Nemesis To Go - Live: Drop Dead Festival, Day 3

Drop Dead Festival
Day 3: Knitting Factory, New York City
Sunday October 30 2005

Bands in order of appearance:

Black Cat Rebellion
The Ghouls
Bordello
Pins And Needles
New Minority
Blitzkid
Undying Legacy
Bella Morte
Frank The Baptist

We're three days in, and it ain't over yet. Back to the Knitting Factory, as the juggernaut that is the Drop Dead Festival rolls implacably on. Wandering in to the venue shortly after opening time, I'm surprised to see a decent crowd already gathered, paying attention to the first band of the day, Black Cat Rebellion. Well, they must have a certain something if they can pull in the punters when it's still only tea time, so let's check 'em out

An Elvis Vanian with a big quiff fronts the band, a buccaneering, romantic figure who looks like he's just blown in on a black winged motorbike. Is there such a genre as glamabilly? Well, there is now. Black Cat Rebellion just invented it. They're confident and cool: not particularly pushing any musical boundaries, mind, but they rock it up with a certain swaggering conviction. I am given to understand that the ladies consider the bassist to be 'HAWT', by the way.

Folowing close behind, we have The Ghouls. Now here's a band with a name that hints at schlock-horror spook 'n' roll, to the point where I feared we'd be in for a son-of-The Psychic Fetus kind of experience.

Fortunately for me the band turns out to be a straightforward bunch o' punks. Again, musical boundaries remain resolutely unpushed - the sound is yer regular punkoid blare - and the band members stick pretty closely to the Approved Punk Image, too. Mohawks, tattoos, splatter makeup all present and correct.

So, it's all fairly undemanding middle-of-the-genre stuff in the end, but performed with enough crazed energy, fire and brimstone to make it work. The vocalist, in particuilar, has a nice line in Henry Rollins-style intense bellowing, if you like that sort of thing.

Downstairs now, to the second, smaller, stage, which has an intriguing roster of bands today. The first of these is a band I last saw on the Convergence 8 stage in Montreal in 2002 - has it really been three years since I last clapped eyes on Bordello?

I'm pleased to see the band is still going, although whether or not it's quite the same band now as then is a moot point. I'm sure the line-up has changed, and the musical slant seems to be leaning in a somewhat different direction these days, too. Bordello, 21st century style, are a showboating blues-rock outfit, all grit and gasconade. The drummer's Rolling Stones T-shirt wasn't selected by accident, that's for sure. The band seem to be deliberately trying to recreate that Marquee-club-in-1963 sound, and, uncannily enough, they get pretty close.

Their on-stage demeanour fits the music: the guitarists give it that matey, lads-together thing, getting together for 'rocker' poses like they've painstakingly researched just how Keef 'n' the lads did it in the vintage years of the Stones. Meanwhile, the vocalist channels Janice Joplin, her voice a gravel-encrusted blues diva roar.

She conjures up an impressive volume of noise, and delivers the lyrics with equally impressive control, although she can't resist showing off her vocal prowess in almost every song by interjecting a throaty 'Wooooaaaahhh!' at, frankly, too-frequent intervals. Once or twice is good; but when the same 'Hey everybody - look what I can do!' vocal gimmick turns up on a crashingly regular basis, I feel like I should gently take her aside between a couple of songs and explain, in firm but friendly terms, that Less Is More.

But for all that, it's good. I liked Bordello in 2002, and I like them in 2005 - in fact, the band's excursion into ragged, bashed-up blues touches base with some of the stuff that's going on in London's murky indie clubs these days. Bordello might not know it, but they're within clutching distance of the indie zeitgeist, should they feel like grabbing a piece of that action for themselves.

I don't know if the band would wish to push things that far - they seem content to be a home-town Montreal phenomenon, which is rather frustrating, in a way. As I remarked when I reviewed them in 2002, they're too good for that. Bordello have potential that could take them a long way, but do they want to embark on that journey? I reckon it's all there for them if they want it. Just go easy on the vocal histrionics, OK?

Pins And Needles are another band that come with recommendations attached. I've heard quite a few people mention them as a happenin' act, so let's hang around and see if they do, in fact, happen. They're a no-nonsense trio with a light, eighties-new-wave touch. Their principal influence is, fairly obviously, early Cure. You can hear it in the music, which pulls in the essential elements of Three Imaginary Boys and Seventeen Seconds and mixes them into the concoction that is the Pins And Pins And Needles Needles sound.

