Hop Farm or Shite Farm?

Can you be bought? Can you?

I've got a wallet full of dirty, fucking rusty, stinky, valuable money for you.

Do you want it? Will you do what I say?

Sonic Mouth won't. Fuck you.

Sonic Mouth got free tickets to the Hop Farm Festival for writing a review that had to be 'positive'. Sonic Mouth ain't proud of this. One arm was taking the free shit, the other was strangling us, making us beg for mercy. We begged, and begged and begged. But it was fruitless. We're half dead.

The half that still lives is sick to the back teeth of dragging this semi-corpse around like some fricking Weekend At Bernie's tribute, so it's cutting it off. Getting the saw out ... Slicing the skin, severing the flesh and snapping the bone.

What's the point of being half dead? What bleeds heals yeah? Let's see what comes out.

Dead half said: On Independence Day it was fitting to get the train out of the commercialised hubbub of London and head to an independent music festival in Kent.

Live half says: No it wasn't. I nicked the Independence Day line off 6Music. It was a pain in the arse. I didn't want to get out of bed at all until I came all over my leg and it started to run onto the bed.

Dead half said: Jumping on the train at London Bridge, the fun spent guessing the place names as we whizzed past the stations would normally be the highlight of any jaunt, although we knew there was cause for excitement elsewhere.

Live half says: This is a blatant lie. We didn't 'jump' on the train at London Bridge. We waited for ages and had to get one from Forest Hill to get there in the first place. And the train cost £15 which is more than I earn in a week.

Dead half said: Arriving at Paddock Wood station, we had a short wait in the sun before an old Routemaster came along to take us to the site. Whilst not quite living up to the phrase ‘shuttle bus’, in the absence of a tractor it was a fitting way to travel to Hop Farm.

Live half says: This is bullshit. We were waiting there for ages with loads of middle class fuckers in urban camouflage drinking weak fucking lager and smoking shit cigarettes like a pretend gay. The Routemaster looked like a big red rust bucket and was about as fast as that special kid out of Hollyoaks.

Dead half said: It was apt to arrive on site to the sound of Noah and the Whale, their summer pop fizzing with feel-good vibes.

Live half says: It was apt. As Noah and the Whale are shit. And Hop Farm was shit. The only thing fizzy about Noah and the Whale is their bath water. Fuck off back to your ark you wet hippies.

Dead half said: After applying sunscreen and donning our shades, we headed over to the front of the main stage to see Florence and the Machine. Resplendent in flowing attire, spinning, dancing, wailing, gesturing, emoting … Florence was every great pop icon rolled into one ginger star. As she closed her set with Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up), everyone in the audience cried. Or maybe that was just me.

Live half says: This bit was true. She was brilliant and we did wear sunglasses.

Dead Half said: Ian McCulloch and his Bunnymen did their best to follow, although their back catalogue was far too detailed for the hot crowd to decipher, more Littlewoods than Argos – if you can permit that analogy.

Live half says: Really? I didn't think we even really bothered to watch them?

Dead half said: On the opposite side of the equation lay Ash, flexing their addition signs with glorious new tunes, all sitting comfortably alongside classics from their debut 1977, and a brief sojourn into their ‘metal’ days. Tim Wheeler looked as good as their songs sounded, like the Peter Pan of indie his performance was both charming and exhilarating.

Live half says: Kind of true. Although the rest of Ash looked dead, and I bet Michael Jackson would be better on the drums than Rick McMurray and we know how alive Michael Jackson is, and even when he was alive he only banged kids.

Dead half said: After enjoying the flow of the mainstream, we headed over to the third stage to catch The Joy Formidable’s clatter pop. Much more aggressive than their recorded material, they managed to pump vitriol into their songs, as they bled rock and roll.

Live half says: Lies. We saw two songs and they were shit. I could wank a better band.

Dead half said: Unfortunately we then saw The View, whose indecipherable Dundee accents were equal to their musical output. An absolute shambles, and an unfortunate end to the day, leaving us no option but to flee London-wards to escape their sub-Libertines shite.

