Another great night at Rockaway Beach club night that Timmy Derella and friends have been promoting at the Hope & Anchor for a few years now.
On first were The Anoraks who opened by asking us Why Comply that was good speedy punk, this time they seemed to have almost no ragged edges. Living In A Neon City was full of bright hopes fading among bitter realities.
Look At You Know had a great spiky guitar solo with snarky lyrics, they were soon pointing fingers at the Retro Dumb who seem to proliferate at the moment, while they wonder at the games they play to make us all fit in to whatever pigeon hole they have for us, for this lot its of a gang of mates who love playing live and having a damn good time doing it.
Anorak Dub showed off the bands punk reggae edge, it was all about the drums for me, they celebrated my youth on Kings Road, I'd dedicate it to the king of the Kings Road Punks, who could be seen on his first bottle of cider at about 11 am most days, the place now has no punk left in it sadly. They then gave us some good shouts of Alright that flew by with some speedy guitar solos and a good bouncy edge.
Was it You Ain't Over Rock & Roll that had all the pithy lyrics before they closed with Punx 4 Evah that is pretty much this lot's mantra and how they hope to live their lives, who could argue with that at the end of another fun set from The Anoraks.
Next on were Desperate Measures who were back with the band's classic line-up since there reformation, having been introduced by Timmy Derella opened as they often do with Scars & Memories with Eugene Butcher as ever getting totally into it. Pocket had the first great guitar solo from Michael Gaffney as it zipped along in time for some Sublime Destruction to pummel its way into our brains via James Sherry's pinpoint drumming.
Eugene pointed out that they wanted us to have a great time before they blew through The Rich-tual that has great caustic lyrics about the gap between the super wealthy and the rest of us scraping by. You're A Bad Man was built on a solid bassline from Ricky MacGuire as Eugene attacked all the despicable politicians who play the bad man.
Lost Angels was dedicated to all those we are missing, in particular Mark Gerahty who left us recently. Eugene told us that Flowers at Your door was the first song he wrote with Gaff as they were starting work on the current line-up of Desperate Measures, it was the slowest song of the set keeping the reflective mood going.
They then went back to the band's roots in New Zealand for 1984 that apocalyptic early tune. Ride had plenty of welly as they roared through it, Eugene made plain that Seven Sisters was as much about this bit of Islington as that fabled road.
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Back To The Rat was played like the early classic it is, with loads of punch to the drums and the guitars frying at the edge. They closed with a great sing a long brawl through I Wanna Be Your Dog that nails the bands influences to the mast perfectly.
Timmy then introduced the current three-piece line up of Ming City Rockers who come from Immingham, they let rip on the opener, a clattering wail of what may well have been Chic & The Motherfuckers with Clancey Jones and Morely Adams in long sun dresses creating a welter of noise.
Apparently Jill Was An Anarchist who loved the sound of Frightwig and Red Kross. Bug was all about what Morely was doing on her guitar especially all the fretwork. Nancy I'm Bitter reminded me of the Phantom Pregnancies and Mambo Taxi, the clattering wall of noise increased. That's Right they make a hell of a noise that is totally in our faces.
I don't know what Eileen Baxter did to Clancey, but she sounded bitter and twisted about it, among the fury of the breakneck bass. My notes claim the next song was Fantastically Yours fully encased in the total wall of guitar noise Morley specialized in. Christine sounded like one hell of a girl to need this amount of mad drumming from Jack Scales.
Get Away is what some of the audience were planning, this noise assault wasn't letting up, not even a decent cover of Woo Hoo by the 5 6 7 8's was gonna change those minds. Whatever the next song was Her Hat Was Too Small apparently, by this point most of my focus was on the mad noise Morley was making, exactly what her fingers were going on the frets. They closed by blasting through She's A Wrong Un that may well have been self-descriptive.
They came back for an encore and shards of guitar noise blasted through Don't You Wanna Make My Heart Beat judging by the audience reaction I'd guess it was a 70/30 split on that front, they brought a shambolically noisy set to its end.
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