You can also discern the Cure influence in the lead singer's image - he's faithfully reproduced the tousled mop-top hairstyle and stripey T-shirt of Robert Smith's early publicity shots. I don't know if anyone much is picking up on this - I dare say most of the Drop Dead audience instinctively think of Robert Smith in his later guise, all rat's nest hair and smudged lipstick. But for anyone familiar with the pre-goth incarnation of The Cure, it's clear enough where Pins And Needles are coming from.

The point at which the influence stops is the vocal. Instead of a Smith-esque angsty wail, we get a half-chanted recitation of the lyrics, at certain moments incongruously akin to the kind of one-note rant employed by EBM vocalists who can't actually sing. Hum. Oh dear. Not so good, chaps.

It's not that I particularly wanted, or even expected, to hear a Robert Smith-style vocal - in fact, it's good that the band have pulled away from their big influence and injected some of their own style here. But the vocalist's obvious limitations do rather grate on the ears. Maybe he aquits himself better in the studio - I'm told that the Pins And Needles album is good - but on this evidence he's no great shakes in the live arena.

Bravely, and effectively, the band throw in a cover of the old Bauhas smasheroonie, 'All We Ever Wanted Was Everything', and I'm a little surprised to find myself suddenly impressed. Of course, the original has a more or less half-spoken vocal, so the fact that Pins And Needles don't have the greatest singer on the planet isn't such an issue here. Their version really does work. The musical arrangement is different and neatly done, and I'm left pondering the possibility that Pins And Needles just might be a better band than they allowed us to experience tonight.

A collection of ramshackle weirdos commandeers the stage. This, if I'm not mistaken, is The New Minority. They look like a fairly random bunch. There's a distinct absence of any overall 'band image' here: a punk guitarist, a scientist bassist, and a garage rocker drummer wearing an MC5 T-shirt. Well, bearing in mind how the drummer with Bordello sported a T-shirt which hinted accurately at the musical direction of the band, that seems promising to me.

I don't know if New Minority kick out the jams, but they certainly kick arse. They generate a crazed, gonzoid rumpus, firing smashed-up bits of guitar noise in all directions, with assorted bursts of yelling and screeching over the top. It's an anti-rock 'n' roll racket, all tangents and collisions and barely-formed sort-of songs. I'm not entirely sure how much of this wilfully chaotic experimentalism is intentional, and how much is simply due to the band's love of making a Bloody Great Racket in a public place, but in a loony kind of way, it works.

The bassist glances left and right in a quizzical manner, as if he's not quite sure what's going to happen next, while his colleague on guitar gets increasingly frenzied by the minute. There's a sudden incursion into the audience, and a swift poll to decide which cover song the band should play. It's between the Dead Kennedys' 'California Uber Alles' and Link Wray's 'Let's Get Ready To Rumble'. I'm holding out for the Link Wray tune, but the Kennedys get it, and, shortly thereafter, so do we - right between the eyes. The verdict on New Minority? Ah, lovely chaps. Mad as goats, mind.

Blitzkid Here's a small pinch of history. Back in those [allegedly] golden days of the late 70s and early 80s, the principal new romantic hangout in London was a club called Blitz, over which Steve Strange of Visage presided as a notoriously selective doorman. Before the phrase 'new romantic' was coined, all sorts of names were bandied about as the media tried to find a suitable description for the elegant fops who congregated at this club - and one term that stuck around longer than most was 'Blitz kids'.

It is, therefore, positively surreal to find a band on the upper stage of the Knitting Factory called Blitzkid. Are we to be assailed by elegantly mannered futurist pop tunes? Will the band be wearing assymetrical hairstyles and tartan tablecloths, like early Spandau Ballet?

Erm...nope. These Blitz kids are coming from a very different place, and I suspect they're not even aware of the incongruity of their name. They're a punk outfit, stripped down to unrepentant basics, all sweat and monster riffs. Supposedly, they've got some sort of spooky-horror thing going on, but that side of the band isn't really apparent in the live show. It's just good old fashioned punk hullabaloo.

