Joy

>THE APE DRAPE ESCAPE
w/ BSKETSIS, THE SWEAR + PACIFIC OCEAN FIRE
NOTTINGHAM, CABARET: 27.02.05

The venue for tonight’s ‘Night of Filth’ belongs to Nottingham’s own Cabaret. The club is everything that the name conjures up – smoky, dark and dimly lit, but somehow seems perfect for this charity event in aid of the Tsunami appeal. First set of the night comes courtesy of Pacific Ocean Fire. Dealing in heartfelt, upbeat songs, they open with ‘Honky Tonkin’ during which the clarity and quality of this band immediately becomes apparent. Featuring a soft jumping bass line, and intricate accompanying lead guitar, the song has a real country feel to it, which is much the order of the day during the rest of the set. The introduction of a trumpet midway through provides a nice deviation to the sound, and creates an almost western sounds cape, which allows the music to really shine. The

penultimate song shows us an even more experimental edge to the band, with the music resembling an eerie film score, whilst the use of a megaphone causes the vocals to seem distant and strained. Closing with a cover by seminal Oregon based songwriter M. Ward, Pacific Ocean Fire finished off a varied and captivating set.

Next up comes The Swear. Hailing from the currently in vogue New Cross area of London, The Swear play their

own brand of no-nonsense new wave spiky pop, with vocal duties shared between the lovely Tycie, and lead guitarist Andrew. Each song flies by in a rage of shouty, sing-a-long choruses and scratchy guitars coupled with off- beat drumming, but always with a sugar sweet pop hook. Particular highlight comes from the final track ‘Disco Bitch’, which pushed the pop sensibilities up another notch. However, what I found most disappointing was the fact that two of their catchiest songs, ‘Advert Boy’ and ‘High Rise’ were omitted from the set, although this is perhaps admirable as newer material could therefore take the limelight. All in all, The Swear played an enjoyable set, but I felt that the set length was just perfect - perhaps

any longer and the repetitiveness of their song formulas may have began to show through.

After a little confusion following the disappearance of soundman Nige, Bsketsis took to the stage. The songs all have a fairly fast, frantic pace to them, fuelled by the hi-hat work of the drummer, but I couldn’t help get the feeling that this was because they were being played too fast, rather than them having a genuine energy about them.

The songs themselves centre around a fairly standard “rock” structure, with no song standing out as being particularly inventive. Most worrying perhaps was the fact that two particularly juvenile songs were centred around a story about how an old friend of theirs (Joel) got a girlfriend and consequently saw his old mates less – no bitterness held there then boys! Bsketsis are a pleasant enough band, but compared to the quality of the other acts playing this evening, they just seem to blend into mediocrity.

Final band of the evening call themselves the Ape Drape Escape – a curious name for an even more curious line up. Consisting of 6

members, each dolled up in their own stage persona, the Ape Drape… definitely have the most stage presence of the evening with their explosive front man, Martin, indulging in a lot of crowd-baiting and general ‘rockstar’ antics. The music however didn’t quite have that same volatile energy, and I felt that the vocal performance only just served to hide the fact that the music was generally lacklustre. The addition of a keyboard created a nice depth to the sound, but usually the music just became predictable and bland; perhaps just as well that singer Martin gave us something else to focus our attention on. After a while though, as the band began to tire, I felt that we the audience did also, and I almost felt a twitch of pity for Martin and his floor-rolling shenanigans…almost.

Review by Ben Wykes, Photos by Laura Mitchell and Zoe Evans
members.lycos.co.uk/adescape
www.the-swear.co.uk
www.pacificoceanfire.com

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