Some Men
The merciless sun beats on the parched yellow plain. Brittle
tumbleweed roll slowly down the main street of a deserted cow town. NancySinatra drags the black-clad corpse of Lee Hazelwood into a gulch…
…we're at Village Underground and Lola Colt are performing.
They are a pitch perfect slice of classic western gothic, by turns dark and
menacing, desolate and yearning.
The band coalesces around the brooding figure of Gun Overbye.
She has a powerful and commanding voice that rises and strengthens as she howls
out in anger or torment.
Stage left, a striking keyboard/percussionist pulls focus.
She's clad in black, stamps her feet, tosses her long mane of black hair and
sporadically bangs the hell out of an enormous drum. I think every male eye in
the room is watching her.
Lola Colt create a hugely atmospheric sound and in tracks
like recent single 'Jackson '
they have the tunes too. They're very impressive.
There are no frills to Baby Strange. This is a stripped down
three piece of guitar, drum and bass. And they're a blast.
Guitarist Jonny is a gangly rebel with a teen star sneer.
He's got the same mall rat cool of a young Di Caprio. Not orthodox, but
magnetic.
Like all good bands, this lot are young loud and snotty,
with good tunes and tonnes of attitude. There are regular obituaries for
British guitar rock. Judging by these Scottish whippersnappers, the form looks
to be in rude health.
Headliners The Men string four guitarists across the stage.
It’s a statement of intent.
These guys are mid-tour and couldn't look more frazzled and
dishevelled if they were sleeping on top of each other in a pile in the back of
a transit van.
The Men are absolutely deafening. It's an ear-ripping head
churning rush of sound. Vocals are swapped between up to four vocalists,
guitars and keyboards thrashed and pounded as if their lives depended upon it.
Their music is evolving. The new album 'Tomorrow's Hits'
moves away from the pure ears-pinned back blast of their earlier material into
a much more classical American 70's rock sound. With the driving guitars and
electric piano, Time Out New York
referred to them as "Thurston Moore and the E Street Band" which is
far better than anything I could have come up with.
This all means that 'Bataille', the ferocious song which
first drew the band to the wider world's attention, is dispensed with only
three numbers into tonight's set. It sounds like a jet taking off.
It's a wonderful, uplifting set. One of the band is wearing
a Neil Young T shirt of fairly recent vintage and the towering yet tuneful rock
they play is certainly on nodding terms with the wilder excesses of Crazy
Horse.
The sheer noise generated is just painfully brutal. I'm
aware as I watch them that I'm doing real damage to my hearing. But I'm not
going to leave this…
…Sometime later, I'm walking down the road reflecting on the
best three-act show of the year so far. All the bands were great, and I
recommend them all.
My head is buzzing and full of voices and static. So much so
that for a while I think that the passing cars are driving on newly-laid
gravel. My ears are totally shot, and remain so for much of the following day.
Frankly, it was worth it.
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