All eyes are on the bassist, who throws himself around in a veritable freak-out of rock 'n' roll shapes and contortions. He's the great visual asset of the band, but he's replaced, towards the end of the set, by the bassist from Black Cat Rebellion, who comes on for a somewhat anticlimactic guest spot. The show shudders to a conclusion. Rough, ready and pickled in rock 'n' roll juice - that's Blitzkid for you. Steve Strange would never have let 'em in.

Let's head back to the second stage again, for it's time to catch Undying Legacy, a rare example of a British band at Drop Dead. Undying Legacy's appearance is ironic in a way, for it's a rare thing to see this lot play anywhere, never mind a large international festival event. Indeed, I'm told they haven't played live at all since the present line-up got together. This makes tonight's performance Undying Legacy a definite baptism of fire, for it amounts to a debut show by what is effectively a new band.

It's not altogether surprising, then, that the band's on-stage demeanour is hesitant, cautious; the musicians are obviously unsure of themselves, hanging back and keeping it all low-key. They're going for that archly melodramatic Batcavey style, but without the energy and glam-goth swagger that normally comes as standard in this area.

Bassist and guitarist fix their eyes on the floor, their fretboards, anything rather than make eye contact with the audience. They're clearly good musicians, but they're playing as if they were at home in the rehearsal reoom. There's no attempt to put on a show. Vocalist Nic does the gothic two-step back and forth, chatting out the lyrics like he's having a conversation over the tea table, occasionally glancing at the crowd, then quickly looking away again. It is, frankly, a disappointing performance which leaves the audience obviously underwhelmed.

It's a shame, because the band could've really made their mark tonight. Unlike last year, when Drop Dead featured several bands doing the mohawks 'n' fishnets Batcave thing, this year Undying Legacy are the only representatives of this style on the bill. As a result, the entire Batcave contingent - all the Johnny 'n' Jenny Sluts - have flocked to the downstairs stage to see the show. This, of course, creates a great opportunity. Deliver a good set, and Undying Legacy could own that fanbase. Alas, it just isn't happening.

Afterwards, the band complained bitterly that they couldn't hear anything in the monitors, and this had taken the edge off their performance. Well, maybe so, but I'd say that in order to take the edge off a performance it's necessary to have a performance to begin with. I've seen bands on many occasions get through technically difficult sets on sheer showbiz verve.

I don't want to sound like some hoary old muso here, insisting that every band needs to pay its dues on the gig circuit, but it does strike me that Undying Legacy's inexperience has tripped them up. If they'd spent the last year slogging round the grim and basic back-room-of-a-pub Brit-goth circuit, they would've surely figured out a few coping strategies for when techie stuff goes wrong, and they would have certainly been able to work up a real show by now - qualities which would have resulted in a much better Drop Dead set, regardless of whether the monitors were dead or alive. As it is, the band came across as nervous greenhorns who simply weren't ready to set foot on stage. I suppose the real lesson here is simple: don't try to do too much too soon.

Back upstairs now, and I walk in on Bella Morte, who are hammering through a typically gung-ho set of thunderous punkoid noise. Now here's a band which has mutated out of all recognition from their early incarnation as mannered, measured, drum machine-driven trad-goths. I never cease to be amazed at the transformation, but it's clearly been a worthwhile journey.

The old Bella Morte would never have been able to command an audience of boisterous deathrockers, as the band are so confidently doing tonight. But then, the old Bella Morte probably wouldn't have been considered for a Drop Dead slot in the first place. I'm sure punking things up has paid many such dividends for the band.

But this does rather beg the question - where next? Not having caught the full monty, I can't say whether Bella Morte's current set features any new material or fresh songwriting ideas, but I hope there are some new moves in there somewhere.

From the half-set I do see, it seems like the band are essentially reprising the same stuff they did at Drop Dead in 2004. Even the novelty cover song, 'Earth Angel', is the same, and vocalist Andy Deane is still throwing the same tough guy/goofy guy poses up front. Sure, it's all effective, but I've seen those moves before. It's like he's working to stage directions. The only real point of difference is his mohawk - last year, it was blue. This year, it's red. Which is nice. But really, I think the time is coming when Bella Morte need to bring on few more changes. Simply reaching for a different pot of Manic Panic Amplified Formula from year to year isn't going to be enough to keep the band's juggernaut a-rolling. Next time I see Bella Morte, whenever that might be, I want them to surprise me again.

