Alex de Campi: Gojira!

***

WHO

FILM & TV

COMICS & BOOKS

1.3.05 Monday at the Social: Bad Haircuts & Too Much Bourbon

To W1, land of crucially misguided barnets, for the gig of New Favourite Band in a trendy basement bar. All the girls were ugly, except for a Latina who was chewing gum like she was marking time until she could bite someone's dick off. Usual Gig Companion and I thought our band - the exquisite Flipron - was playing first, and so arrived early. We were wrong. They played last. And so, poor sinners that we were, we had to suffer two "special guests".

On first was a quintet of acoustic wannabes: fiddle, slide guitar and three-part harmony sung by a skinny sensitive with black turtleneck and glasses, a bearded ginger git in a jumper earnestly strumming an acoustic guitar, and the worst dressed girl I have ever seen. I bet even her underwear wasn't salvageable. Ginger git sung the sort of deeply maladroit and heartfelt lyrics that first-year uni students use to get their leg over: "I want to lay you down / Lay you down..." I didn't even like them when they were called Peter Paul & Mary, and could sing on key.

Now, there is one simple rule to follow when confronted with bad folk music and no emergency exit: whatever happens, never run out of bourbon. The more you drink, the better they sound. Unfortunately there wasn't enough bourbon on earth to lift the second act, a Beth Gibbons wannabe with another earnest jumper-wearing guitar-basher (do they clone them?) to even the dizzying heights of "mediocre". I lay my head on the table, covered it with my shawl and asked Usual Companion to administer whisky-based cocktails to me at regular intervals. Usual Companion debated hiding in the loos.

Too many songs later, it finally came. "Thank you", said un-Gibbons. "We were Mimosa."

I snort Manhattan all over the table.

By the time I regained a vague ability to focus, Flipron had festooned the minute stage's drumkit and synth rack with fairy lights and chains of fake Hawaiian luau flowers. The few bad-barnet folkies left are staring at the stage with blank incomprehension and a rising sense of dread. Clever people in scary black shoes materialise from nowhere, adding to their intense discomfort. Then Flipron launch into one of my favourite songs, "Raindrops Keep Falling On the Dead". They go on to sing love songs to possessed cars, tangos about being chased by pensioners, and a lyrically inventive song about the guard dog of Hell. Usual Companion discovered Flipron as he stumbled through the cabaret tent at Glasto at 3am, not quite himself. He woke the next day with a smile on his face and a CD in his pocket. A CD which contained song lyrics like "Parallel to the breakdown of my psychological health / Was the increasing ability of the car to drive itself".

I blearily tell Flipron I love them. Perhaps it's the bourbon talking. It wouldn't be the first time. I hope it won't be the last. But it is, after all, only Monday night.

( 12:14 PM )

0 Comments: