MENEGUAR + PRE + RYAN JEWELL + SPIN SPIN THE DOGS
Old Blue Last, E1
23rd September 2007 8:00pm

So I’m finally here. It’s ever so refreshing to live somewhere where things actually happen, you can find bands playing and good places to buy records and then be able to get home without running to catch the last train at 9pm. I’m studying at Goldsmiths, University of London and I’ll be based in New Cross for the next year or so at least; if you’re in the area and have a band that has the ability to make me shake my head and smirk intensely, then I’ll be looking out for you in the coming days and weeks.

Last night was the first gig in the smoke for me, in a venue saturated with hipster connotations. Anything that’s owned by Vice is going to give you the fear that you’ll be surrounded by pretentious fucks who sing in really bad bands. I got there to find that wasn’t entirely the case, and upstairs is a nice and cozy place to watch people. I had come for Meneguar without any real prior knowledge of what to expect from the others, but I held a bit of hope that they’d be good - and it’s UTR and they seem to know what’s what. Most of the time!

So in we go. First band on the bill were Spin Spin The Dogs, a band whose frontman Vincent Larkin was a cross between Mark E Smith, Frank Sidebottom and a child with a very short attention span. Between getting tangled in the microphones and crawling underneath the stage, he flails around the venue and spits out musings about all kinds of bollocks amongst a musical backdrop of slightly noisy post-punk leanings produced by an almost bemused looking band with a guitarist who has Thurston Moore syndrome. I guess you could call them eccentric and rather British, but you could also describe them as utter mentalists. The set climaxed with Larkin crouched on the floor, before getting up to plug their record for the seventh time, which I suppose is fair. They left me with a big sodding grin on my face, to say the least, although I doubt that their 10″ offering ‘Cats’ will be a fair document of this band’s capabilities. That and I was promised a kiss if I bought it, but it was never delivered…

Ryan Jewell is something else entirely, the wildcard entry in this lineup of off-centre indie noise punk rock collectives that are to come. He’s that kind of experimental musician that I’ve only really heard examples of in the past few months (amongst other things; did I really say in May that I didn’t get hardcore? Eeh. If anyone from FU is listening, which they aren’t, please tour again very soon and drag Pissed Jeans with you. It’d be the greatest gig of all time. Right? Good. Let’s carry on) through areas such as The Wire and whatever Tight Meat Duo things I’ve stolen from people’s hard drives. After chatting to him and his friend it didn’t quite click what he would end up producing, and it blew my little Futureheads-still-worshiping mind. The set comprised of Jewell developing a sound through resonance and a violin bow and various electronics and made it grow and grow and grow and BAM he goes. I’ll leave my cameraphone to explain further (see below). He’s playing on October 5th and I think the 6th; if you want to find something befuddlingly enthralling you should totally come. Watch his performance by clicking here.

After that we return to something that you’d expect playing the OBL: PRE, who were very loud and very high pitched. Respect for the two bass players, amps set to POUND YERR EARDRUMS while a Japanese girl shrieks about how fucking is fun really quickly in songs that last no longer than two minutes. They must have been on for only half an hour but packed a fuckload of tunes. The most immediate comparisons I can muster are Mika Miko played at 45 instead of 33 with the bass setting on ‘gravel’, or “hang on, isn’t this just another Comanechi?”. Fun fun fun to watch, but considering I can’t really decipher one song from another the day afterwards is telling telling tellingggg.

Besides, I was busy being proper stoked for the main attraction. Meneguar, as I’ve said before, could totally be huge. They play really energetic indie rock that you can sing along to, and yet their fanbase isn’t huge and is mostly consisted of people who you don’t want to punch. If they were all over the NME or something then the cunts who wear red trousers from Topman and sing ‘Two Lovers’ down the road, the suburban hipster hoardes who are essentially all the same and who I’ve managed to escape from…that sounded a bit elitist, didn’t it?

That said, I was talking to two people on the tube home and they were surprised about how the crowd were loving them so much, selling the place out and singing along to ‘House Of Cats’ et al. Perhaps they could break after all, but not when they’re releasing 500 copies of a new LP - take that, collectors of ’special edition’ Babyshambles 7″s that you’ll never play. Oh man, I’m working up a rage here. I’m digressing. Yeah, the band rocked my socks off, ripping through songs with such a velocity - I’d clear the dried blood of those scratchplates, though; that’s how diseases come about surely? - and a ridiculous amount of energy that made brand new songs such as ‘Freshman Thoughts’ sound as good if not better than the utterly splendid ‘House Of Cats’ and ‘Kids Get Cut’ and ‘A Few Minutes An Hour’ and they didn’t play ‘Christmas Isn’t Christmas’ which was a shame. Ah, whatever. They were bona fide and that’s what mattered.

Needless to say I left slightly elated; not only for the gig itself but the feeling that I can actually reach these gigs and not feel cut off from music in general, something that resulted in apathy on my part and why I never really updated this blog in the past. Now I have the location and a cameraphone that’ll take nice photos/adequate video so I’m good to go. I am in particular going to be looking for bands around the Goldsmiths College/New Cross/SE London area who are exciting and cheap to see play live; mp3s and flyers to ishooktheroyalthrone at gmail dot com or find me on a social network of your choice. Emphasis on excitement; if you specialise in anything close to electro/hipster shit please reconsider contacting me.

roman david