A man in black emerges into the dim red stage lighting. Frank The Baptist, for it is he, is in jovial mood. He cuts a genial Pickwickian figure in his sideburns and topper. He's jocular, affable, bantering with the audience - clearly on a roll.

Without any undue ceremony, he leads his band straight into a set of vintage Frank-rock. The guitars are up loud but the vocal is always on top, and every song is a nimble scramble through his peculiar, poignant brand of rock 'n' roll.

I don't know what's put Frank in such a good mood tonight, but his humour suffuses the music like red wine sauce in a pot of pasta, and the audience is swept along. 'Signing Off' encapsulates that in-the-gutter-but-looking-at-the-stars feel as efortlessly as ever; 'Silver Is Her Color' strides out on its slashing riff like a riot cop looking for trouble. But, in amongst the old faves, there's a new song in the set which for all Frank's self-deprecating introduction - he virtually dismisses the song as the random product of an impromptu jam session - takes the big biscuit.

'Harlot Of Nations' has exactly the right blend of swing and lilt and rumbling hot-rod power to make it an instant hit. It even has a killer chorus which, after just one go-around, takes up residence in my brain for the rest of the night - and that's a trick which far too few artists know how to pull off these days. If there was any doubt about it, this song proves by itself that the man in the hat has still got it, and here, in front of a partisan crowd crowd which is definitely up for a bit of FTB-style partying, he delivers a set which I'm sure will go down in the band's history as a bit of a classic.

That's not quite the end of the evening, for old-skool psychobillies Coffin Nails are scheduled to appear next. But, notwithstanding their status as only the second UK-based band to appear at Drop Dead this year (which gives them a bit of novelty value if nothing else) I think it's time to fade into the night. There's still one more day of Drop Dead to go, for the festival moves uptown tomorrow for its grand finale at the Avalon club. So it's goodbye to the Knitting Factory and hello to...oblivion. Well, a few hours sleep, anyway. We'll be back.

This way for...

