We went to the Lexington last night for an incredible and fun show by The Schizophonics from San Diego. The guitarist was all over the stage, doing moves like he was at Wigan Casino, all the time playing groovy fuzzy guitar. It was hard to believe that the band are just a 3 piece. The energy and fun of The Schizophonics is off the scale. My new favourite garage punk band! Can’t wait for them to play in London again!
Rough Trade East, 25th August 2016
This in-store show was the debut performance of The Parrots’ new album Los Niños Sin Miedo. I love their new album, it’s up there as one of the best albums of the year. The show was early and short, but the Parrots were enthusiastic & tight as ever, and i’m itching to get to their show at the Victoria in a couple of weeks.
I was looking forwards to this gig for ages! I saw Charm Bag last year at the Monster Raving Loony Party in Spain and I have bought a few Smoggers 7″ records during the last year. Laura got a babysitter and we dusted off our dancing shoes and set off for the Fiddler’s Elbow.
The support & main bands were MFC Chicken, but for me the main attraction was The Smoggers. They played solid garage how it should be – full on energy, full on fuzz, full on fun. Plus Ana Smogger is the coolest woman ever!
WEIRDSVILLE at the Fiddlers Elbow
MFC CHICKEN started off the night – their final weekend of playing shows until their frontman/saxer Spence can return from expired-visa exile in Canada. I watched a couple of songs and then a man with a loud voice and an ill-fitting hat perched on his head stood directly in front of me, totally obscuring my view. He immediately began shouting to the woman next to him how much he loved MFC Chicken. He only paid attention to the band in between songs, when he whoooped loudly and clapped as though his life depended on it.
After 3 or 4 songs I got sick of boring-loud-hat-man’s conversation so I pushed past him and went back to enjoying the gig. MFC Chicken make you feel as though you’re in ‘Happy Days’ at a School ‘Hop’. I wished I was wearing a cool 50s dress. My friend Gav stayed and listened to hat-man’s conversation. He reported to me afterwards that the main conversation was hat-man telling the woman how much he loved MFC Chicken and how he loved them so much that he was following them to their 2nd gig of the night at the Dirty Water Club. He probably talked all the way through that show too.
HELL-O-TIKI are non-stop volcanic surf, complete with voodoo skeleton suits, Mexican wrestling masks and exotic sexy dancer/party-starter/theramin & synth controller. I love them for so many reasons, probably the top 7 are these
1. They play fantastic happy surf music
2. They have skeleton suits
3. They don’t need fancy guitars to be amazing
4. They have a theremin
5. I wish I could dance like their dancer
6. They are from Belgium
7. I was in a right miserable mood all of saturday and they totally cheered me up.
Can’t wait to see them again. I bought their LP so now every day can be ‘tiki day’.
THE SCUMBUGS from Norway are a riot of proper punk-rock garage-punk. The stage was a mass of jumping bugs and shape-pulling. They are so punk. I love them.
After the bands two women DJs played excellent records for everyone to dance to.
3 days of sun, sand, and fantastic garage-punk. The party was based in a camp site, a better location than the hotel that the party was held in last time I went 2 years ago. All the bands of the weekend were brilliant. I watched all 12 bands, and it was great to be participating, as my band The Pukes played at the pool party on Friday afternoon.
The first band of Friday night was Las Marlenes, one of my favourites of the fiesta.
After Las Marlenes was Charm Bag, then the Jackets and lastly Miss Ludella Black. Afterwards we did dancing in the bar til the tiny hours, and then walked home (without even a jumper or anything! it was so hot!)
Saturday was my favourite day, starting with The Cheating Hearts playing on the bar terrace, followed by Leadfoot Tea and Fernando.
After Leadfoot Tea & Fernando there was a couple of hours break to listen to the excellent DJs, sample a few copas de cerveza and enjoy the sunshine. The Masonics kicked off saturday night, followed by Thee Jezebels, the The X-Men and a punk-rock finale of Biznaga. I absolutely loved all of the bands that played on the saturday.
Roll on next year for more Munster fun!
gigs and pencils 