Tuesday, H&A
Sep. 3rd, 2004 01:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaSamurai Smithy were described as thrashy metal punk, making an interesting contrast with SON who you could easily label the same. The difference is in which bits do what. Off-beats and busy hats and occasional ska-like basslines recall the dub aspect of late-seventies punk, while the metal resides most firmly in the energetic screaming front-man. They're all from the same bit of London, all support Milwall and have a guitarist that only joined two weeks ago and only learnt the last song in their set a day and a half ago. Fun and loud and all but, I'd suggest, not as big a sound as they need. The bassist, a tech-meister going at slapping and diads and these spacious melodic basslines now and then, carried a lot of high end; there was only one guitarist and he had to hold back a little to watch everyone else - which leaves something of a hole where the solid meat of the sound ought to be. There were some technical problems with the bass and I offered to lend mine but he'd have been shafted without a G-string; mine was sacrificed to a B string because I hardly ever used anything that high anyway and much preferred the extra bottom end. Just a different approach, though, and I'd like to hear them again once the guitar's more confident and the whole thing comes together.
Lucid didn't show. I'd have liked to see an all-girl band from this perspective; that is I'd have liked to see how a female drummer stands up against the competition on the same kit as a bunch of busy metallers. As it was no-one else thundered like Oz does but they won't; Samurai Smithy's was all around the kit and on the double bass but not as heavy. Nor quite as confident on the beat but that's harder when the rest of the band has recently changed. Fencott Disaster's drummer looked like a limp-wristed skinny indie boy. Even when playing, the sticks appeared to flop around the kit. The sound produced was a proper chaos-punk racket sometimes only a step down from the Bad Fucks's sort of dynamics, though, and with more peripheral clatter. And some slow bits that really did know what they were about.
The band as a whole come together as leading on from Big Black and all chaos-indie, with a helping of more contemporary vocals in screech and scream and whisper, guitar shred that genuinely contained skill and content as well as manicness and a bass the kept breaking into stoner basslines given half a chance. I'd go so far as to call it an actual new sound, a new assemblage of the parts into a remarkably musical whole, and one that tickled me. I could just imagine them supporting Jecano in Brighton and web-rummaging reveals they've already played together in Oxford.
And also that the Jecano gig I thought was forthcoming in Brighton appears not to be. The Hob are not having as many bands on as they used to, the bastards. Happily the Bad Fucks will be there on the 18th with Slaughterhouse 57 at least.
Hey, no practices booked or anything for the rest of this week, a whole free chunk to enjoy this manky cold and the colour-shifting bruises. Next musical item up is another SON gig, at the H&A again, this Monday, and headlining this time. And I read the supports on the poster at the venue but foolishly didn't write them down and now I can't find out who they are again. Hum.
Lucid didn't show. I'd have liked to see an all-girl band from this perspective; that is I'd have liked to see how a female drummer stands up against the competition on the same kit as a bunch of busy metallers. As it was no-one else thundered like Oz does but they won't; Samurai Smithy's was all around the kit and on the double bass but not as heavy. Nor quite as confident on the beat but that's harder when the rest of the band has recently changed. Fencott Disaster's drummer looked like a limp-wristed skinny indie boy. Even when playing, the sticks appeared to flop around the kit. The sound produced was a proper chaos-punk racket sometimes only a step down from the Bad Fucks's sort of dynamics, though, and with more peripheral clatter. And some slow bits that really did know what they were about.
The band as a whole come together as leading on from Big Black and all chaos-indie, with a helping of more contemporary vocals in screech and scream and whisper, guitar shred that genuinely contained skill and content as well as manicness and a bass the kept breaking into stoner basslines given half a chance. I'd go so far as to call it an actual new sound, a new assemblage of the parts into a remarkably musical whole, and one that tickled me. I could just imagine them supporting Jecano in Brighton and web-rummaging reveals they've already played together in Oxford.
And also that the Jecano gig I thought was forthcoming in Brighton appears not to be. The Hob are not having as many bands on as they used to, the bastards. Happily the Bad Fucks will be there on the 18th with Slaughterhouse 57 at least.
Hey, no practices booked or anything for the rest of this week, a whole free chunk to enjoy this manky cold and the colour-shifting bruises. Next musical item up is another SON gig, at the H&A again, this Monday, and headlining this time. And I read the supports on the poster at the venue but foolishly didn't write them down and now I can't find out who they are again. Hum.