Live half says: The View were shit, but I knew that before I started watching them. In truth we were listening to them as we were running from the site. The Pigeon fucking Detectives and The Fratellis were following them. Would you stick around for that? Unlikely.

Dead half said: Thankfully on Sunday we arrived on site to the Rifles who were firing (arf arf) on all cylinders with their Jam-lite pop.

Live half says: We didn't even really want to go on Sunday. We do quite like The Rifles, but on the main stage? Really? I was surprised they had any fans.

Dead half said: Obviously popular with the assembled mods, it was hard not to feel a little sorry for the following act Ladyhawke as she had her wings clipped after her voice didn’t join her on stage.

Live half says: You'd still shag her though wouldn't you? Although she was wearing this awful outfit that made her look like a bit of a prat. A Nirvana t-shirt? Did you not see Florence yesterday? Pull your finger out and turn your mic up you nobber.

Dead half said: After struggling through a set seemingly lasting an age, Ladyhawke finally made way for the Mystery Jets, whose 80s-tinged pop will have taught Pip Brown a valuable lesson.

Live half says: I didn't even watch them, but Mrs Sonic Mouth did, and she liked them, but she likes lamps.

Dead half said: We then injected some baggy-testosterone courtesy of The Twang, before sitting down for some Indonesian Nasi Gorin. Yum yum.

Live half says: Are you bored reading this yet? Basically dead half is talking shite, Live half is saying the truth. Do you really think the food was good? Do you really think THE TWANG were good?

Dead half said: After exploring the site and busting some truly chaotic moves in the Dance Tent, we took our shame to the third stage to see the phenomenal 65 Days of Static. After picking our jaws up from the floor it proved impossible not to immerse oneself in their techno-scented noisecore.

Live half says: I didn't realise this review was so long. There were only about twelve people watching 65dos, and I don't think they played 'Dance Parties ...' but I was well pissed at this point. My colleague who had been sick just a few minutes prior to arriving in the vicinity of 65dos turned and walked away. All the way back to London.

Dead half said: [Bad segway alert] As they threw themselves around the stage as though they were dodging bullets, we went to go and see Editors who played a song called Bullets. As Tom Smith’s epic tones spilled out life-affirming gloom anthems, it was time to travel back to big smoke, so we did.

Live half says: Editors were okay, but I've seen them loads of times before and they were better than this. I think Edith Bowman might have started writing their choruses though. They smelt like chips.

Dead half said: Farewell Hop Farm. We loved you.

Live half says: We didn't. You were shit and free.

LA SHARK swim where others sank

O. Children / LA SHARK / The Ghost Frequency at The Lexington (04/04/09)

I first saw The Ghost Frequency supporting The Rakes at an SE1 collective club night/gig a couple of years ago. They were brilliant. I was tanked up on San Miguel and Cobra but they were definitely brilliant. Sharp in look and sound, their rousing anthems of electro-punk secured themselves a place in my ‘to watch’ file. Two years on and I hadn’t watched them. Typical. But headlining a bill at The Lexington gave me a chance for a progress check. It seems given two choices in which direction to head, they picked the wrong one. Dirtying up their sound with some more electronica would have been the way to go, but their new material smacks of two guitarists desperate to prove their masculinity by duelling through each song with more and more unnecessarily complicated metal guitar licks. No need boys. Their new material is heavier but not better, and provoking some over-beered teen to start throwing his weight around by the stage (when no one else was acting in a similar way) reminded me far too much of wandering into a festival tent where Amen were playing circa 2001. Maybe it’s their experimental phase. Maybe they’ll return to what they can undoubtedly do fantastically well. I do hope so.

Now show me the chase because I’m cutting to it. My fellow Sonic Mouth contributor failed to summarise O. Children (through no fault of bad writing, I hasten to add as I see him eyeing up my balls for a kicking) and I don’t want to fall into the same literary bear trap, winding up 500 words down the track no fucking wiser as to what the hell I think of this band. It’s time for air rifle journalism with pellets of fact and targets of truth…hideously shit metaphor but deal with it because I have.

