Lovvers/Male Bonding @ Cowley Club

by Teenage Hangover on Sat, 2009/10/31 - 2:06pm Post to Twitter

Too late to be an album review, so it’s now a gig review. A couple of weeks ago I went to Brighton to see Lovvers and Male Bonding. The gig took place at the hip hangout The Cowley Club. Seemed like the Brighton version of The Smell or something. I got the impression it’s like a secret club when there’s not a gig there, and they have a book section and they have food available on thursday evenings. Only thursday evenings. The venue had loads of naked barbies hanging from the ceiling too, and I’m pretty sure I was stood next to the Blood Red Shoes drummer.

The Human Race kicked shit off by creeping everyone with a constant high pitched feedback noise which didn’t stop at all, on top of some sweet lo-fi post-punk jams. The vox dude stood in the audience doing his spoken word like he was not in the band and walked around staring at the floor. They were actually pretty good except for said feedback, it hurt a bit.

After not much waiting around at all, Male Bonding came along, fiddled about with some really echoy microphones and started. They seemed to play a lot of songs, i knew about half of them. A lot of people seemed to dig them. I overheard the guy next to me saying that all he knew about Male Bonding was that they were signed to Subpop. I guess it’s a good thing that they signed to them, as they are now a discussion point, or something. They were also pretty tight, unlike a lot of other lo-fi noisepop bands, who just seem to wing it. They always seem to have some cool screen printed merch. I picked up a tote bag.

Another short wait and Lovvers were off, vocalist Sean fell around in front of me and pushed himself backwards into the crowd and did a little crowd surfing. They were admittedly a little more messy than Male Bonding, I noticed quite a few mistakes but it was FUN. I was hoping that the singer would do some of the creepy YEEEEEAHs he did at the end of every song at Reading this year (I didn’t go, I just saw on the videos), but he didn’t. Not much else to say about Lovvers except they were awesome.

MP3: Male Bonding - Nothing Will Change (Live)
MP3: Lovvers - Society Jam

BUY: Male Bonding/Fair Ohs - Split Live Tape
BUY: Lovvers - OCD GO GO GO GIRLS 12" via Norman Records