threepointsix

(We're My Ears My Ears, a name we're changing soon).

My Ears My Ears + Compact Pussycat + The Skulls, Ipswich Steamboat May 29th 2005

Unless they change it to "WHEN TINITUS ATTACKS," there will never be a more appropriate band name than My Ears My Ears. MY ears will ring for days after this gig. Picture the scene: It's a bank holiday Sunday in East Anglia's premier backwater shithole town. Our erstwhile reviewer has just returned from the Badhand AGM / engagement party in London and is A) really tired B) wearing clothes he slept in C) on his own and bit lonely. I arrive at the Steamboat, get beer, drink beer and wait. The Steamboat isn't exactly Brixton Academy - any band bigger than a trio and the singer stands in the audience - but it's our local venue for local people and we'll have no trouble here. There's a bloke here that looks like an octogenarian Justin Hawkins as well, serenading embarrassed girls in the beer garden. Add to the mix a whole load of ancient punks and some not so ancient ones and you've got your typical Ipswich crowd. Not a bad crowd by any means, just frequently disinterested in any non-punk bands.

There's a bit of history to My Ears My Ears that takes some explaining to anyone unfamiliar with this particular scene (as in not from Ipswich). MEME were formed from the ashes of local pop punkers Violent Playground when the vocalist left the band for greener pastures. Most of the remaining members now reside in Nottingham and have arisen from the dead to drink the blood of living, only via the medium of really loud, noisy songs. Violent Playground were extremely popular locally, their 10" EP is still in print and recently reissued on CD, and My Ears My Ears were obviously booked partially on the back of this. However, anyone expecting VP mark 2 is going to be disappointed. Instead, you'll get something very different. Instead, to quote the classic album title, you'll get a holocaust in your head. This band put many metal bands to shame by sheer unsubtle loudness. This is abrasive noise of the highest calibre and the performance is raw as fuck. The sound of the guitar alone is like a polaris missile strike on the venue. Musically, MEME sound like a sleazy post-punk funk band. The vocals are slutty and screeching with intermittent bouts of melody, fitting snugly over the rumbling, groovy bass lines. Backed with some suitably minimalistic drumming and the aforementioned howling guitar, this could so easily go horribly wrong. Thankfully, there's enough variety in the songs to keep things interesting. Despite a singing drummer / drum machine routine making an appearence at one point and a climatic howler ostensibly about Batman, half the pub don't bother to look up from their pints. If they had done, they'd have witnessed drumsticks fly into the crowd, the kit collapsing after only three songs and the infamous feedback actually getting turned UP at one point. Finally, a telecaster flies into the drumkit with bespectacled girl still attached and the whole stage is trashed before the first band have even finished. How's that for a support slot?
After that performance, the rest of the evening was all downhill in an strictly entertaining way. Norwich all-girl punks Compact Pussycat are admirable enough performers even if you're in pretty safe territory musically - no curve balls being thrown here, though a snotty cover of Electric Six's "Gay Bar" is a surprise gem. I'm told by a certain former Violent Playground vocalist that they're a lightweight version of Sleater Kinney but no one really cares about that shit at a punk gig - headliners the Skulls being ample proof of that fact. Original '77 punks from New York you say? Old men. Tight trousers. Cliched riffs. Not actually bad, just typical punk. The locals fucking love it of course. Me? I was falling asleep on my feet, kept awake only by the ringing in my ears.

My ears, my ears...