Outside Royalty and Rosie & the Odd Squad
Catch, Shoreditch, London
It's not very often that I venture out to the trendy London locale that is Shoreditch. What was once a thriving artistic community, full of fashionable bars and a bursting to the seems musical scene has become a stale reminder that angular haircuts count for more than actual talent.
Meanwhile the area seems to be gearing up to accept the dreaded Starbucks and the arrival of mainstream normalism on the high-street. Yet, from time to time, there are still a few musical spurts from the Shoreditch scene that are still worthy of taking note of, and Rosie Oddie & the Odd Squad is one of these. As I have previously alluded to on this website, Rosie Oddie & the Odd Squad are a breath of fresh air.
Think of her as Lily Allen with musical talent and indie-pop-rock backing. At the front are two Shoreditch twats clearly enjoying the music, grinding in a most bizarre fashion to the funk/pop/rap/ska influenced rock. Her music is a mix of genres all hooked around her raspy voice which is full of warmth and sexiness. Unfortunately the piss-poor sound system and engineer at Catch ensures that much of this is missed.
Overall they present their mixture of genres well, they are competent musicians who could do with a few more practice sessions and gigs, but as final song, and new single 'Cola Coka' shows they will, in time, form a tight musical cordon around Rosie. A great pop-rock show from these Shoreditch regulars who will soon burst onto the London musical mainstream. In between sets a stand-up comedian is introduced to the stage. He quickly does a great job of clearing the huge crowd that Rosie Oddie & the Odd Squad brought down with his awful jokes. In fact the only jokes that got a few chuckles were borderline racist. So not a good advertisement for the trendy gig-going Shoreditch crowd.
No surprise the BNP recently got a seat in the London Assembly. With half the crowd gone, the gig night lost some of it's oomph, but playing to a small crowd, the Outside Royalty were, once again, an absolute joy to behold. When I first caught sight of these guys towards the end of 2006, I spent the next few weeks raving about them to anyone who was prepared to listen. A year and a bit later they have lost none of their power on stage. The band still seem an oddity despite a whole new slew of Arcade Fire clone bands.
Violin and a bizarre modernistic cello complement the more traditional drums/guitar/bass combination, while transcendent synths are also present. The traditional four-piece they are not. Signed to the excellent Bloody Awful Poetry label (also home to Rosie Oddie and the Odd Squad), the band have grown in confidence since I last witnessed them on stage but it appears that they've been caught up in the trendy London scene with expensive haircuts and the loss of their once trademark Mormonesque farmers outfits, for the more casual jeans and t-shirt. ‘Falling' has lost none of it's grace and has even improved slightly with a few minor adjustments, while the excellent cover of ‘Eleanor Rigby' is still as shockingly brilliant as it was a few months ago.
‘Falling' is apparently getting lots of radio airplay at the moment (I wouldn't know I never listen to the radio anymore) and it's easy to see why - compelling musical backing with driving stanzas leading up to a wonderful, stick-in-your mind, chorus. To a now small crowd the band blitz through their set and seem genuinely surprised when the grouping demand an encore. After some deliberation they played a superb closing song, whose name I have since forgotten but to be honest I was so caught up in the music that it's hard to concentrate on the peripheral.
Despite a sound system that would make MP3s through computer speakers sound great, and a quite frankly ridiculous stand-up comic, this was a great night with a great ending. These two Bloody Awful Poetry acts look set to take the indie-underground scene and perhaps the mainstream by storm over the coming weeks and months.
