Miss The Occupier, Glasvegas

Years of hanging about dingy, smoky rock venues in one capacity or another tend to blunt the impact of anything that might be happening on stage, but having reduced the frequency of the visits means a few things. The audience now appear to be half my age, recently allowed to drink for the first time and enjoying themselves way out of proportion to the quality of the fare. The bands mostly sound like bands I have seen and heard before, and usually, ones that I liked more.

Anyway, enough of the curmudgeonly stuff and on with specifics. Friday night (usually spent in a state of abject fuckedness after a week of trudging down to Ayr and culminating in a high energy, average quality game of football) saw the kind of club-cum-gig night that Craig Tannock ventures (Towerbeat, The 13th Note, Mono and tonight’s location, Stereo) have allowed to flourish in Glasgow for over a decade.

The format goes something like this. DJs hire venue and play tunes loudly through crap sound system, rendering, in this case, the intriguingly schizoid mix of Prefab Sprout, The Delgados and Steely Dan to be lost on all but the most hardened of enthusiasts or closest relations of the DJ. Of course, the bands’ main function is to provide an audience, their friends making up the majority of those present.
In this case, the mismatch of the bands could not have been greater, but a relatively even number of afficianados, the short sets and the homely, not too packed surroundings, made sure no-one was running for the exists. Miss The Occupier seem by far the most likely of the candidates and the most suited to the Dolly Mixture night. A three piece, with no bass, their guitars are inventive in a 1981 kind of way, and their best songs reminiscent of the much-missed Lungleg. At times it becomes a bit generic, in a Pixies/ Breeders/ Sonic Youth style, but refreshingly there is a spark evident that hints at future aesthetic triumphs.

No such likelihood with the sporadically well executed cabaret rockabilly of Glasvegas. The name should send out warning signals, the music is energetic but turgid : on St.Patrick’s night it calls to mind The Pogues during their McGowanless period, but fuelled by Buckfast rather than Guinness.