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Ex.Lion Tamers change name, play at Old Blue Last next Tuesday

Ex.Lion Tamers - Wild Palms

The wonderful Ex.Lion Tamers - fed up with Wire comparisons at every turn - are now called Wild Palms.

Here’s what Lou from the band had to say about the name change:

“Every interview or review mentioned Wire straight away, mainly because of lazy journalism. We’re not even that big Wire fans, we just used Ex.Lion Tamers as a name for our first practice about a year ago because it was the album I was listening to at that moment. We had a different line-up then with another bassist and Gareth playing guitar with Darrell. We’ve just never done anything about it.

“With a name like ELT you will never carve out your own space, it’s got too much baggage; people see and hear Wire before you’ve played a note. I don’t think a single one of us owns a Wire album, they’re definitely not a remarkable influence.

“We spoke to Colin Newman (from Wire) about recording a single; he thought the same thing about the name ELT as we did. We wouldn’t have have longevity - and if we were serious about what we were doing we should scrap it. The name completely compromised our music which is always the most important thing to us. promoters didn’t really want us to do it because of press and stuff but that stuffs nowhere near as important as feeling you have authorship over your own art.

“We changed it to Wild Palms after a couple of weeks of coming up with a load of pretty terrible names. You can’t force it, we wanted a name that portrayed something natural, primitive, visceral and couldn’t come up with anything. At the time I was reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. When I finished it I looked at his back catalogue and I saw he’d wrote a novel called The Wild Palms; it seemed right straight away.

“It’s a blend of two stories, a love story and a river story, entitled “Wild Palms” and “Old Man”. The stories alternate throughout the book; “Wild Palms” focussing on an ill-fated relationship, and “Old Man” in which a “tall convict” battles the great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 to save a pregnant woman from the raging flood waters. The two separate tales of a doomed love affair and the convict’s stoic perseverance against devastating natural forces compliment each other in their attitudes towards relationships, destruction and hardship. Faulkner used the dry palms clashing with the dark wind as metaphor for utter waste, sterility and destruction. However, it also brings to mind beaches and hands. which are both good…!

“Kind of went off on one there!”

Well there you go! As one of the best new guitar bands we have heard in a long time, with a distinctive sound all to their own, it makes sense to me!

The band are playing live at God Don’t Like It on March 3rd at Old Blue Last, on a cracking line-up including Offset favorites R O M A N C E and The Neat in support. DJ’s are GDLI, Joe Eakins and our very own Offset Festival DJ’s. And it’s free entry!

They are also supporting The Maccabees in Kingston on the 26th of February.

http://www.myspace.com/wearewildpalms

The Wild Palms, by William Faulkner

published in (1939)

A blend of two stories, a love story and a river story, entitled "Wild Palms" and "Old Man". The stories alternate throughout the book; "Wild Palms" focussing on an ill-fated relationship, and "Old Man" in which a "tall convict" battles the great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 to save a pregnant woman from the raging flood waters. The two separate tales of a doomed love affair and the convict's stoic perseverance against devastating natural forces compliment each other in their attitudes towards relationships, destruction and hardship.

Faulkner used the dry palms clashing with the dark wind as metaphor for utter waste, sterility and destruction...............however, it also brings to mind beaches and hands. which are both good.............................

White Bikes

Chained to railings

Chained to lampposts

Chained to their place of death

Translucent white ghosts

Left this world with a bitchumen kiss

Frame did bend

And spokes did twist

A bell resounds over noise of traffic

Traveling no more

Cycling no more

The wheels go round and round

White bikes fall down

The wheels go round and round

White bikes fall to the ground

Green light

Amber light

Red light 

White bike

Green light

Amber light 

Red light

White bike

Sprayed white bikes rendered immobile

White bikes hidden under dusty white snowfall

Darrell's Art

My paintings are based on a discourse of forms I have evolved, with which I employ to create the sense of a world-in-motion; the insinuation of a narrative helps me to achieve this. The narrative is indistinct as a consequence of the language hinting at something fundamentally human, fleshy and muscular but which never resolves itself as such. I arrived at this point by simultaneously, but with clear distinction, becoming engaged with the separate ideas and elements of abstraction, and of figuration. Gradually theses two entities have fused resulting in my current language, which is not a foregone conclusion but something that will undoubtedly continue to progress, develop and diversify. I use drawing as a tool whereby I develop my ideas, exercising and refining my current practice. These sketches become pictorial elements that become the catalyst for, or are directly embedded into the painting. My realisation of a painting has become routed in obsessive manipulation. I am interested in repetition and the frequent overlay of ideas, the canvas acting as a kind muddy backlog that can be stripped clean and re-effected. This archaeological approach I am developing at present enables me to sustain my practice and enable new discoveries within paint.

Darrell

(ex) Ex Lion Tamer

we used to be called Ex Lion Tamers but we outgrew it, it carried too many connotations of something we never were, and music journalists are generally quite lazy so we thought we'd make them work a bit harder for their money.

this is my goodbye

.......Brighton train station 3:47.......

-'station master! station master! there's a lion on the line!'                                   

-'what are you talking about boy, it surely must be a lie that there is a lion on the line.......By God! so there is a lion on the line over there on platform nine! we better call Mr Lime the lion tamer to get this lion off the line on platform nine'

-It took Mr Lime 3+3+3 minutes, which is nine, to get to the scene of the crime. The Station Master explains with increasing anxiety....

-'Mr Lime there is a lion lying on the line over there on platform 9!'

-'well what is he lieing about?' enquired Mr Lime

-He's lying! not lieing! screams the Station Master with blood-boiling frustration as the impossibility of the English language's subtelties dawn on him hence increasing the surreal nature of this whole episode

-'Could you explain yourself a tad more clearly there Mr Master? is he a lier or a liar? because i've never heard of a lion lieing on the line...come to think of it i've never heard a lion speak let alone lie... it seems to me station master that you are lieing and that you are in fact the liar!

in a fit of rage (worthy of Lucifer himself) that could only be summoned, by what must have seemed like, the eternal torment of the damned, the Station Master declares

-'he is lying! resting horizontally on the line at platform 9 is this lion Mr Lime! You must hurry because of the time Mr Lime; you see it is 3:58 and the train from Lyon arrives at 3:59 and it will surely hit this lion lying on the line in a short period of time!'

With this Mr Lime jumps on to the line at platform 9 to tame the lion that is lying on the line........but not in time...........for the 3:59 from Lyon hits Mr Lime the lion tamer and the lion lying on the line at platform 9, and in this way Mr Lime and the lion DIE..............R.I.P.

Helen's Exile

In shadows of skyscrapers

Trying to smoke a wet cigarette

Utilitarian monsters

Under your Ikea bed

Art for art sake

Beauty is at stake

In our Trojan horse

We fight for the cause

It's Helen's Exile

A child of disproportion 

Reason fades colours to grey

We turned our backs on nature

Ruled a desert and lost our way

European distaste

Beauty we negate

Chased by the Furies

We'll be torn to pieces

It's Helen's Exile