The Avengers / Alice Bag
Long Beach Alex’s Bar
California punk legends’ genius
double play.
Outside of California, the significance of this
punk rock pairing might go somewhat
unnoticed. But there’s a reason why a couple of old-
school scenesters filled a club for a Sunday matinee
show. After all, San Fran’s Avengers formed in 1977,
a year before the Dead Kennedys came together in the
same city. Led by the super-charismatic Penelope
Houston, The Avengers opened for the Sex Pistols in
’77 and then had Steve Jones produce their debut EP,
We Are The One. Two short but intense years later,
they split.
Almost simultaneously, The Bags formed in Los
Angeles in ’77 and released their only record, the Survive
single, a year later before splitting in 1980. So both
bands burned bright before burning out. Importantly
though, both Houston and Bags frontwomen Alice Bag
blazed trails when trails needed blazing.
In 2019 a re-formed Avengers and a solo Alice Bag
is a thrilling proposition, not least because the
messages of equality and injustice that they were
preaching in the late 70s are at least as relevant now.
As was the norm for Cali punk, neither act had a sound
as marketable as Deborah’s Blondie or even Siouxsie’s
Banshees, and they certainly didn’t have the longevity.
But both bands carved out their own little corner of
punk rock’s storied history, and it’s frankly wonderful
that they’re both still pummeling audiences today.
Brett CallwoodThe Residents
London Union Chapel
Who are they? What do they still want?
Forty-five years after their debut album Meet
The Residents, precious few have knowingly
met The Residents. The quartet remain anonymous,
although (possible) founder and (possible) leader
Hardy Fox died last year.
In 2019 their search for constant re-invention means
a keyboard player, electro drummer and guitarist
dressed in matching hats, sky-blue dogtooth suits and
beak masks; a singer with a cow’s nose, horns and hoof
slippers, and a stripped down approach. There are no
eyeball helmets, there’s an unusual lack of mischief
beyond a de-schmaltzed take on Elvis Presley’s (Let Me
Be Your) Teddy Bear and there’s nothing from The
Commercial Album. Yet their world is so self-contained
and so full of twists and turns that it’s impossible not to
fall for them all over again.
Alongside a clutch of decades-spanning originals,
we get a de-funked version of James Brown’s It’s
A Man’s Man’s Man’s World and a de-countrified, Mark
Lanegan-style crawl through Hank Williams’s Six More
Miles (To The Graveyard). The singer’s a growler, and at
times these Residents are as hypnotic as Laibach
grappling with dressing-up-period Peter Gabriel, but
when they tear through the ever-thrilling Train Vs
Elephant and finish their main set with the oldest song
on display, 1977’s Tourniquet Of Roses, and the band
members exit one by one, they’re as magical and
mysterious as they ever were.
John AizlewoodSpielbergs
London Shacklewell Arms
Nordic grungers bring meat and melody.
Judging by their tangled locks and smattering of
devil beards, Spielbergs are probably considered
the grunge pussies of the Oslo metal scene. In a Britain
flooded with pop bands in alt.rock clothing, on the
other hand, they’re tantamount to saviours.
In a tiny, rammed Shacklewell Arms, the Nordic
Sugar - the brilliantly named Mads Baklien, Christian
Løvhaugand and Stian Brennskag – smash through a
set of gold-encrusted grit built for far bigger rooms.
Few new bands boast songs with the meat and melody
of Distant Star, Five On It and hi-octane pop-metal jack-
hammer Bad Friend; Spielbergs have a whole albumful
(This Is Not The End). While many US noise-mongers
rely on burying their chronic hook deficiency beneath
the scree, Spielbergs flaunt euphoric choruses like
beach bods in a Fyre Festival commercial.
They’re no mere 90s throwbacks, either. The space
echoes of Mew or The War On Drugs hover around
You All Look Like Giants To Me and Forevermore, and
Spielbergs also weave through a seven-minute Death
Cab For Cutie moodscape they’ve called McDonalds
(Please Don’t Fuck Up My Order), epically forlorn as they
seemingly are over the tragedy of a baconless Big Mac.
It all helps emphasise the base-jumping crescendos of
stormers like 4AM (essentially Clap Your Hands Say
Woah!) and We Are All Going To Die, which sounds like
the drummer is playing his kit with a machine-gun.
True raiders of the lost grunge art.
Mark BeaumontAs they take the stage at this, their biggest
headlining date in the capital yet, it’s difficult to
shake the feeling that the black-clad, long-haired and
thickly bearded Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats could easily
be a University Challenge team as dreamt up by the
twisted minds of Amicus Productions, those fine purveyors
of 70s horror movies.
Harking back to the days of biker parties, Watney’s Party
Seven cans and cack-handed attempts at black magic, the
music they deliver tonight is a forceful manifestation of
downer-infused rock at its very best. Crucially, Uncle Acid
& The Deadbeats roll as much as they rock, thus ensuring
equal amounts of neck and hip action from the ladies and
gentlemen gathered here tonight. Yet could the reaction be
any different to the potent and heady brew of melody,
harmonies and gloriously overdriven guitars underpinned
by a pumping rhythm section?
Indeed opener I See Through You defines the band’s
aesthetic as much as their approach to kicking out the
jams. Dependably loud and crunchy, this is a statement of
intent that refuses misinterpretation. The rollicking Dead
Eyes Of London is given a thorough, turbo-charged overhaul,
while the anthemic I’ll Cut You Down sees the venue just
about withstand the combined onslaught from the band
and audience.
Hail Satan and pass the cough medicine.
Julian MarszalekUncle Acid
& The Deadbeats
London Brixton The Electric
The garage-inspired Sabbath
disciples triumph.‘Uncle Ac
id (^) are
downer-in
fused rock
at^
its very (^) b
est.’
Uncle Acid & The
Deadbeats: rolling
as much as they rock.
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