Pink Grease / Chikinki - London Islington Academy - 8/12/03
3/5
By: Samantha Hall
Onto the stage mount Pink Grease, in their own words, 'a loose sextant of ugly, emotionally retarded, freakish young men.' So just what does this neo-glam, lo-fi electro-sleaze combo have to offer? Bountifuls of white-trash, freakish monstrosity and 'Rocky Horror Show' (on a budget)-style madness. Let alone a transvestite donned in a Mickey Mouse vest, supported by a showgirl-like bassist, and what can only be described as Lenny Kravitz wearing ski-goggles covering the guitar department; never mind the arts and crafts king of electronics, and mysterious, shadowy-eyed one on the end and at the back.
Yet, following to such a hyped band as Chikinki must prove tough, despite a rotating-headline status amidst the current UK jaunt; in the strange venue upstairs at the Islington Academy (in a shopping-centre, no less), Chikinki have already proved they're far more detailed, ambitious and original than their single 'Assassinator 13' gives them credit for.
It's electric-robotica, if you will, with an overdose of sexual frustration, like a clustered group of peas in a retro, drum and bass-coiled pod; busting to break free, popping into the audience at every given opportunity, whether it be epileptically beating an electronic drum-pad or gyrating against audience-observers cooing, 'Right on...' Seemingly, the Bristol signature is evidently stamped onto this band in the form of their 'scratcher', himself hiding coolly underneath a red Jacko leather jacket and retro visor, dealing out heaving, teeth-gritting bass-lines that are key to Chikinki's sound.
Make it past Pink Grease's rap-star cusses and preaches, then, and you have a highly visual, stimulating band, one churning out more ridicule and 80s-influenced hilarity in a far more inimitable, and thus genuinely sniggerable, way than many alt-comedy bands of the mo. And if you'd offered PG up on a slightly tidied, trimmed popular-appeal platter to the music-biz nine months ago, then the likes of Electric Six, etc. would have stood no chance next to this calamity-humdrum from sleepy Sheffield.
However, Pink Grease do fall down at points, having simply taken the joke too far. Like the freaky school-kids that laugh at their own jokes, the bassist's random 'hilarious' outbursts start to drain and apparently appear to frustrate the rest of the band (especially during his onstage re-simulating of cunning lingus).
A similar, suppressed sexual energy is evident with Chikinki, the latter also faltering slightly in the same direction as their Grease monkey pals. After frontman Rupert entertains us with an abundance of sighs and squirming gasps, he breaks out of character in reaction to the humorous jeers of someone in the front row - breaking the illusion of the orgasmic-peak his facial expressions seem to signify he has risen to.
And, indeed, breaking the illusion of this cosmetic grime is the major problem with tonight. It is simply too easy to accept that it is all just cosmetic.
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