Caught By The Fuzz

Strange Death Of Liberal England @ Fuzz Club, Sheffield 27/9
The Brakes/The Xcerts @ Fuzz Club, Sheffield, 4/10
The Rascals @ Fuzz club, Sheffield, 11/10
Foals/Cut Off Your Hands/The Great Eskimo Hoax @ Plug 10/10
White Mice/some other guys om laptops @ The Red House 15/10


The new University year sees the return of Fuzz club, a good excuse to go out and watch a crappy band with bad sound and then dance to some indie hits and get beer spilt on your jeans and shoes. The first three weeks of this year don't disappoint - Strange Death Of Liberal England sound terrible and seem so much worse than the last time I saw them, despite them playing exactly the same set; maybe their performance losing something in a venue as large as Fusion or maybe their poor man's Silver Mont Zion shtick was more obvious. Brakes and The Xcerts were both bad and The Rascals were so bad that no-one bothered to clap them. Being friends with Alex Turner doesn't guarantee you tunes. Just look at Milburn.
As always, the indie disco provided some interesting song choices. Steve Lamacq playing Supergrass' "Caught By The Fuzz", whilst highly appreciated by the slightly older attendees, did seem an odd choice; a quick bit of maths tells me that any freshers present would have been about 8 when it came out. I'm not sure what my point is - maybe that I'm getting old. Another interesting one was Foals getting played fairly late into the night. That's the power of Yoof TV for you.

Speaking of Foals (subtle link, no?), their gig at Plug was an exciting affair. At least it was for the kids down the front. Once again the power of Yoof TV - it kind of reminds me of the speech at the end of this video. But maybe I'm too cynical. I was stood at the back. The less jaded me would probably accept the Ian Williams guitar worship and post-punk drum beats and be glad that it's not another band that sound like The Libertines. But I'm jaded and cynical so as far as I can see they only have one song and it goes bum-tish-bum-tish with some guitars that sound like they belong on American Don. One Foals song is good. 8 Foals songs are grating and repetitive.

As for White Mice, the half hour spent wondering around Sheffield trying to find the venue and the subsequent hour or so wait for any sort of band to play was rewarded with a fine set of noise rock, fairly reminiscent of Lightning Bolt but with added noise. Such are the wonders of DIY.

That's your lot for now. Sunday is Les Savy Fav in Manchester. Let's hope I have more to say about that.