department.
Apart from a ton of big-name collaborations, their newest album ‘Slave Vows’ generated ecstatic reviews. Maybe their claim to be ‘the last rock’n’roll gang’ is justified– a depressing thought in a barren pop landscape, but not an unrealistic one.
For all the romanticism of the Sunshine State and its myth, there are the spectres, a dominant darkness in yin-yang stories of vision, and visionaries. If it counts for anything, behind those cute sun’n’surf hits by The Beach Boys is a man serving 19 years in jail for shooting a California girl at close range.
That man is Phil Spector, inventor of the Wall of Sound, a technique that since its inception has made white-noise an art form in its own right and one that is deafening tonight.
Music has written L.A’s collective story, from the beaches where Jim Morrison once slept, to all the different songs called ‘L.A Woman,’ by different people, about different people, all paying different homage to the Sunset Strip and it’s freaks, misfits and mystics.
It’s this side of L.A that rolls out in epileptic blasts of light and noise and theatre in a brief set, whose songs are hypnotic, strange, rhythmic experiences that make Frank Zappa sound innocent.
This is closer to an auditory hallucination, a guided tour of the dark side of somebody’s psyche; for all it might be lyrically beautiful, it’s hard to tell through the knucklehead punk brutality.
Joe Cardamone, the group’s singer, is young enough to be a rock star, a real one, because being a rock star involves a certain amount of peculiarity of the kind that gets lost with age and sobriety. ‘Ageing rock stars’, something entirely different, don’t count, so ingrained in their status that they challenge nobody.
To be a rock star is to be a witch, as much as a musician—an alchemist who can transform a room and everyone in it for an hour with or without press coverage and notoriety. Anyone can have those things if they go on the right TV shows. It’s about holding a mirror up to your soul before you sell it, and not letting your audience for one second forget where they are.
It’s hard to write about The Icarus Line and do justice to them. As a group their performance is tight-knit but they’re so much carried by Joe. He’s got rage and a howl and no boundaries, with no use for a stage when the whole room is his playground.
Some people get their soul fix from spa weekends of deep-fried chicken, but I think that this is much better.
Photo courtesy of Sanna Charles, with thanks.
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