The Visitors + Torpedos + Momentum + Nik Karlberg - Messclean @ The Frog On The Front, Portsmouth. 12/05/06.

Back to business this week after Messclean was taken over for an evening last Friday by Total Carnage Promotions, who put on a some cracking metal bands that I had to miss due to the fact I was crewing over in Southampton for fecking Craig David...life can be a bitch sometimes! In the meantime Messclean went 'garden' for the evening and you can read all the gory details of cover versions, hospital trips, drugs, sex & rock n roll over at Messclean in their blog.

But anyway, on to my never ending mission of reviewing as many of the local bands as possible that pass through The Frog on a Friday evening and tonight the deep and thoughtful Nik Karlberg wins us over with a trio of delicate but robust acoustic numbers. The man has a tremendous voice, think along the lines of John Martyn, Ben Harper etc and you get the area he is working in. Nik has that air of being slightly distant and floaty, one almost expects incense to come wafting from the stage, not that he is the hippy dippy type, just that there seems to be a lot more to him that is immediately apparent. Although the set is short one can't help but be won over by the beauty of Blue Skies and the epic closer Speechless with it's drawn out ending and intricate patterns. An ever shifting artist that draws on wide influences and always interesting to listen to, a pleasing start to the evening.

Momentum are a shiny and sharp young band that appear to have a bit of parental support when it comes to equipment as they leave the stage bare when they complete their set and dismantle the equipment but anyway, as I said, Momentum are sharp, shiny young things pushing a neat line in safe indie electro pop. They certainly have the image sorted but lack that bit of stage flare at the moment that makes them slightly boring to watch but once they gain some experience then I fully expect them to be reducing venues full of teenage girls to tears with their boyish good looks and big pop choruses. In truth I think they surprise everyone tonight with just how good and polished they are and while it may be the wrong audience there is no doubt that they left a mark on everyone tonight with their chiming guitars and electro backbone. Not really my type of thing but I reckon if they were to play with the right sort of band that has young alternative fans then they would have a few labels sniffing around them in no time at all and the fact that the last thing I wrote down in my notebook before they finished was 'Impressed' says it all really.

Once Momentum and their parents/girlfriends had removed all their nice looking equipment the stage looked rather bare for Torpedos but do they give a flying fuck, course not. Torpedos are rock n roll, clad in their usual black attire they simply plug in and deliver another blinding set of eighties goth injected with a bit of balls. It's hard to add anything to my previous couple of reviews of this band as they are never going to change, if you don't like goth tinged rock music then you will hate them but if you are partial to a bit of darkness then step on up; stick them on somewhere like the Whitby Goth weekend and they would go down a storm not that they are strictly Goth but those with a taste for something with a harder edge would lap it up. Me, I love them with their retro guitar sound and Cure like bass that create some fine choruses just ripe for some of that Goth hands in the air dancing!

The Visitors are here to welcome the summer with their cheery acoustic flecked rock that brings to mind Counting Crows and the Chili Peppers and while it's all a bit nice and cheery for me there is no doubt that they are highly infectious and one can't help but enjoy chunks of their set. They specialise in that middle of the road lite rock with a funk edge, the kind of stuff that is annoyingly catchy and is played on the radio all over the summer and even though you don't want to like it you end up stuck with the tunes in your head. But it's well played and the majority of people in tonight are really enjoying the light melodies and easy going feeling they produce and an encore is demanded for which they roll out an Eminem tune that sees a large amount of people start shifting on their feet to make the most of the parting shot.

Nik Karlberg takes to the stage once again to round off the evening with a couple of chilled tunes and looks thoroughly surprised when Ross from The Visitors appears alongside him plugging in his guitar and a beat starts up behind courtesy of Matt from Little London who has popped in for a visit and an impromptu jam is started that runs and runs much to everyone's delight. It's the kind of unexpected treat that makes nights like these so special as a few people had left thinking it was the end but here we are listening to a group of people who are just running on adrenalin and skill and really enjoying what they are doing and for a non-musician such as myself it's fascinating watching them weave away, working off and with each other. Eventually Matt gives way to The Visitors drummer Dan (if I'm not mistaken...things started to get a bit hazy) who continues a fine groove and before long we see the arrival of a certain Kurt Kooder on stage to provide some extra vocals and a glorious sight it was too. A fine way to end the evening and glad I took a few snaps at the end to capture all these chaps on stage at the same time as it's unlikely it will be repeated. Those that left thinking it was all over missed a real treat here and that's always my excuse for staying until the bitter end, who said anything about squeezing in an extra pint of cider before staggering home?

The Waysters + Bullet + The Elements + Mach Schau + Sons Of Caine - Messclean, Portsmouth. 28/04/06.

