The OC

British youth soap opera/teen-drama. Just doesn’t cut it, does it. As If, Hollyoaks. Bunch of fucking crap. Why waste your time watching it?

No, if you want to while your hours away watching twenty-somethings playing teenagers, be it television or cinema, you have to turn to America. It seems that they’re just so much better at than we are. The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink, Bring It On, American Pie (but only the first film, let’s put the kibosh on the sequels), My So Called Life, Buffy, the list just goes on. But – and it’s quite a big but – that list most definitely doesn’t include Dawson’s pissing Creek.

No, I don’t care who you are; it’s not worth trying to start this debate with me. You can’t win, so I won’t even bother listening to what you saying. Blah blah blah, like, whatever.

That’s not enough? You want reasons? Overly sentimental, unbearably saccharine sweet and twee, drawn-out long past its sell by date, smug as fuck plot lines, and I don’t fancy Katie Holmes. Sorry.

But of course, we also have to take into account the James van der Beek factor.

Mr van der Beek, please approach the bench. I present you with exhibit A, the lower half of your face. How do you plead? Guilty? Too fucking right you’re guilty.

Ok, so I had no problem with James van der Beek in ‘Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back’ or ‘The Rules Of Attraction’, but as far as Dawson goes, you’re having a fackin' laugh, guv’nor. Foolishly sensitive film geek fucks up his love life and loses his girlfriend to the US version Toady from Neighbours. Get over it. Move on. Look, she has. She’s screwing your best mate.

If I wanted hear about the trials and tribulations of being a movie addict trying to get by in the real world, I’d have a chat with New Noise’s very own Eddie Robson. I used to work with him. He’s a nice chap, once you get over his remarkable resemblance to Muse’s Matt Bellamy. And he’s got a book out about the films of the Cohen Brothers, which is more than you can say for Mr Chin.

Anyway, I’ve digressed enough. If you’re after non-patronising teen-drama, with geek-chic skateboard kids, hard-drinking beauties, philandering parents, a bitch queen royale, and a bloke that once died of a heart attack in Neighbours, all based around a reworking of the classic Pygmalion story, then there’s only one place for you to turn. And that’s Orange County, California, baby.

Yeh, you got it. Welcome to the OC.

We’re supposed to pretend that the series is all about Ryan. The Chino boy who was saved from himself just about in time to stop from him turning bad, but who’s still rough enough to punch out anyone that looks at him funny, burn down a house owned by his recently adopted mother’s business, and shag his newly acquired grandfather’s girlfriend in front of the girl he really wants. The perfect post-American Dream rebel with a cause. Like Jack Kerouac raised as trailer trash, but denied the opportunity to place his mother on a pedestal, left with no choice but to lash out at his tormentors.

But really, we know that he’s little more than a plot device. He’s only there so that situations can evolve around him. He’s a catalyst for change, a fulcrum rather than a focal point, and an excuse for a regular ruckus.

No, all the real fun is going on around Ryan. First off there’s Summer. The tart with a heart, only she keeps her heart well hidden behind a wall of vicious put-downs, scything glances and mini-skirts. She thinks she’s all that, and, truth be told, she probably is. Even if she isn’t I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell her. She’d probably have your balls off in an instant. Along with your bladder and lower intestine.

And there’s her verbal sparring partner, Seth Cohen. King geek extraordinaire, the Graham Coxon of US teen-drama. Let’s face it, he’s the kid that we’d all like to be. Good T-shirts, never falls off his skateboard, has hair that marks him out as being just that little bit different, and he’s willing to argue with the girl of his dreams when it comes to music.

And it that isn’t enough for you, he almost manages to pull off the perfect coup. Rolling around semi-naked with Summer in the pool house while he’s got another girl stashed away in his bedroom, playing with a toy horse.

Finally, we get to Marissa Cooper, the OC’s contender for the throne marked teen-drama goddess. A true challenger for the position previously held by Shannon Doherty and Eliza Dukshu. I’d marry her if we didn’t already share a surname.

Where do we start? She’s toying not only with alcoholism and drug abuse but also with Ryan’s heart. She tried to kill herself in a seedy Tijuana bar, is having to deal with watching her parents split up but also watching her mother chase Seth’s grandfather. Her ex-boyfriend is a jock twat who managed to sleep with half the female population of the OC without her knowing. Basically meaning that she gets flit between playing the nice girl next door one moment and fucked-up drug hoover the next. What more could you ask for from a leading lady?

OK, so that’s the kids sorted (well, all the important ones anyway), all you need know for a killer drama is a reasonably believable basic premise. Something along the lines of Ryan starting the series getting caught while trying to steal a car, or some other relatively minor act of juvenile delinquency. That should suffice.

Maybe then his mother and her abusive boyfriend do a runner while Ryan is in custody, leaving with nowhere to turn other than the kind-hearted community lawyer, Sandy, that was dealing with his case. Who then takes Ryan home to meet the wife and their seemingly socially-awkward son, Seth, who just happens to the same age as our lovably roguish Chino troublemaker. Sound good so far? Yeh? Good, then we’ll continue

Imagine for a moment that Ryan’s initiation into OC life doesn’t go so smoothly to start. He keeps getting into fights, usually with Marissa’s boyfriend. At the beach, in the diner, on the boardwalk; wherever Ryan goes, chances are he’ll be coming home with a shiner. And just to antagonise his new home life, each black eye invariably earns another black mark from Sandy’s immeasurably wealthy wife. But Seth doesn’t seem to be acting so introverted anymore, so maybe it’s all going to work out for the best. In fact, maybe they should adopt Ryan.

And once you’ve mixed that little lot together add a succession of parties, Ryan's and Marissa's on-off, should-we, shouldn’t-we, what about my boyfriend-sod him, he’s a lying cheating bastard anyway relationship and the gradual build up of sexual tension between Seth and Summer.

Then you’ve got the near-apocalyptic road trip to Tijuana which cumulates with Marissa knocking a bottle of pills down her gob, and the occasional sortie back into Chino – allowing for the use of grainier and less vividly-coloured film to further highlight the differences between the rich suburb and the scummy run-down poor area. But hey, at least Ryan’s growing up on the right side of the tracks now.

And there it is.. Everything you could possibly wish for from the perfect teen-drama. So next time bleak British teen-soaps are getting you down, just head on over to OC for some fun in the privileged sun because, as every easy-living, hard-partying California rich-kid knows, the future’s bright, the future’s Orange County.

The Make Up

"I wanna introduce four of the most generously gifted motherfuckers that I know. Straight out of Washington, DC…the Make Up. Let’s give it up.”
Introduction from ‘After Dark: Live At Fine China’

It’s not often that a band comes along that perfectly sums up everything that you want, and should demand, from a group. In reality, such an occurrence is so rare that should such a band come along, you’re more or less obligated to love them, obsess over them and stalker them like a nutter every time they set foot in the country as you. But unfortunately these bands come along so infrequently that it’s been years since we were last given the opportunity to express our love in such a drastic and morally dubious manner. In fact, it’s been eleven years since a new band came along and showed themselves to both the personification of our dreams and the realisation of our desires. It’s been eleven years since the dark underbelly of Washington, DC, spawned the Make Up.

The Make Up formed around the core of Nation of Ulysses, a DC area band that made like Rocket From The Crypt with an added socio-demographic political agenda and claimed an intention to “wreck society through direct action by destroying its institutions and the men who serve it, and by relying on the people's forces to spread the doctrines of P-Power and Ragnarok; to consolidate the New Nation, while never forgetting the need for constant purging”. As you may notice, they weren’t exactly your common or garden DC hardcore band.

Styling themselves as an international revolutionaries, the NoU not only declared themselves the first wave of the Ulysses Jihad and waged war on complacency and the US government – laying claim to a number of fictitious assassinations and embassy bombings – but pronounced these claims so loudly that singer Ian Svenonious believes to this day that the CIA hold files on him and regularly keep track of his actions.

When the time came for NoU to part ways, it was obvious that the nation had not fallen, that the masses continued to be repressed, and that there was still work to be done and from the ashes of NoU, via a brief sojourn as Cupid Car Club, rose the phoenix of the Make Up; bold, magnificent and ready to continue the good fight.

“Do not review if...the review would condescend to MAKE-UP's pretension of ideology and dismiss it as sophomoric and naive, as MAKE-UP recognise the unconscious ideology of insipid psychology undermine meaning through invisible propaganda for its father and benefactor, advanced capitalism…6) unless you understand that this is truth on tape…”
From the sleeve-notes to ‘Sound Verité’

Looking like a mix of a Maoist party conference, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Black Panthers, the Make Up comprised three former Ulysses jihadees – the aforementioned Svenonious (now less a singer than an evangelical rock and roll prophet who could be found sermonizing his congregation as often as actually singing), bassist Steve Gamboa and drummer/percussionist James Canty (brother of Fugazi’s one and only Brendan Canty) – and Michelle Mae, formerly the bassist in proto-riot grrls, the Frumpies.

