Late as in this should have been up yesterday but it wasn't and is therefore late.
A couple of instores worth checking out are London's Rakes on Monday at the Virgin Megastore and melody driven rock types Morning Runner on Wednesday at 6 at the big HMV on Oxford Street.
But we'll concentrate on this month's Blang night at the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street. With bands like The Broken Family Band and The Eighteenth Day Of May seeping into the wider consciousness, i.e. they're being mentioned in proper newspapers, the term folk whilst still conjuring up images of men in Cardigans and moustaches re-enacting the Wicker Man on Easter Sunday, is no longer as pejorative as it once was. Especially if you preceed it with nu, new, acid, anti, country or any variation of the above. For 50 months now, which has to be at least four years, Blang has been one of London's premier anti-folk nights. Of course anti-folk isn't really anti folk. It draws from the spirit of folk, and kind of mixes it up with the spirit of punk. But mixing folk and punk gives you either funk, which was already taken, or polk, which just sounds stupid. And could easily and wrongly be confused with polka. As with all musical genres, it's genuinely harder to pin down the sound than everyone makes out, but for the sake of a quiet life we'll say that Blang has also been one of the many nights occuring in town that promote the kind of bands this country really should be known for and who (rightly or wrongly, argue it out amongst yourselves) will never be seen at the Brits.
It's £5 on the door so even poor people can go, doors at 7, bar till 1 and lineup goes something like this:
Bad Anorak 404's sun-dappled melancholic pop kicks the night off at 8.30, to be followed by Filthy Pedro; now expanded to a duo with Anglesey’s psychedelic historian Simon Parry now joined by Thee Intolerable Kidd on bass and saw. For fans of impenetrable accents, intolerable magnificently moody sidekicks, lo-fi thrills and history lessons from a semi-naked man in a mask. And they’re threatening to have someone called The Annihilator in on drums for a few songs! At 10 it's Blang's house band, Sergeant Buzfuz, of whom we loved what we've heard and we've not heard enough. 10.45 and David Cronenberg's Wife's 2 chord rock'n'roll will be peeling back the skin of humanity to reveal it’s pustulating bleeding sores while leaving piss stains on your trousers. Lastly a late set at 11 30 from no-fi noiseniks Partition's guitarist, Boyd, in solo outing mode.
And that's it. You already know this but go support new music and listen to bands you've never heard of.
