The Next Big Thing

Good to see a decent turnout at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh last night for The Joyriders first show in the capital in forever, ahead of their junket to Japan but enough of these j's already.

The Tango Rhums opened and I only saw a song and a bit or it might have been two. The Messthetics ethic is alive and well and gestating in Glenrothes. Investigate and encourage them because they're doing it for the right reasons.

The Bum Clocks are collecting a bit of an audience but what looks reasonable in theory and sounds a little like Alex Harvey reciting Burns with an appropriation of Detroit sounding software is alarmingly art-rock. The sound of young Scotland always kind of irrritated me and the sound of the middle-aged version ain’t thrilling me either. These guys were all there at The Big Bang but this is theatre and not rock'n'roll. It could run for weeks at the ICA. I've scratched the itch of wanting to see them in a club and don't want the wound to become infected. Their set seemed to last for a very long time and a minority of us were impervious to this Irvine Welsh intoned underside of the mither tongue. “Lust for Life” lost all its vital signs when it was used in “Trainspotting” and there’s a strange correlation between this and that in my opinion.

I don't recall ever seeing The Joyriders although I must have. Their entire recording history has just been put together as an omnibus edition “Others caught on but never caught up” on the “Fixing A Hole” imprint and they're playng out there in a couple of weeks. There's not a contrived bone in the box and their Lemonheads via Bob Mould fuzzpop sounds remarkably current. It also helps that they look like they're having some kind of fun up there. The reports from their opening stint for The Dolls were all good so this added to the expectation. And let's face it when was the last time you saw a band that reminded you of The Eastern Dark?

Exactly. Good solid pre-grunge, post buzzsaw pop in a dressing of nice tempo changes, these guys can segue. No faffing between songs other than to indulge in a bit of banter before they spiral off into another short sharp jolt. I hope that they keep at it this time because there are a lot of "hotly tipped" acts that are trading on way, way less. So mission accomplished with the beat ready to bring it on in the land of the rising sun come early August.

In just a matter of hours, Mr U will be arriving from Stockholm and we're gonna raise a couple or three to the immortal memory of a real bard, the late, very great Lennart Persson. Hopefully he'll be able to join us.

And finally for this instalment, I'd like to wish my good friends The Ledinsky's all the best for their sabbatical down under. Have a ball kids, there's a lot of GREAT music and people out yonder!