BRIX & THE
EXTRICATED, Future Perfect, Bully, 16/11/18
Given The Fall’s
influence, and vast alumni roll, the surprising thing is not that Brix &
The Extricated formed, but that it hadn’t happened before. Scanlon & The
Shift-workers, perhaps? Elena & The Remainderers? Granny & The Bongos? What marks The Extricated out from the slew
of spurious heritage acts built around Alvin Stardust’s bassist or what have
you, is that a checking their track records shows that 80% of the band were in
The Fall and contributed to some of their best-known work (although not all at
the same time), and that the majority of their two albums, and of tonight’s
set, is original material written over the last couple of years. Plus, since the band’s 2017 visit to The
Cellar they have developed a more cogent, bolder presence, sonically and
visually, evident from the outset, with a musique concrete intro tape during
which Brix is led to the stage to deliver the first number blindfolded.
From the moment this is
torn off, however, Brix is a tiny tornado on stage, covered in glitter and
beads, and wielding a feather-bedecked radio mike like a voodoo fetish,
prodding, joshing – and even, at one point, licking – her bandmates onwards in
a flurry of cracking tunes that meld the melodic simplicity of Jonathan Richman
with the fake leather fun of Suzi Quatro, around pulsating dirt-kraut rhythms
(don’t forget this band features the greatest non-ranting Fall member ever,
bassist Steve Hanley, along with his brother Paul behind the kit) and, surprisingly,
some atonal Sonic Youth workouts. This
hen night shaman, telling wild-eyed tales of sex, spirituality and self-help
makes us realise just how few middle-aged women there are expressing themselves
in rock music, and how sad it is that tonight’s audience is mostly made up of
The League of Bald-Headed Men. An act
like this deserves to be inspiring youngsters on how to make the best bad
decisions, as loudly as possible, because they sure don’t play like greying
veterans (although Brix is definitely too old to get away with breathless guff
about finding the soul’s boundaries whilst wandering round India). There are old fans who won’t forgive The
Extricated for taking The Fall’s mysterious, inscrutable music and turning it
into a glossy glam racket, and there are blinkered fools who refuse to punch
the card of a 56 year old woman dressing up, rocking out and begging her lover
to “hammer me to the ground” whilst swearing like a docker; fine, they can stay
in moping, we’ll be getting down with the Big Prinzess.
