Anybody else remember mid-90s chancers Contrast? No? Lucky you. We had the dubious honour of seeing said nu-mod combo scratching at the arse hair of Britpop as support to Speedy in the Powerhaus (says it all, doesn't it?) many years ago, and, even bearing in mind our "see-any-old-shit" mantra that still counts as one of the low points of our gig-going career. Nonetheless, poor though Contrast were, we're still very much in favour of contrast generally, and, with that in mind, we've just embarked on one of the most scarily varied fortnights EVAH. You've been warned.
Of course, we might've known it was going to turn out like this. After all, we kicked off proceedings by going to see the lovely Joel Gibb out of our very favourite new band The Hidden Cameras as he did his first UK show at the Arts Cafe. Swish! He's a curious fish is Mr G, but we remain slavveringly smitten with 'The Smell Of Our Own', and it's a delight to see that someone's actually prepared to put a bit of sex - actually, loads of sex - into the still-too-frequently-buttoned-up-duffel-coated world of indie. We swooned a lot, as you might imagine, but you can read a much fuller report of proceedings here if you like. Still worth mentioning again, though, if only to remind you that the album comes out any day now. Joy!
At this point in the proceedings we were hoping to bring you our thoughts on the surprisingly A-Ha-esque glory of Keane, who we were planning to see at the Water Rats, but, disastrously, we found ourselves instead trying - and, let's be honest, failing quite gloriously - to defend PlayLouder's honour at the Scuzz TV RAWK! quiz (sample round: name everyone that ever headlined the Donington Monsters Of Rock. Go on, then. Answers on a postcard), the event at which all our Tommy Vance love set fire to itself, died horribly and crawled ashenly under a large and sodden stone. It's all too traumatic for us to go into the details (besides which, Adam's already done so elsewhere), so we'd like to take this oportunity to apologise to the Keane lot - we like what we've heard, though, so come back soon, yeah?
Thankfully, events took a turn for the less pear-shaped at - yay! - the returning PlayLouder Singles Club gig, again scribbled about here already. Thrilling stuff all round, as it goes; given that this correspondent had never managed to fit in two seconds of affection for Headswim, the genuinely oceanic operettas staged by Dan 'Swim these days in Black Car were an unexpected bonus to these ears, while The Barbs' fractious fuzz-pop and unlikely resemblance to a polished Prolapse and, lordy!, the Flying Lizards goes down a more predictable storm. And, of course, Aereogramme are wholly apocalyptic, even moreso in the flesh than on the ace 'Sleep And Release', and better with beards than any other band since ZZ Top in their shaggy pomp.
And the night doesn't stop there... Hell, no. For Friday night at the Monarch goes on later than ever before these days, and even once our shenanigans are out of the way, there are EVEN MORE BANDS. Oh, alright, there's Party Of One, who, in fairness, are rather better than their annoyingly poor 'Shotgun Funeral' suggested. Nonetheless, their fractious late-70s shapery (why, they're even a little like the Rezillos at times, and there's not much of that around these days) is to the not-liking of a massive number of people if the swift and painful exodus is anything to go by. Still, our sympathy only goes so far, as, in our musical world, there ain't no Party like an S Club Party, and this lot ain't no Sclubbers.
Anyway, Saturday night, I feel the air is getting hot, and the only reasonbale response to that must be to head down to the Astoria, where Calla are gazing lovingly at their shoes. Or are they? Disappointingly, we can barely even see them, what with the barely-there lighting, but we do know they're making a furious and fantastic racket marginally indebted to Black Rebel or, for older readers, My Bloody Valentine, only loads moodier. Sure, they're a ponderous affair, and their material, primarily culled from their recent 'Televise' album, might be simply the sound of a shadowy pout, but they're profoundly hypnotic with it. They're also the perfect support for Interpol.
Having first stumbled across them a couple of years ago in a not-full-enough Monarch, the sight of the 'Pol playing a sold-out Astoria's a wonderful thing, and don't they just know it. We haven't seen anyone looking this chuffed to be here since Doves a few years back, and it's the performance of their lives: Paul is in truly majestic voice, and charismatic to the point where he can even lead audience singalongs, while Sam's precision drumming is among the finest we've ever seen, and the brittle-limbed Dan is so sharp this evening you could practically shave with him. And the new stuff's ace as well. Result! Is it presumptuous to suggest that Interpol might be the biggest band people who're not that bothered about music have never heard of? Not on this showing.
