Review:
'BERMONDSEY JOYRIDERS/ , DFC'S, THE/ STASH'
'London, 100 Club, 26th June 2012'
- Genre: 'Punk/New Wave'
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Our Rating:
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This was the first of two gigs this week to clash with important games in this year's Euro Football championships. This one came up against the first semi-final which might have reduced the audience numbers a little bit, but the 100 Club still had a healthy turn out who were already well into STASH'S set by the time I turned up.
The first thing that struck me about Stash was the band's frontwoman was playing a vintage white Moog through a Danelectro amp and the guitarist was going through a vintage Fender amp set up and, damn, they sounded like a great garage band with a bit of a Blue Cheer feel to them.
The first song I heard all of was Victim of Circumstance and it featured a stomping garage riff with lots of Moog helping to build the sound and then build it some more. Ticking Time had a good metronomic drum beat and sounded best when the Moog came in. Not sure what the third and final tune I heard was called but it featured some very tasty knob twiddling on the moog against a rumbling bass riff and a fuzzed out guitar sound. Stash are a very cool band who are well worth catching live.
Looking round the audience and the 100 club was stuffed with other culties and musicians including Spizz, who was busy posing for photos with fans and as well as being dressed as usual in his own merchandise he had also had his own hand-held lighting to be photographed with!! Texas Terri didn't need any extra lighting to be noticed!
THE DFC's (or Don't Fucking Cares to give them the full title) were next and were launching their new album Negative For Fun. They are a straight ahead female-fronted punk rock 4 piece who didn't really deviate from the bog standard enough at any point to be truly memorable which is why calling the second song you play The Rest Is Just Noise might just have been too obvious. There, that could be my review in a nutshell.
But as the singer Marta did her best to get us interested in the Black Eyeliner No.1, the band were plodding along a bit and while they were claiming Nihilism was a way of life, they never sounded anywhere near nihilistic enough to be believeable, which may actually be because They Don't Fucking Care! Or do they? Well I was never certain, that's for sure.
Marta at times reminded me of Pauline Murray, at other times it was more like Nena and she didn't sound like she had enough bile in her voice on Underaged Demon considering the subject matter. It might just have been that they were in-between two far better bands but by the end of the set I didn't fucking care if I got the new album or not, which surely was not the purpose of this gig.
Next up it was time for me to see THE BERMONDSEY JOYRIDERS for the third time this year and on the same day that I found out that Gary Lammin's old band Cock Sparrer's current line-up are over later in the year to play some Double Headlining shows with Rancid. But we don't need that old punk stuff tonight when we have the adrenaline-fuelled high octane rock and roll of the Bermondsey Joyriders blasting from the stage, do we? Nah. They opened up with Who Are Ya that has everyone singing along and shouting back "You What!" at exactly the right time.
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As Martin Stacey ramped up the rumble on his immense bass on (what I have down as) They Can't Have Me they really had the place going and the pace was really being upped as they slammed thourgh a little instrumental before making sure we knew who was Part Of My Problem. Chris Musto was rock solid on the drums throughout and driving the beat along like all our lives depended on it as they roared through All That Darkness.
Gary Lammin then introduced Charles Shaar Murray who was onstage as narrator again to tell us what happened at The Outset and how we need the Bermondsey Joyriders help as we see that Society Is Rapidly Changing: as potent a song for our times as you'll hear anywhere blasting away at us with the force of a hurricane. It was soon time to hear about some of the Eternal Verities from Charles SM before they told us about what was happening Right Now with all the force of a band on a never ending mission to scorch the earth with the sound of thunderous riffs and great punk rock.
Yes, Charles told us about their point of view and how these guys were all there in 1977. That was the song they then ripped through like they were in need of a Teenage Rampage. It's quite something for gents of a certain vintage to still have that much energy as well as so many Good Intentions to show us how a Rock Star should sound and, damn, did they nail that song tonight! Just in time to get themselves a gig down at the Shaking Leaves: a club that sounds not that far from the 100 Club we are rocking in.
They finished us off with the blast of power that is Rock n Roll Demon. It was soon speeding through our brains and could only be followed by Football: a song that has enough of a terrace chant to leave us all singing on our way out, exhilarated after another great show by the Bermondsey Joyriders, whose current round of gigs finds them at the Rhythym Factory in Whitechapel on the 12th July for anyone who needs a further blast of punk rock revolution.
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author: simonovitch
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Gary Lammin
Chris Musto
Bermondsey Joyriders
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