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Wednesday, 21st May 2008
Clwb Ifor Bach
CANCELLED! The Metros / Rum Shebeen / Walker
1965, that was the year Vietnam hotted up," explains Jak Payne, guitarist with The Metros, the teenaged south London five-piece who count Squeeze, Ian Dury and the Beastie Boys among their biggest influences. We’re sitting outside a pub near Oxford Circus, enjoying one of the few sunny afternoons of July. Jak and his songwriting partner, vocalist Saul Adamczewski, are discussing the year that inspired the name of their record label, 1965 Records, also home to Dundee indie-rockers The View. Barely old enough to drink legally (like the rest of the band, Jak and Saul are 18), they’re necking lager like it’s about to be rationed, while rowdily taking the piss out of unfortunate passers-by in loud, raspy south London accents. It feels a little like being on a school trip you know will end in trouble. In a few hours’ time, a band member will break Saul’s front teeth when he punches him through the window of the band’s van. Minutes after that, The Metros will electrify the Heavenly Social with an extraordinary – if somewhat chaotic – fusion of punk, funk, rockabilly, pop and witty lyrics about bunking trains, the degradation of the Welfare State, nights out for a tenner and old Cockney lags with sawn-off shooters. It’s exhilarating, and with the punch-ups, Mod flash, lectures on Vietnam, monumental boozing and ramshackle charm you can’t help wondering whether the next chapter in British pop is starting here. The Metros first came to the attention of 1965’s James Endeacott last year, but the music biz supremo who famously signed The Libertines to Rough Trade back in 2002 had to bide his time because of the minor problem that some of the band were still studying for their exams. Endeacott had been taken with their demos – produced by Ian Dury’s son, Baxter – which included the magnificent Education Pt. 2 (an attack on the schooling system with its anthemic final line about getting “10 years and a fucking ASBO”) and Missing In Acton (the story of a hapless armed robber, loosely based on a friend of Jak’s father’s called Ginger).
7:30pm | £7/£8 | buy tickets
