Battle Of The Armbands

I have no data, but I seem to recall this was a Vacuous Pop night. They are usually worth a visit, though Ady doesn't seem to book so many as he used to, sadly. I do remember that the NME put a big picture of The Go Team next to this listing, just to confuse everybody!

I was listening to The Crash Crew just last week, brilliant stuff.

HELP SHE CAN'T SWIM/ CASSETTE FOR CASSETTE/ GO! TEAM GO! - The Wheatsheaf, 17/6/05

The Crash Crew liked them. So did Tele:funken. I like them too. I'm talking about the gloriously wonky and dissonant ice cream van chimes that used to echo through many a sunburned suburban suburb in my youth. For this reason, I find myself liking the keyboards in in tonight's set by Go! Team Go! When their lopsided, detuned innocence is not recalling the warcry of Mr. Whippy, they sound like those dinky baseball match organs that are probably the US equivalent.

Plinks and plonks aside, the show definitely falls on the shambolic side of messy, with untrained vocals yelped willy-nilly over arrhythmic drums and amateurish guitar, but the overall effect is relatively pleasing, and makes you think you're shambling round a youth club in 1986. However, making me think of ice lollies when The Wheatsheaf is this hot shouldn't be allowed.

Cassette For Cassette look very bored onstage. This is because

a) They've been told it's cool to look very bored
b) They're a bit shy, and don't know what to do with themselves
c) They're very bored

Let's hope the answer's b), otherwise I give up on them now, so depressing are the other options.

CFC's songs oscillate between "sparse" and "vacant", sounding something like The Breeders under very heavy sedation, with the announcer from Bank tube station on flat vocals. The syndrum interjections add a neat robotic edge to a few tracks, but the detached and unemotional trick is only ever pulled off by bands that can play very tightly indeed. CFC cannot play play very tightly indeed. Or maybe they can, and they're just too bored to do so. They should be careful they don't spend so much time being bored that the audience gets there first and pisses off somewhere less humid.

Lack of effort is not an accusation you could level against Help She Can't Swim. In a crowded, sweaty venue so warm it makes the B-52's Love Shack look like an industrial meatlocker, HSCS are throwing themselves round the stage and into the music with wild abandon.

I overhear a man claim the band are "the second coming of Bis", and there's definitely more cute indie bumblepop in evidence than you could throw a plastic Miffy hairclip at, but HSCS differ from Go! Team Go! and their ilk by exchanging shambolic for fervent, rehearsing once in a while, and writing the odd tune. Hardly a revelation, then, but they're certainly the only act on tonight to put a little sugary pop verve into my life, whihc is a minor achievement.