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You'll have to excuse us, but we're having a bit of
A Moment. Can you give us five? The adrenaline-jab rock-blister
night-train joy-ride 'Whatever Happened To My Rock 'N'
Roll (Punk Song)' has just careered off the rails, screeching
like a banshee in worn leather slacks, smashing apart
anything in its path and then just fucking off as swiftly
and as enigmatically as it came, leaving us to smolder
helplessly in the white hot wreckage. Without so much
as a goodbye or even a gracious wink. And damn - the
sadomasochist in us cries - it feels good. Hell and
indeed yeah!
 See,
they fool you into thinking you know them and their
predictabilities, ambling along being generally mysterious,
dark and wonderful, becoming the living embodiment of
a stereotype, all the while creeping up on you from
angles you forgot you had, caressing your nerve endings
and then - BLAM! - they crowbar open your heart with
a bass-line nail bomb, break, enter and blow your tiny
little mind. Jesus, now where's my cigarettes.
And that's not just the smell of smoke, leather and
overpriced stale beer you notice lingering in the air,
oh no. That ain't just any old smell. That's the grubby
stench of genuine unavoidable greatness there you know.
This show was originally penciled in for next door's
pokey pocket sized LA2, and while shoehorning them into
there may have laid claim to gig of the century barely
two years in, no doubt, even the Astoria has trouble
containing the buzz, the electricity, the burgeoning
base sonics and howling love being thrown right back
at 'em. Whether you reckon they're ripping off the Jesus
& Mary Chain, instigating an unwanted shoe-gazing revival
or jumping on a roughly banged-together bandwagon (all,
incidentally, untrue - just to clear that up), spend
80 divine minutes in their company and then try your
arguments again, why dontcha!?
Because borrow from The Jesus & Mary chain they might
do (the slumped rhythms, the aspiring drawl, the melody
crushed hard up against the darkness), as they do early
Verve (a gritty disillusioned sprawling psychedelia),
Spiritualized, Spaceman 3 and My Bloody Valentine (blissed
out confession under the influence), but ram that into
a lock-in with the Dandy Warhols, disenchanted Americana
and some bad drugs and you can't help but be shocked
rigid with inspiration. In the flesh you've never seen
anything more absolutely utterly absorbingly real.
Unlike many of today's micro-processing, uber-efficient
stringently checked and sterile rock androids, this
is guaranteed machinery from yesteryear that you can
hear clunking into gear through a wonderfully stretched
'Red Eyes & Tears' and sweaty though reserved 'Love
Burns', but when the cogs really reach speed during
'White Palms', Peter Hayes and Robert Turner's grumbled
vocals continuously nudging up against, holding and
outdoing each other, the authenticity of the whole package
just snares your soul and reels you in. Finishing with
an extended estate version of album closer 'Salvation',
featuring all of support act The Vue on percussion,
harmonica, etc, it's like Beck and Jason Pierce at 10
paces in a lava storm and life, it seems, couldn't get
any better. Whatever happened to our rock 'n' roll?
Shame we had to wait for them to tell us themselves.
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2002© 
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| 04/02 1 Giant Leap - My Culture
04/02 Elfpower Interview - Andrew Rieger - Creatures
04/02 Frou Frou Interview - Guy Sigsworth/Imogen Heap
04/02 Gomez Interview - Ian Ball
04/02 Idlewild - Live - London Astoria
04/02 K's Choice Interview
04/02 Leaves - Live - Camden Dingwall
04/02 Longwave Interview - Exit
04/02 Lucy Mongrel Interview
04/02 Oasis - The Hindu Times
04/02 Phantom Planet - Interview
04/02 Unwritten Law - Interview
04/02 VUE - Coordinates Interview
05/02 BRMC - LIve - Kentish Town, London
05/02 Breeders - Title K
05/02 FC Kahuna - Machine Says Yes
05/02 Moco - Live - London Monarch
05/02 Need New Body - Interview
05/02 The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Live - Soundhause, Northampton
05/02 The Bellrays - Meet The Bellrays
06/02 Fleadh Festival - Finsbury Park
06/02 Frou Frou Coordinates Interview
06/02 Incubus - Interview - Mark Einziger
06/02 North Mississippi Allstars - Interview
06/02 Papa Roach - She Loves Me Not
06/02 Proud Mary - Live - Northampton, Soundhaus
06/02 Pulp - Live - Sherwood Pines, Edwinstowe
06/02 Reindeer section - You Are My Joy
06/02 Silverchair - Diorama |  | 06/02 Something Corporate - Leaving Through The Window
06/02 Soinc Youth - Interview
06/02 The Burn - The Smiling Face
06/02 The Coral - Live - Roadmender, Northampton
06/02 The LIbertines - Live - The Social, Nottingham
06/02 The Vines, Sheffield Leadmill
06/02 Trik Turner - Interview
06/02 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Live, Soundhaus, Northampton
07/02 12 Stones Interview
07/02 Arolo -Interview
07/02 Buy To Let Doncaster - Anti Social Behaviour
07/02 Cassius - Interview
07/02 Farrah - Interview
07/02 Glassjaw - Interview
07/02 Neil Michael Haggerty - Interview
07/02 Hoobastank - Running Away
07/02 Leaves - Interview
07/02 LL Cool Jay Interview
07/02 Oasis - Live - Finsbury Park, London
07/02 Polyphonic Spree - Live - Camden Monarch
07/02 Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
07/02 Super Furry Animals - Interview
07/02 The Beatings - Live - Metro Club London
07/02 The Bellrays + The D4 - Virgin Megastore, Oxford Street London
January 2001
July - August 2001
September - October 2001
November - December 2001
January - March 2002
April - July 2002
August - December 2002 | |
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