O. Children played first on the bill.
Their frontman Tobias is simply the tallest musician I’ve ever seen live, not helped by the fact his fellow his fellow bandmates seem to be rather small in stature.
His height is only matched in extremity by the hauntingly low pitch of his vocals which threaten regularly to drop off the bottom of the scale (you could be singing Edith Piaf, but if you sing the notes that low and mumble over the microphone it will forever sound like the voiceover intro to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Put it into a few songs, and everyone is going to say you sound like Joy Division, like it or not.)
They ARE a good band who have written good songs, admittedly not brilliantly received by the thin-on-the-ground crowd at The Lexington.
They THINK they’re a much better band who have written much better songs. Which they aren't and haven’t. Yet.
These are all facts.
O. Children. O. ver and o. ut.

Next up, sandwiched between openers and headliners, LA SHARK. Cue entry for a band of merry troubadours who look like a costume shop has just thrown up on them; the lead singer and guitarist sporting matching Clockwork Orange eye make up, with the frontman’s jacket sequinned to the hilt (although it was later removed – either it got too hot or the sequins were refracting the mirror ball lights and arbitrarily blinding audience members). The bassist looked like Robinson Crusoe at a B*Witched party, dressed in a double-denim combo (although he admitted to my girlfriend while smoking outside he had in fact dared to don quadruple denim previously. Respect).
Their appearance providing the visual equivalent of what their music did aurally – give the gig a much needed shot in the arm. Scuttling through their songs which rose and fell effortlessly, spanning the sub-genres of electro, indie, folk and psychedelia; the quintet warmed the crowd up excellently for what eventually turned out to be a disappointing climax.

Sonic Mouth lives The Hi-Fi Low Life

And What Will Be Left Of Them?

The Hi-Fi Low Life

After a hiccough of EPs, relentless touring of the toilet circuit both at home and abroad and a change in their line up – AWWBLOT have finally got their album finished and launched courtesy of the nice people at PopArt London. Sonic Mouth cracked open a six pack of Special Brew, popped Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men onto mute and kicked back into a battered old armchair to listen to what they had managed to serve up.

AWWBLOT, for those not familiar with their work, are a melee of dirty pop and shouty punk - each song nurtured carefully up from the roots of a pop song, flourishing into a mighty Oak of debauched noise. Their sound harks back to the days of DIY punk, but unlike a band of badly dressed, mohawked thugs, these modern-day Midlands brutes can deliver a well-written song – good enough to satisfy both the sweaty gig monkey and the reserved music hack.

Themes run throughout the 13 track gamble pretty consistently – tight, punchy and splashing drums in equal measure compliment melodic bass riffs to form the lifeblood of most of the pop morsels. The synths and keys wax and wane into and out of prevalence as the record goes on, but definitely add an important facet to the band’s sound – ensuring this record doesn’t slip away in a chasm of pop/punk mediocrity.

Pop punk, by its nature, has an instant accessibility and therefore a potential shelf life even shorter than a pot of Lidl crème fraîche. However the singings of Pete Adams and Lucy Harvey-Wells go a long way to ensuring a hefty degree of longevity exists throughout the album. The vocal equivalent of Bonny and Clyde; they run riot through their songs, chasing harmonies like criminals fleeing the fat fist of the law; sporadically exploding into violent tirades to form catchy choruses which are destined to be ringing around your brainspace for days to come.

[The melancholic footnote to this uncharacteristic fleet of praise being Harvey-Wells has now been replaced by Heather Wilson in AWWBLOT’s ranks – but I’ll bet my prozzy purse on her bringing just as much lyrical punch to the party]

Adams’ vocals [imagine the noises coming from a cheap hotel room in which a drunken sleazy uncle is trying to hump a howler monkey] somehow against all expectations, compliment Harvey-Wells’ infinitely more serene pop-punk warbles. And in what is one of the most unlikely marriages since Dale Winton camped up the aisle with Nell McAndrew; their two respective vocal tracts give, for my meagre money, the biggest appeal to Hi Fi Low Life.

