Tony L
17-08-03, 05:39 PM
Time to give a little publicity to what is good in your local area.
The period from 1990 to about 3 years ago in Liverpool was dire; we had Cast and 145678 bands attempting to be Cast… I don’t like Cast so that is a bad starting point. Liverpool simply didn’t get post-rock, and despite having two of the best dance clubs in the shape of Cream and Voodoo simply didn’t get dance music either.
Everything changed for me just over three years ago – strangely I ended up playing loops and breaks for one gig in a friends band called Dirtbox, at the time they had a six piece female choir, a 60 year old blues guitarist, the best drummer I’ve ever seen and a couple of half decent songs to rub together. The band before us on the bill was Ladytron who are now pretty big news. Since then all hell has broken out in Liverpool. There is a amazingly good sort of indie / post-punk / post-Kraut thing happening. The key players are Flamingo 50 (www.flamingo50.co.uk), Three Minute Margin, Mugstar, Kling Klang (that name has to work!), Stig (they have a Theremin and a trumpet), Zukanican, Voo, Super Numeri (they have the harp player from my mates café and have been signed to Ninja Tunes), Cubical and many, many more. There is some seriously cool stuff happening here.
I went to the Barfly in Liverpool tonight to see a four band line up. I’ll concentrate on the first two as they are key players in the local underground scene. First up were Voo. I’ve seen them play about five times so far, but they have been having drummer problems, their original one left about six months ago and they have found it hard to find either one that will turn up or can play the drums. Tonight Louise who plays in Flamingo 50 (guitar and voc) and also in Three Minute Margin (drums) took the kit job. She was feckin superb as ever. Voo are a (potential) three piece doing a current take on what I would describe as post-SST records stuff – you can tell they have the odd Husker Du / Minutemen record in their collection, but that is not meant to imply that they are derivative, they manage to sound really fresh. Superb songs delivered in a really tight and purposeful manner. Seriously good stuff.
Next up were Three Minute Margin (www.3minutemargin.co.uk). God knows how to describe this lot, I’ve seen them about four times now and I still don’t know where to start… they are a three piece (Guitar / voc, bass, drums) and have that same ability that Firehose had to turn on a sixpence rhythmically. The music has elements of thrash, punk, post-rock, indie and just about everything else involving guitars. Their power, timing and control is utterly amazing. My jaw was firmly on the floor at many points of their set. Fantastic stuff.
Anyway lets have some write-ups of your local music scene.
Tony.
The period from 1990 to about 3 years ago in Liverpool was dire; we had Cast and 145678 bands attempting to be Cast… I don’t like Cast so that is a bad starting point. Liverpool simply didn’t get post-rock, and despite having two of the best dance clubs in the shape of Cream and Voodoo simply didn’t get dance music either.
Everything changed for me just over three years ago – strangely I ended up playing loops and breaks for one gig in a friends band called Dirtbox, at the time they had a six piece female choir, a 60 year old blues guitarist, the best drummer I’ve ever seen and a couple of half decent songs to rub together. The band before us on the bill was Ladytron who are now pretty big news. Since then all hell has broken out in Liverpool. There is a amazingly good sort of indie / post-punk / post-Kraut thing happening. The key players are Flamingo 50 (www.flamingo50.co.uk), Three Minute Margin, Mugstar, Kling Klang (that name has to work!), Stig (they have a Theremin and a trumpet), Zukanican, Voo, Super Numeri (they have the harp player from my mates café and have been signed to Ninja Tunes), Cubical and many, many more. There is some seriously cool stuff happening here.
I went to the Barfly in Liverpool tonight to see a four band line up. I’ll concentrate on the first two as they are key players in the local underground scene. First up were Voo. I’ve seen them play about five times so far, but they have been having drummer problems, their original one left about six months ago and they have found it hard to find either one that will turn up or can play the drums. Tonight Louise who plays in Flamingo 50 (guitar and voc) and also in Three Minute Margin (drums) took the kit job. She was feckin superb as ever. Voo are a (potential) three piece doing a current take on what I would describe as post-SST records stuff – you can tell they have the odd Husker Du / Minutemen record in their collection, but that is not meant to imply that they are derivative, they manage to sound really fresh. Superb songs delivered in a really tight and purposeful manner. Seriously good stuff.
Next up were Three Minute Margin (www.3minutemargin.co.uk). God knows how to describe this lot, I’ve seen them about four times now and I still don’t know where to start… they are a three piece (Guitar / voc, bass, drums) and have that same ability that Firehose had to turn on a sixpence rhythmically. The music has elements of thrash, punk, post-rock, indie and just about everything else involving guitars. Their power, timing and control is utterly amazing. My jaw was firmly on the floor at many points of their set. Fantastic stuff.
Anyway lets have some write-ups of your local music scene.
Tony.