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Showing posts with label bad ass bitch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad ass bitch. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
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My love of badass bitches that play rock n roll like demons and don’t give a fuck is well documented. So perhaps it was inevitable that I’d very much enjoy a Deap Vally gig.. Hailing from sunny California, Deap Vally are Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards who met, improbably, at a needlework class. Soon they discovered they had more in common besides a shared passion for decorative sewing and the textile arts: namely blasting out gritty, raw as hell, bluesy rock n roll.
Dingwalls was jammed to the rafters last night, and although I missed much of support bands Drenge and Death at Sea I wasn’t too bothered. While the venue was pretty full there wasn't a huge amount of liveliness about, but maybe it's because of the low stage - unless you’re in the front few rows you aren’t going to see much. Fortunately, after some snake-like wiggling I worked my way near the front, where I found myself surrounded by shrieking scene girls to my left, hooting drunks to the right and a slightly out of place looking guy in his 60s in front of me. A mixed crowd.
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| Deap Vally (picture by Rob Barton) |
Musically, Deap Vally owe a huge debt to the White Stripes. This isn’t to say they’re ripping them off (can you really “rip off” a formula as simple as guitar and drums?), but in the stomping drums and distorted riffs there’s echoes of the unpretentious, raw musicality you hear on White Blood Cells. This is the kind of rock I want to see: short songs, powerful riffs, and, in the nicest possible way, uncomplicated. When I say that I want to make clear I’m not putting them down, but musically and lyrically Deap Vally aren’t the most complex band around. And thank god for that.
This is music to tumble around an poorly lit underground bar to, to feel the slight tug of the sticky booze-stained linoleum on your boots when you jump into the air. One highlight of the set was the awesome Gonna Make My Own Money. The song springs with the kind of buzzing energy that you hear in mid 90s riot grrl like Bikini Kill, and when Lindsey screws up her face in perfect punk rock angst, yowling the titular lyrics into the mic, it made me want to jump around like a big idiot.
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| Lindsey Troy (picture by Rob Barton) |
With all this energy radiating from the stage it was disappointing that the audience was so damn static. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the previous night’s Brooke Candy gig, but dammit, if there’s music like this playing I want to see greasy looking Camden teenagers shoving each other around. But for the vast majority of the gig the crowd just stood around as if they were waiting for a bus rather than at a gig. Things picked up a bit at the end of the set, with End of the World finally succeeding in kicking it up a notch, a transformative moment signalled by a sweaty girl unexpectedly landing on my head. Deap Vally’s music really seems to come alive when there’s people going bananas to it; pounding, metronomic booms that tickle the primitive reptilian areas of the brain. This short 3 or 4 minute burst of liveliness is the most fun I have in the gig, and from the grins and smiles on everyone else’s face, the most fun they do to.
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| Julie Edwards (picture by Rob Barton) |
Between songs, both Lindsey and Julie are effortlessly comfortable on stage, looking pleased with both the reactions and size of the crowd. When the introduction to Raw Material, a new song, has a technical hitch resulting in a squeal of unpleasant feedback, they play it off as a technical issue and joke about it until it’s fixed. Later they crack a joke about Camden, pretty astutely commenting “didn’t this place used to be cool once?”. The only downside to the gig was some god-damn morons standing near the back yelling out “show us your tits” between songs. These gits need a fork in the eye, but fortunately the music drowned them out. If the band did hear them they're too classy to acknowledge their presence.
After End of the World Deap Vally left the stage to rapturous applause, yet ominously the house lights stay down and there’s still a faint thrum from the speakers. Sure enough, after just long enough for me to start doubting whether I’m hanging around pointlessly the two come back in stage, launching into a sleazy, grimey cover of I Put a Spell on You. They knock it out of the park hitting just the right combination of sleazy, sinister sexiness that the song needs. The perfect capper to the night.
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| (picture by Rob Barton) |
Like I said, give me a stage of badass women rocking the fuck out and chances are I’ll have a whale of a time. Deap Vally kicked ass in a refreshingly straightforward manner. A streamlined gig that was cool as hell.
Deap Vally are playing across the UK until the 7th - details here. Big thanks to Rosie for the ticket!
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
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A chilly Monday night in February - could you ask for a nicer time to head out to an ultra-aggressive punk rock rap night in Soho? But I was in a good mood. I’ve been looking forward to seeing Brooke Candy for ages, her videos have just the kind of ultrasexual trash aesthetic that I love. The first thing that struck me walking down the stairs into the venue was just how well-dressed everyone was. I don’t really know much about Brooke Candy’s fanbase, but damn they’re a chic looking bunch. Everywhere I looked there were men and women who’d pushed the boat out, looking attractively vicious and aggressively slutty.