Drop Dead Day 4

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


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Drop Dead Festival Day 3: Knitting Factory, New York City Sunday October 30 2005 Bands in order of appearance: Black Cat Rebellion The Ghouls Bordello Pins And Needles New Minority Blitzkid Undying Legacy Bella Morte Frank The Baptist We're three days in, and it ain't over yet. Back to the Knitting Factory, as the juggernaut that is the Drop Dead Festival rolls implacably on. Wandering in to the venue shortly after opening time, I'm surprised to see a decent crowd already gathered, paying attention to the first band of the day, Black Cat Rebellion. Well, they must have a certain something if they can pull in the punters when it's still only tea time, so let's check 'em out An Elvis Vanian with a big quiff fronts the band, a buccaneering, romantic figure who looks like he's just blown in on a black winged motorbike. Is there such a genre as glamabilly? Well, there is now. Black Cat Rebellion just invented it. They're confident and cool: not particularly pushing any musical boundaries, mind, but they rock it up with a certain swaggering conviction. I am given to understand that the ladies consider the bassist to be 'HAWT', by the way. Folowing close behind, we have The Ghouls. Now here's a band with a name that hints at schlock-horror spook 'n' roll, to the point where I feared we'd be in for a son-of-The Psychic Fetus kind of experience. Fortunately for me the band turns out to be a straightforward bunch o' punks. Again, musical boundaries remain resolutely unpushed - the sound is yer regular punkoid blare - and the band members stick pretty closely to the Approved Punk Image, too. Mohawks, tattoos, splatter makeup all present and correct. So, it's all fairly undemanding middle-of-the-genre stuff in the end, but performed with enough crazed energy, fire and brimstone to make it work. The vocalist, in particuilar, has a nice line in Henry Rollins-style intense bellowing, if you like that sort of thing. Downstairs now, to the second, smaller, stage, which has an intriguing roster of bands today. The first of these is a band I last saw on the Convergence 8 stage in Montreal in 2002 - has it really been three years since I last clapped eyes on Bordello? I'm pleased to see the band is still going, although whether or not it's quite the same band now as then is a moot point. I'm sure the line-up has changed, and the musical slant seems to be leaning in a somewhat different direction these days, too. Bordello, 21st century style, are a showboating blues-rock outfit, all grit and gasconade. The drummer's Rolling Stones T-shirt wasn't selected by accident, that's for sure. The band seem to be deliberately trying to recreate that Marquee-club-in-1963 sound, and, uncannily enough, they get pretty close. Their on-stage demeanour fits the music: the guitarists give it that matey, lads-together thing, getting together for 'rocker' poses like they've painstakingly researched just how Keef 'n' the lads did it in the vintage years of the Stones. Meanwhile, the vocalist channels Janice Joplin, her voice a gravel-encrusted blues diva roar. She conjures up an impressive volume of noise, and delivers the lyrics with equally impressive control, although she can't resist showing off her vocal prowess in almost every song by interjecting a throaty 'Wooooaaaahhh!' at, frankly, too-frequent intervals. Once or twice is good; but when the same 'Hey everybody - look what I can do!' vocal gimmick turns up on a crashingly regular basis, I feel like I should gently take her aside between a couple of songs and explain, in firm but friendly terms, that Less Is More. But for all that, it's good. I liked Bordello in 2002, and I like them in 2005 - in fact, the band's excursion into ragged, bashed-up blues touches base with some of the stuff that's going on in London's murky indie clubs these days. Bordello might not know it, but they're within clutching distance of the indie zeitgeist, should they feel like grabbing a piece of that action for themselves. I don't know if the band would wish to push things that far - they seem content to be a home-town Montreal phenomenon, which is rather frustrating, in a way. As I remarked when I reviewed them in 2002, they're too good for that. Bordello have potential that could take them a long way, but do they want to embark on that journey? I reckon it's all there for them if they want it. Just go easy on the vocal histrionics, OK? Pins And Needles are another band that come with recommendations attached. I've heard quite a few people mention them as a happenin' act, so let's hang around and see if they do, in fact, happen. They're a no-nonsense trio with a light, eighties-new-wave touch. Their principal influence is, fairly obviously, early Cure. You can hear it in the music, which pulls in the essential elements of Three Imaginary Boys and Seventeen Seconds and mixes them into the concoction that is the Pins And Needles sound. You can also discern the Cure influence in the lead singer's image - he's faithfully reproduced the tousled mop-top hairstyle and stripey T-shirt of Robert Smith's early publicity shots. I don't know if anyone much is picking up on this - I dare say most of the Drop Dead audience instinctively think of Robert Smith in his later guise, all rat's nest hair and smudged lipstick. But for anyone familiar with the pre-goth incarnation of The Cure, it's clear enough where Pins And Needles are coming from. The point at which the influence stops is the vocal. Instead of a Smith-esque angsty wail, we get a half-chanted recitation of the lyrics, at certain moments incongruously akin to the kind of one-note rant employed by EBM vocalists who can't actually sing. Hum. Oh dear. Not