Zombie Radio

This is one of the last BBC reviews I did, if not the final installment. I remember writing this, feeling fed up with the micro-paragraphs and forced levity, & deciding to look elsewhere for someone to write for. Not that this excuses my woeful sub-Blackadder stick gags. Urgh.

MARCONI'S VOODOO/ FEEDBACK CITIZENS - Secret Hearts Club, Bully, 3/03

Entering the inaugral Secret Hearts Club night I find that everyone is dressed in smart 60s suits. Everyone. Glancing down at my scruffy shirt, panic hits. Is there a dress code? Have I committed some terrible faux pas, like attending an ambient dub festival without any Rizla, or going to a Stereophonics concert with an ounce of intelligence? They'll see me for the impostor I truly am!

Luckily, the room is soon filled with other unkempt individuals. Still, the organisors clearly want a real event, fusing natty dressing, funky DJs and quality performances. It looks as though they may succeed.

Feedback Citizens are one tight band. If you can go out in Oxford on a Thursday evening and find a fivepiece more slick and well rehearsed playing support, you're very lucky. They bounce around sassily, plaing immaculately, with more confident vigour than you could shake a stick at...even if you were uncontested international stick shaking champion 4 years consecutively.

Underneath the great playing and synchronised pouting, though, the songs themselves are mostly forgettable. The buzzing keyboard adds a slight garage edge, and the drums are a smidgin glam, but FBC are like the band whose name you can't remember from an NME Brats tour ten years ago. Some of the songs have so few surprises that even novice stick-shakers needn't break a sweat.

One of the tricks I've always loved is basslines that start leading the melody. I'm thinking Peter Hook, and occasionally Snuffy from Marconi's Voodoo. However, this is the ONLY point of intersection between Marconi's Voodoo and New Order, unless New Order have become a blistering funk-metal cabaret behind my back.

If you want a man stalking round the stage, playing silly hard rock extravagances, looking like a drug-addled General Custer and talking nonsense, this is the band for you; if you don't want that then you should seriously reevaluate your desires.

The whole noisy shebang probably wouldn't work if they weren't all three very talented players: it's the musical equivalent of keeping a straight face. Not that there are many straight faces tonight, on or off stage. Which is the general idea, I suppose.