Down Osculator

This is a weird little extract from the acrhives. It's a review of two acts I saw at my first ever Punt - or rather, my first semi-Punt, at which I watched the free acoustic acts at the start of the night, before having some dinner, chatting to one of the engineers at another venue who let me in for free, and going to see some bands at a final venue, the slightly rubbish and long gone Kiss Bar. Fragments of this were used in Oxfordbands gestalt review that year (and which year it was, I can't tell you). I thought I'd reviewed more than this, but I can only find thoughts on these two acts. Still, enjoy what I've found (for a given value of "joy").

HARRY ANGEL/ TV BABY, The Punt, Kiss Bar

The very short review of TV Baby: "Wire. And not a very taut one".

But in fairness, there's more to them than that. Admittedly, when I walked into Kiss halfway through their set, the sparse, jerky new waves that washed over me immediately brought to mind Pink Flag references, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add for any impressionable youngsters. The trouble is, when subscribing to this "less is more" philosophy, one finds that, no matter how hard one tries, Wire's less is always more than your more could ever be.

Beyond this TV Baby are a useful little spasming pop-punk band, who get extra special marks for the yobbish Dalek mantra of "'Cos I Love The Money", which marches on forever like Sham 69 stuck in a krautrock bootcamp.

Having seen Harry Angel recently and been very impressed, tonight's set was a slight disappointment. To be honest, I think it was down to the muggy compressed sound in Kiss rather than the band themselves (which means I may have to pay TV Baby another visit).

Despite this the set went well: the drums rattled away like a Gatling gun, the bassist dug right into the foundations like a frenzied miner, and the enormous fidgeting Chris Beard still occupies the front slot well, leaning into the mike feverishly and looking like a werewolf stuck in the moment of transmogrification. A werewolf with a fair few goth records, I'll wager.

Lycanthropop, your new sub-genre for the week!