Thursday 22/05/03 Blue Demon, The Sex Maniacs, The Plus Nomination, Ultimate Fakebook @ The Slaughterhouse, Liverpool

Merseyside is currently famous for the ‘Cosmic Scouse’ movement, a kind of weed-fuelled mish-mash of skiffle, indie pop and the blues, although its leading lights The Coral make it into a much more diverse proposition, the majority of the bands sound the same, and are very much Alright, If You Like That Kind Of Thing. If you’ve ever wondered, however, what a Cosmic Scouse band might sound like at 45rpm, with Johnny Pirate-voice from Cock Off on vocals, through the shittest speakers you’ve ever heard in your life, then Blue Demon are the band for you. Bringing psychobilly kicking and screaming into the new millennium, having previously disembowlled it with a very blunt and rusty nail, Blue Demon are essentially the Toxteth Cramps, but scarier, funnier, and basically much better. A testament to what you can do with one drumbeat and (nearly) three chords, this band are ****ing top. And they have a proper double bass, which is pretty ****ing sweet an’ all.

Next up, The Sex Maniacs offer a gritty sort of cartoon rock’n’roll, which suffers from fairly unenthusiastic delivery. Taking their beards from Hot Water Music, and their slight degree of tunelessness from the majority of hardcore punk, theirs is a pretty stodgy, stale and stagnant set, but the array of emo kids present seem to enjoy it nonetheless. There is potential within these walls, but they’ll have to cheer up a bit and get a lot more confident to achieve it. Otherwise they’ll have to deal with lazy journalist tags like ‘a hardcore Hives’ forever. Ahem.

Swiss import The Plus Nomination do little to raise spirits, despite being fun, endearing, and much, much better than their eponymous album would have you believe. Their crowd banter (“could you take one step forward so it feels like we’re playing a sold-out stadium? ...please don’t laugh at my accent!”) puts everyone in a better mood, however, and their brand of emo-spiked punk-pop is by far the most cheery sound of the night so far.

Headliners Ultimate Fakebook finally arrive onstage to a small crowd, but still give their all with the most pop-splattered display of Weezer-esque college rock this side of the Clueless sountrack. Despite being hampered by mic problems, their thoroughly personable demeanour shines through in a resoundingly strong delivery of old tunes, and new ‘uns from their new album 'Open Up And Say Awesome'. New single 'Inside Me, Inside You' should earn them new fans, but if not, buy the album anyway and revel in a frankly obscene amount of spiky tear-jerking fun. They’re still a secret, but for how long?