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THE DATSUNS are a band from a country whose music I generally adore (New Zealand; I’ll go down to my dying breath declaring that Flying Nun is one of the finest labels of all time), but they are about 178 degrees removed from that sound. Instead of chiming guitars and introspective lyrics, they are all about the cocky swagger of hard rock steeped in the bluesy tradition of the early ’70s UK scene, fueled by twin engines of Les Pauls and applying subtlety in much the same way PAM ANDERSON addresses boob augmentation surgery…bigger, louder, better.
The hair flips, Marshall stacks, guitar solos tighter than Joan Rivers’ face skin…it was all there. It’s a sound suited for a stadium, and though it seemed a bit out of place swallowing up a small club, the enthusiastic throngs who crowded at the front were silently thanking some supreme being that they were up front and caught into swirl, rather than relegated to section WW seat 54 of the local enormodome.
Wales’ FUTURE OF THE LEFT took a different strategy. Born of the smouldering ashes of MCLUSKY they are like a swarm of angry bees…no letting up, no picking a moment or devising a strategy for attack…the four strings of ANDY FALKOUS‘s guitar bring more fury and venom than an army of double-neck guitar wearing JIMMY PAGE‘s.
It’s an all-out attack, and you will surrender to it willingly, regardless of any prior plans. If a splintered drumstick was held to my throat and I was commanded to divulge apparent influences, early PIXIES, later-era BIG BLACK and THE JESUS LIZARD would be sputtered across my quivering lips.
It’s not all just mindless rage and reptilian response; below the sturm und drang is a very clever sense of humo(u)r, apparent from their stage banter and song titles (“Real Men Hunt In Packs”; “You Need Satan More Than He Needs You”; “Drink Nike”) and was also apparent in the audience they drew. At one in-between song lull, someone shouted out to ‘play something aggressive.’ Indeed.
TURBO FRUITS are an offshoot of BE YOUR OWN PET which is only on my radar screen as being responsible for a record on Ecstatic Peace!, which is THURSTON MOORE‘s ongoing concern. They cooked up a potent batch of raw rock the roots which once ran across the frontal lobe of an adolescent PETE TOWNSHEND, grafted onto a mean hillbilly perspective. Good stuff.
If you want to see more, here are other photos of The Datsuns and Future of the Left
