The Gone Ramone's The Shame We remember rock and roll radio: A Joey Ramone
tribute night with Hooker, beardless, three minute margin zanzibar 2-5-01 Simon Budgen doffs his cap to the dead punk star
Hooker are so violently punky, their drummer manages to break his drums in the
course of the first song. Despite this, and the apparent presence of Jamie Theakston
on bass, Hooker turn in a wonderful collection of sexual-fuelled smacktunes
that could hold their own set in a tank with the pre-disco Silverfish. With
the singer's Kat Bjelland-seduces-Polly Harvey tuneful screech, aset against
the asexual play emotion of the likes of Coldplay that dominates their generation,
Hooker are a foreign country of desire: confusing, screaming, desperate and
proud. Commercially speaking, cramming all this into music is suicidal, but
some things are so much more important than the long-awaited new Travis album.
What Joey would have wanted.
Say it aint so: This is Beardless' last gig, they claim, and another thread
linking us to the glory days when Mr Rays Wig World unsettled students straight
back to Oswestry snaps. Beardless, of course, shouldn't exist - there is no
scientific way that blending the new model army (and I mean Cromwell's troops,
not the clog wearing goths) to country-death-metal and psychpop should make
any noise at all, much less something so delicious. But they're probably dead
now anyway, so it's all just: Look at what you could have won. A flame from
Planet X circa 1991, but without the piss on the floor, if Beardless were southerners,
they'd be as big as Blur. Or at least as familiar as Keith Allen. Rob has got
the thinnest legs I have ever seen. "Worst band ever" says someone
in the crowd as they end. That someone is wrong, and not simply because of the
continued existence of Oasis. Beardless are what Joey would have expected.
Before Three Minute Margin take the stage, it all starts to go a bit Channel
Four News. Some scrapping in the dj box, bemused musicians roaming about, the
merry click of a needle stuck on the wrong groove. You suspect this may all
be some sort of artrock tribute to CBGBs. Eventually, 3MM approach, and with
a shrug, they launch into some Ramones songs they'd only just learned. Which
is exactly how they should be played. Until they ran out, and started on their
own, equally impressive, punky material. The closest to the spirit of the Ramones,
whatever that means, 3MM are actually probably channeling Joey by the end of
the set. Certainly they're what Joey would have wanted. Apart from the dying
bit.
There's a new star in heaven tonight. Gabba gabba hey hey.
