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Fresh from the In The City fiesta in Manchester, we had the opportunity to sample for ourselves some of the UK’s latest hot acts, flushed with their success at the ITC 2004 showdown. The venue: the Elbow Rooms, London. The verdict: here goes...
Creaking tube and railway networks mean we only catch the tail-end of S Rock Levinson’s set, so to be fair we can’t give the fullest of reviews. But to judge by the incoherent mess that does pass our ears, consisting of fuzzy, indefinable guitar riffs and tuneless vocals, we didn’t miss much. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with dirty, loudasyalike punk tunes, but this was frankly just noise for the sake of it.
Following on are New Rhodes, and these guys prove to be much more realistic. With neatly interlocking guitar work that never loses the thread underpinned by a tight rhythm section, these guys are bursting at the seams with an energy that doesn’t distract them from holding a good tune. The singer’s voice even sounds a bit like Morrissey’s at times, which makes for a teasing combination when put into rockin’ out tunes such as these. Overall, they do need a bit of polishing (some more hooks wouldn’t go amiss) but this bunch are definitely on the right track.
Things are going well and the line-up’s clearly on a roll. Bands like The Sofa Club are the reason why people should keep listening to music. Of the Radiohead school of rock; this London quartet takes the thoughtful approach to writing tunes that works so well when done properly, which in this case it definitely is. The rhythm section is almost tribal in its intensity, the guitar work subtle and hypnotic, and the lead singer’s voice at times is simply mesmerising. An impressive vocal range and a tortured stage presence makes for the sort of combination that should have broken hearts racing and chequebooks flapping in no time. Whether it’s the haunting cadence of 'Motor Car', or the jumpy, jaunt of 'Company Man', tunes like these surely deserve to command the attention of the industry powers-that-be before long. If you care about live music at all, go and see this band.
Next up are The Paddingtons, from Hull, and with their carnivalesque entrance the evening takes a sharp downturn. Who in their right minds would give these guys a record deal, we know not, but to give them their dues, they are funny. The lead ‘singer’ looks like he’s spent most of the day standing atop a windswept hill, or at least that seems the best way to explain the anarchic mess that passes for his hairstyle. The rest of them look like an awful parody of The Clash, and musically they’re not far off it: they play the sort of lacklustre punk tunes that give the genre a very, very bad name (and we don’t mean the sort of ‘bad’ used to describe the likes of Jake Burns or Johnny Rotten either). As they stumble through one weak riff after another, you might almost be forgiven for thinking punk rock is dead. When their set is finished, we applaud like mad – the fact that it is.
Topping off the evening are Thee Unstrung, and the pretenders above should take a leaf or six out of this quartet’s grubby little books. This is punk as it should be played, with just the right amount of attitude. Jagged riffs and barely restrained chordal noise are the order of the day here; sharp, angular numbers that are guaranteed to hit the spot. They aren’t clever or sophisticated - and they aren’t trying to be. Playing with a breezy, arrogant confidence that definitely becomes them, they have just the right amount of disdain for their audience. The bass player doesn’t stop sneering once throughout the entire set, and the lead singer looks like he could quite happily take a piss on his adoring fans. Now that’s what we call punk rock.
Photos by Andrew Kendall
www.andrewkendall.com
