On stage, young men with beards, unruly hair and an impressive array of fuzz pedals are coaxing incredible noises from their guitars. As the plaid-clad audience — half moshing teenagers and half older heads nodding approvingly — roar their approval at the howls of feedback, the noise is occasionally replaced by acoustic balladry as sweet as anything from the ’60s.
It could be Boston in 1988 or Seattle in 1991, but this is London in 2011, where the East London hipster enclaves of Dalston and Stoke Newington have become the epicenter for a new revival of ’90s-style slacker-pop. It’s a world where US proto-grungers like Dinosaur Jr sit alongside UK shoegazers like My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub as key influences on a new generation of bands equally in thrall to fuzzy pop melodies and pure white noise.
This gig at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, North London, serves as a useful primer for any latecomers to this emerging scene, featuring as it does three of the key players. Noisy teenage newbies Old Forest are on first, followed by Fanzine’s zestful take on Weezer-ish emo-pop. Topping the bill are Yuck, a collection of early twentysomethings whose burgeoning popularity makes them de facto scene leaders.
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Holed up in the Stoke Newington rehearsal studio they share with Fanzine, Yuck — comprising Britons Daniel Blumberg (vocals/guitar) and Max Bloom (guitar/vocals), Japanese Mariko Doi (bass) and American Jonny Rogoff (drums) — display little inclination to take up the role of spokespeople for a generation, occasionally appearing to have been influenced by Dinosaur Jr frontman J Mascis’ legendarily laid back interview technique as well as his guitar playing.
On record, however, Yuck are never less than dynamic. Their debut, self-titled record, released in February 2011, is split almost equally between hazy pop songs like “Suicide Policeman” and grinding noise like “Rubber,” the song which closed the Electric Ballroom show in a hail of unrestrained feedback. The album gained enough attention for them to have spent much of 2011 touring the world.
“It’s funny being on tour while people are saying we’re in a scene with people back in London that we’ve never heard of,” shrugs Blumberg. “But it’s nice to have kindred spirits.”
For young fans, Yuck is “a throwback to what we missed,” says 16-year-old student Sean Westall, who travelled from Milton Keynes for the Electric Ballroom show. “They’re like the 2011 equivalent of Dinosaur Jr,” agrees his friend Alex Potten, also 16. “Obviously, we weren’t around for their heyday, but we’ve sought them out now.”
Also at the Electric Ballroom gig are Nick Westcott, a 32-year-old graphic designer from Balham, South London, and his brother, 30-year-old Mark, a TV production worker. They were old enough to catch grunge the first time around. “I’m definitely pleased to see that old school guitar sound back,” says Nick. “I saw Dinosaur Jr and Teenage Fanclub again recently,” says Mark. “And they were still class. So they are out there for people to discover.”
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“A lot of young musicians find the Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine style more expressive to work with,” says BBC radio presenter Steve Lamacq, who plays many of the new breed of bands on his influential BBC 6 Music show. “It’s a reaction against some of the glib pop music in the chart. It gives them more possibilities with the sounds they want to make.”
Those possibilities are explored in full at an Old Forest gig at The Drop in Stoke Newington, a key venue — along with the nearby Shacklewell Arms — for the emerging wave of like-minded bands. For three callow youths, all still in their teens, Tom Cox (guitar/vocals), Matt Nash (bass) and Luke Walsh (drums) make a colossal, uncompromising noise, filling the basement venue with feedback to the delight of a small but enthusiastic crowd.
“I can’t really imagine one of our songs being played on the radio,” says Cox of Old Forest’s chances of success. “It’s just not the kind of thing that happens.”
It’s already happening to their friends, The History Of Apple Pie, whose two singles to date — the grungy girl group sound of “Mallory” and the more delicate “You’re So Cool” — have been picking up plays on alternative UK networks. They operate at the poppier end of the spectrum; the twin girl vocals from frontwoman Stephanie Min and bassist Kelly Owens recalling the heyday of UK shoegazers Lush, while guitarists Jerome Watson and Aslam Ghauri and drummer James Thomas provide the noise.
“We don’t have any boundaries when it comes to songwriting,” says Min. “Sometimes it’s really heavy and sometimes we create a really catchy song that could potentially fit into the mainstream.”
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It’s a similar outlook to their friends in Fanzine — comprising singer/guitarist Jock Norton, Ed Hayes (vocals/guitar), Kit Jennings (bass) and Jack McGruer (drums) — whose effervescent “Roman Holiday” single is perhaps the scene’s most accessible release to date. “There’s a resurgence of [bands] trying to write big songs and not be super-indie and impenetrable,” says Norton. “It feels nice to be part of that.”
So, can this close-knit scene — essentially a happy accident of like-minded bands taking similar influences and twisting them into distinct shapes — now cross over to the mainstream? With more bands like Gross Magic and Big Deal coming through, many believe so. But, much like the original slackers, Blumberg, now working on Yuck’s second album, remains unfazed by the prospect of overground stardom.
“If we wanted to make lots of money,” he says, “it would probably be better to do another job.”
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