September 2, 2003
Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney / Scout Niblett / the Fiery Furnaces / the Hawney Troof
the Mean Fiddler, Soho, 8/14
It took V. and I a while to figure out what was different about the crowd at the Mean Fiddler. It wasn't the club itself -- despite the coat check room (and the Britishness), it was a pretty fair analogue of the 9:30 or the Black Cat in DC. It wasn't the drinks; they were overpriced just like at an American club. Eventually we got it. In England, there is a scandalously high clubgoer-to-hipster-glasses ratio. The crowd just looked slightly shaggier and less scenesterfied than it would have been in DC.
That contrast made the opening act all the more amusing; the Hawney Troof are a boy and a girl in their underwear who dance around and holler and do jumping jacks. Given a ten minute dose, it's very funny, just like the even more manic XVXRX, who I once saw play an even shorter set. V. and I were making jokes about a) Bratmobile and b) Sparky's coffeehouse in DC before we even recognized former Bratmobiler and occasional Sparky's patron Alison Wolfe. Whoops.
Sleater-Kinney was playing two shows in London, and we had decided to go to the second because the Fiery Furnaces were playing. It's nice to see someone in the great garage rock revival skewing bluesy. If the White Stripes had spent their time listening to the Stones instead of the Stooges (and had a less winsome Meg singing), it might come out like this. I liked them a lot, enough to look for their stuff the next time I make it to a record store.
Scout Niblett was, uhh, remarkable. Starting with the name, which amused all of V.'s cousin's friends. "Scout Niblett? Not really?" I liked her set a lot too, but it was a train-wreck kind of fascination. Time Out seems to be a big fan and I trust their judgment, but I thought her set was dreadful. Maybe she's better on record, but her one-woman-show act reminded me of someone who studied the stylings of late Jonathan Richman and the late Wesley Willis, and then said, "I'm a pretty girl! I can do faux naif!" She had a good voice -- a kind of Chan Marshall voice, and the Cat Power comparisons shouldn't stop there -- but seriously, the lyrics of a representative song: "Give me a T! Give me an R! Give me a U! Give me a C! Give me a K! TRUCKERS! Give me a L! Give me an O! Give me a V! Give me an E! LOVERS!" Uh-huh. And there was banging on a drum in there. I can understand why the promo sheet I got handed didn't seem to know what to say about her but instead talked about how she was the next new thing.
Sleater-Kinney tore it up. I confess that I haven't liked the last couple of albums nearly as much as Dig Me Out or The Hot Rock, but boy, the new songs are just furious live, and they seem to have given Corin and Carrie an excuse to exercise their inner guitar rock gods. During their encore, they were playing "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone", and they used a lengthy guitar solo to transition to the next. On the other hand, during their set, I discovered the other important difference between crowds in London and crowds in DC: Londoners mosh. I felt awful for the very tiny couple (sisters? lovers?), who couldn't have weighed more than 200 pounds between the two of them. It was all very foreign and exoticized to me at this point; life in DC has totally removed this possibility from my consciousness. I kept expecting Ian MacKaye to appear with a lecture about the stupidity of crowd surfing (crowd surfing!). On the other hand, aren't exotic experiences what a honeymoon is supposed to be about? Who needs Bali?