First on the bill was Jake Emlyn, who was introduced slightly dodgily by warning us not to “tell him he looks like a girl” or he’d attack us. It wasn’t a great start, at this night of all nights at this place of all places I seriously doubt anyone is going to be particularly bothered by a bit of minor genderbending and anyway, what's so offensive about looking like a girl? Fortunately, he turned it round right away - walking out on the stage in the fabulous coat you see below.
As I’m sure you’ll agree, he looks pretty damn cool. I particularly liked the All Quiet on the Western Front medallion he had around his neck, a nice touch. Jake Emlyn starts as he means to go on, spitting out machinegun lyrics so impressively fast that it’s difficult to keep up. But there’s a hint of defensiveness to a lot of what he does, like he’s answering back to some imagined slights. He’s cutting a pretty awesome figure fashion-wise, which means it's disappointing that he seems so concerned about demonstrating both his masculinity and his heterosexuality. Songs like Honky Bitch are competent streams of over-the-top angry invective, but it after a a few songs it begins to seem a bit samey. Additionally, there seemed like a direct correlation between how many pieces of his outfit he removed and how much I enjoyed his set.
This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy Jake Emlyn, he’s an impressive performer, but before too long I was peeking at the set list near his feet to try and work out how much longer he was going to be on stage. But despite this, it’s nice to see a rapper subverting cliched masculinity at least in looks, if not in lyrics.
A crush began forming at the front of the stage after this. People were bouncing off each other excitedly trying to get the best view. And, as the thumping beats of the last song died down, Brooke Candy, dressed in chrome armour, stalked across the stage, looking like she’d wandered into our world from the cover of a science fiction novel. She moves aggressively - and somehow serpentine-y - every gesture and action brimming with self assurance.
It’s a bit easy (and obvious) to compare her to other musicians, but what’s impressive to me is the way she synthesises so much of what I like in music into a cohesive whole. I love kickass women that don’t give a fuck, and Brooke Candy certainly is that. She's occupying extremes of fashion and sexuality, weaponising femininity with her chrome armour and combative attitude. When you're singing lyrics like: "You ain't shit boy / got you pussywhipped boy / lickin' up the clit / make you savour every drip boy" you can't half ass it. On stage it's got to be all out or it's going to fail. The result is that there's a proper punk atmosphere; she’s visibly enthused about the mosh pit developed in front of the stage yelling: “I wanna see people getting punched in the face!” That’s the kind of attitude I want to see! Far better than some lamely stuttered plea for people to calm down and treat each other in a civilised manner.
Everyone here seems to be on the same page as Brooke, she bends down and snarls lyrics straight into the gallery of cameraphones aimed up at her, only breaking to pose like a futuristic Hindu deity as she repeatedly exclaims “Man I’m so next level”. It’s easy to believe her, and it’s easy to be slightly in awe of her fearlessness in everything she does on stage.
The only slight problem with all this is that she doesn’t actually have that many songs. I know her from three excellent videos (which I’ve listened to numerous times) on YouTube, but I had assumed she’d have a bit more content live. It’s a bit telling that mid-way through the set she invites fans up on stage for a twerkin contest. Fair play to the people who got on stage, they seem like pretty good dancers, but this isn’t what I want to watch. Sure this creates a pleasant little bond between her and us, but it goes on about five minutes too long. Additionally, at the end of her set she just sort of stops and says “that’s it, I’m done” - a bit of an anticlimax. Tickets for this night were about a tenner, and though I easily got a tenners worth out of enjoyment out of the evening, the night did feel a bit truncated.
Despite this, when Brooke Candy is in full swing it is goddamn amazing. During Everybody Does and I Wanna Fuck Right Now the club went absolutely bananas. People were hurling themselves across the dance floor, skidding through pools of spilt beer on the floor and fleshily banging into each other. Meanwhile, Brooke Candy is standing on stage miming jerking off the microphone and flicking cum onto the audience. As the set goes on, people begin throwing underwear and wigs at her, with a number of bras and a few pairs of knickers ending up on stage. Late in the gig (to her apparent surprise), someone handed up a pre-rolled joint to her which seems like an incredibly sweet gesture.
What made the gig feel a little special was just how much Brooke Candy seemed to be enjoying herself. She said “London is the best place to play!”, and yeah she probably says that everywhere she goes, but even so, this was a particularly responsive, enthusiastic and energetic crowd, especially for a dreary, drizzly Monday night. Next time I see Brooke Candy I’m sure it’s going to be in front of a bigger crowd and she’s probably going to have a more elaborate show, but there was something powerfully intimate going on last night between performer and audience. I had a fucking great time.
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