The Next Big Thing

Caught a couple of stripped-back three piece combos at the Dirty Water Club last Friday and while neither was terrible they got me thinking about the near lack of showmanship on offer these days. Gin Palace include members of Penthouse and deliver reverbed Rockabilly-Blues slop that is competent enough but which failed to hold my attention after a couple of numbers. Not only were there few memorable songs but there was also a lack of charisma to compensate for said problem. Suffice to say that the punters did not ask them to play an encore. The headline act, Jimmy & The Teasers from North Carolina, similarly struggled. Despite the visual eye candy in the drum'n'bass department, all of that raging from the fellow playing guitar became wearisome after ten minutes. Yup, you guessed it, these guys were not asked back for an encore either. Now after witnessing the Woggles shred both audience and stage at the same venue before Christmas I refuse to believe this is a "hip-Londoner-cool-as-cucumber" issue. Maybe it's down to reading about the late Graham Bond this last week and also the anticipation of catching-up with the Fleshtones in a couple of weeks time. Whatever, it's still a shame that 98% of bands do not know how to entertain a crowd with more than their music. Now of course The Graham Bond Organization is a classic example of a band capable of breaking down the barrier between audience / musician and it would be foolish to expect every band to "groove" but by my estimation, not to mention extensive research, I reckon that the ratio of bands who could "make show" was a damn sight higher in the pioneering days of RnR. Then again I guess that we, namely the Brits, really got the ball rolling in the angst-rock stakes what with certain British Invasion bands such as the Zombies and KinKs. I dunno, maybe Sgt Pepper should have given the Beatles dancing lessons instead of teaching them how to play? One thing is for certain though, he would never have got away with his music theory lessons with the bands working the Reeperbahn in the early 60s 'cause the punters would have beaten the shit out of him at the slightest hint of boredom. How times change?