Thursday 24/02/05 Handsome Boy Modelling School @ Jazz Cafe, London

Do you fancy taking your first steps towards handsomeness? Oh and it’ll only cost you £60 with your prestigious hosts, lothario’s and mentors Chest Rockwell (Prince Paul Huston) and Nathaniel Merriweather (Dan ‘The Automator’ Nakamura). They not only preach the gospel of handsomeness but under the collective Handsome Boy Modelling School bring a pantomime of eclectic genre meshing, slick production and ultimately handsome sounds to the Jazz Café.

Collaborators of some repute HBMS draw on a variety of friends and acquaintances alike to make this show like no other. It’s not only the handlebar moustaches, the mid set game of blind date or the walk on comedy of graduate modelling school students; like the penis infatuated Manfred Winters, but there’s also some music along the way. Although the majority of it takes a back seat to the quirky antics of Dan and Paul, there’s the the excellent De la Soul collaborated ‘If It Wasn’t For You’ and a particularly sexual cameo from Moloko’s Roisin Murphy. Oh and everyone’s favourite jazz elf Jamie Cullum also made an appearance if you’re so inclined.

With ‘White People’ criticised for promoting the tired ‘handsome’ concept, the HBMS live act also grows tired and fails to overwhelm. Posed with the problem of calling on The Mars Volta, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos and RZA to make live appearances, the slick production lacks presence and essentially a live element. Choosing instead to wallow behind their alter ego’s, HBMS will at the very least have you entertained.