Like a Zorbing John Prescott, the record is well rounded - boasting both anthemic gut-busting punk outings – ‘Kids in America’ being this humble reviewer’s favourite – and more subtle offerings such as ‘Jesus’. Now log on to your interweb and find out which hovel in your local area has been brave enough to welcome the AWWBLOT circus to town.

Go on then. Go see them.

THE RIFLES ON TARGET by Greg Hall

Wednesday March 18 at the Camden Roundhouse

With the recent release of their second album ‘The Great Escape’, The Rifles are on tour in the U.K. and Europe. Sonic Mouth caught them on stage at the stylish Camden Roundhouse...

Another night, another gig. Whatever stamina supplements the Chingford four-piece are putting in their tea it wouldn’t go amiss on the NHS. If the country were ran like this band tour then the throes of a bourgeois revolution would be on our hands. The bureaucrats would be obliterated. Trains and buses would always run on time. As for waiting lists and queues? Well they would be as rare as buying a CD from a record store.

Consistency has certainly bred class for The Rifles who unloaded a solid show onto a savage audience at The Roundhouse. The jaunty garage rock act sound very much like a contemporary incarnation of The Jam mixed with the earthy sound of early Oasis. The jangly guitars from lead singer Joel Stoker and lead guitarist Lucus Crowther combined with the succinct snarling rhythm section had the audience hooked.

It wasn’t a classic crowd nor a sell out, but their well-honed showmanship transmitted from the off when epic opener ‘Science in Violence’ kick started proceedings. It was less of a case of ‘we are the mods’ and more ‘we are the mob’ from those in attendance. Lung-busting moshing, crowd surfing and this humble scribe going home covered in other people’s blood may sound like a good old fashioned night out. However it all felt a little flat, the usual camaraderie between folk at a Rifles gig must have evaporated with the steam of sweat filling the venue.

The acerbic atmosphere didn’t detract from the band’s performance who, led by iconic front man Stoker, undoubtedly flourish better on stage than in the studio. Singing in a similar style to The Kinks’ Ray Davies but with an eerie hint of Dennis Waterman (yes, the ginger bloke from The Sweeney), Stoker’s cockney twanged vocals were full of punch and flowed effortlessly over the band’s tight arrangements.

With a sound that is quintessentially English, the quartet delivered a charming repertoire of energetic anthems such as ‘Romeo and Julie’ and ‘The Great Escape’ and heartfelt acoustic adventures like the superb, ‘Narrow Minded Social Club.’

If you haven’t seen The Rifles you may wonder a couple of things. For starters are they original? No way. Are they experimental? Not really. They're certainly not visionaries. Then again they don't intend to be. The experience they give you is wrapped up in mod rock nostalgia, and to their credit they execute it with edgy electricity.

Ultimately they look destined for cult status. Loved by Paul Weller but relatively unknown in the public eye, if they emerged on the music scene during the Britpop phenomena of the mid 1990s, the bigwigs at the NME et al would surely have championed them to the upper echelons of mainstream affection. Johnny Cash sang in his signature song ‘Man in Black’ about the ‘victim of the times’; well that sums up The Rifles. To many they may be lost in translation, but on the night the East Londoners were worth every penny of the admission price.

www.myspace.com/therifles

O. Wow or O. Dear? It's O. Children

O. Children – Barden’s Boudoir, Dalston
Saturday 7 March 2009

It seems that most music journalists have undergone a lobotomy of late, leaving receptors capable only of picking up high basslines, intermittent guitar hooks and baritone vocals delivering lyrics verging on the suicidal. Or does everyone really just sound like Joy Division?

So what do O. Children sound like? Think of a band from Manchester. Think 1977. Think dead singer. Think alcoholic bass player who beats the shit out of Mrs Merton. Got it yet?

If it’s any consolation the first thing that I scribbled down was ‘Joy Division on a yacht/Duran Duran doing The Chameleons’, although this could have had something to do with their Miami Vice attire, conforming to the American theme of this ‘Snap, Crackle & Pop’ night at Barden’s.

