The Call Of The Wyld Review of the Year.

Band Of The Year - Death Cigarettes

There have been many great gigs this year and I can’t really mention them all.

Death Cigarettes at the George Tavern was pretty much my idea of heaven – astonishing levels of energy, deafeningly loud and astoundingly good. The performance of the year. The same band were also devastating at Proud Gallery, especially with singer Maya railing against the injustice of having to contend with a crowd barrier. Seriously, if you go to just one gig in 2009, don’t waste your time with Blur or Oasis playing in some giant shed – find out where Death Cigarettes are playing, get down the front and let your teeth rattle.

The whole Offset festival was a pleasure – a nice small site with dozens of great bands and minimal set clashes. And the rain held off, mostly. SCUM played in a tent full of smoke, Glam Chops fell apart in a tent full of people and Rachel from Kasms wrestled a girl to the floor and squashed her ice cream. Also in a tent.

The most crowded gig of the year was Telepathe at Catch. Theirs was the only set during which I never actually touched the floor.

The biggest crowd of the year was that at Gallhammer’s Water Rats show. Metal fans are HUGE. It was like being wedged in a forest of double wardrobes. The band were great too, occasionally appearing out of clouds of dry ice, gurning ferociously. This was also the loudest gig of the year and the most painful – I still have the broken drumstick that flew out of the mist and impaled my neck.

The funniest sight of the year was the drunken girl who totally usurped Shitty Limits at the Old Blue Last. She had more energy and was more chaotic than a molecule in the Large Hadron Collider.

Mass audience participation at the last ever performance of Be Your Own PET, the band eventually being crushed out of existence by a pile of well wishers.

In terms of stamina, it is a toss up between the non-stop bouncing aerobics of You Love Her Coz She’s Dead at Offset, or Mark Stewart & The Maffia playing two sets at the Royal Festival Hall, the second of these in the foyer and still going on some three months later. Probably.

And did I mention Death Cigarettes playing during the Camden Crawl and weirding out an entire bus of pensioners who pulled up outside the pub just as the band were leaping on tables?

I spent half of Vampire Weekend’s gig at ULU in the cold outside, after some bright spark set off the fire alarm. Later in the year, at the same venue, I found Pink Eyes of Fucked Up daintily moving through a crowd of small girls, being the gentleman and not crushing them, much to their disappointment.

Also having difficulties were Ladytron, who had to retire half way through their gig due to synthesiser-knack.

The apparently dead girl being carried past us by her mates at Mindless Self Indulgence’s marvellously pyrotechnic Roundhouse show…

…and the singer from Hearts Revolution being unable to continue her show because of an earlier concussion.

The Fighting Cocks freezing their parts off in a tent in the middle of Trafalgar Square in January. To the complete bafflement of passing tourists.

The worst gig of the year was Alex and Stephen, Dirty Projectors, Six Organs of Admittance and Frog Eyes on an endless, stultifyingly boring night at the Forum. This was what I imagine being in cryogenic suspension must be like.

Hissy fit of the year came from The Tamborines, whose guitarist threw down his instrument and stumped off, only to have to return moments later to reclaim it and clear the stage for the next act.

Venue of the year was St Leonard’s Church, where SCUM, Kasms and An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump put on a dazzling son-et-lumiere amidst the pews. Shame about the drug dealer touting his wares by the font.

And of course the two gigs in Japan, which were utterly delightful and deeply bizarre.

Aside from those mentioned above, there were great sets this year from Cobra Dukes, Client, Esser, Oh No! Oh My!, Battlekat, The Bookhouse Boys, O Children, Fleet Foxes, Sparks, Gang of Four, The Favours, Mindless Self Indulgence, Rochelle, The Duloks, Wire, Trademark, Maria & The Mirrors, Shit and Shine, Rolo Tomassi and Bodies of Water. And others I’ve temporarily forgotten. Like Yeborobo.

Another cracking year. Roll on 2009.

Be Your Own PET: First and Last - Parker Place 2005 to Dingwalls 2008

From this - Photo: Leia Jospe

To this - Photo by Ponyrock

Be Your Own PET are no more. These Nashville teens arrived, blew me away and entertained me royally in the space of four short years. I was there at the beginning, and I was there for the end.

Let’s compare and contrast. On 23rd March 2005, I saw them play their first London show in Parker Place, Holborn. I filed the following report for Artrocker along with an email that read “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with this lot.”

‘On Tuesday morning I become aware through my many media tentacles that the hottest band in the entire history of the planet i.e. right NOW are Nashville’s Be Your Own PET (typography important). And that they are playing at Parker Place the following evening.

So I slide down my Bat-pole and 24 hours later I’m in the venue. And so is every music biz hanger-on in London. This is basically a nice quiet new bands night in a nice new (to me) venue. But tonight the circus is in town. There are queues up the street and bouncers on the door.

The venue is as long and thin and crowded as a tube train during rush hour. The stage itself is situated behind a crash barrier and mounted in a kind of Regency dining room at one end. There are chandeliers, mirrors in golden gilt frames, red velvet drapes and chinoiserie screens. It’s fair to say it’s not your normal set up.

