- Independent UK Promoting

Club COG Birthday Bash - Night 1

Birthday Bash Review

Camden Dingwalls, 4^th June

Acts: Akala, We Start Fires, Talk Taxis, Dega Breaks

A wise man once said that anniversaries come but once a year. He was spot on. Like most things in life, the first time is the most memorable, which is why Check Out Gigs’ highly anticipated first-year anniversary celebrations contained heavy-duty line-ups performing at the Camden Dingwalls. Over two nights. Apparently there was some confusion over exactly which night the Club COG experience started. But it had nothing to do with consuming copious amounts of alcohol. Nothing at all.

The first night’s hootenanny started with myspace favourites the Dega Breaks. For those unfamiliar with the London four-piece, they look like a We Are Scientists tribute band and play like Interpol with Tourette’s. They started as energetically as humanly possible without resorting to hard drugs and machinery, particularly the obscenely fast drumming, which Alex Sabga managed to maintain throughout the entire set.

To see Dega Breaks live is to experience something very different from their myspace offerings. On the website they sound like an urgent, but restrained, Killers tribute band. Live they’re far rockier and faster. Rather than compromising their tunefulness and musical intelligence, it actually enhances their sound, adding an element of complexity that comes naturally when you play something just a bit quicker. They’re how the Editors would sound if they had something to be angry about.

And the baffling thing is that this appears natural to them. It’s as if they played demos like this, but then were told by producers to calm it down. ‘Yes, yes, that’s rocky and impressive and stuff, but what I’d really like is for you to slow it down a smidgen.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course, it’ll make you sound a bit more pretentious and a bit less good.’

‘Why would we want to do that?’

‘It’s that element of shitness that separates you guys from the Automatic, and look how famous they are?’

They did actually lose speed in the middle of their set, when the lead vocalist exchanged his guitar for keyboard duties, and sounded a lot more conventional, and although the ‘uh-oh’ chorus of one of their songs was more Futureheads than Kaiser Chiefs, it’s still, like telling your friends you’ve entered them for a bet which they’ve won then using their account details to siphon their hard-earned savings to fuel your ever-increasing ketamine habit, a cheap, oft-copied trick that’s now getting tired. They did, however, have enough energy to give the partisan crowd a venomous performance of their current single ‘All Night’. All in all, a good opening act.

But Talk Taxis were better. The way Dega Breaks play modern, tight-jeans, keyboard driven indie, Talk Taxis are more orthodox in their two-guitar set up, with their more tuneful music providing the quality that could see them become a mainstream success. There are some small ska influences showing through the cracks, but their plaster is mainly built from northern rock’n’roll, in particular the Arctic Monkeys and Maximo Park. The beginnings of ‘Liverless’ and ‘Zero The Desk’ sound like a Monkeys B-side, and the lead singer’s voice and ‘talking verses’ style is ripped straight out of Alex Turner’s book, but the quips aren’t so witty and stories aren’t so inspired.

In a paradox with Dega Breaks, once ‘Talk Taxis’ lost some pace and got more tuneful they improved, sometimes managing to sound like Interpol at their most touching moments. Their songs ‘Publicity’ and ‘No Worries’ are excellent, but it’s ‘Zero the Desk’ and it’s tuneful chorus, laced with excellent high-notes guitar work towards the end, which represents them at their best. It takes a while to get past the Maximo/Monkeys comparisons, but when you do you’ll discover a band with an understanding of indie music that many crave but few grasp.

But enough of guys dressed like brain-dead indie scenesters playing new music, it’s time for girls to do the same. We Start Fires are led by an indie femme fatale called Becky who’s not only the voice but also the ego of a group of three girls, and one guy who appears permanently uncomfortable. They’re everywhere at the moment, making punky electronic waves on various music media outlets.

The punk base to their songs gives a nod towards Kenickie, but their catchy conventionalism and melodic singing means the closest comparison for them would be a keyboard-infatuated female Ash. This sounds insulting, and it’s meant to be. Despite urine-soaked excitement from those bastions of musical integrity NME and the Times, they’re doing nothing new here. It appears they’re carrying on the work of Elastica, but lack Justine Fleischman’s measured authenticity. They remind you that alternative British girl bands all sing the same way; a sort of matter-of-fact ‘I don’t really care about this music thing I just want you to stare into my mascara – I mean eyes’ delivery as if they legally have to pay tribute to Debbie Harry. There’s none of the variety you see in the US, with bands like Le Tigre, Pretty Girls Make Graves, L7 and Veruca Salt.

But what they do have is quality. Quality seems to be hard to articulate in music. Here are a few pointers to help: If a band appears to have not one weak song in their repertoire, if they have an ear for what sounds good and never compromise it, if they play music that’s not necessarily your cup of tea but you don’t mind them or any of their tracks, then they’re quality. And We Start Fires fit in that category. They’re more consistent than Long Blondes and less gimmicky than CSS.

Their best recorded song is actually the quiet Wicked Spell, but live the ones performed with crazed passion, the big singles like ‘Magazine’ and ‘Play You’, were most effective. Although there may be an element of ‘Pink’s done a rock album’ about them, the last song, ‘Let’s Get Our Hands Dirty’ was louder and more energetic than ever and reminiscent of Bikini Kill, which is high praise indeed. If girls playing electro rock is your kinda thing, We Start Fires’ strong set means they’re always good value. Top stuff.

A few minutes after their departure, a drum solo announced the arrival of the headline act Akala, who sauntered onto the stage with pure charisma and proved to be by far the best act on the night, and one of Britain’s best hip-hop talents in the last few years. Like a British Mos Def on a budget, Akala’s political raps, thundering beats and heavy reverb guitar blend together perfectly because of one factor: quality (for definition, see above). With undoubted mic skill he engaged with the crowd, holding the stage on his own, and made them have a part to play in every song. The only criticism would be that filling the breaks between every song with two minutes of conversation disrupts the flow of the set.

Every song was strong, catchy, fierce and based upon meaningful lyrics that makes Akala an act with substance. The only egotistical song was Shakespeare, which was still impressive. Older tracks like ‘Dat Boy Akala’, which had a simple but incredibly fast rap to a drum backdrop, fitted in beautifully with current tracks like ‘Comedy Tragedy History’.

His a cappella sprint rap left some fans open-jawed at his bewildering talent, and he closed with a fantastic rendition of his most well-known song, ‘Bit by Bit’, but by far the best highlight of the night was his performance of ‘Electro Livin’’ – the height of intelligent rap encased in one of the catchiest tunes this year. Even if hip-hop is not your bag, (and you use ‘60s slang), Akala comes highly recommended. A worthy act to grace any birthday.

When asked once what I would like on my birthday, I asked for another birthday the following day. After a severe beating that left me with a permanent twitch and an irrational fear of skillets, I feared to ask for anything nice ever again. Club COG clearly haven’t learnt this lesson, so expect a review of Night 2 coming up…

Muhammad Odeh