Speaking of yachts - O. Children’s journey to buzz-band city central hasn’t all been plain sailing, as although they’re revered by the ‘Shoxton and Whoreditch’ Vice reading sarcasmoes, members of O. Children have previously anchored under the delightful moniker ‘Bono Must Die’. Under that guise their esoteric punkisms were ultimately - for want of a better phrase - a bit shit. Now rechristened and recharged, O. Children are now repackaged as the future of music … albeit perhaps three decades too late.

That’s not to say that O. Children don’t have any unique selling points. They look amazing. Frontman Tobias is just that, a frontman. All eight feet of him exude mystery and confidence as he parades around the stages seemingly growing taller by the second, his sunglasses and high-top hairstyle riding the MC Hammer wave all the way to the beach house.

Breaking with convention, O. Children’s lyrics also belie the evil that seeps from their instruments. If one could decipher Tobias’ thick drawl you might find that he’s not singing about isolation, atmosphere or interzones, he’s singing a song called ‘Ace Breasts’. Sample lyric, “Ace breasts in the back of my mind, ace breasts from the front and behind.”

Oh children, what to make of O. Children? To be honest – it was like watching a serial killer having a wank - I’m utterly confused.

Sonic Mouth catches up with Jon Marquis - Indie DJ extraordinaire

It’s Grimmer Up North

Imagine this … You up sticks and move to New Cross and it’s – shock horror – more upmarket then whence you came. Where would you have to come from to warrant that? A tyre fire in a scrap yard? The planet AIDS? No. Try east Lancashire. Try Burnley. You’re there.

We are currently in conversation someone who made this move, someone who, despite growing up in Burnley, possesses an accent not impeded by inaudible post-cotton mill, pseudo-luddite-inflected duh or indeed a vocabulary with the sophistication of a bottle fight. The man is Jon Marquis, AKA DJ Jon Du Nord, and we think he’s a bit cool.



Shirking his northern roots, Jon has managed to plant himself firmly into South-East soil taking in such comparative glamour spots as Catford and Deptford along the way. Living in London for “between eight or nine years” Jon still wears his northern accent, and claret and blue football scarf with pride. We ask him about the differences between Burnley and London, hoping to God that there are some: “I went from paying £30 a week rent to paying £85” explains Jon candidly between drags of his roll-up cigarette, “Burnley is a pretty shit place to live.” At less than £5 a day rent, I think the property market would concur.



Arriving to study at Goldsmiths, it didn’t take Jon long to become encapsulated by the live music scene, although Jon admits that living in this neck of the woods doesn’t guarantee an entirely palatable sonic experience. In fact, such was the musical poverty Marquis began to fantasise about starting a club night, and it wasn’t long before his sordid fantasy of up-and-coming bands bashing out barely coherent sets, became a soaking-wet bedsheet reeking of reality.

The clubnight, devised on a drunken evening out in the Glasshouse Stores on Brewers Lane, was christened ‘Uberstompf’ - “We wanted a Germanic sounding name”, admits Marquis. The venue, The Tatty Bogle Club, hidden behind Carnaby Street, was chosen on a number of stringent criteria: “It was a non-exclusive members club”, “it could hold about 150 people”, and most importantly “you could get two bottles of Estonian Beer for £3.” The club ran for just under a year boasting such alumni as Blood Red Shoes, Monday Club Factory Floor, Wolfie and the now sadly defunct Doublejo(n)ngrey.

After the club imploded, due to problems with the venue: “It’s now a mobile phone shop” – Jon failed to rid himself of the intoxicating buzz of DJing, and was occasionally to be found behind the decks at Soho mainstay White Heat, and more recently Noise! Noise! Noise! at Catch in Shoreditch. Marquis is still an advocate of DIY culture, and holds hope that the credit crunch will shock some venues into rekindling their initial flirtation with clubnights. Like any decent indie mentor, he’s keen to pass on advice and encouragement to anyone looking to bypass the “scene” and create their own thrills: “It’s pretty fucking simple,” he concedes, “First you need to find a venue. Don’t worry about it being the coolest place in the world; it’s your job to create the kudos, just focus on location. You could have the best-looking venue and the best bands in the world, but if it’s in the middle of fucking Crystal Palace no-one’s going to turn up are they? … Finally, harvest Myspace and get bands fresh out of the box, before they ‘make it’. That way they’re cheap and they’re not too shit yet.”

