Monday 13/10/03 Dada Swing, Kaito, Erase Errata @ The Bassment, Leeds

If you go see Erase Errata on one of their remaining UK dates, I strongly suggest you don’t turn up too early. Otherwise you might have to sit through Dada Swing, a band with almost no redeeming qualities. Now, I’m usually the first to argue that not being able to play needn’t necessarily be a stumbling block, but Dada Swing are just taking the piss. Two of them drum, but neither can manage more than the most basic school orchestra tattoo. They’ve no bass player and the noise they make is horrible: shrill, clumsy and unpleasant. And they’ve come all the way from Rome to forcefeed us this drivel.

Kaito have only come from Norwich, and I’m glad they made the trip. A tight little new wave combo, they’ve got plenty of strong hook-centric songs, tons of cool, and a sharp delivery. Though at times a little too reliant on their influences (it’s probably fair to say they like the Pixies a lot) they put a lot of themselves across in the performance. Nikki Colk’s vocals are great, sliding from laconic coldness to impassioned yelping in a few bars. Meanwhile guitarist Dave Lake fires out wave after wave of space invader F/X. Imagine Elastica when they were still good (up until about 30 seconds after “Stutter” came out) with Kim Deal up front.

Erase Errata’s Jenny Hoyland takes her lead from that other great Kim of the US guitar underground, Kim Gordon. Her stream-of-consciousness vocals owe more than a little to Gordon’s militant growl. They’ve even made a record with Sonic Youth, bonding over a mutual Mariah Carey obsession. Whatever, the real star of Erase Errata is guitarist Sara Jaffe, whose scraping, spiralling lead has shades of Birthday Party axeman Rowland S. Howard. But where Howard had free reign in that messy psychobilly freakshow, Jaffe is out-manoeuvred by the frantic combination of Bianca Sparta’s 4/4 drumming and Ellie Erickson’s angular bass. Powerful and energetic they may be, but Erase Errata’s short sharp shocks soon begin to blend into one another. Perhaps if Jaffe were given more space to truly freak out Erase Errata’s music could really catch fire.