- Independent UK Promoting

COG Review - 5/4/08 (7 Dollar Taxi/Hamfatter/Fullertons/City Joycons)

Club Night Review

Saturday 5^th April at the Metro, Oxford Street

Bands: 7 Dollar Taxi, Hamfatter, The Fullertons, City Joycons

Everyday people die in London. They die for many reasons, under various circumstances, surrounded by family, on their own, or at worst, by horrified onlookers. But the real tragedy is that many of them are indie music fans that died having never been to a Club COG night at the Metro to check out the best up-and-coming bands in the country before anyone else.

Why are so many of the people who die in London indie music fans? Perhaps indie music lovers are a little less careful crossing the road. Perhaps their love for hair gel means they get more cancer of the brain, or maybe it’s a government conspiracy against free-thinking youth. Who knows, but get down to the Metro quick before any of these ailments befall you. Here’s what you missed on the Saturday just gone:

The City Joy Cons. Ok, you didn’t miss too much if you didn’t catch them. They’re a cross between the Automatic and Coldplay, which sounds gay in theory and is put perfectly into practice. They started unceremoniously into what proved to be their best song of the night; an energetic, catchy tune with a chorus reminiscent of the Doves, although comparing them to the Doves would be like comparing domesticated cats to wild lions. However it was hooky, lively, and had a crescendo finish which hit the spot.

One of the worst things in modern music is bands trying to be different by having a gimmick, and the City Joy Cons are an obvious example. Having two keyboardists is fine. Not having a bass player is also fine. Having two keyboards with one playing bass lines for most of the songs is a fucking disgrace. It makes the band seem stupid in not having a bass player, and one of the keyboards redundant because it’s playing the role of another instrument, only worse.

Also, if you have two members of the band playing an instrument, surely that instrument would dominate the sound of the band? Not in this case. Any unique synth effects were few and far between, and for the most part you could’ve just put a middle school kid with 4 music lessons under its belt to play the stupidly simple single notes.

Another point to make regarding the lack of the bass is it made the quiet parts in their songs too weak and empty, exposing the guitarist’s mistakes and giving the singer no foundations from which to launch his voice. Having said this, the musicianship on the whole wasn’t too bad. It was ambitious, although lacking the polish of a finished article. Their songcraft was also refreshingly complex, second-guessing the normal route an indie song would take and creating a good sound for them to build on.

In the end, however, the band will sink or swim on the star potential of their lead singer, who made up for an average voice with great stage presence and passion. They’re not quite there yet, but as a group they’re more than the sum of their parts. Let’s just hope they come to their senses and get a bass player quick.

After a short interval came the second band, The Fullertons. Ah, the Fullertons. Like sandals with socks, wet cucumber sandwiches and horrid trips to the seaside with cold fish ’n’ chips and seagulls so big and threatening they steal your lunch without a hint of you putting up a fight and then you feel emasculated in front of your girl, they remind you of a Britishness that simply doesn’t exist today.

Nobody goes to the seaside, or does any of those other things anymore, but people still listen to very British-sounding bands – usually when they’re drunk and just before a pub fight. The Fullertons draw their influences from the Dogs, the View, Dirty Pretty Things and other bands of that ilk that got their influences from Paul Weller, Rolling Stones and other very British institutions. Oh yes, and Madness. That’s right, straight-forward simple indie rock ’n’ roll with a hint of ska keyboard.

It’s very direct working-class stuff, using classic song structures and highly repetitive simple choruses to make radio-friendly, sing-along tunes. The songs are all very catchy, but sound very similar to each other on the first listen and can get a little tiring. However, this is more than made up for by the niceness of the band members and the innocent earnestness they exude on stage. They engaged in banter with the crowd regularly, the singer danced like a man who’d been pepper-sprayed in the balls and their keyboard player was the spitting image of Russell Brand, so much so I expected him to say something ‘Dickensian’ and not be as funny as he used to be.

