Culture

with Kurt Shanks, Robert Scott and the Doyleys. Re:Fuel, July 30 2011.


For a non song-writing instrumentalist, finding engaging and challenging songwriters with whom to forge and share a musical career is nothing short of a nightmare. For Ricky Maymi, founding member of the notorious Brian Jonestown Massacre, this crisis manifested itself live on the Re:Fuel stage last Saturday night. After a stint in Liverpool’s well-respected Wild Swans, Maymi has now joined forces with Australian Steve Kilbey, front man of the Church (known for one hit wonder ‘Under the Milky Way Tonight’) to record The Wilderness Years, an album featuring songs from unknown musician David Neil.
 
Although both the Church and the Massacre share a fetish for the psychedelic, their long instrumental jams both marked by a haze of colour and reverb, Maymi’s has a different role in each group. As one arm of the seven-headed Jonestown guitar monster, Maymi is free to roam, his brilliant, ethereal guitar lines creating texture and melody around the well-structured songs fleshed out by his fellow band mates. But as ‘Steve Kilbey and Ricky Maymi’ began playing to a meagerly attended Re:Fuel, Maymi struggled to find his niche in a new musical environment, the single rhythm guitar of Kilbey leaving him searching for inspiration in songs simply not equipped to deliver. Frustrated and seemingly significantly under the influence, Maymi appeared disappointed both at his own playing and that of his fellow bandmates, in particular drummer Shaun Hoffman whom he audibly reprimanded multiple times during the show.
 
In a similar mood, Kilbey also seemed frustrated with the small audience’s lack of familiarity and enthusiasm for his new material, with a vocal and intoxicated minority instead calling for Church classics throughout the night. That said, material from The Wilderness Years - in particular ‘Hollywood Ending’ - stood easily above most of the solo Kilbey material, its pop-psych campfire chords (perhaps tellingly) strongly reminiscent of the Brian Jonestown Massacre.
 
As the night closed with the groups take on the classic ‘Gloria’, the ambient mood of the night was impossible to ignore as Maymi angrily tried to produce feedback from his guitar, ignoring all else, as Kilbey watched angry and confused, clutching his guitar mid-stage.
 
A night filled with potential, but sadly neither the music nor the environment delivered.