"Of all the sectarian developments stemming from Christianity in the former colonies, perhaps the strangest and most fascinating is the one called Gospel Yeh Yeh, which, though originating in Washington, DC, seems to be spreading elsewhere at an alarming rate."
From the sleeve-notes to ‘Destination: Love Live! At Cold Rice’

Sonically, The Make Up evolved drastically during their transition from the frenetic soul-punk revue of NoU. While none of the energy or fondness for zealous performance was lost, the Make Up’s mix of MC5, post-DC hardcore, Arthur Lee’s Love (even going so far as to write a protest song demanding his release from incarceration), gospel, rhythm and blues and punk – what they referred to as the Gospel Yeh Yeh sound – was the nearest thing you can find to an incendiary device in your record collection.

The band’s image and politics were echoed in every thing they did. Not only did they perform in matching black uniforms, they could be found arriving at their shows in matching daywear. Far from being the last gang in town, the Make Up projected the idea that they were the only gang in town, and you were welcome to join as long as you could prove your devotion during the gig. Make Up shows (the the prefix used to come and go depending at which record sleeve you happened to be looking, representing the band as both concept and a definitive article in their own right) were characterised by the ever more outrageous antics of Svenonious, often to be found in the midst of his disciples; braying with ruthless abandon like a revitalised James Brown, urging on his fans, pushing them to the point where they abandoned any sense of inhibition and became part of the spectacle itself. Early on it wasn’t unusual for the Make Up to be greeted with initial apprehension, only for this to turn to undying zeal and supplication by the end of the show.

The Hives and the (International) Noise Conspiracy may have lifted most of their ideaz straight from their copies of After Dark and Destination Love, but they were little more than inadequate pretenders to the Make Up’s throne. While repeated attendance at either a Hives or (I)NC gig quickly showed that Pelle Almqvist and Dennis Lyxzén were merely leading their respective bands through a series of rehearsed moves, loaded down with clichéd posturing and identikit rhetoric, the Make Up live experience was the real deal; insurrectionary, inspired by solidarity and a deep-rooted need to express the raw emotions that would have otherwise remained bottled up inside, as can be witnessed on the any of the three live albums currently available – ‘Destination: Love’, ‘After Dark’ and the soon to be released ‘Untouchable Sound’.

Since their demise in 2000 (it was, apparently, only ever intended as a five-year plan) the majority of their rank and file have since been found working under the monikers of Scene Creamers and Weird War, but regrettably that revolutionary spirit has never since been captured as perfectly as with the Make Up. By way of a legacy they have leave behind them, in addition to the live albums, three studio albums – ‘Sound Verité’, ‘In Mass Mind’ (the sleeve-notes to which featured a treatise on the industrialisation of the music industry); ‘Save Yourself’ (by which time the band also included Alex Minhoff, formerly of Six Finger Satellite) – and a whole host of seven inch singles, collected together on ‘I Want Some’.

The dream may be over, but the spirit lives on, on record and carved on the soul of their fans. But do not fear, these things are not meant to last forever, and we can at least look forward with hope for the next band to come along and grant our wishes.

"Dear diary,
We are crossing the country now, playing cities large and small and it seems that indeed the problems that affect us at home beset people everywhere. We will do our best to galvanise this discontent into a tight fist, to discipline these ragtag bands so they can properly be named an army, and they shall read Clausewitz and Guevara and all the various handbooks on martial concerns."
From the sleeve-notes from 'I Want Some'

The Rogers SistersMean Fiddler, London

If they were more mainstream, the chances are that the Rogers Sisters (well, the women anyway) would have been on the cover of every lads mag/bottom-shelf soft-smut rag in the country by now, and their faces would adorn notebooks alongside Playboy bunny-themed stationary in WH Smith. But as it is, the Rogers Sisters (and male non-sibling, Miyuki Furtado) are ours, and ours alone.

The public at large doesn’t seem to care about them. Amongst the mad scramble for trendy New York bands that took place a couple of years ago, the Rogers Sisters were somehow left behind. Sure, they got some attention, their name was bandied around for a few months, and there was probably at least one day when they were officially the hottest prospect on a platter of tasty morsels but for some reason both inexplicable and unexplainable, it didn’t last. Before they had a chance to consolidate their position, the Liars and Yeah Yeah Yeahs stole their thunder. And just to make matters worse, everyone then forgot about their more talented and, for the sake of battering this fact into the public conscious in the vain hope that you’re shallow enough to pay attention for this sole reason, better-looking peers. Fucking idiots, the lot of you.

So we find ourselves here, watching a pair of beautiful girls and their rather striking mate playing fidgety music full of wired and Wire-y guitars, taut drums and garrulous bass. Laura’s drumming is just an erratic spazz beat away from echoing true post-punk polyrhythms of Gang Of Four and the Raincoats, Jennifer stands there, guitar slung around her looking all cool and ever so slightly restrained, the perfect foil to Miyuki’s rock and roll antics. In a lesser band, there’s a chance that leaning back, letting go a torrent of spittle, neatly picked out in the stage lights, and catching it back in your mouth would be crude and ungainly, but tonight it merely confirms that Miyuki deserves to be regarded as your second favourite Hawaiian – only just missing out on the number one spot to San Jose and USA striker, Brian Ching.

As it is, the Rogers Sisters are the ultimate party band; new wave travellers forging a path between Theoretical Girls and the B52s, Huggy Bear and Assembly Line People Program, Le Tigre and Ill Ease. Which is exactly where we should want to find them; kicking out the jams in a world of their own, just being there, looking good and sounding even sexier. Just for us.

TV on the Radio

I’ve always been a sucker for a band with great hair. The Make Up, 90 Day Men, At the Drive-In. Make of that what you will but bear in mnd that if I were shallow enough to judge a band purely on their hair then I’d be a life-long fan of Kid’n’Play.

And before you start with the style over content argument, I’m not saying that hair is the defining feature of a great band. I realise that other factors are important – you know, the boring stuff; talent, ability, stage presence, songs, that kind of thing. I’d also like to point out that, in theory at least, I’m not adverse to bands with no hair at all. But if you look back through the annals of rock’n’roll, you’ll see that image has it’s role to play in establishing a band as being more than just part of the pack. Image is what makes one really good band stand out from another.

What it all boils down to is that when a band is already musically strong, a good strong image is the finishing touch. And when you’re talking image, great hair is the icing on the sartorial cake.

Bearing this mind, you can understand why, having already read enough about TV on the Radio for them to pique my interest, the first time I saw a picture of guitarist Kyp Malone, I was sold. I had to hear this band.

On stage Kyp is the personification of the immovable object. He’s built like a bear, he’s enormous, the realisation of The Thing from the Fantastic Four. And on top of all that, he’s got the most amazing beard/afro combination going on that makes him look like this giant bipedal lion. The man is a fucking modern-day Sphinx come to life.

First time I saw them play, they were supporting Blonde Redhead. I say supporting, because officially, they were. But for whatever unannounced reason, TV on the Radio were on last, sometime after midnight. For some bands, this would be a problem. Blonde Redhead are a hard band to follow on an average night and this was anything but an average night. Their first London show in an age, moved from the Garage to the Scala, and with a new album to boot. But even after all this, TV on the Radio were magnificent.

Magnificent, but also very hard to pin down. OK, so the time of night and the earlier alcohol consumption may not have helped, but at first listen, TV on the Radio are an intriguing and beguiling mix of sounds. Basically, that night they were a tremendous, vibrant noise; a full-on wall of sound with falsetto vocals and lock-groove rhythms. I left the gig that night knowing that TV on the Radio were good, yet still not knowing quite what they were.

Their debut album, ‘Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes’, makes it clear. Well, as clear as it can given that the band not only somehow mix classic US alt.rock with dub, soul, deep rumbling electronics, lilting horns and military drum tattoos, but also invent the alt.rock barber shop quintet croon-fest. In lesser hands, there’s the risk that this would all come out sounding like an indie Sting pastiche but as TV on the Radio hands are as fine as their hair, they carry it off perfectly.

Video may well have killed the radio star, but it’s clear that the true stars of TV can be found on the radio, big hair and all. It’s time to turn on, tune in and rock out.

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line DisasterLondon Rhythm Factory

A support band. Like Mclusky degraded 100 times. Imitation doesn’t guarantee anything, continued xeroxing will always result in lesser quality. An old man in a stinking and fetid leather jacket twitches away as if he likes them. Maybe he does. Each to his own.

Let’s not linger. It’s for the best.

Step back.

