Okay, get a load of this. Four great bands. Four! Saturday night. In Birmingham. How much? Go on...nope, not even close...£5! A fiver! You can't buy a Mars Bar (other snacks are available) for less than a fiver these days. Well, you get the picture. George Michael charges £100 to see him at the NEC (the most soul destroying venue in the world) and trades on past glories, these spunky youngsters sweat it out for your delight for a fiver. I doff my cap.
Lets Wrestle - Indeed, why not? Listen to their rough demos on My Space and you won't get the how good this three piece were in the flesh. Showing more ambition than a lot of bands (lyrically speaking...who else name checks Charles Mingus in a track these days). The Wrestle are what's great about music these days. Eclectic. Energetic. And proof that, despite Celebrity Fame Jungle Beach Brain Surgery Factor, music is alive and well.
Deadly Long Legs - Crazy name, garage rock heaven. As Childish as Billy and the Buffs, but looking like they're fronted by a 70's footie star, DLL could belong to any decade from the 50's onwards. I love garage rock. It's uncomplicated, unpretentious and untainted by much of the thick layers of gloss that's slapped on to a lot of 'modern' tracks and Deadly Long Legs do the genre as well as any band I've seen.
Kate Goes - I have a soft spot for Kate Goes. Having witnessed and enthusiastically reviewed thier very first gig I've left it a good while before seeing them again and am delighted to announce that they've retained the same sense of innocence that I loved about them then. That's not to say that they haven't developed. Vocally and musically they seemed stronger (as you'd expect after more gigs) and their guitarist has transformed from someone who looked a little like a geography teacher into a rock god (good work fella). Boom Shadilak is, I'm convinced, a number 1 record in waiting (you can listen to the rough demo at their My Space site, but live it's 100 x better). They're getting rave reviews from better scribes than me and, if they get the break they deserve, they will follow Misty's into the bigger, wider world and...who knows...
Top marks for the theme tonight too. Kate Goes tin foil...
Jeffrey Lewis Band - Seen Jeff loads of times and hope to keep doing so. He is unique. As a solo artist he is the very definition of 'anti folk' (if there is such a thing), but with brother Jack he is capable of rocking out to a quite impressive degree. No Creeping Brain tonight, but we did get the Hand and History Of Communism in China. Sublime. Each time I've seen him the crowd gets bigger, his guitar gets more battered and the drawings that illustrate some of the songs become more dog eared. If you haven't yet witnessed one of his shows you've missed out on one of the most special musicians/artists around. It's as simple as that.
All this for a fiver! That's why Mums go to Iceland...no, I have no idea why I wrote that either.
No comments:
Post a Comment