V/A - The Kids At The Club (album)
Across London town, from Cockfosters to Clapham Common, Friday evening text messages wing their way across the Thames: “HDIF tonight?”, a two-word request for company to a nightclub where company isn’t needed. HDIF (How Does It Feel To Be Loved, to the uninitiated- including me) is a fortnightly oasis of engaging tweedom cast ashore in the marshes of Brixton and Cavendish Square. Run by the ever affable Ian Watson, ex-Melody Maker scribe, the club is strict on its music policy: no punk, no rock, no metal, no grunge, no contemporary haircut indie, no Lionel Blair, no Noel Edmonds. What’s left is a melange of indie and soul, The Smiths to The Supremes, where librarian chic and Erasmus-student geek cohabite like two unloved chocolates at the bottom of a Quality Street tin, secretly loving their privacy and having themselves a
coffee-flavoured blast. I. Urge. You. To. Go!
Anyhow, Monsignor Watson has gone and compiled a list of bands of varying degrees of insufferable tweeness for his new label. It all starts sumptuously enough, Voxtrot and Irene nursing your alcoholic’s Monday afternoon hangover splendidly, the former a timeless ode to Love, the latter a Swedish collective that sound like The Concretes fronted by Mark from Peep Show. Luckily for the listener, this compilation climaxes at various stages. Firstly, Lucky Soul’s “Give Me Love”, a spectacular petri-dish composition of 60s heartbreak: it trots, then canters, then gallops headfirst into the veins of anyone within earshot. By rights it should be number one every week for the rest of eternity. And it’s a B-side! It also confirms the universal truth that every song with a Phil Spector tom-tom-roll intro is the shizzle. Secondly, Salty Pirates’ “Black Minds, White Lies” jumps about like an octopus playing Pavement covers....
...Meanwhile, the last track by Suburban Kids With Biblical Names isn’t so much a breath of fresh air as sticking your head out of an articulated lorry full of mints. At 100mph. On the Golden Gate bridge. Whilst smoking a menthol cigarette. It’s a dot-to-dot mini masterpiece of lo-fi drum whacks, banjo builds and hiccupy bonhomie. And it makes me want to go to this club. I’ll be the one at the front, weeping into my Isley Brother’s handkerchief, rattling my empty chocolate tin at the beauty of it all.
Review by Chris Field