TRUTHS & CERTAINTIES
November London Music Diary Part 2

So Everett True (legendary maverick British music journo and founder of the Careless Talk / Plan B empire – yes, I hate these bracketed career summations too, but it has come to my attention some people do not know this stuff) is doing a talk / signing/ whatever of his new Nirvana book at Borders on Charing Cross Road, and I’m there sprawled at the front feeling and looking exhausted having just got off god knows how many hours of work.

As an aside, I’m currently reading a disintegrating ex-library copy of ET’s *old* Nirvana book, ‘Live Through This’, picked up on the recommendation of a couple of good people who absolutely swear by it, and whilst I have absolutely no interest in reading another book about Nirvana, fuck me if the opening section is not one of the most impassioned, moving and tragic testaments to the power of music and the tarnished ideals of punk rock ever set down on paper – seriously. Like many of his ‘outsider’ musicians he champions, Mr. True can often come across as self-indulgent, self-aggrandising, clumsy, repetitious and just plain wrong, but never doubt that he’s fighting the good fight, and when he’s on form (and ‘Live Through This’ is the benchmark) he comes straight from the fucking heart and justifies the capital letter at the start of his adopted surname in a very profound sense. Shame it rather tails off into a series of workmanlike round-ups of anecdotes about getting drunk with every vaguely popular ‘90s rock band, categorised under headings like ‘pop-grunge’, ‘art-grunge’ etc... what the hell is up with that dude, when you started the book off so well?

But I’m here to trawl through bands, not books about bands, so for our current purposes the point is that Everett has asked some of his pals, the three polite and gloom-eyed middle-aged chaps who comprise Bitter Springs, to play a short acoustic set, and they’re alright. Comfortable, subdued, genuine. Frances Morgan clocks them in the new Plan B as “sounding like a big empty South London pub”, and I can’t really fault that. A good place to go for a pint of Guinness and a read of the Guardian on a sunny Saturday lunchtime, until you remember that the world sucks and your life is a ruin. Today this realisation arrives in the form of shifty skeletal figure who blows some mouth organ and sings in a haunted, cracked Jandek voice, taking things a few steps beyond the Bitter Springs man’s rather slick, drab delivery as they launch into a long, tormented number about burning down your workplace, killing your family and driving yr car off Beachy Head. Trouble a-brewing.

Now; Who gets my ‘show of the month’ award for November? The Thermals. What was the best show I’ve seen this year? The Thermals. Who are the best punk rock* band of the modern era? The Thermals.

It feels good to be certain about a few things now and then, and god knows, The Thermals’ worldview certainly brooks no room for uncertainty, so I’ll do them the same courtesy. After a show this good, there’s nothing to be done but to can this crap of trying to write witty, well-composed sentences, and just go for the big gush. So from a 1am email:

“OK, you **HAVE** to go and see The Thermals... They just played hands down the BEST show I've seen this year (and I've seen some good ones).... y'know how when you've kind of got your own perfect idea of what a band should be like in yr head, and when you go to see them play you're kind of aware that to some extent they won't live up to that and will disappoint you to some extent..? Well no worries of that here; they were just MAGNIFICENT... just a solid hour of awesomely powerful songs about everything that matters, blasted through with huge, amazing sound, energy, commitment, absolutely no weakness, no fat, no bullshit: in a tiny, packed room, kids leaping around, yelling along to all the lyrics; they played all the hits, and yeah, you could even hear the words!! It was as perfect as I could possibly have imagined.... like, the complete embodiment of Punk Rock and everything that makes it as vital as it is. You hear a band like this at full power and just think, well, why the fuck would anyone want to make music that DOESN'T sound like this?? As I think I said of them back when "Fuckin' A" came out, it's the kind of music that makes you feel like you can charge through a brick wall, grab the girl you love, turn all the guns into flowers and fly straight into space... Back on earth, myself and Pete actually hung around the back to get the band to sign things and generally tell them they were awesome... something I haven't done in a loooong time... :D . A big fat man jumped off the stage for some reason and smashed my glasses to pieces - fucking retard; people like that shouldn't be allowed inside buildings. But it's ok, I have a spare pair. Phew. I’ve Got to get up bright & early for work tomorrow.”

And I did. And thanks to The Thermals, it even felt GOOD, if you can believe that.

Recipient of above email didn’t go and see The Thermals.
Bet you didn’t go and see them either.
Your loss.

Having been there a couple of times now, I have decided that the kinda music / club space at the LSE Student’s Union is a really rather unpleasant place – it’s big and dark and it just radiates bad vibes. Maybe it’s just the dehumanising aspect of the stern, anonymous, huge Holborn buildings? Maybe it’s the steel-cold irony of basement cultural happenings going down under the auspices of an exclusive academy of fiscal scumfuckery raised from the ruins of 18th century slum clearances? Maybe it’s just because it’s across the road from my dread place of work? But if I ever drunkenly collar – what’s that guy’s name? who wrote all those dim-witted Ian Sinclair rip-off pastiche books? – oh yeah, Peter Ackroyd. If I ever run into him I’m gonna try and sell him on the idea that the room was once a place utilised in the ritual suicide / sacrifice of failing accountancy undergraduates as part of some kind of degradation/power based arch-capitalist cult of Mamon, or something. Some bad psychic stuff zinging around.

