Tonight marks the near end of another chapter in the musical career of ex-Mclusky bassist Jon Chapple. It's his current band, Shooting At Unarmed Men's penultimate gig - their last in the capital. The timing is poignant, coinciding as it does with the release of a three disc retrospective compilation of his former band's work titled Mcluskyism (go and buy it now if you haven't yet, it's an excellent introduction for the uninitiated, as well as being crammed with enough bonus material to satisfy the die-hard completist). Sadly, it's also my first experience of seeing this current incarnation live.

Before I start getting all emotional and prattle on about grasping life's opportunities though, we have some support bands to get though, and they're as mixed a bunch as your likely to find this side of the Woolworth's confectionary counter. Starting us off are the intriguingly minimal Blah Blah Blah. Comprising of drums, double bass and ukulele, topped off with an almost music hall-esque cock-er-nay accented frontman, their Madness meets George Formby tunes are amiably good fun, but by five songs in, the novelty of their unusual set up begins to fade and the lack of variety starts to tire.

The Humanity on the other hand could never be accused of a lack of variety - their problem is they have too much of the damn stuff. They come across as both visually and musically confused, as if they'd all met for the first time that afternoon and decided what the hell, let's form a band. So we get Killers style 80s retro, new wave, indie, baggy, electro, punk and pop all in the same song - which on paper sounds fantastic, but in the flesh creates some of the most godawful sounds I've been exposed to in five years of reviewing live music. Incredibly they manage to top it off with a final song that sounds like the agonised screams of cat being dissected alive, played backwards - there are actually people standing in the venue with their fingers in their ears! Oh The Humanity indeed.

Neatly sandwiching these two diverse musical experiences are Macaca Mulatta, the new moniker of Chris Chinchilla's post-Art Brut project. Starting bravely (or foolishly depending on your viewpoint) with a spoken word piece, Chinchilla stands alone on stage with nothing but a guitar for company and makes his way through an opening clutch of songs that exude a warm, if slightly twee charm, rendering comparisons with his ex-bandmates' canon utterly obsolete - there's little if any common ground to be found between the two. Halfway through, Chris is joined onstage by his new bandmates Jim & Arran, both formerly of the recently departed Rhesus. The added effect is quite startling, if still a little rough around the edges. The full band songs surge with a faster, harder driving force, which promises much for the future. Macaca Mulatta are far from the finished article yet, but with a bit more polish and presence, they could well live up to their collective heritage, which is something that Shooting At Unarmed Men will have had to contend with over the course of their brief time together. Of course, to a hardened Mclusky-ite such as myself, Shooting At Unarmed Men could combine all the best features of Sonic Youth, The Pixies and Mudhoney and still not come close to matching my idealised vision of Chapple's formed band, which in the event is pretty close to what they actually do.

Despite a disappointingly lacklustre audience, the energy coming from the stage is palpable - Chapple's acerbic wit punctuates proceedings, both through his barbed lyrical outbursts and his ruthless destruction of a couple of hecklers; and the musical backing more than matches its ferocity.

By the end of the show Chapple is semi-naked & angry, calling for the crowd to at least try to match the efforts of his band. It's a sad end in some ways - we don't deserve Shooting At Unarmed Men tonight, but even sadder is the knowledge that we won't get the chance to not deserve them again.

Review & Photography by Paul Madden