We're freaks and miserable goths
Oct. 30th, 2006 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaHaving left work late on Thursday, I hurled myself up the M1, along that really annoying bit of the A64 (why is it so long ? and so boring ?) and across the twisty turny moor road to get in to Whitby just before midnight.
I headed for the pub at a sprint, still wearing what I'd been wearing for work - blue jeans, a greyish jumper and a khaki jacket. Which had the interesting effect of rendering me invisible to almost all gothy types - I got edited out of vision as "local", and got (at best) pitying glances from people I ordinarily chat to. Bonus points to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reddragdiva for looking particularly disgusted with me when I said hello :) Further bonus points to dmh for not only recognising me but buying me a pint (which generosity I repaid later in the weekend by queueueing for 20 minutes to buy him a drink that was nothing like what he wanted. With hindsight, maybe we shouldn't have had the "what you drinking?" conversation directly in front of the speakers).
Other than that, there was chatting, tea, cake, shopping, cake, beer, chatting, cake and tea.
XYkogen
It's easy to get confused by a band who seem to have a bloke whose main job is to flick his hair about and smoke, and who have a drummer and a person to play a box of twiddly knobs but still seem to have a backing tape. I got confused by XYkogen.
They were entertaining, but ultimately not desperately memorable. Electro backing, and a mixture of growly vocals and odd and possibly ill-advised rap. I also watched quite a few songs with the disturbing impression that the drummer wasn't quite drumming in time, but am prepared to believe I'm wrong about that.
Their website lets you download their latest album for free; it sounds nothing like they did live. This seems to be a common feature of Wasp Factory bands - I think XYkogen sound better recorded, unlike The Chaos Engine who were always great live but strange and tinny on record. The rapping on track 1 sounds all KLF, but is possibly still ill-advised.
Check out ? Probably wouldn't have done, but since there's an album to download I expect I will.
Comedy Covers: 0
Trauma Pet
Trauma Pet would be a straight guitar/bass/vocals band, were it not for their badly behaved backing tape. The female vocalist has a good voice (I'd say moany, but that suggests the songs have lyrics like "You forgot to put the rubbish out again", which they didn't. I mean sort of low and, well, like unto a moan. It's meant to be a good thing.) And the bass player is fun to watch. She thinks she's in a metal band :)
Check out ? Probably.
Comedy Covers: 0
Vampire Beach Babes
Note to self: Vampire Beach Babes != Bikini Beach Band. Ultimately it wasn't really the Vampire Beach Babes' fault that they're not the band I thought they were, but it was very disappointing.
Electro backing tape (noticing a theme here, yet?), but very good vocals from both singers. Male/female harmonies can work really nicely, and these did.
Check out ? Doubt I'll bother, though I'd happily see them again.
Comedy Covers: 0
The Damned
The Damned were in fine fettle, and produced a very healthy-looking mosh pit (and even a crowd surfer!) On the minus side, I didn't fight myself far enough forward to watch the most entertaining member of the band (the veteran Timelord keyboard player). On the plus side, an unexpectedly cybered-up Captain Sensible doing an Edith Sitwell was rather funny.
I'm aware that The Damned have settled nicely into their rut, and can probably play their set without ever regaining consciousness (and possibly did). However, they were still by far the most professional act of the weekend.
And no damn backing tracks!
Check out ? I may get round to buying an album or so. I've been meaning to for a good few years now.
Comedy Covers: 0
Uninvited Guest
A suggested guideline for bands: do not introduce your set with a grumble about how low down you are on the support list. It makes you look stupid and petty.
I feel cheated when backing tapes have vocals on. It makes me wonder whether actually the entire thing is live at all. In a shocking break with tradition, though, they ditched their backing tapes and the twiddly-knobs guy for one song and did an acoustic ballad-thing with just guitar, bass and vocals. It was good to see they can do it, and it was well done - I just thought the song was clearly very heartfelt, while being clichéd and a bit shite.