ANYWAY, before I get off the point, I went to this insalubrious place to see some kinda Ladyfest affiliated gig – had a good poster, looked DIY, might bump into some interesting people, see some good stuff, that sort of thing.

Opening band Wet Dog are the only act on the bill who could really be said to fit into my world. And they’re fucking great – an off-beat and hard-rocking female power trio riffing straight off the blueprint laid down by the Raincoats – great stuff! No violin, but they’ve got that “you call us ‘amateurish’ because we haven’t learned your rules, but we know we can play really fucking well” thing DOWN. In a way though, maybe they’re a bit TOO Raincoats… y’know, like maybe they are to the Raincoats what Franz Ferdinand are to Orange Juice; a 20 year old marginal style grabbed wholesale with the fun factor amped up and the rough edges filed off. But fuck that, it’s thinking too hard; I don’t think I’ll ever have reason to complain about a band who sound like The Raincoats. Go Wet Dog!

And so more people start to arrive, and in some subdued, deathly sense, a party is on some level started. Ladyfest? Jaded media twat karaoke bollocks fest more like. OK, OK, that was uncalled for, but when it comes down to, isn’t it…. hold on a minute, ye gods, what is this that stands before me…?

No Bra is the chosen stage-name of a tall, pale, fucked up looking girl with a moustache who stands motionless at the front of the stage wearing nothing but stockings, knickers and an SS armband. She speak-sings in a flat, nasal voice about the usual ugly sex / self-abuse stuff backed by guileless pre-recorded backing tracks that occasionally sound like Suicide but mostly just sound like Casio pre-set drumbeats. Why is this happening? Is anyone being challenged here? Or entertained? Am I standing in a room with people who actually see elements of their lives reflected in this sort of thing? Fucking hell.

By far the best thing here is the fact that, because this gig is happening in a student union, the venue obviously forms a route from the gym to some other parts of the building, so people in karate outfits or carrying tennis rackets keep walking past the front of the stage as No Bra performs. It is utterly surreal, and the funniest thing I’ve seen in weeks – all the more so since none of the intruding athletes seem remotely interested or taken aback by this strange, half-naked person’s ‘confrontational’ shtick.

By contrast, I don’t particularly enjoy Shimura Curves set, but with such innocence and fun on display, it would take a truly evil person to hate them. Four misfit-looking teenage girls with 90% pre-recorded backing and a few token attempts to play instruments, they sing sugar-overdose karaoke pop in a joyful, shambolic and home-made fashion. They have a lot of ‘funny’ lyrics about soap operas and websites and the like which largely go over my head, although some people in the audience seem to appreciate them. It’s really sweet when they try to do synchronised dance routines and all end up doing different ones. I guess I’m not really a big ‘pop’ guy (not in the giggly, singalong Abba sense anyway), and their tunes are a bit too lame and campy for my liking, and I fear there may be a degree of the dreaded irony at work here too. But I wish them well and hope that they have loads of fun being in a band and get to do some cool stuff.

That was a bit patronising wasn’t it? Sorry. Whatever has become of me.

Well all else aside, I’ve got to admit that headliners Ebony Bone kick one hell of a lot of ass. Consisting of three wild and terrifying black girls in full voodoo street carnival regalia complete with airhorns and rattles on joint singing/crowd-rocking duties and backed up by a pretty tight (male) garage-rock band with a devastating drummer… holy shit. The three front-women have more energy between them than everyone else in the room put together. They do a song that starts with a chant of “No blacks! No Irish! No dogs!” and then rips the hook from Delta 5’s ‘Mind your Own Business’ over recycled Sonics riffs. They only play for 15 minutes. Did I just DREAM this…?

Assuming I didn’t, then Ebony Bone genuinely ARE some kind of racially inverted punk rock girl-group from hell. I have a vision of them tearing the Pipettes to shreds Piranha style in about 3 seconds flat. It’s a subdued, work night atmosphere here tonight and obviously their set is curtailed for one reason or another, but I’d imagine seeing them on full form letting rip at a party would be a sight to behold.

Not that I will behold it, because I don’t go to parties.

I never have any fun.

People get scary when they’re having their decadent urbanite type ‘fun’. I don’t understand. It’s horrible. Whatever happened to the other sort of ‘fun’, the good sort?

Guess I’m just a miserable sod.

Christmas? What? – fuck that.

See you in December! Oh, hang on, it is December.


*Just to clarify: that's punk rock as musical genre. I'd like to think most of the bands I like are punk rock in spirit.