Be You Own PET are on first and despite being a little nervous and awkward for the first few numbers, once they hit their rhythm…wow! These teenagers are the long awaited Yeah Yeah Yeahs/ At The Drive In hybrid. Impossibly feisty and cute singer Jemina Pearl screams, rolls her eyes and camps it up like a shopping mall amalgam of Britney Spears and Courtney Love while the hugely afro-ed bassist Nathan Vasquez bounds around like a frog. Furious guitarist Jonas Stein is prettier than any girl in the room and plays as though his life depends on the next thirty seconds.

After about five numbers they have smashed the stage up to such an extent that Jemina is scared to stand on it anymore and comes down to crowd level to finish the set. Single ‘Damn Damn Leash’ is a real stand out, but it’s all good stuff.

Be Your Own PET are so full of naïve charm and youthful excitement that it doesn’t matter that their sound is not the most original. They have got moxie by the bucket load and they are going to make a lot of friends. Tonight they really are the hottest band in the entire history of the planet. And it’s still only Wednesday…’


That was the beginning. I’ve seen them many more times since, and they have never disappointed.

Four years later, on 26 August 2008, I am here in Dingwalls for the end.

The air is heavy with sweat and expectation. Support act The Hot Melts have done a good job in warming things up and various roadies are fiddling with equipment…

…and suddenly Be Your Own PET are onstage. And they are playing the Fleetwood Mac track ‘The Chain’. All hell breaks loose.

Jemina has cut her hair short and daubed her face in red war paint. The guys are all topless and also crop haired. While the singer remains upbeat throughout, her eyes saucer-wide, the others seem rather grumpy.

The set flies by in a thresher’s flail of limbs and hair and bodies and stage divers. There are mixed messages from the band – the guys warn people off, Jemina eggs them on. It’s chaotic and silly and utterly appropriate for this most delinquent of juvenile bands.

“Black Hole” and “Becky” are blasted out, the singer bouncing all over the stage, the guitarists occasionally venturing into the madding crowd. With the screamed “Food Fight” things almost get out of hand, but the boarders are just about repelled.

It’s a losing battle. Once “Super Soaker” is announced as the final song (of what I suspect was intended to be the end of the main set before the encores) an enormous scrum of bodies piles forward. Remember all those hordes of rats that run over Indiana Jones? It’s like that.

You hear the band playing on, Jemina occasionally popping her head between the sweating mass, but then the equipment is crushed and the gig is over. It’s mildly disappointing, but entirely in keeping with their whole career. They are just too much fun to be tidily contained.

Be Your Own PET were a delightful antidote to serious attitudes. They epitomised what it was like to be young and full of life and just wanting a good time at high school before the real world weighs you down.

They were brilliant, messy, and they didn’t stay a moment too long. Thanks for everything, guys.

2008 - The Story So Far: Jan To March

Death Cigarettes are good for you

Watching the Fighting Cocks in their stockings and skirts, huddled against the cold before they go to play a single song in a purple tent in the middle of Trafalgar Square. The singer then trying vainly to get a call and response going with a small group of tourists (and us).

The absurdly high leap that the acoustic Gideon Conn makes before unexpectedly jumping into the audience.

Mad, one-eyed dancing robots. Robots In Disguise.

The singer of Asobi Seksu grabs a broken, feedbacking guitar and waves it above her head, yelling “I don’t know how to play this but it’s really cool!” The band’s version of “And Then He Kissed Me”, the distortion providing their own version of the Phil Spector Wall Of Sound.

The members of The Willowz leave the stage mid-set, leaving the drummer. Who proceeds to do a five minute excruciating solo on a kit the size of a biscuit tin.

Vampire Weekend are about halfway through their set at ULU when all the alarms go off and we have to evacuate the building. It is testimony to Esser that it is his song ‘Headlock’ that I wake up singing for the next two days.

Gradually losing the will to live during the interminable drones of Alex & Stephen at The Forum, whist watching their videos of unexplained chemical reactions.

The brute power of Big Linda, who are so loud it hurts. Not necessarily good, but deafening.

Possibly the worst looking band in the world, The $hit comprise elderly transvestites, fat rappers and a man in a kendo mask. I was trying to work out how much of their equipment was actually plugged in – possibly two microphones, and not the one used by the ‘singer’.

Death Cigarettes turn in a powerhouse performance, with the apple-cheeked singer dancing on the tables and mauling all members of the audience. I genuinely think they are my new favourite band.

As I stare into the wide eyes and gaping mouth of Mika Penetrator, guitarist with extreme Japanese noise outfit Gallhammer, I am hit violently in the throat. This later turns out to be a shattered drumstick that has flown from the hand of drummer Risa Reaper. I still have it.

I get the feeling that Black Kids are absolutely out on their feet. Their voices are completely shot. But they are still marvellous. And British crowds cannot dance to save their lives.

The Cure play for well over three hours at Wembley, even though I don’t stay anything like that long. It is like a cricket match – people wander in and out, go for food and a drink, have a chat - while the band rumble interminably on. You don’t actually have to pay them much attention.

While having a bit of a dance to 99 Red Balloons when we go to see Death Cigarettes again at Catch, one of our party attracts the attentions of an older woman. She takes some discouraging. She seems to be the mother of someone in one of the bands…

Future Of The Left are tremendously fierce at the Scala, but they just look like grumpy old men when Be Your Own PET come on and the whole place becomes a heaving moshpit of sweaty youth.