so good, chaps. It's not that I particularly wanted, or even expected, to hear a Robert Smith-style vocal - in fact, it's good that the band have pulled away from their big influence and injected some of their own style here. But the vocalist's obvious limitations do rather grate on the ears. Maybe he aquits himself better in the studio - I'm told that the Pins And Needles album is good - but on this evidence he's no great shakes in the live arena. Bravely, and effectively, the band throw in a cover of the old Bauhas smasheroonie, 'All We Ever Wanted Was Everything', and I'm a little surprised to find myself suddenly impressed. Of course, the original has a more or less half-spoken vocal, so the fact that Pins And Needles don't have the greatest singer on the planet isn't such an issue here. Their version really does work. The musical arrangement is different and neatly done, and I'm left pondering the possibility that Pins And Needles just might be a better band than they allowed us to experience tonight. A collection of ramshackle weirdos commandeers the stage. This, if I'm not mistaken, is The New Minority. They look like a fairly random bunch. There's a distinct absence of any overall 'band image' here: a punk guitarist, a scientist bassist, and a garage rocker drummer wearing an MC5 T-shirt. Well, bearing in mind how the drummer with Bordello sported a T-shirt which hinted accurately at the musical direction of the band, that seems promising to me. I don't know if New Minority kick out the jams, but they certainly kick arse. They generate a crazed, gonzoid rumpus, firing smashed-up bits of guitar noise in all directions, with assorted bursts of yelling and screeching over the top. It's an anti-rock 'n' roll racket, all tangents and collisions and barely-formed sort-of songs. I'm not entirely sure how much of this wilfully chaotic experimentalism is intentional, and how much is simply due to the band's love of making a Bloody Great Racket in a public place, but in a loony kind of way, it works. The bassist glances left and right in a quizzical manner, as if he's not quite sure what's going to happen next, while his colleague on guitar gets increasingly frenzied by the minute. There's a sudden incursion into the audience, and a swift poll to decide which cover song the band should play. It's between the Dead Kennedys' 'California Uber Alles' and Link Wray's 'Let's Get Ready To Rumble'. I'm holding out for the Link Wray tune, but the Kennedys get it, and, shortly thereafter, so do we - right between the eyes. The verdict on New Minority? Ah, lovely chaps. Mad as goats, mind. Here's a small pinch of history. Back in those [allegedly] golden days of the late 70s and early 80s, the principal new romantic hangout in London was a club called Blitz, over which Steve Strange of Visage presided as a notoriously selective doorman. Before the phrase 'new romantic' was coined, all sorts of names were bandied about as the media tried to find a suitable description for the elegant fops who congregated at this club - and one term that stuck around longer than most was 'Blitz kids'. It is, therefore, positively surreal to find a band on the upper stage of the Knitting Factory called Blitzkid. Are we to be assailed by elegantly mannered futurist pop tunes? Will the band be wearing assymetrical hairstyles and tartan tablecloths, like early Spandau Ballet? Erm...nope. These Blitz kids are coming from a very different place, and I suspect they're not even aware of the incongruity of their name. They're a punk outfit, stripped down to unrepentant basics, all sweat and monster riffs. Supposedly, they've got some sort of spooky-horror thing going on, but that side of the band isn't really apparent in the live show. It's just good old fashioned punk hullabaloo. All eyes are on the bassist, who throws himself around in a veritable freak-out of rock 'n' roll shapes and contortions. He's the great visual asset of the band, but he's replaced, towards the end of the set, by the bassist from Black Cat Rebellion, who comes on for a somewhat anticlimactic guest spot. The show shudders to a conclusion. Rough, ready and pickled in rock 'n' roll juice - that's Blitzkid for you. Steve Strange would never have let 'em in. Let's head back to the second stage again, for it's time to catch Undying Legacy, a rare example of a British band at Drop Dead. Undying Legacy's appearance is ironic in a way, for it's a rare thing to see this lot play anywhere, never mind a large international festival event. Indeed, I'm told they haven't played live at all since the present line-up got together. This makes tonight's performance a definite baptism of fire, for it amounts to a debut show by what is effectively a new band. It's not altogether surprising, then, that the band's on-stage demeanour is hesitant, cautious; the musicians are obviously unsure of themselves, hanging back and keeping it all low-key. They're going for that archly melodramatic Batcavey style, but without the energy and glam-goth swagger that normally comes as standard in this area. Bassist and guitarist fix their eyes on the floor, their fretboards, anything rather than make eye contact with the audience. They're clearly good musicians, but they're playing as if they were at home in the rehearsal reoom. There's no attempt to put on a show. Vocalist Nic does the gothic two-step back and forth, chatting out the lyrics like he's having a conversation over the tea table, occasionally glancing at the crowd, then quickly looking away again. It is, frankly, a disappointing performance which leaves the audience obviously underwhelmed. It's a shame, because the band could've really made their mark tonight. Unlike last year, when Drop Dead featured several bands doing the mohawks 'n' fishnets