Why? @ Brudenell Social Club
By Dave Procter
Damage Control provide us with all our laptop, triple decker and keys' wibble requirements. They also make a reasonable effort at buggering their backs in for the future, hunched as they are over their screens. There's some nice Hoover tube didgeridoo through effects action as well. They've certainly cleaned up here. Yes. We also get some mystical Eastern Hawkwind-y flute drone action chucked in amongst the hip hop. It's a mixed bag for sure and I'm not really all that clear on how good it was. It's a vaguely chucked together collection of stuff, with a large dose of kitchen sink at times, is that good? I don't know, I'm just a reviewer.
Last time Hood played here, it was pretty packed out, tonight it's ultra packed. They stumble unnoticed onstage - "hello we're Hood" is all we get murmured a bit into the mic, but the following fucking racket 10 second intro grabs the attention of the audience nicely. Instruments are swapped and played upside down, soundscapes are created and just as soon drift away - it's a bit like My Bloody Valentine, but on a quiet day. This is ace. We have some lovely 1 chord guitaring that would make Farming Incident's Dr Jones weep. How can I succinctly describe this band in 3 words, to help you out, like? "I bloody can't" is the answer.
The front geezer from Why? comes onstage for a couple of songs, and it sounds really, really top. They finish off with the first track off "Cold House", "They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Happened Here", with Dr Why? doing all the live bits of super rap action. It really is ace. Why? Why not, I say. It's like a Fidel Castro convention onstage, as the beard count hits 4 out of 4. Slide bass is used, drums are as beaten up as drums are likely to get beaten up, and we get all the best bits of Pavement and a variety of hip hop, chucked into the mix, with a side salad of Dr Gob Iron in the audience, who refuses to get up onstage and show himself when asked nicely by Why? This incurs further piss taking later. You could also say there's the spirit of Gorky's, Beefheart, The Beach Boys and our own Napoleon iiird in all of this too. The crowd is lapping it up. I cheerfully sink another ale. And then, the ridiculousness of the British licensing laws kicks in, as we're kicked out by just after 11. Criminal, but musical justice was done tonight.
