Burn Baby Burn

We've been so lamentably out of touch with what the kids are up to music-wise that we no longer need to provide you with a handy series of links to places in the past where we've been talking out of our ineffable derriere. So it will strike you as unsurpising that we have not been to Rothko before last night. But an associate had been through an unhappy love affair and needed some fresh air, plus cutesome had unchained us for the evening.

But the Warlocks seemed somehow unappetising. So we turned to the Rock list, and then scored some filtering from the Frooty Scensterdent. "Wot about this 33Hz business Mig-Hole?" The answer came back: "This was dealt with several months ago, you silly little toy. If I was to be seen there I would be pelted with soiled Stolen Transmission demos next time I tried to show my face at Misshapes. You on the other hand might find keytar and Prince pastiches diverting over a short time span."

So, and not before downing several Rauchbiers (tastes like beer, smells like smoked cheese! Hoooray!) at dba, down we waddled. Right into this strange universe of freaky-looking swarthy people in sports coats. Jeez, we thought, the universe of friends-turning-up-to-friends'-bands sure has turned ugly since Brownies closed down.

[Slightly off-topic here - when did The Magician manage to rethink the whole shark-jumping thing, leap back for the safety of the ramp, claw itself back up, and then start the whole Fishy-Knievel process all over again? We always thought the reason for holding a party there was that it was downtown and always and plenty of space, and also in part because it was so very jejune in the first place.

But we digress. We had a mere ten minutes of shuddering more before the undercard materialised. At this point we should note that there was more to our choice of entertainment than Mig-Hole's tauntings. The first band up were called The Baskervilles, and we had hoped that in some warped way they would offer homage to Thee Headcoats, whose Sherlock fixation is as well know as their aversion to fidelity in sound. But garage the Baskervilles were not. They sounded like Belle And Sebastian. And the singer grinned like the maitre d' in a low-rent brothel. Ugh.

But the Burnside Project we likey (yesyesyes, before you ask, we did think that there might be a link to top alt.blues f***toy RL). Would not all of us like to live in a future where the Rapture used fewer cowbells and less yelping? Could we not take out insurance against this not happening?

And lo, this crew appeared in sports coats and rather Scottish demeanours to play au courant post punk stuff to synthesisers. They really were good, though, we promise. The only problem we could find was that since this was a mates' show we had to dredge through the stuff they wrote before they were good. This can be solved.

We didn't in the end stay for the headliners (look at the website again, will ya? Electric pink writing? Fauxboxes?). It was weeing it down, and we had anticipated the struggle for a cab on Delancey being much more daunting that would in fact turn out to be the case. We'll leave them to the faux-casts.

Link to Burnside Project's "And So It Goes", which makes them sound a little cheesier than they were live, but we stand by our earlier positive assessment.