Bloc Party - London, UK, Autumn 2003
By: Tim Dellow
A Party to Revolution.
Youth destroys the old.
What it replaces it with matters.
What it learns from it matters too.
Half an hour before The Strokes producer Gordon Raphael's band Crystal Radio (now Black Light) takes the stage, the room has been awash with the next generation of London 'cool'; kids who belong in Nag Nag Nag and Trash. A mix of spoilt middle-classers who do sod-all but sponge off their parents whilst playing the pauper - reading beat poets and doing degrees in Architecture and Art, swimming amongst genuinely impassioned kids who live this shit; fighting against conventions, the old garde, f**k, even the new garde - anyone who suppresses them and their quest to empathise with each other and to escape the everyday. Punk used to mean 'no future'. Now we have to forge our own. Quit complaining and start doing something.
Bloc Party are doing something. Changing music. Changing it into something they can relate to, something we all can. If you want a band to idolize and hold to your heart, a band you can believe in and trust then look no further. This is a band you can love.
The Buffalo Bar in Islington crackles with the excitement of being in the right place at the right time. The spokesmen sheepishly take to the stage, aware of their roles in a generation that seeks to rebel against the 80's gloss that spawned them. Artifice exists in their music but, as it should be, it's the oil that spreads itself across the deepest f**king ocean in the world rather than the airtight cover of a test tube containing mere drops of passion. Tight American post-punk rhythms and powerful prince drumbeats carry British lyrical sentiments into the souls of the audience, manifesto blurb about it taking 'Blood and Guts, Devotion,' and fighting 'till the ravens leave the tower' or 'I'm another body in the Thames.' This is the new.
'I think we're pretty aware as far as politics go,' states drummer Matt. 'The mass demonstrations in London had little to do with anything incited by Britain's current crop of artists. As well meaning as he was, Chris Martin saying stuff at the Brit Awards was not going to make people spontaneously riot. Only Judas Priest held that kind of mysterious power over people, but they cheated by having subliminal messages on their records and we don't even want to listen to Coldplay records played forwards, let alone backwards.' Maintaining a sense of humour despite the dodgy subject-matter.
'Being a young band attempting to release music is political; how can you get away from that? The musi- industry is built on the politics of money and its connection with culture and how governments and business attempt to represent culture. You can't divorce yourself from it; you can only choose whether or not you want to reflect that in the content of your music. I think it's a mistake to ignore it, to think you can operate outside of it. But we're not under an illusion that you can create activism out of music. You can only reflect what's going on, refract it. You can be the soundtrack to action, but you're in the wrong job if you think it's the be-all and end-all of change, of revolution. That's naive too. But we are a band with a conscience, like any good band. And we believe in uncovering and discovering, like any good band.' Adds Gordon, who's already up there with Hook as far as nightstick bass-battering goes, and certainly being more coherent than current politi-band Cat on Form.
It strikes me that their 'political' stance is not so much a re-appraisal of 80's rebellious methods but a complete re-treading of a revolution that has already failed. Bloc Party are different. While society feeds into their art, the combat appears to be more structured; against personal complicity and pro-development, but on a more humanistic level. And they don't preach at you, or dumb it down. Their poetry can be interpreted to form a communal understanding. You are one with the band, sharing an experience rather than having outdated, clichéd rebellion thrust down your throat.
'It's about staying angry and aware,' pushes Kele, chief-lyricist and guitarist, the humanistic voice that melts the Spartan instrumentation, allowing it to reconstruct itself in the mind of the listener. The Death of the author, and birth of understanding.
But if all this sounds a bit heavy, don't worry. It's pop music. And while some journo-wanker practices his bedroom interpretation techniques with it, it still sounds ace. And has tunes. And sex.
'Sex is a deeply subjective experience. For boys at least. A boy would be like, 'Uh, so I knobbed her,' and a girl would be like, 'His dick looked like this and he did this with it and he really liked it when I sat on his face...' That's why so many boys start bands; they want everyone to know how frustrated they are. Girls have fun with their sexuality. I have fun with their sexuality too.' Claims Matt, a cheeky grin splitting across his face, before Gordon pitches in, 'Rock is such a boy's game, it's ridiculous. 'All rock and roll is homosexual', like they say. But rock is still a good area for female musicians to break through and do things on their own terms. There's still a lot of work to do to even up the scales. Of course if I could replace the entirety of the band with women I would. Even myself.'
Appearances are also important, with everyone after them. Yet the band reiterate how they're not just joining up with the tail end of a scene; 'It is interesting you can walk down Oxford Street and see girls and boys in neon leg warmers and asymmetrical hair cuts.' Jokes Kele, the wholly endearing frontman 'I think it's mildly depressing, these sort of people pretending it's 1985, but inevitable because art, fashion and music, it's all cyclical. It's going to be affected by what those in power grew up with and are close to. I try to keep 'fashion' out of this band as I think essentially it's a destructive force. Putting an immediate best before stamp on you. How many of these fashion-lauded bands went on to have longevity?' Answering his own rhetoric with a barrage of forgotten Britpop no-hopers all-hypers. 'The nature of fashion is if it is ephemeral, it will change, it will leave you behind, it will go off with someone prettier. I want this band to be more than a f**king buzz band.'
But if fashion matters to the press, then they're going to have a field day with the band's ethnicity. These Eastenders (although, with nicely cosmopolitan accents as opposed to cockney slang) are a healthy racial mix. But unlike My Vitriol who were more or less signed because of an overtly politically correct marketing-scam endorsed by the 'NME' (the band consisted of two Asian males, a Caucasian male and female), Bloc Party clearly have a lot more to offer. Originality, for starters.
'Kele is an equal opportunities employer.' States Matt, clearly nodding towards the band's internal hierarchy. 'He'd have to be, otherwise he'd look a bit stupid. I guess we're what you'd call a shining example of London's rampant multi-culturalism. Good for us, eh?'
The absurdity of people's preconceptions is summed up by Kele. 'People can be surprised when they see us after hearing our CDs, cos they assume it's quite a 'white' sound.' Of course Rock music has nothing to do with the Blues and oppressed cotton-field workers. Forget Rock 'n' roll being homosexual. It's Black.
'[People] get surprised when they see me up front, not playing the drums or the bass, the singer. I like it; we are the only band like us I know right now. Which can only be a good thing.'
The band is buzzing right now. They're going to be huge. They've just got to keep it together. Their debut release was the statement-of-intent 'She's Hearing Voices'/ 'The Marshals Are Dead'/'The Answer' out on Trash Aesthetics, as A+Rsed by yours truly, 'Banquet' almost went top-40, still even before the band were officially signed, and their third effort 'Little Thoughts' on Wichita is a crossover hit in the making. Get 'em all while they're hot.
'I think to be punk today is to trust yourself to do the right thing and then to do it.' Says Matt, finishing up. So far, they haven't put a step wrong.
Artists in this article: Bloc Party