Fri 31 Jan 19:30pm
The next Des Was a Bowie Fan happens on Friday January 31st! Here are some words from the guys themselves to give you a flavour!
“It’s the first birthday of the night, and also of our dancer and soul-mate Renan Rock’n’Roll. It shall thus go off like a Brautigan fishing trip with Marceline and the Scream Queens on the mast and the Wacky Racers trailing behind.
Accompaniment for this night amidst the 1920s dresses and red velvet drapes includes Colour Me Wednesday, a band with a touch of The Undertones and the Shop Assistants, a certain shimmer and lyricism that fills the pockets of cunts with grenades and the hearts of Pop kids with wonder, and The Bobby McGees, surrealist, poetic ukulele love activists whose sweet, sharp lyrical/melodic contours and razor-blade humour has touches of the Moldy Peaches and Groucho Marx…
The Downing Street Years, who sound like a quick shag between tectonic plates, fractured worlds coming together in a lusty embrace, or The Lovely Eggs and The White Stripes scrapping in Oscar’s magic dustbin, and The French Electric with synth-powered blasts through the nite and fog.
Then afterwards at 11.30, Brautigan’s boat returns from the Thames with 12 minnows and a packet of crisps, Marceline throws her Huck Finn hat on the lampshade, and amidst a perfectly dimmed light the fractured ghosts of swing jazz, 60s girl groups, garage and rock’n’roll will join the most shimmering, pulsing and fuck off new wave, riot grrrl and indiepop for a dancio disco till 3am!
❤ Expect to hear: Veronica Falls * Pulp * Flock of Seagulls * Little Richard * The Ramones * Josef K * Blondie * The Supremes * Le Tigre * Patrick Wolf * Bowie * Siouxsie and the Banshees * The Smiths * The Pastels * The Cure * Half Man Half Biscuit * Johnny Cash * Talking Heads * Joy Division * The Sonics * The Fall * Beirut * Belle and Sebastian * Buster Bailey * Of Montreal * Hefner * The Beach Boys * The Ronettes * Tullycraft * Alpaca Sports * Art Brut * New York Dolls * Arcade Fire * Japandroidsl * The Spook School * The Go-Betweens * Los Campesinos! * Ballboy * Felt * Crystal Castles * Comet Gain * Velocette * New Order * The Tuts * Jens Lekman * Jonathan Richman * Depeche Mode * Pixies * Flipron * Nick Cave * Best Coast * Camera Obscura * Springsteen * The Just Joans * Rolling Stones * Pavement * Les Savy Fav * Kim Weston * The Indelicates * Dexys Midnight Runners * Pet Shop Boys * The Del-Vikings * The Bobby McGees * Coco Rosie * Monochrome Set * Sonic Youth * Let’s Wrestle * The Shangri-Las * Neutral Milk Hotel * Ghetto Ass Witch * Tigercats * The Death Of Pop ❤
As usual at Paper Dress, entry is free before 10, £3 / £5 after.
See you on the dancefloor x
www.deswasabowiefan.com
COLOUR ME WEDNESDAY
A four piece DIY punk/indie pop band based in West London, fronted by the Doveton sisters on vocals and guitar and backed up rhythmically by Sam Brackley (drums) and Carmela Pietrangelo (bass). Debut album ‘I thought it was morning’ was released on Discount Horse records over summer 2013. Lyrically, the band touch on politics, social frustration, sexism, growing up and relationships, expressed using catchy hooks, harmonies and gang vocals. They’ve been praised journalistically for “sharing some parallel universe with The Undertones and The Sundays” and for “capturing that pure, melodic, vocal sound that the likes of the Shop Assistants and the Flatmates perfected in the mid-80s”.
“Early 90s indie, Riot Grrrl, Ska, Punk, Lemuria, Blake Babies, Waxahatchee, Bikini Kill, Juliana Hatfield, Kate Nash, P.s Eliot, Dinosaur Jr, The Lemonheads, The Pipettes, Sleater-Kinney, Jawbreaker, RVIVR, The Sundays, Those Dancing Days, The Beatles, Belly, R.E.M, Gordan Gano’s Army, angry 7 year-olds, bastards.”
THE BOBBY MCGEES
With the timeless touch of Pop art troubadours, a glimmer of Glasgow backstreet heartbreak, awkward burlesque charm, poetic poignancy and razor-blade humour, the McGees are the only twee band to have gained acclaim in Kerrang. They’ve been described by Everett True as “Dostoyevsky doing Lonnie Donegan” and by Dai Disco as being “like Party Pete in a Tullycraft t-shirt turning up at a local jazz festival with a crate of Radicola’s,” and “like Ivor Cutler on acid with Wild Bill Davison wearing his drinking helmet on his back, looking for girls in pretty dresses at indiepop discos”.
THE DOWNING STREET YEARS
Formed in 2011, The Downing Street Years are Andy Morris (vocals, guitar) and Laura Padfield (vocals, drums). They attempt to capture the essence of Man Man, Gogol Bordello, No Doubt, Beirut and The National, but have ended up with something schizophrenic and highly original instead. They play with a whirlwind of energy and noise expressed with the unbridled enthusiasm of hyperactive kids after a bit too much chocolate.
“The National, YYYs, Arcade Fire, Gogol Bordello.”
THE FRENCH ELECTRIC
The French Electric are Simon Board (vocals), Wayne Owens (guitar), Jim Rhesus (bass), Andrew Bowker (drums) and Emma Cooper (synths), for this gig playing as a three-piece with bass and drums beamed in live from a graveyard in Penderyn. They play “gloom-laden slabs of new wave”, “soundtracks to oblivion with the melodic sentiments of Sisters of Mercy and Magazine’s Shot by Both Sides”. God is in the TV says that they sound like a “crazed mash-up of thick-framed glasses and spiky leathers”.