BITCHES at The Fox & Firkin - 19th February 2009.

(I started writing this at about 6am on Friday 20th, but was too drunk to finish it. I am currently very very ill and in bed, so can actually finish it now.)

There is some confusion. Shiva, the band who are meant to be headlining this night, have turned out to be too young to play the venue. Oh dear. In the end, after some confusion and changing of band times, it turns out that a replacement has been found. A replacement who have never played a gig before and don't even have a band name yet. I feel sorry for BITCHES and Hindley, as this no named, gigless and now headlining band are instantly forgettable, aside from the facts that a) they have a saxophonist for a few songs, and b) their lead singer looks like he should be in Kasabian, if their stylist (and I have have it on VERY good authority that Kasabian DO have a stylist) bought all their clothes at Primark.

Hindley, the band who were on before them, have a sound that I like. Their songs sound like a shoegaze Pulp. Remember when Jarvis Cocker did a song with Lush? Well this is like what it would have sounded like if they had collaborated about three or four years before they actually did. (I miss Lush.) Saying that tho, what let them down for me was the singer. I didn't personally like his voice. Or his lyrics. But I like the sound. (I'm a bit of a sucker for shoegaze.) I would've liked to see what they would've done if they were an instrumental band. Too many bands suffer for the feeling that there has to be a singer. If this band hadn't fallen into that trap, then I might not have spent most of their set either watching Blake owning the pool table, or staring at the really hot bass player and wondering what her nipples look like.

BITCHES were on who I had gone to see tho, and they were on first. I saw their first ever gig supporting Future Of The Left at the Jericho Tavern (now THAT was a fucking awesome gig!!). Now trimmed to 2 and with an insistently capitalised name, BITCHES sound like a cross between about 10 different bands, while simultaneously playing songs that none of those bands would. Scuzzy, dirty punk music. Blake sounds like his voice is coming from his bowels. Angry bowels with a bad case of IBS. "Guttural" is probably the best way to describe it, even though I don't really know what that word means. I just know that you'll all know what I mean.
There's something incredibly primal about this band. It's bullshit free, straight-forward confrontation. BITCHES sound like cavemen fighting dinosaurs. BITCHES are (you know what's coming, don't you?) fucking awesome.

BITCHES are playing in L.A. in April. L.A.'s gonna go fucking nuts for them.

Go here: http://www.myspace.com/peaceandbitches :and check them out.