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see all
the photos from this concert here
Frankenstein
Tonight, we’re off to On The Rocks, a small pub full of red light and noise, somewhere in the east end of London. Frankenstein have blown into town on the UK leg of their European tour, and an evening of suitably noisy entertainment has been assembled around them. Opening the show in a haze of smoke, we
have DC Molina, former glam-punks gone weird. I say Zen Motel are a complete contrast. They’re
a three-piece rock band, and that’s rock as in ROCK. They’re loud, assertive
and play like they’re on stage at the Enormodome. The two guitarists up
front spend much time rockin’ out with that classic legs-apart, head shakin’
stance that has been successfully employed by everyone from The Jam to
Guns ‘n’ Roses. Now there are two band names you might not expect to see
in the same sentence, but if you were to establish Zen Motel’s coordinates
on the Great Map Of All Things Rock, then I think they’d turn up neatly
equidistant between those two It’s compare and contrast time. Devilish
Presley have the knack of audience communication neatly sorted. They rock
out like there’s no tomorrow, naturally, but somehow they create an atmosphere
like we’re all mucking in at one big party. Johnny Navarro talks *to* the
audience, in a succession of pithy And then comes Frankenstein: the man, the
band, the slightly bedraggled and sleep-deprived rock ‘n’ roll experience.
This is gig number five and country number four in five days of touring,
and the band is still standing, if rather unsteadily. They crank up a witches’
brew of swamp-rock riffs, the basslines burbling like gas oozing up from
the murky depths. And here’s Dave Grave himself, the man who is Frankenstein:
a very dapper monster in slicked-back hair and black leather jacket, commanding
the centre of the stage with a casual, offhand confidence. He rumbles out
the vocals in a voice like a train going over a wooden bridge, while the
band chugs and churns around him. Between songs, he
see all the photos from this concert here Frankenstein: http://www.frankensteintheband.com
Reviewed by Uncle Nemesis: http://www.nemesis.to
12/04/04 |
‘former
glam punks’ because in their present incarnation DC Molina seem to have
shifted away from their previous identity of a slightly odd, but decidedly
rock ‘n’ roll, outfit. Now, they’ve gone all Public Image Limited, and
that’s not just a reference to the lead singer’s Lydonesque beret. Their
sound is all odd angles and wails, experimentation and bizarreness. The
guitar fizzes and stabs, the stand-up drums beat an assertive tattoo, and
the vocals keen and freak amongst the noise - it’s all very ‘Metal Box’
in a way, and although the overall sound isn’t what you’d call instantly
accessible it hits the spot with me.
combos.
Their songs are brash and loud, rooted in the punkish attitude of the short
sharp musical shock, but played with a kind of stadium-status flamboyance
that sits rather awkwardly with this small venue. When the singer starts
trying to get some audience participation under way, clapping along to
the beat with arms up above his head in true rock messiah style, shouting
at us all the while to try and get some sort of reaction - well, frankly,
it all gets rather embarrassing. Zen Motel aren’t a bad band, but I think
they really need to work on a way of communicating with their audiences
that’s more appropriate to the small venues they’re playing. All that stadium
rock god stuff can wait until you’re actually playing stadiums, lads.
comments
and pointed asides between the songs, rather than simply shouting stadium
rock-isms out from the stage. But, of course, it’s the songs that
make the show - those explosions of energy, detonated one after another
as if the venue has been mined with rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a classic Devilish
Presley set, with all the essential elements present and correct: the hardest
working drum machine in showbusiness slapping the beat around, those piledriver
basslines shoving it all along, and, balanced precariously on this foundation,
guitar riffs stacked as high as Robert Johnson’s eye. It’s rock music,
sure enough, but done with a strange kind of gung-ho, foot-to-the-floor
minimalism in which sheer energy fills the space where, in a conventional
band, the other musicians would be. Weird but it works, folks.
engages
the audience in quickfire (and occasionally incomprehensible) banter, a
rock raconteur with a hundred crazy tales to tell. It’s all good fun, but
it must be said that Frankenstein are not here to blaze any new musical
trails. Their schtick is good-time, mid-tempo rock ‘n’ roll, and they do
it very well - but it’s very quickly apparent that this is all they do.
If you’re looking for some easy-going entertainment delivered with good
humour, a quip or two and an arched eyebrow along the way, Frankenstein
are your band. They aren’t in the business of challenging the listener,
or talking their audiences into new and strange musical territory - they’re
here to grin and rock out and have fun, and that’s fine, but it does mean
the band tend to bump up against their own self-imposed limitations. I’m
not at all familiar with Frankenstein’s material, but as I stand listening
to their set I find I can pretty much predict how each song is going to
go from the first bar forward, and that leaves me feeling a bit ho-hum.
I’d like to hear a bit more of Dave Grave’s off-the-wall personality in
the music itself, but Frankenstein, it seems, don’t want to go there. They
just keep rockin’ amiably along. Good fun stuff, sure enough - but no surprises.