Their penultimate song, which sadly is not on their myspace at the moment, was their best. It encapsulated the good parts of everything they did, only faster and with more vim. It desperately needed a solo at the end of it though, which never came. This highlights their limitations. The musicians all look comfortable with their instruments because they don’t aim too high in terms of individual riffs that are difficult to pull off or complex variations in general. But on the flip side, their stuff is so accessible and easy to bob your head to that most people didn’t care anyway. A very good outing on the whole.

But not as good as Hamfatter. Coming on third, they acted and played like headliners. The three-piece added a saxophone and a trumpet player to their line-up, both standing to the side of the stage like tourists at a leper colony. Their bearded lead singer adopted bass and piano duties (though not both at the same time), and the guitarist (who also sang) wore a nice sixties hat. They started their set by talking to the crowd and spent the rest of the night generally being friendly, engaging and all-round good eggs.

The lead singer is the focal point of the group, singing in a style similar to Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy, only a little lighter and more accessible. His range, passion and the timbre of his voice were all outstanding factors in raising the band above the average acts in the myspace community. Indeed, both the singers (the behatted guitarist also assumed warbling duties) have natural talent in the vocals department, combining effectively and showing great skill in hitting the higher notes crisply.

The rest of the band weren’t bad either. Unlike the City Joy Cons, Hamfatter’s gimmick for the night wasn’t a gimmick at all. Both the sax and trumpet were instrumental (see what I did there?) to the band’s sound as a whole, playing large parts in every song and giving them an Arcade Fire-like messy quality. The drummer was less energetic than the previous two, but appeared more accomplished, more comfortable, and utilised more variation.

Hamfatter were excellent live, much better than the samples on myspace or their website. On top of playing songs of great quality, their admittedly small back catalogue still proved eclectic and expansive, containing some memorable future hits. In particular watch out for ‘Do Something Stupid Tonight’, a home-wreckingly catchy track that’ll make you forget about the child abuse you suffered at the hands of friendly uncle Freddy and his uncomfortably bulging lap.

They seemingly have the knack of playing songs that you think you’ve heard before. Everything is simple, but unlike the Fullertons’ efforts, it’s endlessly repeatable pop paradise. Fantastic stuff. They blew the crowd away, so much so that by the time 7 Dollar Taxi came on there was a massive expectation and a great atmosphere.

For some reason, the Swiss four-piece decided to start things off quietly, dulling the anticipation in the audience. Initially playing Franz Ferdinand style art house music (but with more impact than the skinny Scots), they used simple riffs continuously, but the instruments synced well and the unexpected shifts in the songs were very effective. At times they represented an indie-pop version of Queens of the Stone Age, but later developed into a style more reminiscent of the Kooks (particularly the singer’s voice at times – which was ironic considering he looks like a ginger version of the Kook’s sworn enemy Simon Amstell).

It’s difficult to pin down their sound, because they seem to be just a little confused themselves. Like an alternative-scene chameleon crawling past the history of left-field rock, they represent various bands at different times, from the Strokes to the Vines, through early Blur and even the Clash. The lead singer has a good growl on him, and all the musicians are of a high quality, but their simple choruses, particularly the use of the glottal-stop, got tiring. At times it seemed as if they had all the tools to build a great song, but left the manual in the Alps.

But they improved. They got more boisterous by each song, visibly upping the ante from arty stand-offish stuff to Libertines-esque vagrant rock ’n’ roll. By the time they got to the end, the crowd were lapping up their furious head-bobbing half-singing half-shouting punky pop. They were also the only band to have a great lead guitar, performing a number of good solos throughout their set. The hooky rock tunes they proffered sounded eerily similar to Scandinavian suit-canvasses the Hives, only 7 Dollar Taxi were smarter, more subtle in their build up and more angry.

Although a little contrived and predictable in some ways, 7 Dollar Taxi are still developing. Given time, they could be something special indeed. Let’s just hope it happens before you die. I’m off to put on Loreal’s new all-day bounce-back mouse, made in their new factory in Chernobyl. Then I’ll try to cross Oxford Street in the rain wearing a loud shirt whilst listening to the ‘Friends’ soundtrack on my i-watch. Wish me luck….

Muhammad Odeh