In fact, the songs where they were taking on a serious subject they were a bit grinding and tired. In the songs where they were singing utter rubbish about toyboxes they were kind of fun. And had a very spangly singer.
Check out ? In theory no, but I did just discover that you can listen to The Devil's Toybox on myspace and I'm tempted.
Comedy Covers: Bauhaus' Double Dare
Inertia
I enjoyed this set, though was disappointed to note the female singer/drummer announcing that this would be her final gig with the band "for a while" - she was what really made them, I thought. Growly vocals from the male singer, proper-sung vocals from the female, and oh, probably another bloody backing tape in their somewhere.
Check out ? Probably.
Comedy Covers: The Cure's Hot Hot hot, which they did a damn good job of.
Katzenjammer Kabarett
This band seemed very unpopular for top support, so I guess I'm going to be quite alone here... but I rather liked them. Guitar, bass, and the inevitable sodding backing track, even though their stand-in bassist couldn't operate the backings for toffee. They're another band drawing on 20's Berlin cabaret (they seem to be everywhere at present), and their singer is suitably deranged; on a scale of 1 to Katie-Jane Garside, she scores about three quarters of an Ian Curtis.
Off-kilter guitars, twinkly electro bits, and slightly French-accented singing and shrieking over the top. In short, they want to be the Dresden Dolls but are not quite as good and not quite as barking. A fun set live, though I'm not sure how it'd work recorded. (Ah, I can find out).
Check out ? Yup.
Comedy Covers: 0
XPQ21
The trouble with bands that sound like XPQ21 is that they all sound like that. I can't tell the difference. EBM with male vocals, I dunno, it all sounds more or less like VNV Nation to me. Which is fine, but a bit distressing when you think I watched this band for about an hour and can only think that they were kind of indistuingishable from many others.
Check out ? Unlikely.
Comedy Covers: Bauhaus' Bela Lugosi's Dead
I headed for the pub at a sprint, still wearing what I'd been wearing for work - blue jeans, a greyish jumper and a khaki jacket. Which had the interesting effect of rendering me invisible to almost all gothy types - I got edited out of vision as "local", and got (at best) pitying glances from people I ordinarily chat to. Bonus points to
reddragdiva for looking particularly disgusted with me when I said hello :) Further bonus points to dmh for not only recognising me but buying me a pint (which generosity I repaid later in the weekend by queueueing for 20 minutes to buy him a drink that was nothing like what he wanted. With hindsight, maybe we shouldn't have had the "what you drinking?" conversation directly in front of the speakers).Other than that, there was chatting, tea, cake, shopping, cake, beer, chatting, cake and tea.
XYkogen
It's easy to get confused by a band who seem to have a bloke whose main job is to flick his hair about and smoke, and who have a drummer and a person to play a box of twiddly knobs but still seem to have a backing tape. I got confused by XYkogen.
They were entertaining, but ultimately not desperately memorable. Electro backing, and a mixture of growly vocals and odd and possibly ill-advised rap. I also watched quite a few songs with the disturbing impression that the drummer wasn't quite drumming in time, but am prepared to believe I'm wrong about that.
Their website lets you download their latest album for free; it sounds nothing like they did live. This seems to be a common feature of Wasp Factory bands - I think XYkogen sound better recorded, unlike The Chaos Engine who were always great live but strange and tinny on record. The rapping on track 1 sounds all KLF, but is possibly still ill-advised.
Check out ? Probably wouldn't have done, but since there's an album to download I expect I will.
Comedy Covers: 0
Trauma Pet
Trauma Pet would be a straight guitar/bass/vocals band, were it not for their badly behaved backing tape. The female vocalist has a good voice (I'd say moany, but that suggests the songs have lyrics like "You forgot to put the rubbish out again", which they didn't. I mean sort of low and, well, like unto a moan. It's meant to be a good thing.) And the bass player is fun to watch. She thinks she's in a metal band :)
Check out ? Probably.
