You're Sister Disco
Nov. 18th, 2006 02:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaOn Wednesday we went to Death Disco at the Notting Hill Arts Club. Once we’d worked out that the completely unlabelled staircase behind the barriers that lead down to blank basement doors was the Notting Hill Arts Club, anyway. We were sort of on a mission, to basically work out which one was the promoter and aim Jodie and Debz at them til they gave us a gig.
I was expecting, what with the title and all, there to be more actual nightclub, dancing-like element. At eight the price goes from free to seven quid, and at nine price of the beer goes from reasonable to steep, so we got there at half seven, but it’s amazing how many didn’t. The only dancing before the bands was one solitary girl in a trance state.
Then there were the bands. Being in London is finally starting to register properly and change some viewpoints, and one of those is here. Watching bands at this level feels ever more like sizing up competitors, and that night felt somehow like the first real battle in a war that up til now has only been a series of preliminary skirmishes. There were four bands and I’d have little trouble describing the first two as shit. Shiny, tight shit, but shit. The first was, well, the drummer had headphones because of the backing track, there were two guitarists and a bassist plugging away at boring, boring chords and a girl with an expensive haircut and oh-look-isn’t-burlesque-trendy knickers and fishnets doing boring pseudo-goth vocals over the top. None of it was actively bad or wrong, unlike in the lower echelons of pub gigging, they could all actually play their instruments, it was just a band totally subservient to image and shininess and with no songs. Here lies the level change, though; to get any elbow-room on this level we have to be tight, even if shiny remains unlikely. I think playing nights like this is going to mainly irritate me, but perhaps that depends if anyone’s going to dance.
Second lot have obviously listened to some GYBE! and thought they’d have a go at three minute pop versions, with a sort of breathy Tori Amos-lite on vocals. She had a guitar too and played it for about thirty seconds of each song in the absolutely invariable build-up ending, and Debz spent pretty much all the time inbetween eyeballing her and complaining that she only had the guitar for decoration. I like Debz. Good job for the drummer, there, who basically had to do nothing for the first minute of each song, pitter gently but meaningfully about for the next minute and then build to a clattery ending in the last.
Now, the third band had something like a personality. Part of my problem with listening to and reviewing indie, though, is the same problem I have with finding anything in Boots (bear with me, this really does work as an analogy); I go into Boots looking for shampoo or toothpaste and think, ‘right, it’ll be with the toiletries/bathroom sort of stuff’ and realise that this is pretty much an entire shop full of that and I’ve no idea how the sub-departments might be laid out, so *still* don’t know which way to go. I hear indie and go ‘hmm, it’s chord-based, has not very interesting drums and rambling lyrics about, like, feelings and stuff’, and realise I have nothing to say about it that doesn’t define the whole of indie, pretty much, and that I don’t know where to go from there. So I suppose I don’t know why the third band had more appeal than the others. They just seemed like a cheerful bunch, could use cheesy keyboards with some imagination and aptness, had a drummer who was trying hard, and the songs didn’t all sound *identical*, already making them the standout band of the night. Still all a bit gently pointless indie to me but hey, if someone told me they thought they were ace I’d be able to deal with it.
The last band were the Dandy Warhols. I mean, obviously they weren’t but there was nothing they did that wasn’t trrying to be the Dandy Warhols, except where I found it interesting to remember that I’ve got a Wannadies single somewhere too, so there wasn’t much point to them. Even down the to singer/guitarist who seemed offended that we weren’t on our knees worshiping his genius and the girl with the pudding-bowl haircut, little knotted hankie round her neck, spangly keyboards and earnest tambourine. Of course, apart from, the Dandy Warhols have got at least a couple of songs that are quite good, and this lot haven’t. What can you do?
By then it was about half eleven and Jodie had been staking out the soundman half the night, we were all getting a bit fed up of bad indie and the dancefloor had turned to cheese old enough that even I only just remember some of it. Mission not really accomplished, though apparently there are numbers and people to contact now so at least started. It would have been interesting to see where the night went from there but not long after midnight, with the others already wanting to leave, I gave in to the call of being able to get a single tube home instead of a pair of buses. It’ll be interesting to go back another time, though, as if any of the bands are good I can see it being a storming night out. All useful recon, for now.
