Review: Uliot, Puma Sutras, Scout, Disneyporn
NoLoGos, Zanzibar 16-04-00
Simon Budgen spends a birthday with Jesus
Not only is it a tribute to the good people at
NoLoGos (who, admittedly, are at least in half also the good people at Ink)
that they’ve reached the milestone of their first birthday in an increasingly
attraction-gorged city, but they deserve extra credit for having managed to
take fourteen months getting there. On this special day, it’s only fair
to raise a huge glass to the regular dj crew], who every four weeks pull of
the difficult task of switching the Zanzibar from moshpit to dancefloor with
aplomb, and skank that is familiar but funky enough to make even the most
timid indiekid want to swoosh his (or her) skinny (or Lopezian) butt.
Uliot, it is clear, will be remaining seated throughout their set and, presumably,
their career. Pre-puffed as Mogwai-alike, they actually have a closer kinship
with the Super Furry Animals. The church bell sound is down right, and each
barroom stool clearly supports an tush that oozes love for music, but at the
moment they’re only offering incidental music when they should be scoring
the movies in their heads. Its not often you get to use the phrase "with
luck, we could be looking at a prolapse", though at the moment they haven’t
isolated the passion to combine with the skill. For an audience, it’s
even harder to work out how they’d like us to engage with them than it
is to pronounce their name. I want to take them home and play them with the
lights off; tonight, I look at my knees and write in a small notebook.
Loudon Wainwright plays The Las. Complete with songs that end apparently in
the middle, the Puma Sutras are straight outta Lancashire and are, as Jim
observes "nice and brave." Brave, of course, because they have songs
named after Last of the Summer Wine and the TV Times – and its clearly
when the TV Times in question being when it had only Granada listings. Often
their lyrics are swamped in noise, perhaps to befuddled you as you try to
decide if they’re clever, or just clever clever. But when you get a sock
to your mind like the line "you find the light in me", you have
to conclude they’re closer to Australian indie pop’s surefootedness
at turning thoughts into publishing deals, than the British They Might Be
Giants they occasionally threaten to mutate into.
Alarmingly, Scout have a fiddle player on stage. Even more alarmingly, she’s
also the lead singer. And, for the final slap of the boot onto your face forever,
she looks like Carol decker gone Brookside. With another five misbegotten
hairstyles and facial hair phenomena to consider, this looks set to be as
much fun as sewing your eyes shut with a blunt needle. And, yes, back in the
days when Woolworths would file records by genre, they’d be slipped under
White Funk. Nevertheless – and I feel as if I should hail a taxi and
prepare my departure to an exile of shame – Scout are glorious. They
are lovely, smiley, happy people making a noise that older readers may be
reminded of The Would Bes by. A pop experiment Fierce Panda would die for.
Really.
And if liking a violin-driven white funk act wasn’t enough to mess with
your sticky brain juice, you still have Disneyporn to come. Playing NoLoGos
for the third time, this probably means they get to keep it now. Adding a
freaky dancing Jesus to the Uncle Walt baiting name and Parental Advisory
mix. But while the gimmicks are what mark Disneyporn out against a backdrop
of you-know-who-you-are neutered Britpoppers and Beatlenecro four pieces,
and although the jokes are good ("Can you make the vocals a bit more
in tune, please?" pleads Neil of the sound engineer), Disneyporn are
not a novelty act. They’re actually a bloody good band, a musical capturing
of a youth spent listening to country albums; mimicking Kraftwerk; being rejected;
blacking out teeth in newspaper photos; forgetting girlfriend’s names;
not being arsed enough to go to the country and tip cows; deciding "that’s
enough chords for now"; pretending to sleep with the light on; wondering
what would have happened if Kool and the Gang had come from Burnley; taping
the Starsky and Hutch theme off the telly with a portable tape recorder; recognising
the magnificent stupidity of Ian Brown having an ego; secretly loving some
of the more anthemic Queen tunes and having lewd thoughts about Toni Basil.
This, and they cover the Doctor Who theme. Blimey.
A festival of Disneyporn:
Profiles: Graham | James
| Mark | Neil
| Scott
NoLoGos review | Official
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