Step back, and feel yourself. Feel the cold beer in your mouth, washing around your fillings. Feel the sweat of 200 people settle on your skin. Feel your sphincter muscle tighten, feel your buttocks clench.

Step forward again. Against all odds, for a mere twenty seconds they sound like Chuck Berry playing the Pixies’s ‘Bone Machine’. Twenty seconds of greatness, gone in an instant.

Fade out.

Cast your mind back six hours. Starring blankly at a monitor. Spacing out, a combination of a glucose-induced hypermania and sleep deprivation. Eyes unable to focus, skittering across the empty screen, not latching on to anything, not functioning properly.

They say that everything you do, everything that you say is a self-portrait of yourself. So what does that say about me? What does this say about me? That I’m empty? That I’m waiting for information, awaiting input?

Fade back in.

Plato said that we don’t ever learn anything. All we do is recognise things that we know from our time in the ether, our time between incarnations, our time between times. I know this to be true. At least, I know that Socrates said that Plato said this. Can we ever really know what Plato said, when it was all written down and reported by Socrates?

But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that you recognise the Birthday Party, Bauhaus, the Cramps. See all these things in the band that strutted out and started playing what Stevie Wonder may well have dubbed ‘Songs In The Key Of Death’.

"I've got my limbs tied up and a blindfold across my eyes,
Got the feeling I know that I'm gonna have to tell a lie."

The band look like degenerates. They look like the cast of a 50s B movie. A guitarist that lurches back and forth like an extra in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ hamming it up for his one moment of on-screen glory. A singer that looks like all he ever wanted to be when he grew up was a Ramone. But, damn, the boy sure can scream and howl.

Dark rumbling bass lines that cut you to the bone, cut you to the quick, cut you to the sphincter. Internal body temperature averages around 37. Theoretically, the closer the temperature in here gets to 37, the less likely it is that you will notice if you shit yourself.

Every song sounds the same. But every song sounds great. ‘Breaking The Law’ played voodoo-swamp blues style. ‘I Could Be An Angle’ sounds like a circus carny guarding the gates of Brighton Pier. And against this backdrop, amidst this turbulence, ‘Celebrate Your Mother’ sounds like a work of genius. Psychobilly genius, but genius all the same.

If everything that you sing is a self-portrait, then what does ‘Celebrate Your Mother’ say about Guy McKnight?

ColdplayX&Y

That Coldplay are bland, overrated and uninspiring goes without saying. Unfortunately, it’s what has to be said that is going to cause problems me here.

Back in the summer of 2000, Coldplay were just another Travis wannabe, coasting on the success of the dire ‘Yellow’ and a fortuitous Glastonbury appearance. And it was looking like that was as far as it was going go, their time was going to pass as quickly as it had come, ‘Yellow’ would be consigned to the reduced bin of musical history and we could get on with our lives.

But what happens when the wannabe not only eclipses but also obliterates their idol’s public profile?

Five years on, ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ and one celebrity wedding later, Coldplay are still with us, and crazy frogs aside, it seems that their momentum has become as irrepressible as glacial flow.

But all this window-dressing has distracted us from the fact that, at some stage in the recent past, Coldplay have morphed, albeit slowly and practically imperceptibly, into an amalgam of the House of Love and early U2. In theory, this should be a good thing.

And it almost is. The songs have gained texture and are loaded with an organic feeling that that they used to lack. Where the early singles sounded forced and unwieldy, ‘X&Y’ makes for a more satisfying listen. What’s more surprising that is that ‘Talk’ not only contains the riff from Kraftwerk’s ‘Computer Love’ but is co-credited to Herren Hütter and Bartos – a pair known alleged to have removed former band mates from writing credits when reissuing their earlier albums – and Brian Eno plays keyboards on the aptly named ‘Low’. So not only is ‘X&Y’ reasonably good, it’s also officially credible. Damn them.

But this doesn’t mean that all is well. It’s a shame that Coldplay haven't yet grown out of their reliance on the piano as a source of melody, as the more predominantly guitar-based songs sound a lot stronger and better suited to the restrained production of the album. The intro to ‘What If’ sounds too close for comfort like Elton John’s ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’ and Chris Martin’s voice just isn’t strong or interesting enough to withstand repeated listening.

That Coldplay are bland, overrated and uninspiring goes without saying. Unfortunately, it’s whether I don’t like this album or that I don’t want to like this album that is causing me problems.

The RaveonettesPretty In Black

“Here she comes walking down the street,
She’s got something you would love to meet,
It’s her heart and her heart is black,
Think of ice cream sliding into a crack.”
The Jesus And Mary Chain, ‘Here Comes Alice’

In 1985, the Jesus and Mary Chain turned their back on post-punk and new pop, preferring to take their cue from their anachronistic love of the Shirelles and the Ronettes, the Velvet Underground and the Ramones, the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan.

Likewise, the Raveonettes emerged from Denmark in 2002, paying no heed whatsoever to overriding trends, choosing instead to draw inspiration from the likes of the Shirelles and the Ronettes, the Velvet Underground and I think you can see where we’re going here.

So, the Raveonettes sound a lot like the Mary Chain. But for once, a band has taken that influence and altered it, albeit only subtly, to make that sound their own. Where the Raveonettes’s previous records, ‘Whip It On’ and ‘Chain Gang Of Love’, bought wholesale into the brothers Reid early fuzzed to the max feedback thing, ‘Pretty In Black’, as with the Mary Chain’s later ‘Stoned And Dethroned’, strips it all back to the bare bones, allowing the both the tunes and Sharin’s and Sune’s icy vocals to the fore.

Only these Danes have gone one further than their Scottish predecessors. Not only have they borrowed from their idols, they’ve managed to enlist some of them as well. Former Ronnette Ronnie Spector sings backing vocals on ‘Ode To LA’, Martin Rev of Suicide plays on three songs and Velvet’s drummer Mo Tucker crops up on another four.

Fortunately, ‘Pretty In Black’ is about more than just the guests. ‘The Heavens’ is loaded with pathos and a countrified twang reminiscent of early Neil Young; ‘Seductress Of Bums’ rewrites the Pretenders’ ‘Hymn To Her’; ‘Love In A Trashcan is only a big muff away from being the best song that didn’t make it onto ‘Whip It On’; and their cover of the Angels’ ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ is just a call and response backing vocal away from being a ‘Leader Of The Gang’ for a new century.

While they will probably never venture too far from comforting shadow of the Mary Chain, ‘Pretty In Black’ does at least show that the Raveonettes know how to find their way into the light, and suggests that we may find them there more often in the future, albeit dressed head to toe in black and wearing wraparound shares.

“Here comes Mary,
All dressed in black,
Her heart so heavy,
A love attack,
Her dying cigarette in the rain.”
The Raveonettes, ‘Here Comes Mary’

Querelle

Some things are a long time coming.

Querelle were formed in London by a trio of estranged Italians (singer and guitarist Gypsy, best friend Valentina on drums and originally Gypsy's sister Stef on bass, since replaced by Antonio, a former band mate of Gypsy and Val back in Italy) way back in 2001, but somehow the forthcoming self-titled mini-album, released on Sink and Stove Records at the end of July, is their debut. With many bands, this would have been an annoying wait; for Querelle fans, and one would assume the band themselves, this has been a period of interminable frustration.

Part of the reason for this delay could be put down to teething issues. As in the I'll tear you apart like Jaws in a pool of neon tetras kind of teething issues.

"We split up after a bunch of gigs as we were about to kill each other and we could not play our songs without bursting into tears. We got back together after six months with the same line up but we kept attempting homicide and sabotage."

So we find ourselves here, four years and two split-singles - one with the Dudley Corporation, the other with the Wow - later, finally cradling the album in our slightly sweaty, appreciative hands, clutching at it like some hard-fought treasure, hoping that our patience will be richly rewarded, grateful the motivating spur that keeps Querelle's flame flickering did not diminish with the passing of time.

"[These are] songs that need to come out, chords that need to exist, rhythms that need to rumble, houses that need to be bought down..."

Fortunately for us, and again you'd imagine for Querelle, the album is stunning. It's everything for which we could have hoped and, yes, as the cliché has it, so much more.

"Up and down the shanty town that you've become there's nothing to be found,
I rock'n'roll I twist and shout I scream out loud I don't make any sound,
I love myself like no one else,
But not enough it's just a little crush as such"
'Shanty Town'

From the opening cyclic riff of 'Shanty Town' to the closing refrain of 'Diverging', it's clear that this record is exactly as it should be: elegaic, full of natural grace and staggering poise, the precise realisation of a Querelle gig. In order to exist, everything in life needs to discover balance in order to survive, must find that point of equilibrium between creation and destruction, life and death, love and hate, love and lust. And in keeping with the greater themes in life, Querelle have found their philosophers stone, the fulcrum around which their world can revolve and evolve.

