Hot chip will break you legs...

So I've got a bit of a back log of these to get through. This week past has been incredibly busy what with managing to see about thirteen bands in the last eight days, working way to hard and spending time with ace people. I've wanted to scribble all sorts of things down here but really haven't wanted to sit in front of a computer any more than work has required me to do so. However, it is a bit of a quiet day, what with it being half term and everything, and I've got all of my work out the way, so here goes...

A week last Sunday involved Hot Chip. I'd been looking forward to this for a while, and it felt like exactly the kind of cool gig the Cockpit should be putting on (don't get me started on the Stone Roses tribute the Garage had to follow a couple of weeks ago). I was accompanied by my good friend Brett Gamble (more on him later), who I had somehow managed to convince to check out the electro-punk-funk action. The two support acts were certainly interesting if not entirely what I expected. Unfortunately, I've forgotten the name of the first act, who was basically a one man band of electric guitar, keyboard and pre-programmed beat thingy. Oh, and an entirely redundant but pretty cool looking reel-to-reel tape recorder spinning away at the back of the stage. He had a couple of ace songs, one of which is coming out as a split with someone else who's name I can't remember, which is going to make buying it pretty tough. Shame that

The next guy up didn't get off to a good start. He looked like everybody's Dad distilled into one person. He then proceeded to play a weak ballad on a cheap keyboard, the result of which sounded not unlike Prince doing a very, very bad version of 10cc's I'm Not In Love. This, as I'm sure you can imagine, is not a good thing. But then for the next track he kicked the beats in. Suddenly it became alright. Suddenly it became Prince covering The Postal Service. This, as you may not be able to imagine, is actually a pretty good thing. And one song had the line "Don't think twice / About the price / Because the owner is a personal friend of mine". Okay, it doesn't look to promising on paper, but believe me, live it is lyrical gold.

So onto the headliners. And didn't they look cool? Er...nope. Five men standing in a line with various bits of keyboards in front of them, guitars strapped firmly beneath chins and questionable wardrobes. But they're just so damn funky. Well as funky as electro will allow anyway. I have to say that until I saw them live I hadn't realised just how similar they are in places to !!! (chk,chk,chk) but surely few people could claim that is a bad thing. This is music made for indie discos up and down the country, once they move on from The Libertines. If that sounds like damning with faint praise, I can assure you that isn't the intention. This is the kind of music we should all be dancing to. Our parents won't understand it. They're never going to get anywhere near the top ten. They're not signed to Victory, Drive-Thru or Vagrant. They are not emo/screamo/pop punk.

Somebody come and ask me to play them. Please?

So, here are some videos

Hot Chip - Over And Over



Hot Chip - Playboy



Oh, and because to my mind the equation for Hot Chip is as follows:

Hot Chip = (Kraftwerk + Erasure) x DFA

Erasure - Little Respect



Kraftwerk - Die Roboter



LCD Soundsystem - Movement (all kinds of awesome)