This show kicked off the best week of gigs so far this year for me and featured the sort of line-up where any of the 4 bands could have been the headliners. This was clear by the fact that the club was already busy by the time I got in just after 7.45 to make sure I caught all of NICK MARSH'S set.
I'm not sure if it was 1984 or '85 when I tried to see Nick play in his old band Flesh For Lulu for the first time. That night, they were meant to play at the Seven Kings pub in Seven Kings, but they cancelled and I had to put up with The Moodists and Ken Scott's Soft Pulse as replacements. But there are no worries on that front tonight as Nick is here and comes on with his current solo band. Well, actually it's the solo band he put together about 10 years ago and never happened at the time, though now there's the addition of Will Crewsdon on guitar.
They open with the Flesh For Lulu classic Cat Burglar and it's great to see him fronting a full band rather than the solo acoustic set I saw him play at Gypsy Hotel back in February, although he is playing as a duo when he plays at Faery Fest next month: Faery Fest info online. Yes, Cat Burglar sounds great with Crewsdon's crunchy guitar and the adrenaline rush coming from the stage is a great start to the evening. They then do a cool as can be version of the old Flesh For Lulu single Subterraneans which has just that hint of the goth about it.
Vaguely Human is darker still and when they slow down a bit, Keef McAndrew's bass comes to the fore underpinning the song nicely. Rent Boy is next and as this set goes on it just gets better. The interaction between both Nick and Will is great to watch as both of them try to get as much as possible from their guitars, duelling away and just nailing it.
Nick Introduced Don't Give Up On Me as being from his solo album and compared to hearing the song acoustic it's a fuller sound with the lyrics tugging at us a bit. As with the album version, Nick has got David Ryder-Prangley up as backing vocalist which means we now have half of Rachel Stamp onstage.
Postcards From Paradise is nice and moody and has some real cool flourishes from Mark Bishop on the drums before they finish with Black Tattoo which was also the closing track on the Blue Sisters Swing EP all those years ago. It still sounds really cool and this was a great opening set. I hope this line-up gets to do a lot more shows together as they are well worth seeing.
Next on was DAVID RYDER-PRANGLEY & THE WITCHES who I haven't seen for a while. Tonight, they play an all-electric set rather than some of the more acoustic soirees I've seen them play previously. They open with Electric Ladyboy and it sounds bigger and more expansive than ever. Space Station Number Nine really works with the full on sound and is as close to sounding like Rachel Stamp as they come tonight. Belle's drumming, as we get to the lift off, has just the right amount of shimmer to it and it doesn't seem to miss the cello it used to have on it in the band's earlier incarnations.
Rhiannon is a typical DRP love and life gone strange tune that has enough of the pain and angst among the glitter that I always expect from him. Trouble Every Day is pretty much Ryder-Prangley's modus Operandi and he plays up to both that image of him being Trouble Every Day and what some people imagine his life to be. It's a great song for all that, and like everything else in The Witches' set it would be great to hear a recorded version but this has always been a live only band. Still, they got the place really going and it sounded great.
They closed with a very long and episodic song, The Great Pirate Captain Sugar which is all about being hip with the girls and taking all sorts of Sugar and other things that might look like sugar, if you get my drift. It works really well as the song's peaks and troughs echo the highs and lows David is singing about. A very cool short set.
Next on are THE DOGBONES who feature various ex members of Daisy Chainsaw and Queen Adreena who I know I have seen before even if the band's name didn't ring too many bells. Thy do sound a lot like Daisy Chainsaw and Johnny Orion no matter how ravaged he looks is always a great guitarist to watch while Naomi howled and raged at us while the band's twin drummers faced off and just pounded it out.
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It has to be said that Naomi looks like a harridan witch from hell and is dressed in an old 70's style Pinafore style dress (or is it a Kitchen apron with a pair of yellow Marigold gloves?) that covered the black was-it-tattoos on her hands and wrists or just painted on for the gig? She also sports a huge great mop of yellow hair that works well as an extension of her howling and screaming style. She may be screaming about Jesus Saving Us but it's being sung from the gates of Hell.
Everybody Thinks You're Strange is almost like a theme song for this band and has howling guitars and pummelling double drumming that has some echoes of the Drummers of Burundi. I think it was either on Dear Masochist and Golden Miss Jane that Johnny Orion shares and then takes lead vocals. This makes them sound a lot less deranged and I'm not sure that's a good thing. Still if you liked either Daisy Chainsaw or Queen Adreena then The Dogbones are worth seeing.
Rounding off this night is Johnny Cola & The A-Grades who are celebrating the success of the bands current Pledge music campaign: Jony Cola Pledge Music campaign that has so far reached 174% of its goal!! This should mean the band's next album will come out on schedule later in the year.
They opened with Into The Woods and right from the off sounded a lot tighter than the last time I saw them, as is only natural for a band who are once again playing regular shows and obviously rehearsing and preparing material. Mauro Venegas played a really cool solo to cap it all.
They then went into one half of the recent single, Marlborough Road and it had added poignancy hearing it in the closest venue to Marlborough Road - just a few hundred yards further up the Holloway Road from Nambucca. It had that trashy vibe working brilliantly as Simon Drowner's bass seemed to propel them to greater heights.
Blow Up was the song that made them sound most like My Life Story and had Johnny giving us his most Jake Shillingford-influenced performance of the night. There again, since the song seems to parody that band's Girl A Girl B Girl C single and reverses it as Johnny sings about Boys 1 2 3 and 4 it's no surprise and yes it does in parts share a similar tune. It might be interesting to play the two of them back to back. Going Over is the first song of the set to feature some of Jonny's keyboard playing that fleshes things out a bit more and makes them sound more like Suede than anything else in this set.
Straight To Video, the other half of the recent single, comes next and sounds better than ever as Mauro Venegas and Jez Leather's guitars intertwine and work off each other to brilliant effect. They then play a new song Tropical Beach that sounds cool but will sound better once it's properly bedded into the set so they can really emphasize the bits where Jonny is singing about always being trouble.
The band's classic Halo is next and sounds better than ever as most of the audience sing along. This really helps build the climax that is The Party's Over: a perfect denouement to an evening like this as Jonny sings about the wreckage of one of those nights out which finishes in the middle of the next afternoon. A great end to the best set I've seen them play so far. They are a band well worth catching at the moment as they seem to be getting better literally show by show.
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