While their art-rock stylings (think Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead) and spazz-jazz poses (Theolonious Monk, Sun Ra) may flirt with the avant-garde, the melody and hooks of songs like 'Little Silly Things' show that they're more than happy to lick the tit of pop, aiming for, and often coming pretty to close to achieving, to attaining their dream of sonic perfection, and as both Pier Paolo Pasolini and Blonde Redhead have put it, finding a way to express the inexpressible.

"We all hope to live out the dream that we grew up with, which is not fame and money, but creative freedom and probably some recognition. The kind of parable that the biographies of our favourite bands show."

"It sneaks into your ribcage,
It sits upon your heart it tears your little silly dreams apart,
I hope it keeps you awake at night I hope it holds you tight,
I hope it hits you right between the eyes"
'Just A Song'

Such talk of perfection, brings us, as it was always destined to, to 'Sore'. While the other songs here more than justify the high expectations with which we approached the album, 'Sore' takes those suppositions, smashes them into little pieces and builds something new, magnificent and previously undreamt of from the scattered remnants.

It starts off like a long-lost relation of Sonic Youth's 'Expressway To Yr Skull', takes a lonely, melancholic guitar riff and turns into a work of art, an object of beauty. And just as the bridge tumbles in, it opens its heart to us, affording us glimpses of the childhood spent growing up listening to My Bloody Valentine and the early Ride EPs. And as with all the best songs by all the bands mentioned above, 'Sore' lifts you up with it as it reaches for the heavens. It's that song that, when you first hear it, fulfils everything that you wish it could. It's the song that is going to make you fall in love with Querelle. It's the song that most completely represents everything that they seem to symbolise.

"Heaven sent an angel just to let me know,
Let me feel what blooming flowers feel when they fuck the concrete on the pavement"
'Sore'

Some things are a long time coming. And some things, it turns out, are well worth the wait

The War On Pop, Volume 2

There’s something wrong with pop. Deeply, perhaps irreparably, wrong. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the concept of pop, I’m talking about the state of our pop. Ultimately, I suppose that it all comes down to your definition of pop music. To me, pop is there to entertain; to provide a constant rotation of shiny new songs that are supposed to make daytime radio more bearable. Songs that will make you smile, if only for three minutes, and that you won’t mind having stuck in your head for the next two weeks.

And it’s for these reasons that I’m not only pro-pop but also proud of it. I’m not saying that I’m a slave to it; I’d have to check to see who was at number one in the chart. Even then, the chances are that even then I wouldn’t be able to pick it out a line-up, (band or song) unless it’s still bastard Band Aid 20. And the only line-up I’d want to see ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ and its evil perpetrators and progenitors in would be arranged against a wall facing a firing squad, but I’ll deal with cover versions and charity records another time.

But despite the casual mix of ambivalence and hatred that I’m displaying here, I’m all for pop. In fact, I think it’s essential part of our lives. At best, pop is the distillation of contemporary music forms, reshaped into a more accessible structure and given a memorable chorus. Pop is capable of being, and should always be encouraged to be, an art form that’s every bit as valid as the Dillinger Escape Plan/Shellac/Dalek album that you’re listening to whilst calling me a bummer.

Obviously when I bandy about words like art form, I’m not talking about Westlife. Westlife always have been, and always will be, unadulterated toss, served up lukewarm to a public that no longer knows any better. But then, for every Westlife, you’ll also discover that somewhere out there, lurking disturbingly like a bad smell in a pair of pants, there’s a Kasabian, Libertines or Razorlight to avoid. I don’t see how indie kids think they have the right to criticise pop when the same bunch of arseholes spent a proportion of their precious student loan on the fucking Keane album. You have to remember that no matter what form of music you look at, there’s good shit and there’s bad shit. And underneath all that shit, there’s the likes of Westlife and the Libertines, wallowing around in shit, gulping down great mouthfuls of shit, and regurgitating it into three minute chunks of bile and bilge.

To provide a bit of perspective here, the most horrendously feeble and arrogantly atrocious song I heard all year wasn’t Eamon's ‘Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)’’, ‘Call On Me’ by Eric Prydz or even Natasha Bedingfield’s ‘Unwritten’, it was ‘Glamorous Indie Rock’n’Roll’ by the Killers, whose debut album is somehow nestling at number seven in the New Noise albums of 2004. Baring that in mind, do you really think that you can justify thinking that band X is any better than pop star Y just because they write their own songs instead of being handed them by a team of major label recruited freelance songwriters?

For too long, pop has been mistreated, because the people in charge of pop no longer understand it. As far as the major record labels are concerned, the single is a redundant artefact from another time. Creating a single has become such a quick, automatic process that the market has become saturated and such an abundance of product inevitably leads to a loss of quality. As the standard of songs is lost, then the public’s tolerance for any given record is reduced more rapidly, and the record label have to increase the frequency with which they release singles to maintain their sales figures.

As I said last time round pop isn’t, and in fact shouldn’t be, about the artist, it’s about the song. Record companies think that, if they are going to pay to promote a song, then they have the right to expect that artist that they made record to be successful. But, essentially, the record companies don’t understand their market. When it comes down to it, pop kids don’t care about the artist, they’re there for the instant kick; the song is master; the artist is at best secondary, if not completely peripheral, to the whole process. But the sliced-bread manufacturing process that the labels have adopted doesn’t recognise this fact.

There’s only one way to save the pop single, and that is to bring about a dramatic improvement in the quality of the music being released. In order for this to be achievable, then the labels quickly need to learn that they’re going about things the wrong way. What we need is a return to the stable of pop stars approach used by the likes of Stock, Aitken and Waterman in the 80s.

Forget about even trying to release albums with individual artists. What we need are good, strong singles released by the right pop star. We need carefully picked writers crafting songs for artists who are afforded distinct styles by producers that don’t want to work on autopilot all day long. And this can only happen when you want to write, produce and release songs that will still stand up in six months time.

At present, the nature of the market – which has been dictated by record label policy – is essentially to churn out any old shit safe in the knowledge that the more singles they stick out, the more publicity they’ll get for the album, which is where they can actually make some money. But pop albums are generally shit; a couple of good songs surrounded by acres of filler.

Instead, get yourself a stable of about ten good performers, be they solo artists or bands. Make sure the songs that you give them match the image that you want them to portray and that those songs are creative, tuneful and, above all else, good. Then once you’ve got yourself a bunch of hits, sling them out on a retrospective collection maybe once or twice a year. The sooner the standard of the pop single improves, the better it will be for all of us.

The War On Pop, Volume 1: Girls Against Boys

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a time of inequality and nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of music. But this isn’t the time for a discourse on the absurdly small number of women in bands or how Karen O has somehow been raised to the status of role model. This is the time to look at an altogether different dichotomy between the sexes; one that seems to inform all of pop, and one that is essentially a self-fulfilling tool of segregation – why is male pop so shit?

Before we go any further let’s get a basic premise out the way. Pop is the ultimate product of a manufacturing industry. The concept of pop group is alien and should any of you claim to hold a preference for any particular pop group over any other, then you are failing to grasp the most basic rule of pop. That rule is that the song is king; the performer, once you look past vocal style, is an irrelevance and the sooner you learn to cut your ties to group or artist the more enjoyment you will derive from pop music.

I’ll return to this premise at a later date but, for now, it suffices to say that the methods employed by pop’s manufacturing base is currently out of sync with reality and the record companies in control of the means of production have forgotten the rule.

Motown got it right. Stock, Aitken and Waterman got the method right but choose the wrong artists. In brief, to create successful, and good, pop, the producer should maintain a stable of artists and writers. The songs should be distributed amongst the artists and be released as singles. The producer should then, at regular intervals, release an album compiling those singles. The artist themselves should not be afforded an album of their own. If the artist proves to be a lasting success, then they can be granted a singles compilation of their own at a later date. I’ll expand on this at another time but, in essence, this means that the pop artist’s greatest hits should be able to be viewed as the ultimate pinnacle of pop, a sure-fire success rammed full of wondrous three minute nuggets of joy and abandon.

But if recent pop best of compilations are anything to go by, all they do is highlight the gender disparity. There’s an underlying mantra at play here – girl pop good, boy pop bad.

Just look at the best pop songs of the last few years: Jamelia’s ‘Superstar’, Destiny’s Child’s ‘Bootylicious’, Beyonce’s ‘Crazy In Love’, Danni Minogue’s ‘Put The Needle On It’, Britney’s ‘Baby, One More Time’, tATu’s ‘All The Things She Said’, Sugababes’ ‘Freak Like Me’ and ‘Round Round’ and all the singles lifted from Kylie’s ‘Fever’ album. Notice anything there? They’re all sung by women, there isn’t a single man amongst them. Is the state of male pop really so bad? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, it really is.