(I am refraining from running direct quality comparisons for now. I wonder when I will.)
I was expecting, what with the title and all, there to be more actual nightclub, dancing-like element. At eight the price goes from free to seven quid, and at nine price of the beer goes from reasonable to steep, so we got there at half seven, but it’s amazing how many didn’t. The only dancing before the bands was one solitary girl in a trance state.
Then there were the bands. Being in London is finally starting to register properly and change some viewpoints, and one of those is here. Watching bands at this level feels ever more like sizing up competitors, and that night felt somehow like the first real battle in a war that up til now has only been a series of preliminary skirmishes. There were four bands and I’d have little trouble describing the first two as shit. Shiny, tight shit, but shit. The first was, well, the drummer had headphones because of the backing track, there were two guitarists and a bassist plugging away at boring, boring chords and a girl with an expensive haircut and oh-look-isn’t-burlesque-trendy knickers and fishnets doing boring pseudo-goth vocals over the top. None of it was actively bad or wrong, unlike in the lower echelons of pub gigging, they could all actually play their instruments, it was just a band totally subservient to image and shininess and with no songs. Here lies the level change, though; to get any elbow-room on this level we have to be tight, even if shiny remains unlikely. I think playing nights like this is going to mainly irritate me, but perhaps that depends if anyone’s going to dance.
Second lot have obviously listened to some GYBE! and thought they’d have a go at three minute pop versions, with a sort of breathy Tori Amos-lite on vocals. She had a guitar too and played it for about thirty seconds of each song in the absolutely invariable build-up ending, and Debz spent pretty much all the time inbetween eyeballing her and complaining that she only had the guitar for decoration. I like Debz. Good job for the drummer, there, who basically had to do nothing for the first minute of each song, pitter gently but meaningfully about for the next minute and then build to a clattery ending in the last.
Now, the third band had something like a personality. Part of my problem with listening to and reviewing indie, though, is the same problem I have with finding anything in Boots (bear with me, this really does work as an analogy); I go into Boots looking for shampoo or toothpaste and think, ‘right, it’ll be with the toiletries/bathroom sort of stuff’ and realise that this is pretty much an entire shop full of that and I’ve no idea how the sub-departments might be laid out, so *still* don’t know which way to go. I hear indie and go ‘hmm, it’s chord-based, has not very interesting drums and rambling lyrics about, like, feelings and stuff’, and realise I have nothing to say about it that doesn’t define the whole of indie, pretty much, and that I don’t know where to go from there. So I suppose I don’t know why the third band had more appeal than the others. They just seemed like a cheerful bunch, could use cheesy keyboards with some imagination and aptness, had a drummer who was trying hard, and the songs didn’t all sound *identical*, already making them the standout band of the night. Still all a bit gently pointless indie to me but hey, if someone told me they thought they were ace I’d be able to deal with it.
The last band were the Dandy Warhols. I mean, obviously they weren’t but there was nothing they did that wasn’t trrying to be the Dandy Warhols, except where I found it interesting to remember that I’ve got a Wannadies single somewhere too, so there wasn’t much point to them. Even down the to singer/guitarist who seemed offended that we weren’t on our knees worshiping his genius and the girl with the pudding-bowl haircut, little knotted hankie round her neck, spangly keyboards and earnest tambourine. Of course, apart from, the Dandy Warhols have got at least a couple of songs that are quite good, and this lot haven’t. What can you do?
By then it was about half eleven and Jodie had been staking out the soundman half the night, we were all getting a bit fed up of bad indie and the dancefloor had turned to cheese old enough that even I only just remember some of it. Mission not really accomplished, though apparently there are numbers and people to contact now so at least started. It would have been interesting to see where the night went from there but not long after midnight, with the others already wanting to leave, I gave in to the call of being able to get a single tube home instead of a pair of buses. It’ll be interesting to go back another time, though, as if any of the bands are good I can see it being a storming night out. All useful recon, for now.
(I am refraining from running direct quality comparisons for now. I wonder when I will.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 08:19 am (UTC)Years ago, when I was in London and still picking up things from the fringes, Rough Trade used to run a Sat/Sun afternoon concert series there, and I saw a couple of good bands there. It is, however, a rather peculiar place...
no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 09:00 am (UTC)