Berlin Brides
Sloppy Joe
Horowitz
Dogstar, London
Friday August 12 2011
Down a Brixton back street, we find The Dogstar - a pub which looks as if Miss Havisham was employed as its interior designer. It's all shabby Victoriana, some of which might actually be real. The Victoriana, I mean. There's no doubt about the shabbiness. But although the place could do with a spring clean and a lick of paint, it's got a bit of frayed-at-the-edges cool among the cobwebs.
That makes it a good bet as a gig venue, so let's venture into the upstairs room where Librarians Wanted - London's least rock 'n' roll promoters - have bands and cupcakes waiting for us. Reduced admission if you show your library card on the door, by the way. Yes, really. Like I said: London's least rock 'n' roll promoters.
This gig is a kind of after-party for the Indietracks festival, which took place a few days ago at the Midland Railway Centre in Derbyshire. There's a hand-drawn cartoon poster on the door depicting a sad face with the words 'Indietracks, we miss you', from which we can infer that it was a good 'un this year. Never mind - here come three bands from the festival to play a slightly belated encore.
Horowitz are two men and a drum machine. Now that's a description I'm accustomed to applying to junior goth outfits, intent on reproducing The Sisters Of Mercy on a severely limited budget.
Fortunately, Horowitz have other ideas. They make a disarmingly naif indie racket, all plaintive vocals and schlang-a-lang guitar. Their sound pitches up somewhere between a bedroom Buzzcocks and a register office version of The Wedding Present, and within those parameters is actually rather nifty. Quintessentially indie, but charming with it.
Sloppy Joe come from Japan. That's a mighty long way to travel to play the upstairs room of a pub in Brixton. But the band seem happy to be here, at the heart (well, the left kneecap, at least) of the UK indie scene.
Like Horowitz, the Sloppies (or do we call them the Joes?) wear their principal influence on their sleeve. In their case, Orange Juice loom large in the band's sound. The songs are all jangle and thrum, basslines darting about between the twin-guitar clang and clatter like schoolchildren in morning break. Which is nice, but Sloppy Joe are a bit too sum-of-their-parts to entirely win me over. I hear their influences loud and clear in the songs, but I don't hear a lot of Sloppy Joe.
The Berlin Brides - naturally - come from Athens, Greece. Another long journey to end up in a Brixton boozer, but the Brides have played in the UK before and they know the score. It's not possible to pin the Berlin Brides down to a handy influence-reference or two, and that's one of the reasons I like them. There are many other reasons I like them, of course, and those reasons are much to the fore tonight.
The Brides' animated electropop has a spiky new-wavey edge even as it effortlessly captures indie catchiness. Their lyrics are artful and witty, and the two Brides - Natasha Giannaraki on vocals, Marilena Orfanou on keyboards - have a presence that eclipses any number of blokes-with-guitars bands.
Tonight, there's a third bride - a bloke with a drum kit - which ensures that the band's sparky pop rattles along with plenty of rhythmic wallop, and the room soon starts dancing. "This is our most notorious song", announces Natasha, and of course it's 'Failure To Wank', the best- and quite possibly the only - pop song ever written about masturbation-block. It's an adroit burst of beats and electronics, infectious and danceable - and you can tell which people in the crowd are only just twigging what the lyrics are about. They're the ones doing the dance step known as 'the double-take'.
It's a hot night in Brixton tonight, but the Berlin Brides warm it up even more.
Berlin Brides:
Sloppy Joe:
Horowitz:
Librarians Wanted: Website | Facebook
For more photos from this gig, find the Berlin Brides by name here.