In a society that claims to want to throw off the shackles of gender roles and attain equality, then why are men and women expected to play such different roles on record? Women in pop are encouraged to be strong, to be independent, to be angry, to be outraged, to want sex, to want to not have sex, to be anything they want to be. Men have to settle to be overwhelmed with love, distraught at not having their love reciprocated, or to brag about how good they are at stuff in an attempt to get women to fall in love with them. In short, pop men portray themselves as weak, pathetic, arrogant (but only if the group are being marketed as bad boys), narrow-minded or just plain desperate.

Perhaps the most obvious example of the pop gender gap can be seen with even the most cursory glance at Pop Stars: The Rivals. Who was better, Girls Aloud or One True Voice? Which could you dance to, and which made you want to vomit, ‘Sound Of The Underground’ or ‘Sacred Trust’? Which of those two groups still exists?

The same distinctions can be drawn between Britney and Blue. The Britney compilation, ‘My Prerogative… Greatest Hits’, comes close to what a pop best of should be. Admittedly not every song is earth shattering but it is at least consistently listenable throughout. It’s an album that won’t put extra strain on the skip button on your remote. ‘The Best of Blue’, on the other hand, is an abomination.

Firstly, Blue should never have been allowed to continue for long enough to amass enough singles for this collection to exist. I find it physically hard to listen to this album. It’s like I have some specific and rather acute form of Gilles de la Tourette’s Syndrome. Other than ‘All Rise’, every song has my finger twitching until it hits skip while my mouth utter profanities that would make your mother blush and would stun your English Literature tutor with their complexity and originality. These songs are embarrassing.

I’m embarrassed to be listening to them (and at least I have the excuse that I’m only doing so for your benefit, dear reader); god knows how Blue weren’t too embarrassed to record them. You imagine the rehearsals taking for every, as various the group have to continually stifle that particular type of nervous laughter that tends to accompany the intense discomfort that you experience when you’re in a situation where you don’t know how you should best react.

Even the music is an extension of these roles. The girls get squelchy bass lines, clipped Krautrock rhythms, dirty synths and pounding beats. The boys get mincing melodies, melancholic strings and lame piano ballads. Shit, at least when the girls get lumbered with the ballad, they’re still usually singing about how they’re strong enough to get over whatever it is that might have happened while the men just sound like they’re either stalkers or walkovers.

Where Blue contribute nothing but bilge and piffle to the pop cannon, Britney gives us ‘Baby, One More Time’, ‘Toxic’, ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, wall to wall floor-fillers every one of them. And this is the perfect illustration of the gender divide. We’re supposed to dance with the girls, yet cry with the boys. Every possible action has been taken to stop the men form seeming in anyway threatening to young girls.

Back in the 70s, the Osmonds were supposedly made to regularly shave their chests to hide the signs of puberty and sexual awakening as this would scare off their pre-pubescent fanbase. Nowadays, with the use of sex as a tool of saturation marketing, it has become necessary to emasculate the men in other ways. This has led to the reduction of men in pop either to show-offs whose actions could never hope to match their words (as with Robbie Williams) or weeping pussies so lacking in balls that it’s impossible to ever imagine them being able to maintain an erection.

This is best illustrated by the cover versions on the Blue and Britney compilations. On ‘The Best of Blue’, you’ll find versions of ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’ and ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours’, while Britney gives us ‘I Love Rock’n’Roll’ and ‘My Prerogative’. What are these songs tell us about the performers? Just look at the lyrics.

First, ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’: “what have I got to do to make you love me…, what do I do when lightning strikes me and I wake to find that you’re not there…, I’m sad, so sad, it always seem to me that sorry seems to be the hardest word”. Not only have they fucked everything up, they’re not even man enough to apologise and sort things out because they’re too lacking in courage. Jesus, this stuff is every bit as bad as Dashboard Confessional, and at least Chris Carrabba scores some cool points with the girls by virtue of being able to play guitar and by having tattoos. Even Dashboard make Blue look like a bunch of panty-wearing no-dick pussy-boys.

To add a bit of perspective here, compare those lyrics with ‘My Prerogative’. “They say I’m crazy, I really don’t care, that’s my prerogative, they say I’m nasty, but I don’t give a damn, getting boys is how I live. Everybody’s talking all this stuff about me, why don’t they just let me live, I don’t need permission, make my own decision, that’s my prerogative”. Britney politely requests that you allow her to live her life as she sees fit, and it you don’t like it, you can fuck off and die. You go, girl.

The battle-lines have been drawn, and at the moment the women are trouncing the men in the pop stakes. Unless the men find some way to break free of their assigned roles and stop acting such a bunch of effete no-hopers, then there’s no chance that they will ever catch up again. Maybe, just maybe, this will happen and the men will attain some semblance of equality. Until then, if you’re looking for me, I’ll be over there, dancing with the girls.

SeafoodClwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff

Some people seem to be of the opinion that there’s no reason for Seafood to exist; that if they want to listen to Sonic Youth, then they’ll listen to Sonic Youth; that if they want to watch Sonic Youth, then they’ll wait three years for them to come over to play, and then cry when the tour gets cancelled after all their gear gets nicked (nothing quite like the real thing, eh?). However, if you want your alt-rock rampage laden with razor-blade hooks, doused with searing feedback, and still contriving to contain more pop than the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, then it’s time to welcome Seafood into your lives.

There’s a table lamp in the corner, the drums and mic-stands are laden with flashing lights, and up on the wall is Seafood’s very own slide-show, changing picture with each song. If it’s people fishing on a riverbank, it must ‘Dig’; a house on a lake can only mean it’s time for ‘Porchlight’; while ‘Guntrip’ is greeted rather fittingly by a couple of crows feasting on a corpse, creating that Boxing Day ambience which almost leaves you expecting to hear your dad mumbling about the focus before slipping in a half-naked picture of your mum, just for a laugh obviously.

Clearly enjoying the opportunity to headline a tour for change, Seafood are out to entertain, piling through the set with maniacal grins on their faces, and even attempting to make peace with the Welsh crowd - “we love Terris honest” they quip. Course you do, Kevin, of course you do. Unfortunately, no-one seems to have warned them how petty your average Cardiff crowd is, and four songs in, with Seafood having failed to either produce a Welsh flag or an offer to play upfront against Ireland at the weekend, the foolish gathering of disinterested onlookers in front of the stage begin to drift away, oblivious to the barbed-wire melodies of ‘This Is Not An Exit’, or the unrelenting barrage of ‘Guntrip’, as the noise assault steadily builds in volume and intensity, leaving the band battered by their instruments in front of a dwindling crowd.

As ‘Folk Song Crisis’ reaches it’s dramatic finale, everyone is hunched over their guitars, fervently smashing them against the floor, while David’s lachrymose voice turns vehement scream, tearing the ear-drums out of anyone with the good sense to keep watching, as he’s left howling “I wish the wretched town would fall”. Given the nonchalant manner in which Cardiff responded to Seafood’s fine effort tonight, you can’t really blame him.

mcluskymclusky Do Dallas

Steve Albini must be think he’s in hog heaven right now. Not only has he just put on the American ATP with Sonic Youth, he’s got the British version to look forward to later this month and as a result he’s going to be over here to witness his latest progeny be unleashed on a largely unsuspecting country.

Mclusky are more than just the most recent band to pass through Albini’s Electrical Audio studios, they’re practically the screaming resurrection of Albini’s old band, Rapeman. You may want to make a note of that. Rapeman, not raperock. There’s none of this wussy mid-life crisis posing as teen angst for the mclusky boys.

If anything, mclusky are the antithesis of such pompous whining. ‘Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues’ is a breakneck charge though cruel and nasty punk rock and ‘What We’ve Learned’ is a carbon copy headfuck stomp of Albini’s Big Black. They even manage to staple their hardcore sensibilities to a pop song on ‘To Hell With Good Intentions’, though I doubt I’ll ever forgive them for nicking the lyrics from dead comedy genius Bill Hicks.

Despite all this, there’s a lingering suspicion that ‘…Do Dallas’ isn’t the sound of mclusky at their best. ‘Our Pain & Sadness…’ was a statement of such brutal intent that it was always going to be hard to equal, let alone surpass. While they occasionally match the ferocity and intensity of their debut, ‘…Do Dallas’ falls just short of the mark. If they hadn’t already shown us that they can do better, maybe it would be different. For now, this may be enough for mclusky to do Dallas, but they’re gonna have to do better next time if they want to claim a Dynasty for their own as well.

And if, as the song puts it, Gareth Brown says that “all of your friends are cunts” maybe they also need to stop hanging around with Mohobishopi.