On the subject of bands, and with 2009 still in its infancy, it would be rude not to ask for some hipster tips to ‘wow-pow-now’ our friends with. After an initial look of disdain, Marquis submits and reels off a few names to keep us happy: “Telepathe, Pre-Gyratory System, The Soft Pack, The Fall, HEALTH … and of course Sonic Youth.” Phew. It is about time those young upstarts in Sonic Youth got a look-in ain’t it? Anyway … Moving away from his tastes, and onto the tastes of his clientele, we ask if there are any staples in his DJ set that are guaranteed to generate a bit of movement on the dancefloor? “Loads!” enthuses Marquis, before giving a list of songs that have probably never troubled a radio station, nor perhaps a generic indie-disco near you (ever): “Sonic Youth – ‘Ca Plaine pour moi’, Elastica – ‘Stutter’, Clinic –‘Walking With Thee’, Gang Gang Dance – ‘1st Communion’ and Telepathe – ‘Chrome's On It’.”

Well … if that sounds like your proverbial cup of tea, you can join Jon and his friend Rajinder at Noise! Noise! Noise! which takes place at Catch in Shoreditch each and every month. If you’re a lazy, agoraphobic slob, with no decent shoes, you can get involved at www.myspace.com/noisex3. Ciao.

Fuck charity, long live objectivity

Yes I know it’s a bold, brash headline and you’re thinking ‘dick’, but it does have its roots planted in some kind of logic which you’re now going to have to read in a ‘this had better be good, son’ kind of manner. Read on then.

The charity gig is the golden ticket for promoters. Punters will come (and more importantly pay to come), bands will play (and more importantly not want to be paid to play) and reviewers/critics/sour-mouthed hacks will review it….and MOST importantly not write nasty mean words…. because it’s for charity….. no matter how bad it is.

Well I want to give my opinion of the latest charity gig I attended without my conscience vetoing any sharp words in the name of what is socially acceptable, so I retrospectively donate my £5 entry fee as a waiver on my conscience and as a holding fee enabling me to dodge any wrath aimed at me by the gods of charity… or any charity muggers throwing clipboards and hash pipes at me.

The Purple Turtle in Camden provided the location for said gig, and three acts pounded the stage before the end of the night reared its beautiful head.

First up. Some chap who I would love to name and shame, but I was so bored watching I didn’t bother to catch who he said he was. He over-played his way through some intricate guitar, slobbered over the top with some yanky drawl I’m sure he’d refer to as singing (despite him being English) and in between each of his own songs (which were predictably non-descript) he felt the need to play a “Zeppelin” number. Only not even any “Zeppelin” number people had heard of. Just weird adaptations of obscure songs plucked from the inner depths of Jimmy Paige’s drug-addled mind. Get off the stage.

Next up. Change of pace. In fact, from snail to Velociraptor would be an apt comparison, but take heed of this snippet of truth; faster. Not always better.
On to the stage came about eight people dressed in variations of a ‘shabby black tie’ theme, fronted up by some abnormally leggy blonde with one of those half-a-microphone-stand things which she had put pink crap on to customise. Only it looked rubbish. They punched their way through a few songs which would not have been out of place at a wedding, masquerading as a modern/ska/rock outfit but doing nothing to hide the fact they were a glorified house band. And not that glorified.

Last up were the awfully-named Dorp. I don’t know if it’s an acronym. But even if it’s the acronym for the answer to the fucking meaning of life, it still doesn’t justify being used as a band name. The music was not as bad as the name suggested it would be, however. They served up electro-edged rock.

Nothing too fancy, but if they were more styled (skinny is the new baggy, Dorp) and they all stomped a bit more arrogantly like the lead singer did (who incidentally bore an uneasy resemblance to Deuce Bigalow) then they could have probably passed themselves off as more of an indie band than they managed to. But after the acoustic Zeppelin dirge and an assault on my eardrums by the house band from happy land, I was not complaining.