Another busy Friday night and more sauna like conditions underneath the Pyramid leisure Centre on good old Pompey sea front and a five band bill that will surely have us sweating off pounds of flesh by the end of the evening. Sons Of Caine are first up but don't let the bottom of the bill slot fool you, oh no...this filth bastard groove machine are anything but opening act material and while the crowd may be slightly stand offish at this early hour, the quality of the band shines out like the second coming. The Sons take a big helping of good classic rock, weld it to some huge stoner rock wheels, stick some cool grooves on the stereo and let it rip; low slung guitars grinding away as melodies slip and slide over the highway and an impressive frontman rips his vocal chords out.
You won't find many better opening acts, those with taste have heads going and feet are loosening up to the sexy as fuck sounds; of course that's sexy as fuck for those that like it rough and ready, who don't mind leaving behind a sprawling mess of bodily fluids. On the live showing they wouldn't be out of place doing some Desert Sessions under a baking sun with the beer flowing and a hazy cloud of sweet smelling smoke hanging in the air, aggression and groove riding bareback together. If you like it hard but groove laden then you need to check this lot out, if you haven't guessed I quite like them and next time I expect the Messclean team to have them headlining as tonight's set is a real killer.

So, how do you follow up an exceptional opener? You stick some indie punk urchins on from Southampton going by the name of Mach Schau and watch them tear the place apart with their hyperactive spiky punk indie mix that sees the vocalist hanging from the ceiling and stalking the wide eyed audience. It's angular, tantrum inducing and has that brattish edge that sets them apart from the ordinary; a truck load of sulky attitude and a seemingly overwhelming urge to keep twitching and twisting making it near on impossible to get a photo in focus of them. Mach Schau are a fantastic band to watch, one of those acts where you are not sure what is going to happen next or if it will all explode into scenes of complete chaos as they steer close to the edge a couple of times.
Musically they have a very current sound, being both capable of throwing out decent tunes whilst keeping the effect raw and positively buzzing with wired energy, an exciting mix of punk attitude and full on indie sounds. Tonight Mach Schau are the sound of the youth having a riot, the bored teenagers on street corners drinking and throwing up on your doorstep before having sex in the local park and really not giving a flying fuck about what anyone thinks; great fun and ones to keep an eye out for.

The Elements are by far the best supported band of the night bringing just about everything with them bar the kitchen sink, but at this point I lose interest rapidly. I could say that they write well crafted tunes and play them to a high standard and that the crowd lap them up, even with the rather irritating Rossco (sorry mate!) stood on top of a monitor conducting the throng and singing every word as if they are the best band in the world not distracting attention away from a confident band, I think most of the crowd would agree with those sentiments. But, they are dull. No getting away from it, this is aband who on their MySpace page say they sound like Ocean Colour Scene, Paul Weller and U2 and frankly that is what you get; a rehash of all those bands and throw in some of that Oasis/Coldplay big brand indie and you have The Elements. Now, to be fair, this is of course my own opinion and there are plenty of people out there who like that middle of the road, safe indie rock that your mum would like but after the raw energy of the first two bands this set just sounds so unchallenging. Sure, it is well played and I'm not knocking the musicianship and I could easily see them doing well in the mainstream but for me they offer nothing new to an old formula and their brand of music just doesn't do it for me but a vast amount of the crowd in tonight did enjoy it so if that OCS type thing floats your boat then check them out, you are sure to love them but if you want danger and excitement then best leave well alone.

Luckily for me, Londoners Bullet are on next and despite some hype around them and a link to the shoddy Towers Of London that they really don't need, they turn out to be a quite excellent rock n roll band. Some bands just have that look of impending fame about them and earlier in the day on my way back from collecting some wages I saw a little red van drive towards me and hunched in the front were some hairy chaps and a pair of large white sunglasses staring at me...now that, I thought to myself, is one hell of a rock band! And here I am several hours later and those same chaps have just walked on stage and there is the bass player in the white sunglasses and yes, they are one hell of a rock band.
They look good and sound even better, belting out some serious attitude laden rock n roll dripping with molten riffs and a thumping rhythm section not to mention a front man that will soon have rows upon rows of girls screaming at him. There is something about rock n roll that never goes out of fashion and when it is done as well as this you just know that people will sit up and take notice and surely it won't be long before the name Bullet will be on everyone's lips. Perfect music for downing a beer too, shaking loose that hair and just getting down and having fun. It's how all good rock music should sound but it's surprising how many bands can make it sound dull and boring, but Bullet tonight inject their sounds with rocket fuel and we get a full on attack from a band that really should be playing bigger venues.

Rounding the night off are youngsters The Waysters who inbetween studying for exams are honing their indie sound down and are starting to create their own identity. Though they are still relatively fresh to the live scene they have the look of a band that have been on the circuit for longer and tonight they play a decent set of quality indie material and once again names like Arctic Monkeys spring to mind as an obvious influence.
Having seen them on a few occasions now I'm still impressed that they are so talented at such a young age and have emerged with such fully matured songs; one hopes that they are given time to develop at their own speed and are not caught up in the rock n roll lifestyle and myth making. Once exams are out of the way it would be good to see them spread their wings a bit, experience life and do some gigs outside of the local area so they don't crash and burn on a scene of playing to the same people. With all that in mind I firmly believe they could deliver some astounding tunes as they have some real gems at the moment that are instant classics and if they can produce material that is all of that standard then people will have a hard job to ignore them. Tonight's set is good but when you compare them to Bullet then it is obvious they still have a way to go, I've no doubt they will get there and when they do it will be something quite special.