Royal TruxFleece & Firkin, Bristol

In the true tradition of rock’n’roll, the old legends are never lost, but continue to reverberate around us, tempting us with mythology, until they later re-emerge, embodied in deep within the genealogy of Royal Trux. From Stones swagger to Stooges nihilism, New York Dolls sleaze to Beefheart blues, it’s all there in the purest form possible in a band so true to the spirit that they sold their soul to the man, only to have it given back when the man found that he didn’t understand it.

It’s there in the way Jennifer hangs off the mike stand, equal parts Janis Joplin, Nico and Joey Ramone, scowling through her sunglasses, the music coursing through her, lost to the occasion as Neil slouches to one side, slung over his guitar, content to allow the spectacle to carry on around him. In the way that ‘Waterpark’ bristles with braggadocio, that ‘Run, Shaker Life’ sticks barbs into the recognised notions of Americana and ‘Blue Is The Frequency’ is intent on driving itself further onward, until only the moment is allowed to exist and everything else is eclipsed by the relentless driving hooks.

Every last low-down look, every scuzzed-out note may have been seen and heard before, but rarely to such devastating effect, and only Royal Trux are capable of sounding so potent and volatile that it is as if the past, present and future of rock’n’roll have merged together in a determined effort to put on the greatest show of all time.

Stephen MalkmusStephen Malkmus

The kings are dead; long live the king.

Following the protracted demise of Pavement last year, it seemed that perhaps all was lost, that Stephen Malkmus had abandoned his throne once and for all, leaving no-one to take his place. While Birmingham’s Jameson have been making all the right noises, they’re no more than viable a prince regent and still need someone to keep the seat warm until it’s time for their domination. So not only is it quite surprising to find Malkmus back so soon, but once more sounding so vital and fulfilled.

Although to be fair to him, that ‘Terror Twilight’ as sounded so flat and lifeless was more to do with the overly constrictive production of Nigel Godrich, a man responsible for making every album he touches sound like it was recorded in a bread-bin (though Radiohead fans don’t seem to mind, perhaps because the majority of them already have their heads so far up their arse that the real world has long sounded dull and muffled). Instead, Malkmus alter-ego Clarence Skiboots has been let loose at the helm, and as a result, the music sounds more vibrant and effervescent than it has since 1995’s ‘Wowee Zowee’, full of echoing noise, with clanging guitars fighting for precedence over Malkmus’s skewed vocals.

In place of the good ol’ Pavement boys behind him, this album sees Malkmus backed by the Jicks, namely bassist Joanna Bolme and former Elliott Smith drummer John Moen, though you probably won’t really notice the difference, with only Scott Kannberg’s dissonant guitar missing from the sound. As is his way, Malkmus’ lyrics are as obtuse as ever, ranging from tales of being kidnapped by Turkish pirates on ‘The Hook’ to an auto-biographical account of Yul Brynner’s life, while his penchant for English league football once rears its head as Stoke-on-Trent finds its way into ‘Pink India’.

For all the trauma and upheaval that led to this album, it seems that it has really been worthwhile. If Malkmus can continue to sound this wonderful, then Jameson are gonna have one hell of a long wait for that crown.

San QuentinThe Verge, Kentish Town, London

As big a phenomenon as it is State-side, it’s not been that long since, over here, emo was almost an insult to be thrown at punks who were not only too polite to rock out, but even dared to take themselves seriously. But with punk’s burial at the hands of Blink182 and Wheatus, the all too brief flowering of At The Drive-In has left the kids wanting more than such dumb-ass punk-pop will ever be able to offer.

Fuelled by Fierce Panda’s recent emo-worshipping ‘Go’ EP, those old Van Pelt records have found their way back onto the turntable. As one of the highlights of ‘Go’, San Quentin were set to lead an emo-shaped charge this side of the Atlantic, along with like minded souls such as Hundred Reasons, jetplaneLanding and the Starries.

However, just as it was all looking so rosy, San Quentin have gone and pulled the plug. After prestige appearances with Jimmy Eat World and American alt.rock heroes Superchunk, San Quentin have decided that this low-key gig in a tiny north London club will be their last. It hardly seems fitting that it should end in such a manner, but there’s not much we can do about that now.

Fronted by Tom Davies, also of Mogwai’s post-rock nemesis, Immense, San Quentin were the archetypal mild-mannered and hard-rocking emo band. From the fidgety guitars of ‘Six Seconds’ to the ‘Goo’ era Sonic Youth thrash of ‘Potato Skin’, it was all there, power, passion and integrity in abundance. As the thunderous finale of ‘Arms Folded’ roars through the room, the sense of loss in the crowd is all too obvious. As far as show business clichés go, San Quentin have got it spot on. They’ve left us wanting much, much more. Its such a shame that their premature demise means that they won’t be around to deliver it.

San LorenzoNothing New Ever Works

There’s something rumbling in the West Midlands, hundreds of kids are running around with crazed looks on their faces, guitars slung around their knees. Somewhere among them stride San Lorenzo, touted as the newest challengers for Mogwai’s increasingly precarious throne. However, don’t assume that ‘Nothing New Ever Works’ is just another excuse for a bunch of bored kids to try and replicate/rip off that old quiet-loud, nice and soft/hard as fucking granite formula that so many others have been caught peddling in recent times.

From the very start, there’s enough evidence here to suggest that Stuart Braithwaite would be wise to abdicate his self-appointed position as King post-rock before thing starts to get messy round chez Mogwai. ‘Jun’ opens proceedings with a stuttering art-rock swagger of discordant guitars and yelped vocals, coming across like the incidental music for a kids television programme starring Captain Beefheart as a mentally ill door-to-door salesman and ‘Dead Amps’ is the sound of Nirvana offering Shellac outside whilst sneakily slipping a jackhammer into their back pocket.

Elsewhere, San Lorenzo craft a towering majesty from shifting time signatures and staccato drumming, as the sparse elegance of ‘Life Without Mountains’ treads a path not dissimilar to that of Red Stars Theory. Eager to not be pigeon-holed so quickly, San Lorenzo prove that they’re capable of more than full-on sonic assaults with a couple of brief glimpses at their softer, more fragile side as they stray from their effects pedals. Recalling the fragile nature of the Radar Brothers, the abatement of volume allows them to express themselves more clearly, as ‘My History Is Valid’ becomes both rallying cry and statement of self-affirmation (“my history is valid, it’s something I will defend, I stood my ground, when confronted on a train, my history is the context in which I live”), before ‘Some Trust’ clearly states their agenda and offers their opinion of their current contemporaries (“everything is for sale, your music’s shit”).

As ‘American High Rock Song’ rumbles to a close, you can almost hear that free Kappa gear coming in useful as the soon to be deposed Mr Braithwaite does a runner to the comfort of his mummy. While he strops about, you’d be wise to join San Lorenzo’s lynch mob for a party while they finish off the last of the Buckfast.

ChikinkiExperiment With Mother

The thing with Bristol, yeah, is that it’s never going to be known for anything other than trip-hop. No matter how hard the resurgent alt.rock and hardcore scene tries, they’re always going to be playing second fiddle to those blokes with made-up names who spend all their time in dark and gloomy studios playing with Tracey Thorn. If that’s the case, then how were you planning to explain the current phenomena known as Chikinki?

Showing an eclecticism that encompasses the droning dirge-pop of ‘Delivery 25’ and the mutoid drum’n’bass barrage of ‘Like It Or Leave It’, it appears that Chikinki are setting themselves up to be Add N To (X)’s precocious younger brothers, until they throw you off kilter with the mournful Elliott Smith aping ‘Elvis Impersonator’, while much of the proceedings are imbibed with the spirit of the Make-Up, proving that sometimes it really isn’t possible to approach this sort of thing with any prejudices about how a band is going to sound.

In fact, you could almost go as far as to say that ‘Experiment With Mother’ should be considered the blueprint for bands looking to combine their guitar-based vision with a wider-ranging diversity, without reducing your music to a awkward combination of guitar-wank and clumsy beats as is so often the case.

Even given the almost pornographic artwork, you get the feeling that Rupert, Boris, Trevor et al have been experimenting with more than just their mother, and given that the resultant concoction offers up new surprises at every turn, this sort of thing should be encouraged if Bristol is ever going to throw off its stereotypical musical heritage.

MogwaiAnson Rooms, Bristol

Pesky little tykes, Mogwai. From the moment they haul their not inconsiderable bulk on to the stage, they prove to be a perplexing concept, the aching succour of Low played by prematurely balding, angry young men in Kappa and football shirts. One moment they’ll soothe you with their delicate structures, the next they’ll try to knock out your teeth and force firecrackers into the bleeding cavities.