Batcave thing, this year Undying Legacy are the only representatives of this style on the bill. As a result, the entire Batcave contingent - all the Johnny 'n' Jenny Sluts - have flocked to the downstairs stage to see the show. This, of course, creates a great opportunity. Deliver a good set, and Undying Legacy could own that fanbase. Alas, it just isn't happening. Afterwards, the band complained bitterly that they couldn't hear anything in the monitors, and this had taken the edge off their performance. Well, maybe so, but I'd say that in order to take the edge off a performance it's necessary to have a performance to begin with. I've seen bands on many occasions get through technically difficult sets on sheer showbiz verve. I don't want to sound like some hoary old muso here, insisting that every band needs to pay its dues on the gig circuit, but it does strike me that Undying Legacy's inexperience has tripped them up. If they'd spent the last year slogging round the grim and basic back-room-of-a-pub Brit-goth circuit, they would've surely figured out a few coping strategies for when techie stuff goes wrong, and they would have certainly been able to work up a real show by now - qualities which would have resulted in a much better Drop Dead set, regardless of whether the monitors were dead or alive. As it is, the band came across as nervous greenhorns who simply weren't ready to set foot on stage. I suppose the real lesson here is simple: don't try to do too much too soon. Back upstairs now, and I walk in on Bella Morte, who are hammering through a typically gung-ho set of thunderous punkoid noise. Now here's a band which has mutated out of all recognition from their early incarnation as mannered, measured, drum machine-driven trad-goths. I never cease to be amazed at the transformation, but it's clearly been a worthwhile journey. The old Bella Morte would never have been able to command an audience of boisterous deathrockers, as the band are so confidently doing tonight. But then, the old Bella Morte probably wouldn't have been considered for a Drop Dead slot in the first place. I'm sure punking things up has paid many such dividends for the band. But this does rather beg the question - where next? Not having caught the full monty, I can't say whether Bella Morte's current set features any new material or fresh songwriting ideas, but I hope there are some new moves in there somewhere. From the half-set I do see, it seems like the band are essentially reprising the same stuff they did at Drop Dead in 2004. Even the novelty cover song, 'Earth Angel', is the same, and vocalist Andy Deane is still throwing the same tough guy/goofy guy poses up front. Sure, it's all effective, but I've seen those moves before. It's like he's working to stage directions. The only real point of difference is his mohawk - last year, it was blue. This year, it's red. Which is nice. But really, I think the time is coming when Bella Morte need to bring on few more changes. Simply reaching for a different pot of Manic Panic Amplified Formula from year to year isn't going to be enough to keep the band's juggernaut a-rolling. Next time I see Bella Morte, whenever that might be, I want them to surprise me again. A man in black emerges into the dim red stage lighting. Frank The Baptist, for it is he, is in jovial mood. He cuts a genial Pickwickian figure in his sideburns and topper. He's jocular, affable, bantering with the audience - clearly on a roll. Without any undue ceremony, he leads his band straight into a set of vintage Frank-rock. The guitars are up loud but the vocal is always on top, and every song is a nimble scramble through his peculiar, poignant brand of rock 'n' roll. I don't know what's put Frank in such a good mood tonight, but his humour suffuses the music like red wine sauce in a pot of pasta, and the audience is swept along. 'Signing Off' encapsulates that in-the-gutter-but-looking-at-the-stars feel as efortlessly as ever; 'Silver Is Her Color' strides out on its slashing riff like a riot cop looking for trouble. But, in amongst the old faves, there's a new song in the set which for all Frank's self-deprecating introduction - he virtually dismisses the song as the random product of an impromptu jam session - takes the big biscuit. 'Harlot Of Nations' has exactly the right blend of swing and lilt and rumbling hot-rod power to make it an instant hit. It even has a killer chorus which, after just one go-around, takes up residence in my brain for the rest of the night - and that's a trick which far too few artists know how to pull off these days. If there was any doubt about it, this song proves by itself that the man in the hat has still got it, and here, in front of a partisan crowd crowd which is definitely up for a bit of FTB-style partying, he delivers a set which I'm sure will go down in the band's history as a bit of a classic. That's not quite the end of the evening, for old-skool psychobillies Coffin Nails are scheduled to appear next. But, notwithstanding their status as only the second UK-based band to appear at Drop Dead this year (which gives them a bit of novelty value if nothing else) I think it's time to fade into the night. There's still one more day of Drop Dead to go, for the festival moves uptown tomorrow for its grand finale at the Avalon club. So it's goodbye to the Knitting Factory and hello to...oblivion. Well, a few hours sleep, anyway. We'll be back. This way for... Drop Dead Day 4 Drop Dead links For more photos from the Drop Dead Festival, find the bands by name here.
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Back to top	Page credits: Review, photos and construction by Michael Johnson. Additional words and ideas by Andi Jarrett. Nemesis logo by Antony Johnston, Red N version by Mark Rimmell.