La Femme extra

The video that I included in my report from last week was a little old.

Here's their brand spanking new one - and this is EXACTLY what I was on about.

Remember kids. Guns and knives are neither big nor clever, but they are cool.

La Femme at Sebright Arms - 18 September 2013

La Femme

The first unwelcome surprise of the evening comes with the revelation that the headliners are not due onstage until nine thirty and that there are no support acts other than a DJ.

We troop off to a nearby hotel to watch the football and my second and final unwelcome surprise comes with the extremely disgruntling result of the Chelsea v Basel match.

After this discouraging start however, it's sheer delight all the way.

On returning to the tiny confines of the Sebright basement the atmosphere is one of expectant excitement. It's hot down here and the air hangs heavy with theatrical mist.

La Femme burst on stage looking like 1940's resistance fighters. They are clad in leather jackets, scarves and berets. Such is the energy that the band generate that most of this clobber is discarded by the end of the first song.

There's a wonderful cinematic quality to La Femme. Their songs inhabit a 60's noir alternate world where spies meet in darkened rooms, mysterious beauties hold cigarettes holders and trench coats are de rigour. The band take this as a starting point to produce a set of giddy high tempo electro pop that is as exciting and harem scarem as a James Bond car chase.

Singer Clemence is a delightful, elegant chanteuse who dances non-stop behind a small keyboard. To her left, band leader Marlon is down to his vest, his torso and neck writhing with tattoos. The rest of the band are slightly lost in the heat and the haze, but can be seen pummelling keyboards in frenzy.

There is a huge mosh pit in front of the stage, with everyone dancing wildly to tracks lack 'Anti Taxi' and 'Sur La Plage'. Arms are held aloft, heads bop furiously. When they are in full flow you could imagine that La Femme are the kind of band that Quentin Tarantino would have play at his wedding - even with their hair plastered across their faces and sweat pouring from every pore this band are COOL.

I have a big stupid grin on my face throughout and I'm not the only one. The whirling synths and pounding rhythms are irresistible.

The band slightly muff their encore by confusing the exhausted crowd into thinking that they are not coming back onstage. But when they re-emerge, the stragglers that remain in the room throw ourselves around like dervishes for one last time.

At the end of the evening, when I emerge into the night outside the pub I find that the band have beaten me outside and are hanging limp and steaming in the doorway.

La Femme really are the most fun that you can have with your clothes on - even when it’s so hot that you have to rip them off.

Call of the Wyld Review of 2012

Drop Out Venus  (Dan Kendall)

Another year heedlessly hoofed into the long grass of history. So long, 2012, how will we remember you?

In January I encountered FOE twice and swiftly came to realise that Hannah Clark is a performer who can radically alter her sound as the occasion suits and that she is constantly evolving. At the Barfly, FOE were a gonzoid metal wall of sound and all the better for it. By the time I saw her again later in the year, things had changed yet again.

That Barfly gig also featured Fever Fever, who were tight and fierce and fun, but who sadly didn’t survive as a band to see the year out. Good luck to them with future projects.

February was ushered in by a scuffle in the crowd watching Charli XCX at the Lexington and wild scenes as Japanese Queen tribute band Queer tore up the Pipeline.

February also introduced me to Drop Out Venus, and everything changed thereafter.

When I first saw the band at the Roundhouse Studios, they completely side-swiped me. I wasn’t even sure that I liked them, but I knew that they were different from anything that I had seen in years. I was so intrigued that I threw away expensive tickets for another show to instead catch the band for free at the Old Blue Last a few days later. That performance turned out to be so emotionally overwhelming that even the band seemed surprised by it. And I was hooked on the exploits of Iva, Chris and Urs from then on.

I’ve followed Drop Out Venus avidly since that date and never been disappointed – whether they were playing to a handful of disinterested ten pin bowlers in Bloomsbury or terrorising an unsuspecting crowd at Somerset House who thought that they were going to get something smooth and uplifting before Charlotte Gainsbourg came on.

I think Drop Out Venus are just great. I heartily commend them to you both live and on record, with the warning that your mind might get blown as mine was.

I was happy in March to reacquaint myself with the Chapman Family, who positively seethed with anger and frustration at the Bull & Gate. This gig was also my first exposure to the new ‘witchy’ direction of Call of the Wyld faves Cold In Berlin. Maya and co could not put on a poor performance if their lives depended on it, but I must admit that I am not a wholehearted fan of their current material.

I loved Those Darlins’ at the Lexington and experienced an extraordinary show from Public Image Ltd at Heaven. Lydon and co were on top form and played for hours, John dancing and cackling like a maniac shaman.

Having enjoyed that show so much, later in the year I gathered a large group of mates to see PiL at the Forum. This time the band were listless, leaden and bad tempered. It was the biggest disappointment of 2012.

The Camden Crawl was a festival of two halves, with the Saturday very much better than the Sunday. Great performances from Mowbird, Trwbador, Antlered Man and Sauna Youth.

In 2012 I did a couple of stints at the Troxy to see returning rock royalty. Garbage and Patti Smith were both excellent, although I am not a fan of the venue.

A vintage 1234 Shoreditch included my first encounters with La Femme and Public Service Broadcasting, both of whom I saw later headlining shows in their own right. The French rockers absolutely tore the roof off the Barfly and delivered what may well be the most purely deliriously fun gig of 2012; PSB lay waste to my ears at XOYO.

I had fun with Charlotte Church at Water Rats and then saw a steaming set from Savages at Electrowerkz.

The year ended strongly with blinding performances from Polica, The Raveonettes and Dragonette.

A damn fine year and the prospect of doing it all again in 2013.

Stick around…Stay Wyld. 

