Nemesis To Go - Live: Drop Dead Festival 2007

Drop Dead Festival 2007
Rock Café, Prague
Day 1: Thursday November 2 2007

Bands in order of appearance:

Jellowaste
Eyaculacion Post Mortem
De Tazsos
Cremaster
Joy Disaster
Curtains!
Frank The Baptist

Here come some famous last words. In one of my previous Drop Dead Festival reviews, I recall I remarked that the event had now become a permanent fixture in the music calendar of New York City. Well, that statement now looks distinctly out of date, because while the Drop Dead Festival is still going strong, it ain't in New York no more. In a radical - and indeed somewhat controversial - move, the entire festival has decamped to Old Europe.

This year, the motley assortment of punks, post-punks, deathrockers, sonic art-weirdos and left-field noisemakers that comprise the Drop Dead barmy army have set up shop in the heart of Bohemia, amid the spires and turrets of Prague. Roll over King Wenceslas and tell Vaclav Havel the news.

It must be said that this abrupt shift to the other side of the planet has caused a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of deathrockers in the USA, who have suddenly discovered that one of the key events on their calendar has upped and left.

That doesn't necessarily spell doom for the USA, of course - the way is now clear for someone to put together a new festival in NYC to fill the gap vacated by Drop Dead. To date it seems that nobody is willing to carry the torch, but that's hardly the fault of the Drop Dead crew. Meanwhile, us Old Europeans get a neat addition to our calendar.

So, pausing only to extend our tounges and go 'Nyah nyah nyah!' in the direction of disgruntled New Yorkers, let's head down Národní street in Nove Mesto, step through the surreal mirrored entrance corridor of the Rock Cafe, obtain a beer from the grimly unimpressed bar staff, get to the front and check out who's on stage first.

This is who's on stage first: Jellowaste. A man, a laptop, an assortment of mashed-up elektro beats, plenty of dayglo paint and a selection of comedy sunglasses. All the essential kit, then. On closer inspection, we discover that the man behind the shades is Justin, drummer with Din Glorious (we even get a stage invasion by one of his Din Glorious colleagues to prove it) and this, we infer, is his solo project.

It's all a clatter and batter through splintered electronics, Mr Jellowaste himself leaning into the UV light and rapping manically as his laptop shreds out a mess of beatz and noize. The whole caboodle seems to go down well with the early doors deathrockers, but therein lies an odd paradox.

For Jellowaste quite uncannily reminds me of those 90s-vintage cybergoths Sneaky Bat Machine. That band has probably vanished from collective memory now, but back in ye olden days (circa 1997) their merry, be-costumed, electro-infused lark-abouts enjoyed a burst of popularity in the UK goth scene, and were arguably part of the process that led to the decline in guitar-based goth music and the rise of the mighty bleep.

In short, they represented the exact opposite of Drop Dead's musical area, so to see Jellowaste bringing the beatz back like this, to the incongruous approval of a robustly non-bleepy crowd, is a bit of a surprise. Sure, Mr Jello does his thing well, but I can't quite rid myself of the feeling that I've gone back in time and I'm attending a London bleepygoth event such as Electrofest sometime in the 90s. Not sure I'm ready for that kind of nostalgia. Bring back the twenty-first century, I say.

I don't know if Eyaculacion Post Mortem count as a twenty-first century band: I'd say their inspiration is more like 80s-vintage Alien Sex Fiend, filtered through a steady diet of cheesy horror movies. They're all wrapped up in bandages, and they fling themselves about to some frazzled deathpunkrock (there, I just invented a new genre) in which punkzoid guitar-mangling fights it out with the wail of a theremin.

In a way, I feel almost churlish for not quite liking them - after all, a no-shit thrashy guitar is up my street, isn't it? Trouble is, Eyaculacion Post Mortem veer a bit too close to the novelty horror-punk end of things for me. There's a certain sense that they're playing it for chuckles, and while I'm all for a laugh, there comes a time when a dose of get-serious attitude is necessary.

Here, it's all a bit too self consciously wacky, and the splattered-in-blood horror-schmorror thing has surely been done to death now. Somewhere under the bandages, there's a pretty good ramalama punk band struggling to get out. Enough with the first aid schtick, gentlemen. Unravel those bandages and release your inner punk rocker!

Solid and robust, De Tazsos give us a set of frill-free bloke-rock. They're allegedly a punker-psychobilly outfit, but they don't go in the direction of mega quiffs and slap bass that are the usual styling cues in this area.

We're in the presence of a stripped-to-the-basics power trio here, the three musicians sturdy and implacable in their defiantly unglamourous jeans 'n' T-shirts garb. The band whips up a suitably thunderous rock 'n' roll storm, and if they never quite manage to make a major impression - they're a bit too much of a bread-and-butter bunch for that - the De Tazos chaps nevertheless aquit themselves well enough to keep the crowd jumping.

