- Independent UK Promoting

COG Review - 15/11/08 (Let’s Wrestle/Late Greats/A.f.S.T./Scholars)

Club Night Review

Saturday 15^th November at the Metro, Oxford Street

Bands: Let’s Wrestle, The Late Greats, Artefacts for Space Travel, Scholars

Y’know, dysentery is a funny thing. Especially if an elderly gentleman who’s just sat next to you on the bus is complaining about it to his care worker, who smiles sardonically and sits on the opposite side. What would you do? Moving away from the care worker’s expectant stare would be rude and obvious, especially as all the other seats are taken. On the other hand, there’s a probability, nay a likelihood, of liquid pooage seeping into your Batman boxers. It’s a quandary and no mistake.

The Perfect British Gentleman’s Guide to Manners states that the best course of action is to employ the famous stiff upper-lip. ‘Grin and bear it’ is the attitude that’s seen us Brits through World War 1, World War 2, and the split of Busted. As the smell of pungent cauliflower dipped in sewage seers your nostril hairs and Robin’s yellow cloak becomes a cloudy orange, a way of taking your mind off things is to think of the finest emerging musical talent in the land performing in an intimate setting in the centre of London at convenient times, preferably the first and third Saturdays of the month.

Like Club COG for example, which hosted yet another night of music and merriment the Saturday just gone. The first band were the colour-coordinated London foursome Scholars, who followed a lively start with more of the same for their entire set. They played catchy, simple, stop-start indie pop with a refreshing hardcore-punk slant.

Sometimes it takes two ugly people to make a beautiful child, if my experience of working in the baby market is anything to go by. So don’t shriek and vomit on your keyboard when I say they’re like 36 Crazy Fists meets the Wombats. Their Blink-182 (again, Scholars are good) sensibilities are actually detrimental in showcasing their high-quality musicianship, particularly the drumming which was superb throughout. Yet again it’s a tale of two bands as they’re more like Sparta when live and more like a grown-up McFly on their myspace recordings. Nonetheless they had a good set and generated an exciting atmosphere for the next band to build on.

Which Artefacts for Space Travel did. Sort of. The three piece offered noise and a high-pitched voice, which, like love and rape, don’t often go together. They were interesting and certainly better than the huge number of synth-based techno-pop clones out there, but the repetitive nature of their songs hurt them. They’re competent musicians, but for the louder half of the songs they appeared to be creating (or at least attempting to) a British indie version of Queens of the Stone Age. They had the QOTSA hooky simple riffs repeated ad nauseam to emotive vocals, but fell a couple of steps short.

The reason QOTSA works is because of the charisma of Josh Homme, which AST’s lead singer, although not bad by any means, didn’t possess. Also, the simple lead guitar for QOTSA played cleverly off the simple rhythm guitar, so the intelligence and complexity is there, but more in the arrangement rather than the musicianship. Being one guitar too short, AST didn’t have hidden complexity. This was always going to be a problem. Their more psychedelic songs fared better, but not as good as their effects-enhanced recordings on myspace. Having said this, they’re not bad on the whole and if dreadful acts like Vampire Weekend can make it then so can they.

But it’s not likely they’ll make it ahead of the Late Greats. COG favourites and main support for the night, the Late Greats are a proper indie band, with classic genre-defining riffs, quality songcraft, and a level of musicianship which made the previous bands look like a bunch of window lickers picking up instruments for the first time as part of a mental hospital outreach programme.

They bore two vocalists and played energetic yet tuneful indie songs laced with subtle humour, powerful drumming and a weightiness that comes with unfailing quality. They’re quirky yet radio-friendly, varied yet consistent, and have a back catalogue of high-calibre tracks that will have considerable cache in today’s market but also wouldn’t fall out of peoples’ collective conscience after five minutes, unlike so many acts today.

Their Pixies-inspired vocal delivery on tracks like ‘Gareth’ and ‘He’s Not It’ play well off Madness-style riffs and Talking Heads mannerisms. And what they also have is their ace-in-the-hole, the simply fantastic single ‘Destroy My Brain’, a song, much like AIDS, that’s infectious and looking to spread like wildfire amongst the 16-35s. It’s a tremendous example of modern indie at its best, and a song any current favourite of NME would kill to have in their arsenal. Live, they play it with real venom, and used it to finish off a tremendous set that will see them invited back to Club COG again and again.

And so it was the fast and vibrant threesome Let’s Wrestle that headlined the evening. The drummer was vested and dog-tagged, the bass player Russell Brand-ed, and the lead singer/guitarist looking like, well, if Jack Black had some kind of palsy. Cerebral? You decide.

The difference between Let’s Wrestle and Artefacts for Space Travel is that their brand of simple, loud music is based on the kind of hooks that would captivate a crowd even without a rough, loud guitar. They’re an indie band with big speakers who sound like a consistent Eight Legs or a poor man’s Art Brut. Although the grunge-style dirty guitar got a little tiring, the bass player was very good indeed, dominating their sound with intelligent and accomplished play in every track.

The lead singer’s voice was forgetfully average, and sometimes very poor when singing emotively, and there’s an element of ‘too simple to last’ about them which meant the shadow of the Late Greats loomed large well into their set, but they had the aura of a band comfortable on stage, comfortable with their development, and certain in the knowledge of where they’re going. Songs like ‘I Won’t Lie to You’ got a terrific reaction from the large crowd of their fans, and it was clear by the end of the evening that they made an impact. They rounded up another successful evening for Club COG, and one that was achieved without blood pressure tablets, cod liver oil, arthritis creams, incontinence underwear and false teeth. Hear that granddad? I’m off to mix laxative into his soup. Until next time,

Muhammad Odeh