It wasn’t the worst night of live music I’ve attended, but the whole thing stank of an organisational headache in which only the three worst acts of a potential 10 actually turned up. It also stank of body odour and crack but that was because of all the charity muggers.

REVIEW: Evilwitch at PopArt @ The Fly, on New Oxford Street - 10/01/09

Even squatting below a round of Indie Bingo on the night's bill, Evilwitch must have been pleased as piss punch to have bagged a slot at The Fly only weeks after their conception in the rural tranches of Worcestershire.

But consider the fact they boast a line-up mainly consisting of current And What Will Be Left Of Them? members - who are signed to PopArt London - and you won't need to drag Hercule Poirot away from his Belgian buns to solve this little mystery.

While bands landing gigs on reputation can potentially be a recipe for catastrophe, Evilwitch did not disappoint the intimate crowd gathered in the beery, dark bowels of the venue for a gig which had the air of an EP launch to its atmosphere. The foursome sauntered collectedly through seven tracks, with the familiar crowd gobbling up the pop morsels thrown at them.

Those familiar with AWWBLOT will recognise the foundations on which the house named Evilwitch has been built; namely shouty words and sharp guitar from Pete combined with clever backing harmonies and accomplished hitting of drums from Chris. But picture AWWBLOT as the exuberant, petulant kid-brother tanked up on jelly babies and ready to set fire to your curtains; compared to Evilwitch as the older sibling - still with the same A.D.D genes and wouldn't think twice about pissing in your coffee - but with an air of controlled delivery. No less energy, but think more communist leader's speech rather than the Cheeky Girls on speed. That kind of energy.

I'm not Mystic Meg (and if I was I'd have sacked my stylist and sold my crystal balls for rum and cheese a long time ago), but my bold prediction is that some of Evilwitch's songs from the gig will not fair well in the test we call 'time'. Oh My God and Staring at the Sun were stand-out nuggets; breakdown harmonies/build ups laced together with a more unified approach from the individual band members made them both instantly likeably and an impressive listen. Others were also worthy of a note, but a couple of weeks on they escaped the depths of my brain for recollection which is probably not the kind of omen you'd want for a song when deciding the final cut for your opening EP - something I'm sure they will be doing soon.

Satellite was a swashbuckling end to the set with an indie cut to its jib; a catchy guitar riff providing a jaunty underlay, it was a good note to part company on. We will see their faces, torsos mouths and legs soon, of that I'm sure.

ILL-ADVISED OPENING GAMBIT

ONE MAN’S SHIT IS ANOTHER MAN’S SHAMPOO SO LATHER UP CAUSE YOU’RE IN FOR THE SHOWER OF YOUR LIFE. YOU’RE ALREADY WISHING YOU HADN’T STARTED READING THIS BUT YOU DID SO WHAT YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? KEEP READING? YEAH. THE HARD SELL IS OVER AS YOU’RE A FAIR FEW SYLLABLES INTO THIS NOW SO WE SHOULD EXPLAIN OURSELVES. THIS IS, AND WE ARE, SONIC MOUTH. AN ORGY OF OPINION, FACT AND FICTION SERVED UP WITH A FAT WAD OF UNPRETENTIOUS STRAIGHT TALK. ALL SET AGAINST A SOUNDTRACK OF MUSIC FROM SOME OF THE BANDS WE ARE SEEING AND LISTENING TO AT THE MOMENT. WE’RE NOT HERE TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE. WE PROBABLY WON’T EVEN MAKE IT BETTER. BUT READING IT IS 10 MINUTES YOU HAVEN’T SPENT THINKING ABOUT YOUR LEAD-LINED LUNGS AND THE WANING VALUE OF YOUR FAT NEST EGG SO THINK OF IT AS TIME WELL SPENT. IN TODAY’S CONVEYOR BELT CULTURE YOU CAN TAKE OR LEAVE ANTHING YOU WANT. SO HERE IS SONIC MOUTH. TAKE IT. OR LEAVE IT.