Opulence? Give Me Crap Towns & Some Bastard

This is probably a bit of a 'better late than never' post. I know we’re over two weeks into the New Year now, and I’m probably pushing it to start talking about band predictions for 2012, but tough shit really because I’m going to write about it anyway.

I’ve often thought to myself that if we didn’t have ‘crap towns’ British music wouldn’t be anyway near as good as it is. I mean name 3 or 4 decent bands from places like Milton Keynes or Oxford? This can transcribe across venues too, some of the best gigs I have been to have been in buildings which were structurally no better than an allotment shed. It’s in the gritty places, in the gritty cities where you can experience a far greater atmosphere than you’d ever experience when watching NME’s newest sell-outs within the clinical walls of corporate venues like O2 Academy, gritty cities like Newport.

It’s a funny old place is Newport. By day - a cultural wasteland, filled to the brim of disillusioned Poundland shoppers and young mothers screaming at their kids; But by night as the confined independent pubs and venues start to pack out you can really start to sample just how good the underground music scene of South Wales actually is.

Having always been curious of the city Joe Strummer once called home, over the past 4 years or so I’ve regularly found myself in Newport, witnessing some pretty exceptional gigs, from Manics at the Newport Centre to unsigned bands in the heart of the city, and it is one of these bands I wish to speak of now...

It’s a wet and windy Friday night back in November, in an extremely overcrowded Le Pub. Science Bastard are playing a free show in conjunction with the release of their debut album, and it’s clear they weren’t expecting so many people to turn up. Having read snippets of reviews on the band which can be found floating round in cyberspace, I was aware things could get a bit lairy, but no way near as lairy as I could have imagined.

A slightly odd crowd have shown up tonight, older blokes who’ve come down to get a sample of the music on offer (probably because it’s free) and (out-of-place looking) glammed up girls, who look like they’re ready to hit the clubs straight after the gig.

Le pub is very much an example of the aforementioned venues; a spit-and-sawdust place where the ceiling is held together with aged gig posters, where it rains indoors whilst a rusty bucket stands in the centre of the floor to catch the drops. – Just the way I like it.

Science Bastard hit the stage demonstrating a brash presence and the crowd are welcomed by chubby frontman Vern with “You should be at home watching Frozen Planet, not a fat cunt” before launching into a rather short but efficient setlist.

Vern powers through the set, packing all his energy into agitatedly screaming through lively tracks such as Pull Tiger Death Cord, Phil Collins and Trevor, occasionally slowing down at intervals for guitarist and occasional lead vocalist Jonny to take turn on the mic, offering a milder side to the post-hardcode four piece with songs such as All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace.

Just like I’d read in previous reviews, Jonny (a seemingly mild mannered fellow who I’d briefly joked with before the gig about the fact that there was footprints on the wall of the Travelodge room I was staying in) starts to get a bit frantic. The concentration on his face is clear, as he takes hold of his guitar and swings it violently around his head, narrowly avoiding smashing the skulls of several members of the crowd. As the gig reaches its crescendo it’s almost as if a switch has triggered in his head, as if he’s in some kind of frenzied trance. He trashes his guitar, shattering it into pieces.

The bewildered crowd turn to each other and a few eyebrows are raised, as they question what they just witnessed. Some are asking whether that’s it, but as Jonny storms off stage in the direction of the toilets, and the lights flicker back on the confusion quickly turns into applause. By the end of the gig, it’s hard to differentiate whether it is rainwater or actually sweat dripping from the ceiling, the overall musky smell doesn’t give much away.

But where can you go from there? Well after the album launch, the band have been gaining a decent amount of airplay on BBC Radio Wales, not to mention supporting Future of the Left at Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach, with more gigs planned for 2012.

For me it’s the first time in ages I’ve witnessed a new band quite as raucous and controversial as Science Bastard - a band who look like they’d literally eat the fucking idiotic indie kids NME are churning out year after year. It’s bands like this who support my ‘crap towns’ theory; that there is no inspiration in opulence, and they are definitely a band to watch out for this year.

Science Bastard’s debut album Pull Tiger Death Cord is available via Junta Records, and be sure to look out for upcoming gigs on their Facebook page.