GDFAF4: Voodoo Glow Skulls, The Klopeks, A Day Called Desire

GDFAF #4 fell on a Monday and Mondays were always going to be a problem. No-one goes out on a Monday and pubs, clubs and venues treat it as their weekend but here I am, going to fourteen gigs sequentially, so I need somewhere to go. Ideally I want to go to small gigs featuring unknown bands so the Birmingham Academy is technically not permitted. However, the gig there tonight was downgraded to Bar Academy, the 300-odd capacity venue next door that is certainly on my map, but the ticket price wasn’t downgraded so it was a last resort.

I did try, honest. Having exhausted the internet I even started phoning random pubs to see if they had live music but to no avail. Chum Jez phoned about the Jeff Lewis gig on Friday and together we went through the options drawing blanks until he came across the Birmingham Clarion Singers at All Saints Church in Kings Heath. I’d been thinking about taking in an utterly non-rock concert at some point and report on it in true NME style so this seemed as good as any but we couldn’t find any confirmation online (I’m still not sure how Jez even came across the info – possibly a local community newsletter or something) so I popped over on the bike to check it out. The church notice-board was surrounded by the local youths who were being all threatening but I managed to corner a middle aged woman in the car park who knew nothing about any concert tonight and was most perturbed that the potential for one existed without her knowing about it. So I took that as a no and, after checking the pubs on Kings Heath High St headed back home.

Time was marching on so I bit the bullet and headed off to Bar Academy. There was always the potential that they’d have sold out having switched to the smaller venue but no, tickets were still available. At £10. It seems there’s a pricing structure for gig tickets where, say, they’re advertised at £7, sold in advance for £8 (with booking fee) and on the door for £10. As I ummed and erred the nice lady behind the bar gave me the “c’mon, it’s only a tenner” look and I mentioned the 14 gigs in 14 nights thing. She asked why, which was a fair question. I think I might be asking why myself soon, but I explained about the website and the reviews and smiled a weak smile. She asked her boss if he was feeling generous. He thought I was fucking mad but wasn’t feeling generous. I paid my tenner.

Now, here’s where it gets a little embarrassing – I’m not sure who the first band were. According to the advance publicity the bill was Voodoo Glow Skulls, No Comply, The Klopeks and Templeton Pek. I didn’t make a note of who they said they were udring the gig and I have a terrible memory for that sort of thing so I figured I could just go back and check later. According to their site No Comply have cancelled all their November gigs so they can be discounted and some detailed detective work on their MySpace page reveals the second band to be The Klopecs which means the first band was Templeton Pek. Except their photos on MySpace show a clean-cut threesome while there were four guys on stage, two of whom had most impressive dreadlocks. It also says they were playing elsewhere tonight. [Update - I've been informed they were called A Day Called Desire and have edited this post accordingly.]

So first up was A Day Called Desire who were a tight metal band getting a good response from the audience. They said this was the best reception they’d ever had and it was pretty remarkable for a first support. There was even a bit of moshing going on, which foreshadowed the rest of the evening quite well.

I should say a little about the crowd – they were young. Yes, this shouldn’t be a big shock but it always takes me by surprise when I’m one of the oldest people at a gig, especially when it’s not a particularly hip and trendy band on stage. And there were a lot of them for the relatively small Bar Academy, about half looking all hardcore and cool and half still figuring out how to look hardcore and cool. Occasionally I’d see someone my age but they’d turn out to be one of the other bands waiting to perform or part of the crew. The main reason I mention the age is because these young people, they have so much energy! You think the kids today are all apathetic and cynical but give them the right outlet and, boom, it all gets a little hectic. Brought back some memories, I can tell you.

The Klopeks (another local band I’d not heard of before) made the most of this boundless enthusiasm and milked it to the core. It helped that, like the headliners, they were a ska-punk band with metal-ish undertones, but the huge trombone player diving into the audience and moshing didn’t hinder things too much. I particularly liked their obsession with pirates and highwaymen and the way half of them played topless. That’s always a good sign. Very mad-eyed and crazed with much interaction with the crowd, you’d think they were headlining.

It was about this time that I simultaneously started really enjoying myself and getting worried about my camera. I’d be interested to know if, during outbreaks of peace, war photographers go to rock gigs filled with teenagers because it was quite unnerving, even for someone who isn’t adverse to a good mosh. I was standing on the stools to the right of the stage (you’ll know them if you know the venue) mainly so I could actually see the bands on the inch-high stage (you’ll know what I mean if you know the venue) and every time I leant down to get the camera out of it’s protective case a whirling ball of testosterone would crash into me. If I’d know I would have brought the old digicam, but I was going in blind here. So, not many photos and those that were taken were a little shite. During the Klopeks’ set I was wondering, if the crowd are like this now, what will they be like for the band they actually paid to see?

They tore the fucking place to pieces.

The Voodoo Glow Skulls (Wikipedia) have been around for a while as part of the US ska revival of the 1990s (remember The Mighty Mighty Bosstones?) though, as is becoming a pattern in this fortnight, I’d not come across them before. I didn’t know they were from California, for example, nor that they’d be singing half in Spanish, or that they’d been around since 1992. I was sort of aware that there’d been a small ska revival in Birmingham last year amongst the student population (or at least I heard it from a student) and it would seem to be not so small after all. This crowd were hardcore fans through and through. From my vantage point I was often distracted from the stage to just watch the audience throw themselves around and while it was never nasty I did feel something close to apprehension at the flailing of limbs. Maybe if I’d not been on my own I would have dived in and joined them, but I’m not so sure.

Meanwhile on stage the Glow Skulls were tight, as you’d expect from a band who’ve been playing for about 15 years, and their music was fast, pounding through a mashup of ska beats, metal riffs and punk vocals with their own Mexican flavouring. Again I was struck by the age thing, and I don’t want to make a big deal of it but most of the band were old enough to be parents of their fans. This was like going to a comeback gig except there didn’t seem to be any original fans there unless they were listening to skacore in primary school. I might be reading too much into this but it seems to me that the gig exemplified how young people are doing music these days. I’m not aware of this sort of thing getting any mainstream coverage these days and while there has always been some kind of ska presence on the gig scene this seemed very youth specific (and about 50:50 male to female, which was interesting). One can only blame “the internet” and the way young people get their information these days, via word of mouth recommendation and downloading random music. When I was their age everything came from the NME and Radio 1. Now it’s something a lot less specific and uncontrolled, yet capable of bringing 300 kids together to go utterly mental.

Or maybe it’s not so complicated. All three bands namechecked MySpace. Think on that.

During a very brief lull in the chaos I got the camera out but the lense immediately steamed over with condensed sweat. I didn’t fancy keeping it out to aclimatise so no photos of the Glow Skulls, which is a shame as they were worthy of them, but fuck, it was hot in there. I emerged the sweatiest I’ve ever been from just standing up for two hours.

Voodoo Glow Skulls – very good. UK tour continues through to November 20th. Go check them out for good times.