And then the Astoria turns into G.A.Y. And - and we think we might be in the minority on this one - we stay. Whyever not? After all, it's an invariably satisfying club night, and, besides, Liberty X are playing. Wahey! And, trust us, they do not disappoint. We get, a little surprisingly, all six singles, with even 'Doin' It' sounding a good deal stronger than it did at the time, and all of the famous five are wholly adorable: Jessica's an impressive combination of sweetness and severity, Kevin's all beautifully booming voice and startled-rabbit glee, Kelli's a tower of Bond girl glamour, Tony is foxdom itself (his inability to not sexy dance even during 'Holding On For You' is particularly endearing), and Michelle is charming filth galore, even becoming the pole round which the others dance to 'Being Nobody'. Load gangier than we remember Hear'Say being too, and, besides, they've got 'Just A Little' in their arsenal, and there's barely a band alive that wouldn't kill for one of those...
But that's not the end of it. Oh no. See, the day before we came here, we got an email saying that there'd be a guest at this gig so special that she couldn't even be named. Blimey! Our first instinct's Madonna, of course (oh, please!), but, having also debated the possibilities of J-Lo, Shania... even, Gawd help us, Celine, we find out, instead, IT'S... Mariah Carey! She's an hour late, obviously, but all credit to her for that entrance... host with the most Jeremy Joseph asks the crowd to split "like the parting of the Red Sea" (ooh, the drama!), and Mazza gets carried on, dressed in what appears to be a spray-on dress and fabulous multi-bejewelled heels, through the gap on a giant velvet sofa by six blokes dressed in wings, boots and speedos, who get joined by seven similarly-clad dancers onstage before they all begin fanning La Carey with oversized ostrich feathers as she mimes half-arsedly to 'Butterfly'. Campest. Thing. EVER. And yet she's rubbish. No amount of stroking a pleasingly-packeted dancer with a feather boa during 'Boy' can make up for its utter wafer-thinness, and her strung-out, self-conscious antics (worrying about her hair after only two songs, reading the lyrics for her third and final number off a sheet of paper that she claims is "an old love letter", snapping at a terrified camerawoman who dared get too near her left profile - honestly!) do her no favours at all. Sea of boos? Oh, go on, then. Sad thing is, as the DJs have flagged up earlier, she's been involved in some fine records (usually remixes, admittedly, but even so...) in her time, but this is more spectacle than spectacular. Oh God - the Kevin Rowland flashbacks are coming on...
Thankfully, the Monarch the following Monday proves a far less embarrassing state of affairs, thanks firstly to the efforts of the Harpies, who more than make up in sheer NOIZE! headfuckery what they lack in conventional glamour. Very few songs as yet, mind, but they don't half turn in a brilliantly adrenalised exhibition, and, given time, we can see them growing into some bizarre hybrid of Slipknot and tATu, and that's a prospect worth defending at all times. They were meant to be part of a three-band bill, but, sadly, Elviss have left the building, and so it's straight on to Reuben, who, we're well chuffed to report, seem to be well and truly back on form these days after a dodgy patch where their early exuberance appearred to be getting sidelined, even splicing some first-album-Ash poppisms onto their robust rockery. Still fileable under "likely to", excellently enough, and everyone there knows it too.
Meanwhile, back in a popper reality still, it may not have escaped your notice that Kym Marsh is on the verge of returning, and, as so often happens these days, she's very kindly doing a showcase in swanky west London for assorted hacks. Including this one. She doesn't half look a little nervous at first, bless her, but that's vaguely understandable - after all, Hear'Say may have been flawed, but they were turned on with the kind of harshness that even Bush and Hussein don't seem to have had to contend with yet - although her new stuff's pretty impressive in, ironically, a vaguely Darius-esque kind of way (though that's an impression that might just be reinforced by hearing it in an acoustic setting). Plus, 'Shine On Me' is her 'Northern Star', and, variable though the Sporty one could often be, that's A Good Thing in our big book of pop bigness.
There's more to our Tuesday than just that, though, as no sooner have we finished up our complimentary canapes than we're scampering back to the Arts Cafe for Matt Elliott. Whoooooooo? You do know, actually. Particularly if you were on the Camden Crawl back in 1997, which he absolutely stole as drill-post-rocker extraordinaire The Third Eye Foundation. He's not quite as noisy a bunny now that he's going under his real name, mind, but what he's doing instead is still a satisfying and, dare we say it, intelligent collection of kitchen-sink-instrumentationed whatever-one-step-on-from-doodles-are-called; still not remotely singalong, but pleasingly artsy without toppling into arsiness. And he finishes on a Third Eye-style scree!whee!wah! blow-out, which sounds phenomenal even now. Yeeeeeeees!