Despite stooping to such commercial prostitution as actually having lyrics, ‘Cody’ gently caresses the heartstrings, only for the pile-driving rampage of ‘Like Herod’ to sever them with a machete and feed them to a passing pit bull terrier. A clever trick that they then follow by losing both the songs and the plot in such a heavy wash of effects and tempestuous feedback that even the drummer can no longer find a rhythm, leading to a mind-numbingly indifferent performance, which is only rescued by the appearance of Luke Sutherland for an epochal rendition of ‘Christmas Steps’.

However, having been seen alongside a musician who hasn’t yet needed to join Weight Watchers, it seems that the plump little chaps are left feeling a bit self-conscious, and so turn on the strobes for the duration of ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’, just so we can’t look at them any more. If they were to use all that free sports-wear for its intended purpose and get some exercise, they may finally be able to catch up with the consistency that has kept recently escaped them. Should that happen, Mogwai could be rightfully remembered for their melancholic, malevolent beauty rather than for being a bunch of slap-heads with big mouths and even bigger waistlines.

Echo Is Your LoveSheets Of Blank Fucking Paper

What is it with European bands these days? All of a sudden it’s not enough for them to gain precious television exposure prancing about on Eurotrash singing about licking exotic fruit, they have to go all art-rock on us in the hope that we’ll take them seriously as well. First it was Icelandic shoe-gazers Sigur Rós and German post-rock outfit Jullander. Now, before you can say 'he may only be a substitute at Barcelona, but that Jari Litmannen’s a bit fucking good', here comes Finland’s most recent export, Echo Is Your Love.

Weighing in somewhere between the Blonde Redhead and proto-riot grrls Bette Davis & the Balconettes, 'Sheets Of Blank Fucking Paper' provides the proof that screaming really is an international language as Nea hollers away like a good ‘un while the boys work through their No Wave obsessions.

Originally forming to make "beautiful noise without being tied to too many chains of song structure", the Love more than live up to their manifesto, as layers of cacophonous guitars are welded over a juddering rhythm section, even if 'Not So Cool Pop Stars For Hire On The Spot' could more accurately be described as painful the away it lurches along seemingly unconcerned by the concept of tune or melody.

Elsewhere, 'Black & Red Lies On Yellow' sounds like 'Death Valley ‘69' had it been recorded by Huggy Bear instead of Sonic Youth, while 'Nym' goes for the slow and brooding approach before guitarists Micho and Ilai turn all nasty, liberally dousing everything in squalling, if not deafening, feedback. They may not have what it takes to knock transsexual Israelis and teenaged Danes out of the Eurovision Song Contest, but Echo Is Your Love may be about to claw back some credibility for Finnish music.

CayFleece & Firkin, Bristol

You hate to resort to the same lazy comparisons, to stoop so low enough as to pull those familiar names back out of the bag when faced with a band so desperately in need of their own identity, but sometimes you’re left with little choice. On record, there’s nothing essentially wrong with Cay that couldn’t be fixed by a touch more imagination in the song-writing department, maybe employing an occasional hint of subtlety instead of leaping for the volume control every time they reach a chorus, or even a slight digression from their already formulaic structure. Regrettably a live setting only serves to further highlight the flaws, to emphasis their reliance on repetition of a theme run into the ground so many times by so many bands before them.

While the buzz saw joyride of 'Better Than Myself' still captures the essence of 'Dirty' era Sonic Youth – with Anet screaming away like someone who has just been forced to watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire simultaneously – they only really have two other songs; those that want to be 'Better Than Myself', but aren’t quite so good; and those that want to be 'Better Than Myself', but aren’t as fast or as good.

It’s during these slower moments that that dreaded references most obviously rear their heads; the way the guitars get all broody and Anet stops screaming long enough to have a cigarette between verses; where those years spent listening to too many Hole and Babes In Toyland albums begin leave their indiscreet stamp over proceedings. While the more discerning among us cringe as memories of too many Friday nights at bad provincial indie discos resurface, the kids down the front use the respite as an opportunity to sip at the remnants of their spilt and illicit pints, before once more hurling themselves at each other like crazed dogs as Cay drop yet another mosh-friendly barrage from their big bag of songs.

Part of the problem is that Cay seem fated to attract this kind of audience. You just can’t escape the feeling that if you were still fifteen you would have been impressed by the sheer volume and aggression with which they play; that you would have jumped about and shouted along with the chorus before going home hoping that your parents wouldn’t realise that you had been drinking again.

As it is, Cay have been playing the same venues each time they’ve toured for the last year and a half, and you know as well as they do that they’ll be back here again in six months time. You can only hope, for their sake as much as your own, that somewhere along the line they’ll find that extra little something that will allow them to progress part this point, but until then it’ll be Groundhog Day again and again and we’ll just have to hope that they’re content playing to the little kids in the Slipknot t-shirts for the foreseeable future.

Guildford Live 2000

You can't help but get the impression that this weekend has been put together by someone's mum who saw a bit of Glastonbury on the television, and decided that it looked like a nice excuse for a picnic. It shows not only in the choice of location, but also in the choice of bands. At first glance, Terrorvision may deal in heads down, bare-chested, white-knuckle rock, but once you look past the loud guitars it becomes apparent that it's rock that your mum would approve of, rock which helps to clear away the dirty dishes after having been invited for dinner. While their performance is competent enough, you just don’t believe that they mean it, man, it's rock lacking the filth and grim of low-down living, rock devoid of everything that can make it so essential. When it comes down to delivering that pure visceral rush, Terrorvision are found wanting, for who wants to settle for 'Tequila' when you could have a bottle of JD, a bag of coke, and a room full of prostitutes waiting backstage.

Thank fuck then for Motörhead, here to liven up proceedings with some real rock'n'roll attitude. On stride Lemmy and Phil 'the beast' Campbell, looking like they've just been poured into their black denim and leather. Surely this is more like it. Sadly though, it's still not right, it's just more of the same, an hour-long trawl through the hits, from 'Ace Of Spades' and 'Overkill' and onwards to 'God Save The Queen'. Just to make matters worse, it seems that they only have one tune, and there's only so many times you can hear slightly different versions of the same song without getting bored as Lemmy grunts away over the top, in a voice so deep and hoarse it sounds like he's been swallowing gravel, gargling razor-blades and chewing on Mariella Frostrup.

The Rolling Stones knew how to rock, they were the bona fide article, you could tell they were Satan-worshipping, model-fucking alcoholic junkie reprobates just by looking at their skinny, wasted bodies as they jerked around the stage. Unfortunately they got shit in the mid 70s and have never been the same since, and just to prove how accurate a tribute band the Counterfeit Stones are, they certainly don't seem capable of rocking without a certain kind of chair. Just like the real thing, they seem to be stuck in an early eighties vision of musical hell rather than the glory days of the late '60s, a feat which is matched by Counterfeit Mick's gaudy American football getup. So it doesn’t matter how much they put into 'Sympathy For The Devil' and 'Let's Spend The Night Together', it's never going to be enough to convince that covers bands are a good idea.

You'd think that maybe those one-time politicised punks Stiff Little Fingers can inject a bit of passion, provide a spark of fervour, but, for all their rebellion through association with earlier more controversial peers, they're probably just here because your older brother used to listen to them, and because that nice Bruce Foxton has joined them now - you know, the one that used to be in the Jam with that lovely Paul Weller. Just to test the patience of their fans they toss out 'Alternative Ulster' within moments of arriving onstage before trudging through their dreary pub-rock racket, resplendent in their matching shirts bearing the SLF emblem, making them look like some over-50s bowling team out for a spot of karaoke.

Your sister used to love Soft Cell you know. Your mum certainly knew that and as she ran out of ideas of who to put on the bill, here comes Marc Almond (pictured above), the man least likely to rock. But while he may not wish to get down and dirty with the sweating hordes, having even neglected to bring a drummer to the party, there’s no doubting his ability to entertain. Dressed in the obligatory black, but sporting a rather spangly little number for the occasion, he pirouettes and prances his way across the stage like the virile young man he obviously sees himself as. By the time he's done 'Why Do You Love Me, Why Do I Let You?' and 'Something's Got A Hold Of My Heart' he's already proved to us that Neil Hannon owes his entire career to this self-styled gothic crooner. As 'The Days Of Pearly Spencer' and 'Jackie' bring his time here to an end, he has reigned triumphant and shown us that, against all the odds, he has somehow remained a true star, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true spirit of rock'n'roll.