La Femme at Barfly - 8 November 2012

La Femme by Hugo Guyader

We’re told that it’s only their second gig. It doesn’t feel like it.

Qtier are minimalist, but tuneful in the same way that the XX or Radiohead are. They pulse, they tick. There’s a thin falsetto vocal. This band exists in the spaces between the notes.

And they are very brief. They do three songs and they’re gone. It’s a pleasant little cameo. I’ll keep an eye on them.

Fantasy Rainbow are deliberately misleading.

Centre stage the handsome guitarist, his quiff tall and proud, stands up to the microphone. He turns out to be a Maguffin. In truth, he barely sings at all.

The main singer and progenitor of the band is Oliver Catt, here acting as second guitarist lurking stage right in tracksuit bottoms and an enveloping black jumper.  He has a drawling delivery that works very well in the context of this music which marries fuzzy thrash with heartfelt angst.

They are a very interesting outfit – the songs are complex and varied, yet form a coherent and dynamic set. There’s some real bite here.  It’s a measure of how much I like them that I am disappointed not to be able to find them afterwards to buy their album.

I last saw La Femme at this year’s 1234 Shoreditch and liked them enough to come back for a second helping here tonight.

And from the moment they start until the end of their set they do not put a foot wrong. They are absolutely terrific.

There are five keyboards strung across the stage, although in practice there are rarely more than three employed at a time. From behind this wall there’s a chic riot going on.

It’s just so JOYOUS. Every song is a surf pop delight, and if you can’t dance to this you are probably dead.

Vocals are traded between Marlon Magnee, nattily attired, his hair sticking out at right angles, and the lovely Clemence, grooving furiously and also dressed to kill. Each song is propulsive, a breakneck helter skelter ride of beats.

Although there is a definite surf rock, Sixties feel, this is also allied to a real modern dance sensibility. Tunes build and build before the inevitable break down that sends everyone into paroxysms.

I’m smiling so much that my face hurts.

I could watch this band all night and when they finish, the venue is just packed with happy, dazed looking people.

A really good night out. La Femme have now become one of my current darlings. Magnifique!

1234 Shoreditch - 1 September 2012

La Femme

What better way to shake off the cobwebs of a largely gig-free Olympic summer than a day out at the 1234 Shoreditch. I come here each year and it rarely disappoints.

For me, the day begins with Drop Out Venus doing ‘I Kill Foxes’ on the main stage. It is an exhilarating, uncompromising start. They’re brilliant, as ever.

I then dash across the field to catch the second half of La Femme, a six piece attack of driving synths. They are very French and clad in matching white T-shirts. Vive le no difference!

The Pukes are a vast ukulele orchestra of mature ladies blasting out punk classics. This ought to be twee, but is just joyous. There are at least seventeen of them bouncing and running about. I bawl along with ‘GLC (You’re Full Of Shit)’ and have a great time.

JEFF The Brotherhood are uber-macho American rockers, who produce a fine old racket and are clearly used to playing to large festival crowds. Their swagger contrasts with Los Cripis, who are a rather fiddly and introspective outfit from Argentina. These last are ok, but do get special Wyldman points for including an unexpected cover of Devo’s ‘Blockhead’.

The most divisive band of the day are The Pre New. It’s impossible to tell whether they are an elaborate joke or something brilliantly strange.  A solidly built guy dressed as though he’s come straight from the bar of his local golf club half talks and screams alongside a younger guy in combat fatigues and Pierrot make-up. Behind them a band blasts out crunching dance beats using everything from drumkits to Macbooks. There is much abuse of equipment, with microphones and ice cream thrown at each other. It’s chaos, but good entertainment. Pierrot appears to have a drumkit set up purely so that he can lurch over and punch it occasionally. The audience is split between those who think this is all a hoot and others who grump off to watch something else.

The most hyped band here seem to be Zoetrope, who have drawn much attention to themselves by being young, female and all over the free newspaper that you are given containing today’s stage times.  Unfortunately, they just don’t seem very interesting. They play to a packed tent, but I soon get bored with them and bail out.

Antlered Man are a much better proposition. I could listen to them do ‘Platoono Of Uno’ all day. They’re part prog, part hardcore, all business and go down a storm.

I run my eye over Black Moth (phenomenally heavy, but perhaps not overburdened with tunes) and The Neat (impressive power pop and very jolly).

I try to avoid Deap Vally on the main stage as I am due to see them headline their own gig next week, but from what I catch, these two girls are going to make a big splash with their piled high hair and blues rock clatter.

I then head off to see Public Service Broadcasting after a passer by begs me for details of their set times. And they turn out to be a bit of a revelation. 

It’s a simple premise. Two guys use samples from vintage movies and documentary footage and marry these to Krauty dance rhythms. It might be rather self-limiting, but for half an hour they are mesmerising, with a whole tent nodding along to Blitz-set epics ‘Britain Can Take It’ and ‘Spitfire’. PSB are one of the finds of the day.

I skirt round Buzzcocks on the main stage – they are fun but too familiar – and finish off the day with Mark Stewart, who is playing with the Trio VD. This set turns out to be the most deafening and uncompromisingly harsh noise of the day.

As ever with Stewart, vocals are treated and distorted and the music is an assault on the senses. It’s a greatest hits set, if anything that he does could ever be so categorised. It’s bizarre to hear versions of ‘How Much Longer Will We Tolerate Mass Murder’, ‘Feed The Hungry’, ‘Liberty City’ and ‘Stranger Than Love’ – this last dedicated to Max Bygraves with all sincerity.

They finish with a stonking, howling version of ‘Hysteria’. It’s a rousing end to a really enjoyable day out.

I’m back on the gig scene, baby!