Report: rockfeedback Vs Queens Of Noize - 15/4/05 + The Basement Club #26 - 28/4/05
By: Toby L
Lecherous lurches; you can't get enough. Thanks to all those that crammed rockfeedback's two most recent live outings.
First up was mid-April's spring bash at Camden den, the Barfly, a hi-jack from the infamous DJ-ing/drunken duo, Queens Of Noize. We shoved our writing cronies on the decks - Miss Goldierocks (or Sam Hall, to the uninitiated); Captain Kevin Molloy; and Monsieurs Beamon 65 and The Hellion; plus - on the stage upstairs - two fertile new live talents that have seized London from the scruff of its neck.
Inaugurating proceedings, mature brood-poppers, burningpilot. Yes, Burning Pilot: lower-case with no gap in between. Don't you forget it. On this display, though, how could you? They plough the depths of many a musical-clatter from several past aeons and meld it into a loving retro-nouveau stomp that immediately arrests the ears, and hips, whilst vocalist Mike/Channel #3 sneers and slurs like a delirious amalgam of Mark E Smith and Jarvis Cocker. He's droller and more abrupt than your grandparents.
But that doesn't stop a flurry of infectious indie-anthem grooves flooding the PA with some superlative aplomb - 'Can't Kid A Kidder' (their instant sell-out, cult debut on Transgressive) gets us hopping, 'Stay Cool' implores us to become just that, with its sassy bass fumblings and jagged guitar-scrapes, and 'Two Words, Two Syllables' is a ska-fuelled, Stranglers-keys-squealing skank-along. It's early days, mind, but more tunes such as these (and that includes the deliriously catchy 'Hang On Jester' and irresistible, whirring, electro-dosed closer 'Accelerate'), and we may have some new and seriously moody demigods to behold.
More blatantly euphoric, comparatively, are The Noisettes; Croydon's most recent, and substantial, success story. They've just signed to Interscope and Universal-Island worldwide, are due to record a debut album in LA in the coming weeks, and include three individuals so in tune with one another, to watch their musicality unfurl, and their hands and figures weave in time to the implicitly diverse aural array, is a blessing.
They send us wild like few others do. When they rock (the ending 'Don't Give Up'), the audience at the front descends into a mob-handed mosh-a-thon, battering all in sight. When they soothe (the lilting chords of 'Monte Christo'), we sway and somehow mouth the words to a song we've only just heard for the first time. And when they combine the two ('Signs'), well, then you guess the rest. It's the sheer knack of one solitary guitar, a stripped-back kit, cautiously executed octave-pedals, and a frontwoman so drenched in her own sense of performance (Shingai Shinawa) that we're left gasping for oxygen at the end. She bellows! She screams! She plays occasional guitar and bass! She climbs (the PA-stack)! She makes us moisten our undergarments! Behold. After forty-plus minutes, we skulk to the exit as if something very important has just occurred, and we're still trying desperately, weakly to fathom it.
Before several more hours of dancing (prompted in part by an earlier disc-session from new 679 triumphant, Mystery Jets, who treat the rockfeedback crowd to a smattering of Patrick Wolf, their own new single 'On My Feet', and Talking Heads), we get harassed by a group of drunken birthday boys (pictured) that threaten to lamp us if we'd fail to publish an image of their portly exteriors, lose our dignity in the toilets, and then send off disc-jockey/scribe Kevin Molloy home early because he's too pissed to stand. It's a good one.
As is The Basement Club, which occurs a fortnight later at our regular hovel, the Highbury Buffalo Bar. It's emotional.
For, returning valiant, are last year's unsigned residents, The Magic Numbers. Since signed to EMI, since having sold out a limited-edition/Ebay pot o' gold, debut 45, 'Hymn For Her', and since pretty much absorbing a lion's share of the British media's press and radio space in the last six months, they've become the country's most sought-after new band - surely, the only group in recent history to sell almost 2,000 of their tickets to an upcoming, headline show at the Kentish Town Forum off the back of just word-of-mouth?
That they'll be massive isn't to be disputed. Tonight, they're already that. Due to venue kerfuffles and shuffles, we open later, and the queue stretches around the corner. Prior Basement-er Kele from Bloc Party has been waiting patiently, as has modern-legend type Nick Hornby, and they're mesmerised by the impending display, along with a further 150 of you. Apologies, sincerely, to all those, however, that had troubles getting in. Thanks to those that waited and eventually found their way inside.
First up were Sweden's The Shout Out Louds; a rich and vivid series of gently orchestral, twee pop tunes rife with wistful vigour and vavoom. And alongside boy/girl, cutesy vocals and spiralling keys, this was warming indie at its most doting and affecting - yet how could it be anything else; songs included 'Sweetheart' and 'Seagull'. With titles such as those, it was hardly going to be death-metal, was it. Lingering, longing and heartfelt, the fact they couldn't hear barely anything onstage seemed to escape our attention; too drenched were we in what we selfishly heard: a timeless backdrop of drippingly classic tune-mustering. Scream for the Shout Outs.
And holler for the Numbers. Which you seemed to do every five seconds. The Magic's aren't a group you can contain excitement for, seemingly; even from the really-rather-bleak trudging of an opening 'The Mule', you're jubilant. Let alone the rest of the planned six songs - namely, a beguiling 'I See You, You See Me' (first debuted at the very same club almost exactly twelve months back), a mammoth 'Don't Give Up The Fight' and Noel Gallagher-approved 'Motown classic', 'Love's A Game'.
Then it goes a bit all over tha place. In a beautiful sense. We get treated to a melting cover of 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' - harmonies abound - plus a frantic 'Morning's Eleven' (usually the set-closer - but, tonight, not so), the smashing 'Wheels On Fire', plus an unplanned encore of a new song the band had only written several hours before the gig. And a further countryfied belter that, when rehearsed in soundcheck, had us all pissing ourselves. Yet, this evening, testament to the band's warming genii, it was sublime.
Sweets dreams are made of this. All this. If only it weren't for the (music-less) breakdancing at the end from some show-off upstart, it'd have been idyllic. To the performers, attendees, bar-staff, venues and the power of the cosmos... thank thee.
Photo-Credit: Patricia L Brown