Hefner

It's probably not possible to be any more indie than Hefner. They're the epitome of awkwardness, blessed and cursed in equal measure with their fresh-faced look of innocence and naivety. Darren Hayman (pictured) has the best voice that you’ll ever hear coming from someone who supposedly can’t sing, and they often invoke memories of the Wedding Present, the Go-Betweens and the Violent Femmes. As if that wasn’t enough, John Peel loves them so much that not only did they get five songs in last year’s Festive 50, with 'The Hymn For The Cigarettes' effortlessly claiming the number two spot, but he's also willing to stake his very reputation on them, as bassist John Morrison explains, "all the main national radio stations in Europe get asked to have a representative DJ that they take to Groningen, it’s like a radio festival thing, and whoever it is get asked to bring an act with them. They asked John Peel to do it this time, so he asked us to go with him. He seemed more excited than we did. After the show he was really pleased that it went really well, he said he thought we had a four-nil away win". "Every country you go to there is someone who purports to be the equivalent of John Peel", adds guitarist Jack Hayter, "you kind of got the impression that all the European sub-John Peels were there with their idea of alternative bands".

Their recent EP of gospel covers also came about via John Peel and his radio show. "When we’re touring we all bring CDs, and we had a phase where first of all it was a lot of soul music, and it just seemed to creep into people bringing gospel CDs", says Jack. "We had this little idea of just doing a couple of cover versions live, I can’t really remember how it happened but we did various Peel sessions and I think it was mentioned to a producer. They said that would be a really great idea for a session, in the old way that when ever John Peel had sessions, people would go in and do something completely different, they wouldn't just go play their fucking singles or two tracks off the album and try and record them in exactly the same way. It seemed to get a really strong response on the Peel show, so it made sense to release it".

You’ve gone on the record recently pledging your support for Ken Livingstone in the London mayoral election; do you think it's important for a band to be political in their outlook? "Darren's songs aren’t generally overtly political", explains John, "but for anybody who lived in London, or was involved in any of the campaigns and disputes in the 1980s, the whole business of the GLC was quite a formative thing. Also there was the opportunity to say to Tony Blair 'you’ve sold us down the river', I think that makes it important that we support Ken Livingstone". Is it possible for a band to have any tangible effect on the outcome of the elections? "It depends on the general level of consciousness", asserts Jack, "and we're not so presumptuous to say that Hefner can have that effect".

You're often represented as being defiantly lo-fi in your attitude towards music, particularly on 'Breaking God's Heart', which lead Too Pure to describe the album as sounding like demos. Jack is quick to defend his band mates, "I wasn’t around for the recording of ‘Breaking God’s Heart’, but I certainly get the impression that there wasn't an intention to do a lo-fi recording anyway, it was just a necessity, I'm sure if we had better technology at home then we could sound like Yes or AC/DC". Why did you re-record the songs from 'the Hefner Soul' EP for the compilation album? "We just thought the original versions sounded shit", states John matter-of-factly. What about the comparisons that you generally incite, how do you feel about the continual references to the same few bands? "The first time we got compared to the Violent Femmes, it wasn't something we could claim never to have heard, but it wasn’t like we said 'let's sound like the Violent Femmes'. I think a lot of that came from the first album, the way that it was really stripped down". Jack is more amused by the whole situation, "I had friends who are really into the Violent Femmes who were outraged by the comparisons".

Do you feel held back by the image that's portrayed by the press, do you think that it's time you were allowed to move on, and gain recognition for who you are, rather than have people turning up with a preconceived opinion of the band? "I think sometimes people are a little disappointed with the way that we are, and the way that we are live. It's such a laugh, we have such fun with it", says John, "I think from the lyrical side of things they expect us to be moody and tense, they don't expect us to be smiling". "It’s very easy if you've got a singer with glasses and songs about relationships for a journalist to go geeky bloke, lives in a bed-sit; so you do your best to shatter those myths", Jack grins and continues, "about half an hour ago, Darren got asked if he still lives with his parents, and he nearly twatted the guy".

How about the themes of the songs, the majority tend to concentrate on almost adolescent subjects, girls and alcohol for the most part? John swiftly fends off the criticism, "but most pop music is about fancying girls or fancying boys". What about the themes of the records, 'The Fidelity Wars' was concerned with relationships and infidelity, while you’ve said that the next album is about London. Do you feel trapped by the subject? that it's important to follow through an idea for the entire record? "I think always there's a kind of a theme to a record or Darren's lyrics, but he goes much wider and he uses something in particular, he’ll be singing about the hymn for the cigarettes or the hymn for the alcohol, but he tells another story within that". Are you worried that you're going to end up making a concept album? "I think that by definition you’re not going to end up with a prog-rock album", laughs Jack, "I think you'd be hard pushed to turn any of Darren's songs into a prog-rock concept". John, however, is more willing to concede a point, "I guess in a way there is a kind of concept to Hefner, with the covers and the themes to the albums. When Darren does interviews he'll often say he really liked the way that with Smiths or Joy Division records, even if it didn’t have the name on it, you could see that here's another Smiths record". Do you wish that you were able to have a greater input into the image, or are you happy with the set-up as it is at present? "Darren does all the covers and it's totally up to him what he does. He always shows everyone the artwork, but I'm sure if one of us said 'that's absolute bollocks', then he might take notice".

AngelicaThe End Of A Beautiful Career

If you’ve not been paying much attention recently, you may have led to believe that Angelica are no more than the next Kenickie. While some may judge that as an achievement in itself, 'The End Of Beautiful Career' sees Angelica step out of the shadow of their defunct contemporaries and gleefully announce their arrival at the debutante ball. This is how Kenickie must have sounded in Johnny X’s most vivid dreams, if you can look past the incestuous undertones implied by that notion. If they had grown up wanting to be Scorpions rather than Pink Ladies; if their favourite film had been the Wicker Man instead of Saturday Night Fever; and if they’d hadn’t gone Disco, but gone looking for a disco that played Fugazi; then this what is the first Kenickie album could have been.

Despite Holly’s sweet, almost child-like voice, a closer listen to her lyrics reveals a tendency towards extreme violence and retribution, a little like adding your artificial sweetener to your morning coffee only to that discover your spoonful of saccharine has a strychnine aftertaste. So 'Bring Back Her Head' describes how she wants to treat the new girlfriend with the same malice that nice girls usually reserve for their Barbie, while 'All I Can See' makes clear her intention to gouge your eyes out the first time you piss her off. Where debut single 'Teenage Girl Crush' saw Angelica set themselves up as Skinned Teen with talent, much of this album suggests that these girls have been listening to the sound of underground America since, and when Brigit takes over the vocals for 'Concubine Blues', we’re treated to a less intricate take on Sleater-Kinney, before the guitars go all Sebadoh on 'You Fake It, You Make It'.

Occasionally, their true ability is only hinted at rather than given the opportunity to flourish, but then everyone hates a teenager who thinks that they know it all. By the end of the year though, the lazy comparisons should be all but forgotten. Until then, be warned, there’s enough evidence here to suggest that if you dare mention the K-word to their faces, they’re not so likely to kick you in the bollocks as rip them off, stick 'em in a jar and post them to your mother for as a Christmas present, before going home to write a song about it.

The Action TimeVersus The World

History is always subjective, the past can be rewritten at will, and the only truth that ever matters is your own. In fact, if the rhetoric is strong enough then history can be cast aside altogether, allowing a new past to be fabricated that will then take on a new life of its own. The Nation of Ulysses claimed responsibility for a worldwide campaign of violence against United States embassies and the history of the Ulysses Jihad obliterated any true past that may have existed previously.

Having learnt from their forebears, the Action Time come to us with their past lovingly created and recorded, whether much truth lies within their stories has been rendered unimportant as a desire for excitement replaces the need for a less interesting reality. They present themselves as criminal masterminds on the run from the FBI, pulp fiction authors and part-time pornographers, students of Phil Spector and former go-go dancers who have come together to reclaim the art form of rock n‘ roll from the capitalist graveyard of pop radio.

Pitching themselves at the point where the Make Up meet Comet Gain, the Action Time are a riot of Jack Duvall’s skinny white-boy soul, the pounding Motown rhythm of Miss CC Rider and the jagged guitars of EB Rockets fronted by the Gospel Yeh-Yeh swagger of singers Rock Action, SK Sparkles and Miss Spent Youth.

'Versus the World' is their manifesto, a treatise for war and peace "using violence to reach beyond gravity’s pull" ('Soul On Ice') in order to stir up modern society once more. Even when the songs sound candy-coated, they’ve been laced with strychnine, as 'Rock‘n’Roll' spurns pacifism in order to create a better place to live ("I know I shouldn’t say it but it’s gotta be said, some of you people would be better off dead"), as they take on the mantle of a terrorist cell, hiding their dissent under the cover of sharp clothes, perfect eyeliner and gleaming polemic. This may not be your truth, it may not even be theirs, but when the past has been seized and rewritten with such insight and attention to the finest details, and the music is infused with the twin forces of passion and politics, who are we to doubt them, for the Action Time are here to prove once more that music can save your soul.