Small dark basement or back room venues are where its at, sweat running down the walls, rubbish lights that mean you can hardly see your pint glass and PA systems that are so over the top for the size of the room. Check, Liverpools Jacaranda has it all. Tonight its also got two bands that we love in Mincemeat and YOBS and from first internet listenings, a potentially great band in Brighton’s Top Left Club.
The night is put on by Club YOB, there’s even membership cards given out as you pay the measly fiver on the door, cute old fashioned bits of card with a YOB logo and a bit were you write your name, retro as fuck.
The hosts Yobs are first up, some of them arrive on stage and have lost the others, they go looking for them, the others arrive and go looking for the other others… there may be alcohol already involved… When they all finally assemble they are wearing (in the sweat dripping venue) thick wooly eyehole balaclavas - even the drummer. They rip into their first number and it sets the template for the rest of their set. Fast garage sodden chords and bass lines with manic drums that vary continually but never miss a beat with the drummer on some kind of mission to out Keith Moon Keith Moon, and succeeding. Vocalist Joey invades the audiences space repeatedly and then slows it all down bringing everyone to sit down before all jumping simultaneously as the song explodes again. Alcohol is thrown around the stage and on the audience, the band are yob-like but for all their lack of decorum they are tight, relentless and loud.
Mincemeat keep splitting up and then forgetting they’ve split up. We like this as it means we get to see this utter gem of a band again. Its a different interpretation of garage with some more of a rock n roll vibe and stylised vocals that do remind me of a version of Elvis from some twisted alternate darker reality. Choppy guitars, metronome like drums and solid bass all bounce off each other in a way that can make even the most hardened gig goer just smile. The Vocalist Guitarist strides into the crowd and rolls around the floor and even has to be dragged feet first back to the stage whilst never missing a note. There’s an understated virtuoso performance on guitar, its pure feel and worth the ticket price on its own.
Then a gang of mullet headed shell suit wearers take the stage. Trackies tucked into sports socks, bright slabs of colour in the darkness. There’s some strange postures held by the band (arms sticking out from the shoulders with a 90 degree angle) that most of audience are emulating then they hit it. Its fast, upbeat, tuneful, post punk, sleazy and for me, a huge banging psych out amount of space rock. They have the audience from the off, people sing along to their songs, bounce around, shake hands with the band and sometimes drunkenly invade the stage to join in. Keyboard sonics soar over jagged guitar rhythms and non-stop bass with 1970s are festival style drums 1-2-1-2 ing away whilst the band belt out understated but deeply catch tunes. In one performance Top Left Club went from a band I’ve not heard about to a band I’ll actively try and see again.
The inclusion of a live DJ in the form of Carl Combover, one of the Go Go Cage folk, who’s mix of music just adds another level to the night. Tasteful 60s garage and psych to deep disco the kind that gets your body moving even when you are just standing there nursing a pint minding your own business then bouncing off to something unexpected like Motorhead and Girlschool. More of this kind of thing.
Words and Photos: Richie Yates
Links:
Top Left Club: https://www.facebook.com/topleftclub
Mincemeat: https://www.facebook.com/mincemeatmusic
Carl Combover: https://www.facebook.com/carl.combover