The Dentists and The Claim at Dingwalls London - or what I did on my vacation

Rock never takes a holiday, or is it that even holidays in my mind must rock? So how convenient was it that while in London last week one of my very favorite bands of all time, The Dentists elected to reform for a pair of shows? Flying in from the US I felt I'd made quite the effort (only other Yank in attendance appeared to be fellow Dental fanatic the delightful Mr. Bob Wall), but probably not as much as Dentist vocalist Mick Murphy who'd come all the way from Kenya to reunite with his ex-bandmates for just a few frantic days of rehearsal before the big show.

Here's a compliment I never get to pay - Dingwalls is AN EXCELLENT CLUB. First off the sound system is great so you can actually hear the bands, rather than a lot of garble, second the floor of the venue is comprised of a bunch of terraces, so it's 15 feet - a step up - 15 feet - a step up - etc. so even a short gal like me can see from nearly everywhere. As for drink prices, if someone else is buying they are excellent as well. Dingwalls, will you please open a venue at the end of my block?

The Claim were on first, a band who I had never heard before but who I'd been assured by fellow aging indie-poppers was decidedly worth checking out. And since it had been about 20 yrs since they split up, well, what better time than now? The set felt a bit same-y, but to the (almost entirely male and 40 yrs +) fans in the venue (including Harvey from The Field Mice who is apparently the neighbor of the friend I attended the show with) the geezer pop enthusiasm was obscenely high and at regular intervals that excitement was entirely warranted, as below, with the sparkling version of "Do You Still Feel"



As for The Dentists, it would be hard to maintain much journalistic integrity due to my longtime devotion to the band. Safe to say the set covered all the bases. A good hour of songs covering many years of Dentistry, easily displaying why the band were leaders rather than followers when it came to heartfelt turn of the 90's neo-psychedelic jangle pop. A few things about the set did make me sad though: one was drummer Ian Smith missing the drum fill in "She Dazzled Me With Basil" (picky, picky, picky, aren't I?), the other was upon hearing tunes like "Weirdo", and "Space Man" realizing how much they totally rocked live, but hadn't been captured quite as strongly on CD. At least the video below can serve to stand witness to some of that.

















An excellent night out with these two reunited bands. Shame one has to buy a pricey airplane ticket to make the scene. How sad am I that I missed seeing The Undertones in London just a week later? It seems I'm going to have to take a lot more holidays....

Sparks in London - Indiscreet as the wanna be

It's just by luck that my holiday overseas coincided with one of the coolest retro concert ideas I'd heard about it a long time, namely that the godfathers of American quirk, Sparks, were when I was in town, playing each of their 21 albums over a 21 night span at the Carling Academy in Islington. What luck since here in Boston, Sparks could maybe fill a room of 200 for one night (or alternately my living room for 5 nights), an idea they haven't bothered to pursue in at least 20 years. The irony of flying to another country to see a band from LA is not lost on me, but still, we do what we have to do to see the rock.

Carling Academy Islington isn't much like the venues I go to at home. The key difference being that Carling Academy Islington is in a mall. Like, next to The Gap and across from the Starbucks, there is the venue. Very weird. And weirder still is the fact that although it's been here for a decade or so (according to my London friend Douglas), the interior has hardly been fixed up; you know, like a nightclub might be? The ceiling is a mishmash of exposed wiring and pipes, but not a cool looking mishmash like the outside of the Pompidou, just a big ugly unfinished room. Thankfully, we can hardly see any of its ugliness tonight though because the place is literally stuffed to the brim with men between the ages of 40 and 59 (and an occasional friend) who have by all appearances been waiting since 1975 to see the band play their Indiscreet album tonight.

It's possible I've never been at a show this crowded in my life, nor one where literally everyone in the audience is singing along with every line to every song, but that's what tonight's show is like. And rather than that being as annoying as it sounds, it is actually deeply heartwarming. In front of me a man trailing grey curls pokes his balding friend and jumps up and down for every song while behind me a lipsticked young goth sips her drink and rolls her eyes, but for this moment we are all one in loving some Sparks.

On stage, the Mael brothers look older, and they should, what with the pair being somewhere around 60 the idea they're even on stage at all is pretty amazing. Better yet is that fact that they still both have a full head of hair (I'm old, we notice these things) and look rather (haggard yet) stylish. For a little over and hour the pair (along with a band that includes Steven McDonald from Redd Kross) really do kick out the jams. Of course for Ron this involves his standard stock still pose (some things never change) and for Russell a lot of traipsing about in a gangster-style pinstriped suit which makes him look quite dignified. Old rockers + suits = yes in my book. The album is played, as advertised, in order front to end, while video projections of the album's cover (showing the brothers having just escaped from a plane crash) spins behind them (except during Pineapple, when a picture of the fruit does the same). At the end of the night the assembled throng all sing a happy birthday to the numerous band members who are celebrating their special day in the coming week and then a chant goes up: "RON, RON, RON, RON" which provokes the stoic Mael to a turn at the mic, clutching it as the younger Mael clutches a dozen roses someone has thrown on stage. "We locked ourselves away for 4 months, and we had no idea how this would turn out..." "AMAZING!" a voice from the audience shouts. The Maels leave the stage and then return to say how it means so much to them that people are excited about the shows. Am I the only one in the crowd who is verklempt? I think not. Worth waiting 33 years for? Definitely.



Above: Sparks open the Indiscreet show with Hospitality on Parade
If the video above don't work, go here.