Friday, April 21, 2006
Just you and me, pornography
It can be dangerous going to see bands when you only know/like one or two songs. Or only like a band member's former band. Or if the gig is actually in Potsdam, an hour away from East Berlin. And you're absolutely knackered from another week of doing nothing. I went to see Client last night (fulfilling all of the above requirements for a dangerous gig), and, erm, it was ok. I used to absolutely love electro music a few years ago. I was 17, living in Edinburgh and dreaming of London clubs like Trash (still the best club in London!) and Nag Nag Nag, dressing in black and white, gyrating with Peaches, attending $1000000 Fischerspooner shows, that kinda thing. By the time I got there that kind of meaningless, glamorous, disposable electro was almost at the end of its short lifetime.
This was almost three years ago. Which is why it seems a little strange to me that a band like Client, old and wise enough to know better, are still making music in that vein - a genre which was so precisely about the moment, that it simply had to deconstruct when the moment passed. For a short while people thought dance music would change forever, Fischerpooner were signed for a reported $1m, thereby bringing Ministry of Sound to almost bankruptcy (ha!). So it can be argued that Client, Kate, Sarah and Emily (Alan McGee's wife, the singer from Dubstar, and a Make Me a Supermodel contestant, respectively) are doing it purely for the love of what they are doing, since there's no real chance of opening themselves up to a wider market. Quite admirable, really. They manage themselves, do their own website and such. They do put on a really good live show, full of sex, posturing, glares, and warm smiles once the backtrack finishes.
I guess their music is just not my kinda thing anymore, so I'm not really in a position to criticize it. Their two Robbie-friendly songs, however, were immense. Pornography was almost as filthy as on the record (a surprise Carl Barat appearance could've spiced things up a bit more), with Sarah Blackwood strutting the stage in gold high heels and fetish security guard outfit, like a sex-crazed Cindy Beale. It's Rock and Roll, also from 2005's City album, went down a treat, though I didn't feel especially rock'n'roll looking at my watch, conscious of not wanting to miss the last train back to Berlin. On the painfully slow S-bahn ride back I tried to think up my line on the night. I think I enjoyed it, I think I quite like their music with its Depeche Mode undertones, it was perhaps just a bit too much effort going all that way for a band I don't love. Etcetera.
posted by Unknown at 4/21/2006 02:42:00 pm
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