Scene Report: London, Autumn 2008
By: Dan Monsell
It feels a lot like autumn slipped away from us even before it ever really got here in the first place. Suddenly it's now Winter. (I'm counting November as winter. It gets dark early and it's cold - that's winter to me) and surely enough the last couple of months in the capital has raced by with a slew of frivolity and musical happening of a really top class nature. Really, it's been good: we've seen some great things, been to many places and seen some great bands old and new. Here are just a few of the highlights.
[SCUM]
The beginning of autumn by virtue of taking place at the end of the summer, Offset festival was a sunglasses shirt off summer day out in Hainault forest (zone 5 east - Essex, really) of the type we didn't see all summer. An interesting and pretty art-rock affair, the East London Victorian crowd (a surprisingly big scene) came out in full force for this one, doing their best not to melt into a black liquid mess on sun-scorched grass. The folks from Experimental Circle Club (The Horrors and Southend's finest who are sort of daddies of the whole scene) tent featured some of the highlights of that stuff. S.C.U.M., despite being pretty ridiculous, were really enjoyable in a kind of P.I.L.-for-the-kids special way. The band's frontman a bit of a star in the making, that's for sure. No Bra was a German woman with no bra on talking over a backing track with TVs everywhere. She was awesome.
[DIE! DIE! DIE!]
Over in the last.fm tent Die! Die! Die! were as good as ever, running through the crowd and being one of the finest new hardcore bands in this whole goddam' world. Otherwise Eddie Argos's Glam Chops side project faced some of the biggest technical errors possibly ever. They had no drums or bass coming through the monitors, and try as hard as they did, with maybe fifteen people on stage including beautiful dancing girls, what should have been fantastic was ruined by the thinnest sound you could imagine. Big shame. Main stage-wise, Thomas Tantrum were not so shabby, but not so great either. Johnny Foreigner were a massive let down again probably due to big stage technical errors.
[CHROME HOOF]
We plumped for Chrome Hoof over Wire, who unfortunately just looked old and tired (Wire that is), and we made the right choice heading over for the 'Hoof. Cloaked in gold as ever, CH were as good and party band-tastic as usual, proving themselves once more to be one of the most original and interesting bands in the capital today.
[PETE AND THE PIRATES]
We've been lucky to have had some really great stuff at our Club Rockfeedback shows since we moved to the Camden Monarch in September. Pete and the Pirates once again showed themselves to be an impassioned power-pop band with their hearts in very much the right places, and killer songs to boot. A raucous crowd boasting Peaches Geldof (!) certainly had themselves a merry time. New signings to One Little Indian, openers Kill it Kid also provided the night's surprise package. They're a bunch of country kids and a vocalist with the most surprisingly deep voice for a small fella. Think Anthony Johnson meets Johnny Cash. These New Puritans in October also sounded incredibly good. They really do great paranoid sounding rock music better than many other new bands, and we love 'em for it.
[THE BIG PINK]
Otherwise Shoreditch's Concrete and Glass festival (see the couple of Rockfeedback TV episodes) was a really superb two-day event. Not only did we see a ton of great new bands, we also walked around and saw some fantastic art installations too. Pretty fun way to see the really incredibly exciting artistic stuff that goes on in East London, as you weave through it's maze of historic streets. Day one gave us The Big Pink, who were as early nineties as converse trainers, plaid shirts and the last big recession to grip the western world. The played slow, patiently building shoegazey pop noise that occasionally broke into loud crashing distorted bits. They're rumoured to be heading for some big things, and despite initial reservations, I'm not at all surprised - it's some cool stuff.
Wave Machines are one of the best new bands in Britain. There seems to be something about Liverpool (the Wombats aside) that does some to put a bit of soul into the bands. These guys make poptastic electro-pop gems like Hot Chip or Prince, but they do it with a real northern punk spirit, something they talk about in their tear jerking set closer titled "punk spirit". Go see 'em, they're great.
[DEAD KIDS]
After this, Dead Kids had a job to impress me. But when you've got Kingsland Rd's Catch packed to the rafters and a front man that is literally the most insane human being ever, it's hard not to instigate a few jaw dropping moments. They are incredibly awesome. They are probably the best live band I've seen in for some time. Want to feel alive, scared and re-instate your belief in the power of a great punk rock show? Go see Dead Kids.
[NEON NEON]
Otherwise October threw up one of my gigs of the year so far was Neon Neon at Koko. An absolute stellar live show every bit as special and seriously good as it is utterly ridiculous and downright fun, Rockfeedback danced like a kid who just don't give a damn, and only bloody chronicled the whole thing for Rockfeedback TV on the site, coming your way soon. Gruff Rhys, Boom Bip, Carte le Bon and newly added fully fledged member Har Mar Superstar understand so well the merits of conceptual importance meets throw away good times, and do it so darn incredibly well. Surely one of the bands of the year. .
The Autumn also spat out a few great new bands for me - here's some names to hear more about next time around: An Experiment on A Bird in the Bicycle Club, Your Twenties, Two Door Cinema Club, Voluntary Butler Scheme, Flashguns, O Children, Hands on Heads and It Hugs Back.
Now go out and buy some records: which do you want to remain when the western financial system collapse finishes, record labels or insurance companies?
Stay tuned for next report in the new year (November - Feb, winter's a long time for me). Monsell out. x