Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies, Redjetson & My Pet Junkie @
‘Club Everlasting’, Club 85, Hitchin, Fri 29th April 2005

Club Everlasting, a promotions team with a monthly night here since January, earned my approval immediately. This is a club which played records by Mogwai! My old favourite band as warm-up music? What would the actual live bands be like?

On the whole, Everlasting have been quite successful in combining risky new bands and new music, with the guaranteed allure of local favourites. Touring their avante-garde rock in the past few months have been the likes of Morviscous (good free jazz), Leave Land for Water (Radiohead/Beta Band), Sennen (whispery harmonies and great big guitars), Detwiije (violin-led epics) and I Like Trains (atmospheric ballads) – alongside locals such as Insomnia, Deadkidsongs and Left Engine. Bands from the scene of post/math/whatever-rock have played to a brand new audience of non-generic fans; good surprises for both sides of the stage.

The Club has also taken to projecting short films behind its bands, which can be successful (so long as they don’t keep using the same ones). One silent-movie-skit, in which a blonde bombshell is fought over by a pair of moustachioed swordsmen, is an apt backdrop for the My Pet Junkie muck-about improperly titled ‘You're Schizophrenic - That Makes Three of Us!’ For once, I laugh during a song that tries to be funny. I’ve always liked MPJ but over the years, I’ve come to like some aspects of this band more than others. The trio have been known to jump between styles so much that they sometimes fall between two stools, but their two best moments tonight are both diametrically opposed and mutually satisfying: for example, 'Shut Up Fool'! This is an effervescent gem, all indie-rock harmonies and post-grunge breakdown; it’s a perfectly accessible deconstructed pop song, a clever bit of fun. Meanwhile, new song and set-closer ‘This Apathy’ has fun being clever, with passages of noise which are ends in themselves instead of routes into moshpits, and frenzied bursts of sheer quality. Some ferocious drumming and concentrated jams also lift ‘HRT & Coffee’ – a horrible title, I have to say – making a good Mars Volta-style opener. Sometimes, the less jumping around on stage, the more dramatic the music. To write an enjoyable pop song is no mean feat, but it's something else to make it into a piece of music which twists and turns and surprises on each listen. While deserving better slots, MPJ tonight are a great introduction to touring acts with yet more of an 'experimental' background.

As much as I like the introspective, instrumental type of rock band, I do feel there are huge similarities between many of the bands who play this music, including the out-of-town acts listed above. Perhaps, there are just as many “subtle differences.” I enjoy these bands over and over again but, like enjoying a good pint, it’s not always much to write home about and sometimes gets a bit repetitive. The post-rock quiet/loud dynamic, as developed by Slint and made infamous by Mogwai, has been left behind by many in the genre. Stylistic tricks become so well-used that the music fails to surprise. Will the "gradual build-up" go the same way?

Redjetson, a five-piece in the thoughtful Radiohead mould, slowly move their songs from indie-rock murmurs to all-out instrumental passion. At one point, a xylophone tinkles – tinnily - behind their wall-of-sound effort. Another time, they utilise those military-style drum rolls, beloved of so many instrumental acts as musical shortcut to a feeling of triumph. But that sort of thing started to get boring even when done by Godspeed You Black Emperor! As far as bands go who are considered ‘left-field’, Redjetson are quite middle-of-the-road. But these long songs, like a big beanbag, are objects you can relax into. When not inspiring my own bad imagery, the dreamy soundscapes just make me forget everything. I love to watch bands like this. I can feel myself grinning like a fool (and it’s not just because the singer’s hands-on-mike-stand demeanour, clothes, face and floppy fringe remind me of the guy from Keane). It's a solid performance, one to smile at rather than shout about.

"Quiet/loud"... "gradual build-up"... "stop... start". Ironic of name and learned of music, Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies are a four-piece who know the stop-start chop-change formula so well that they even mention in it their lyrics, in (the only one I know) ‘A Little Late, He Staggered Through the Door and Into Her Eyes’. Long names, short hair, they know what they're doing and so do the crowd. YMSS are an anti-pop cult who inspire chanting followers: a number of their fans have travelled, from south of London and afar, to this gig at the back of beyond. I’d heard of the band some time ago – they’re signed to Fierce Panda - and finally heard them on the Adelphi CD, and looked forward to this gig for months. It was no disappointment. These songs encourage dreaming and then shake you up. The band have a good (post-emo!) stage presence and an aura of being only just in control of their instruments, taking in guitar-stabbing slabs of noise and the occasional keyboard attack, almost verging on disco. Looks are exchanged. Hands are raised. Vocal moans are used sparingly, the band preferring to rock out than just to sing about it. Amusingly, they steer clear of math-rock po-facedness by taking to new levels the art of pub handclaps. Fans join in, old and new – “you’re all very good, except that guy at the back, he’s out of time.”

There are few bands this lot remind me of; tellingly, those few slightly similar bands are all as obscure. Plans and Apologies do a comparable cross-genre version of rock, with more pop/strops/soppiness in their songs; old faves Edible 5 Ft Smiths were a more startling proposition – their off-the-wall attack has made people jump in the air and will do again, making YMSS sound sober and controlled. Sometimes, drunk is better than sober, but tonight was a night for soaking into music, and saving one’s beer-money for precious vinyl (I still didn’t have enough cash for the CD).

As a grand finale (a song which seems to have been called 'Inspector Horse'), Redjetson join the Soundtracks on stage and help create an all-consuming noise. Two crazy fans are invited to perform a stage invasion.

After that, the night couldn't get any better, although I'm still not sure why the DJ followed with a set of indie-club anthems. Pop songs can be great, but aren't quite Club Everlasting... the bands, though, must put this among the best gigs of the year.

www.mypetjunkie.com / www.redjetson.co.uk / www.ymss.org.uk / www.everlastingmusic.co.uk

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