Mama Scuba
Live at Mixing Tin on Wednesday, 13th April 2005
Tonight's openers are perky, sprightly young pups Vatican Jet, who kicked off the April TTS with such style. Punters all around nod and smile to themselves as the tight as a crab's arse outfit whip through a 35 minute pop-indie-punky set. Stand out song is "Monkey Magic", with wise advice about getting "your shit together" and a warning that too much fun could lead to "fucking a monkey, if it had a pretty face". Nice. They appear to be playing everywhere at the moment around Leeds, I advise a visit to their next outing.
The Xenith Sound are what you'd probably describe as proper rock. There's bits of Nirvana, snips of Hawkwind, a good whiff of Led Zep, a snorter of Muse and a bass player with an ace afro. These lads are from Normanton, and as my colleague correctly says, this sort of big sounding rock action should be mithering ears outside in some field at a festival or 2, not indoors tonight, where sadly their sound is compromised by an apparently uninterested soundman.
Hot news form the Mama Scuba camp - Stan's guitar has moved down his body about ½ a foot - still unfeasibly high up for me, but there you go. The band's outlook hasn't changed much - they're pushing their own path like many other bands around this area, but the Gang of Four/XTC/Franz influences are not on display. You need to look towards Echo and The Bunnymen, Pavement, Pixies, the much more arty side of town. Special mention must be made to drummer Luke who seems determined to break everything in his kit, such is the twatting the individual pieces get. Fave moments for me are "Squeaky Clean" and right near the end, the eardrum shagging spacebeast that is "Snow". The LP is finally out, educate yourselves.
