ELECTRICKERY

Little Specks of Blood Lust Blood, The English Standar, The Mekano Set @ Volks Club

It’s a grey, muggy Wednesday night in Brighton. Although you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a typical Wednesday night in Blackpool. The sea front seems a little desolate, at the crispy edge of summer.

Brighton is great. It's so multi-cultural that it all blends into one affluent white Mod sports casual bundle of safe fun. That's just great. Just great.

On the beach, I can just about make out Helen from Little Specks of Blood Lust Blood and Milk from The Mekano Set attempting to wrestle one another to the ground. Later, I find out that it’s not a rumble, it was the only way they could decide on who got to headline.

Promoter Kev Kilter walks off in tears and isn’t seen again for the rest of the night.

I’m standing outside the Volks Club being told I can’t come in unless I put out my cigarette. The fact that I’m not actually smoking anything at all doesn’t appear to appease the bouncers. I have to mime dropping an imaginary cigarette to the ground and stamping it out with my shoe until they let me in.

Inside, a disgruntled guy in overalls who turns out to be the sound engineer is stomping around complaining about bands equipment in a “Guns and Roses were never this bad” kind of way that’s a sure sign of a man out of his depths. He too disappears.

Eventually things seem to calm down and DJ Laurence from Contort Yourself warms things up with what is apparently a set of ‘Haunted House’ music.


Pytron, Whytron?

First up, post-rockers Pytron deliver a set of tedious, inexplicably indulgent Prog cod blues. What’s more worrying is the fact that they have the kind of facial hair that should only ever be found on the corpses of WWII fighter pilots. Carefully waxed and teased moustachios.

They seem to do one song that lasts for half an hour and it’s all hopelessly un-ironic. They’re about as relevant to the music of today as Jive Bunny or Emerson Lake & Palmer.


Shoegaze Standards

Next in line, it’s The English Standard. Apparently this is their debut gig. They have a great shoe-gaze / post-punk guitar sound and a really tight drummer with a cracking new-wave / Joy Division snare sound. Not sure about the rugby shirts though.

Their vocalist needs to find his feet and the bass player needs to calm down a bit, his desire to rev things up and rock out lead him into ham-fisted pounding of strings and slipping out of time. But they’re clearly enjoying themselves a lot more than Pytron, and are a lot closer to the 21st Century. And they do a Smiths cover.


Blood Lust Blood

Electro-Rock duo Little Specks of Blood Lust Blood are actually quite Metal in their arrangements and rhythms but they more than make up for that with screwy Post-Punk hair and smolderingly sexy attitude.

Singer Helen is a dusky beauty with a sassy glint in her eye and an effortlessly smooth vocal style. Guitarist Allan is clearly a bit of a tech-head and appears to be using leftovers from the Tardis as stomp boxes. It’s hard to tell what all their toys and technology are doing but there’s some interesting live sampling going on to hold your attention if the smokey eyes and spiky dreds aren’t enough.


The Mekanot Set?

Headliners The Mekano Set are clearly on the brink of splitting up again. There’s some real tension in the air as they take to the stage amidst biting white noise, strobes and smoke.

Two of them have shaved heads again but more worrying is the fact the keyboard player appears to have a collection of swastikas round his neck. Guest vocalist / bass pixie Sahara is nowhere in site.

There is some serious Village People Clone-Gay facial hair going on. The guitarist looks terrified and the DJ appears to be (and actually is) updating his Facebook status on a laptop rather than playing anything resembling a tune.

They chew gum, swear and smirk for a good ten minutes, flooding the entire venue with dry ice and strobes. They rather unsubtly share a roll-up. A drum machine threatens to kick in about ten times, then Milk pulls the plug on it all, smirks something into the mic about the soundman being “legally deaf and fucking shite”, and walks out the building.

Review by R.K. Live photography by MsDee.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/msdee23/