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shermaramaThat went a whole lot better than it could have done. The atmosphere was good and though people accused us of being old school, they cheered anyway. It had looked like it was going to be a right shambles as the headliners had pulled out, new headliners draughted in at the last minute, an extra support band grafted in the middle, and at eight in the evening we had all of us and all of the headliners, a worried promoter, a slightly frantic soundwoman, but no apparent prospect of anything more. The other two bands piled in just after eight while we were last-minute soundchecking, though I may wish they hadn't as they were both bad. Skyfalls made good noise in any given ten seconds, screeching emo vocals and thin wailing guitars, to be fair, but not once did it go anywhere, add up to anything more than a collection of posing wannabes, albeit ones with some instrumental ability. Instrumental ability but not musical, yes? And the next, Cooler Than Wednesday Adams, were worse. Take that name in its worst, most petty aspect. More of the emo growl and guitar shred and clattering drums but this time with no precision at all, this time even ten seconds sounded bad, before it looped right on into noise oblivion.
It's not that I have a problem with emo growling, because My Divide did it and they were great. I mean that; they made a mockery of the drivel before them by doing something similar but eighteen times better, and a whole range of other things to boot. The bass player did the growling and the singer did heartfelt wailing, the drummer did mechanical precision but a real human sort of mechanism, and they bloody well knew how to use a dynamic. People will talk of Mogwai and GYBE and that's true but the range was a little different, the starting point not as sparse but the end rather more rock. For a live act in a pub basement on a Tuesday in Islington, they were some sort of revelation.
I still don't know what goes on with The Red In Sophia Loren. Their singer has left, leading to the drop-out, and when the guitarist pressed a demo upon me I asked about the name but couldn't make much sense of the explanation. He launched off in earnest about the universal desirability of Sophia Loren but then lost it, somehow. I haven't yet had a listen to the demo in search of further enlightenment..
It's not that I have a problem with emo growling, because My Divide did it and they were great. I mean that; they made a mockery of the drivel before them by doing something similar but eighteen times better, and a whole range of other things to boot. The bass player did the growling and the singer did heartfelt wailing, the drummer did mechanical precision but a real human sort of mechanism, and they bloody well knew how to use a dynamic. People will talk of Mogwai and GYBE and that's true but the range was a little different, the starting point not as sparse but the end rather more rock. For a live act in a pub basement on a Tuesday in Islington, they were some sort of revelation.
I still don't know what goes on with The Red In Sophia Loren. Their singer has left, leading to the drop-out, and when the guitarist pressed a demo upon me I asked about the name but couldn't make much sense of the explanation. He launched off in earnest about the universal desirability of Sophia Loren but then lost it, somehow. I haven't yet had a listen to the demo in search of further enlightenment..