Comedy Covers: 0
Vampire Beach Babes
Note to self: Vampire Beach Babes != Bikini Beach Band. Ultimately it wasn't really the Vampire Beach Babes' fault that they're not the band I thought they were, but it was very disappointing.
Electro backing tape (noticing a theme here, yet?), but very good vocals from both singers. Male/female harmonies can work really nicely, and these did.
Check out ? Doubt I'll bother, though I'd happily see them again.
Comedy Covers: 0
The Damned
The Damned were in fine fettle, and produced a very healthy-looking mosh pit (and even a crowd surfer!) On the minus side, I didn't fight myself far enough forward to watch the most entertaining member of the band (the veteran Timelord keyboard player). On the plus side, an unexpectedly cybered-up Captain Sensible doing an Edith Sitwell was rather funny.
I'm aware that The Damned have settled nicely into their rut, and can probably play their set without ever regaining consciousness (and possibly did). However, they were still by far the most professional act of the weekend.
And no damn backing tracks!
Check out ? I may get round to buying an album or so. I've been meaning to for a good few years now.
Comedy Covers: 0
Uninvited Guest
A suggested guideline for bands: do not introduce your set with a grumble about how low down you are on the support list. It makes you look stupid and petty.
I feel cheated when backing tapes have vocals on. It makes me wonder whether actually the entire thing is live at all. In a shocking break with tradition, though, they ditched their backing tapes and the twiddly-knobs guy for one song and did an acoustic ballad-thing with just guitar, bass and vocals. It was good to see they can do it, and it was well done - I just thought the song was clearly very heartfelt, while being clichéd and a bit shite.
In fact, the songs where they were taking on a serious subject they were a bit grinding and tired. In the songs where they were singing utter rubbish about toyboxes they were kind of fun. And had a very spangly singer.
Check out ? In theory no, but I did just discover that you can listen to The Devil's Toybox on myspace and I'm tempted.
Comedy Covers: Bauhaus' Double Dare
Inertia
I enjoyed this set, though was disappointed to note the female singer/drummer announcing that this would be her final gig with the band "for a while" - she was what really made them, I thought. Growly vocals from the male singer, proper-sung vocals from the female, and oh, probably another bloody backing tape in their somewhere.
Check out ? Probably.
Comedy Covers: The Cure's Hot Hot hot, which they did a damn good job of.
Katzenjammer Kabarett
This band seemed very unpopular for top support, so I guess I'm going to be quite alone here... but I rather liked them. Guitar, bass, and the inevitable sodding backing track, even though their stand-in bassist couldn't operate the backings for toffee. They're another band drawing on 20's Berlin cabaret (they seem to be everywhere at present), and their singer is suitably deranged; on a scale of 1 to Katie-Jane Garside, she scores about three quarters of an Ian Curtis.
Off-kilter guitars, twinkly electro bits, and slightly French-accented singing and shrieking over the top. In short, they want to be the Dresden Dolls but are not quite as good and not quite as barking. A fun set live, though I'm not sure how it'd work recorded. (Ah, I can find out).
Check out ? Yup.
Comedy Covers: 0
XPQ21
The trouble with bands that sound like XPQ21 is that they all sound like that. I can't tell the difference. EBM with male vocals, I dunno, it all sounds more or less like VNV Nation to me. Which is fine, but a bit distressing when you think I watched this band for about an hour and can only think that they were kind of indistuingishable from many others.
Check out ? Unlikely.
Comedy Covers: Bauhaus' Bela Lugosi's Dead
no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 10:30 pm (UTC)I actually find commenting on seven bands I know nowt about and have only heard once a bit tricky (they all kind of blur into one), so I suspect it's an especially content-free review this year!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 10:32 pm (UTC)I also seem to be one of the few people not ecstatic about the line-up for April. But that doesn't surprise me either.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 10:35 pm (UTC)Cruxshadows are silly, but they give good gig. I remember The Last Dance as watchable, and I've not really heard the rest. So not ecstatic, but cautiously optimistic over here.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 10:37 am (UTC)