Wandering around late on Thursday night, I stumbled across the Lost Vagueness field. Brutal gargoyles of melded exhaust systems loomed out of the ground at every turn. The truly crippled shook at staggered. I pulled one guy out of an oil drum, his neck twisted at an impossible angle. He mumbled something and tried to crawl back inside.
In the centre was a weird 50’s Americana diner with jukeboxes and Chuck Berry. Next to that, a ballroom filled with shattered looking Cinderella’s and Wild Billy Childish look-alikes, resplendent in ancient military dress. Maybe their shifty looks were down to the bar charging £3.50 for a vodka and coke.
On stage was Sweet Toof. As far as I know, they are some kind of hip hop / funk / soul collective. They switched between a two MC’s and two Soul / R’n B singers and they were awesome - low funk grooves, saxophones, deep backing vocals. Everything that Top 40 funk and soul isn’t.
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One of the MC was on fire. He ran all over the place, lyrics overtaking each other at the speed of light, break dancing. He got the crowd to hold up something in the air – phones, cigs, drinks, shoes, God knows – and then free-associated from one end of the room to the other, before slamming into another tune.
I know this isn’t much of a review, but these guys were really, really good; they were mellow and thumping in equal measures, getting the crowd moving, dragging them out of the drink and drugs fog that had settled like mustard gas.
There’s nothing more than trace elements about them on the internet either. Completely mysterious, but if you get the chance to see them, I strongly recommend.
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