Hailing, if their on-stage explanations are any guide, from a small town in Germany, the amiable gentlemen musicians of Cremaster kick things off with a little bit of theatre. Live on stage, the guitarist gets married to the bassist. Both parties are suitably attired - in wedding suit and frothy white dress, respectively - with the lead singer officiating in a dog collar.

Unfortunately, the impact of this amusing vingette is rather lost, because nobody has remembered to switch the lights on. The stunt takes place in pitch darkness to the mystification of the crowd, and when, eventually, the lights go up, I'm sure a large part of the audience is wondering why the bass player is scowling mightily in a frock. (And scowl he does, thoughout the entire set - something tells me he wasn't too happy about his role as a girl).

Still, the band rustle up a wedding feast of wham-bang punker-pop, uptempo and accessible, and the singer counters the bassist's scowls with an array of disarming grins. Well, at least someone's happy.

Joy Disaster are what Joy Division would sound like if they were cross-fertilized with The Clash. That may sound like a suspiciously glib assessment, but nevertheless there's definitely a certain Clash-esque element to this band's densely-packed, rockin' sound - and more than a hint of Paul Simonon's style in the bassist's London gangster trilby hat and shooting-from-the-hip stance.

But, as I've probably remarked before, the similarity of the band's name to a certain Manchester combo is more than a coincidence, too. Joy Disaster may parade their influences fairly obviously, even to the extent of giving us clues in their name, but they still manage to stamp a no-shit identity of their own onto the Drop Dead stage. The music is a bold and assertive rock 'n' roll roar, foot on the gas all the way.

Which, I suppose, is where the Joy Division comparison stops and the Clash comparison begins: the introspection and splendid bleakness of Joy Division gives way to the assertion and spittle of The Clash at full throttle. There, on that point of transition, is where you'll find Joy Disaster. Not that the audience here in the Rock Café is inclined to ponder such esoteric matters - they're too busy moshing to Joy Disaster's take-no-prisoners guitar-bass-drums onslaught. Which, I suppose, is the ultimate result.

Now, maybe I've missed something, but as far as I know Curtains! (the exclaimation mark, apparently, is an integral part of their name) are a more or less unknown band outside their home base in Chicago. Certainly, this is the band's first gig outside the USA, and I suppose it's a lucky break to land a second-top slot at a relatively high profile event like the Drop Dead Festival. Then again, I dare say it's also a bit of an ordeal. There ain't nowhere to hide. The band has got to deliver.

Fortunately, Curtains! have got the chops and they deploy them with impressive levels of post-punk flavoured fire and brimstone. Our third power-trio of the evening (gosh, three threes, it's almost mystical), Curtains! rip it up like a controlled riot. The bassist gives it the full-on rocker attitude, swinging his plank with the don't-care insouciance of Sid Vicious in San Fransisco, while the guitarist/vocalist hurls himself at the microphone as if he's afraid it'll get away. It's fractured and abrasive but always nailed down: the essential dichotomy of a live rock music performance is in full effect. But enough with the science. Curtains! connect on a visceral level, too. That's the thing that does it for me.

Painted of face and pointed of hat, Frank The Baptist is all dressed up for the Mexican Day of the Dead. Likewise the gentlemen musicians of the band, which gives the performance a flavour of international surrealism. An American band, based in Germany, playing a gig in the Czech Republic in a style derived from a Mexican fiesta. Is this an example of that globalisation stuff I keep hearing about? Well, if it is, it's got a fine soundtrack.

Frank The Baptist (the man, the band - it can get confusing, but by and large I'm using the name interchangably here) rolls out the anthems with an almost magisterial confidence, with Frank himself declaiming the lyrics with a natural authority that is in no way diminished by the fact that he's got a cartoon skull drawn on his mug. A neat trick if you can pull that off - many can't, that's for sure, and a glance at almost any novelty horror punk band will prove my point.

Right now, this defiantly non-novelty band is displaying that almost uncanny ability to slam down slice after slice of acrid, dymanic, new wave-inflected rock 'n' roll, based as ever on highlights from the Frank The Baptist songbook - which contains, lest we forget, more highlights than most, to the point where one of the band's best songs, 'Harlot Of Nations' can be thrown in as the very first number. Most bands would surely keep such a barnstormer for the big finish, but Frank The Baptist has plenty more where that one came from.

In a way, Frank The Baptist is a natural headliner. The man bestrides the stage as if the top spot is his instinctive home territory; the band stake out their positions as if the headline slot is theirs by natural right. But they do all this without a shred of superstar arrogance. When it comes down to it, this band is a bunch of punks. And in Drop Dead circles, 'bunch of punks' is praise indeed.

Essential links:

Jellowaste: Myspace
Eyaculacion Post Mortem: Website | Myspace
De Tazsos: Myspace
Cremaster: Website | Myspace
Joy Disaster: Myspace
Curtains!: Myspace
Frank The Baptist: Website | Myspace

Drop Dead Festival: Website | Myspace

For day 2 of the Drop Dead Festival, go here.

For more photos from the Drop Dead Festival, find the bands by name here.