Then, if it's Wednesday, Nag Nag Nag, always referred to fairly unarguably as London's premier electroclash club, must be going on at the Ghetto, and indeed it is. Now, you know us, readers, we've never been utter style whores, but we're prepared to make an exception in this case and, besides, Knifehandchop are playing, and we love their name, if nothing else. Though, actually, we quite love them having now seen them. They've got a terrifically slice'n'dice attitude to this whole techno malarkey, and they also bring a big beat-recalling sense of fun to what can often be a lipsmackingly aloof table, which probably means they'll get to, ooh, about number 48 in the charts one of these days, but they deserve better. Even if only because we've never heard Daft Punk taking quite that sort of well-meaning punishment before.
Heard the new Madonna album the following night, and we reckon you'll like most of it and completely love some of it. Yay! But we can't talk about it just yet, apparently. Boo!
Still, we can talk about what we did next, which was one of the busiest gigs we've seen at the Monarch in quite some time, which must have pleased support act the Moving Units no end. And, decently, they return the favour by keeping us on the chirpy side as well. Yes, it's all very Gang Of Radio 4, as so much is these days, and sooner or later this is going to get very tired indeed, but at the minute everyone new that's showing up is doing a fine old job of the punka-funka-chunka farrago, and the Units are no exception, with 'I Am', off the marvellous eponymous EP they've just flung at the shops, sounding especially nippy this time around. Plenty more where it came from too on the evidence of this, which is just the kind of news we were after.
And further good news! Hot Hot Heat, the only band we've ever seen at the Monarch after they'd done CD:UK, are blindingly great as well! We feel a bit daft admitting that, to be honest, seeeing as how we've had a copy of 'Make Up The Breakdown' for about six months without ever being convinced, but this really, REALLY works live - twangier than a shopful of thongs, bouncy beyond belief, and achingly good fun for all the family, with Steve scurrying around with a David Sneddon-esque perma-grin and weirdly happy hair as he bashes out 70s-Elton plunkathons over some coruscating rifferama. We're still not running round squealing "Album Of The Year!", mind, but on stage this is waving at genius, and 'Bandages' is far stompier than any song called 'Bandages' has the right to be.
Which just leaves one more gig. C'mon, it's been knackering just typing this - what the hell do you think it was like to live through? Nonetheless, one-time Single Of The Weekers The Rocks are playing upstairs at the Garage, so awaaaaaaaay we go. And, yes, 'Everybody In The Place' really is great. So much so, in fact, that it strides, colossus-like across the rest of their set, which scrabbles towards shambling glamour but remains hidebound by their enduring fascination with the glory days of Britpop. They'll do better, almost certainly, and at least they weren't so awful that anyone felt compelled to shout "Get yer Rocks off!", which must be the risk they run at every gig. Tell you what, though - we never expected them to be outclassed by Vic Twenty, whose 'Txt Msg' single is so twee it's practically made out of kittens, but they were. In fact, the Twenty, and we suspect they'll love this, come across as the missing link between Soft Cell and schneiderTM, while looking like Jo Cold Feet and Phil Hartnoll (the only musician who's ever apologised to yours truly for swearing in an interview, politeness fans), and they do a fine electro-fied version of Lynsey de Paul's 'Sugar Me' too. Coo!
In their wake come The Prosaics, who seem to be inviting deprecation with that name alone. They're similarly tentative live too, although that's simply an early-days malaise rather than being anything to do with a paucity of songs. In fact, they're a hugely encouraging stylopunk proposition, as might be expected from their friendship with The Rapture, and, while there's no immediate globe-gobbling track here there are several that are mere inches from it, which feels like a cracking way to end the fortnight. OK, so Pink Grease are on next, doubtless doing their Jon Fischerspooner Blues Explosion (yeah, they wish!) thang as weakly as ever, but we're not about to subject ourselves to it in your name, dear readers. "But what about your "see-any-old-shit" mantra?" we hear you cry. Oh, that. You didn't really believe that, did you? Honest, folks, whatever would've given you that idea? Oh, right...
Iain Moffat
COMING UP: Future Kings Of Spain - do they, in fact, already rule? Tok Tok - better than Talk Talk? And will we love All Tomorrows Parties with a happy atmosphere? All these questions and more may well be answered next time in... IT'S THE MOFFAT SHOWS! YEEEEEEEAH!
