Blog: Lazarus Clamp

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Not content with going out TWICE in one night on the weekend, myself and The Days Off On My Annual Leave WallChart went out AGANE on Sunday night, to Shoreditch to watch Lazarus Clamp.

As we strolled down Shoreditch High Street it was UNUSUALLY clear of tits in silly little hats... as they were all inside the many BARS that now litter the street, watching The Wimbledon. It all looked VERY exciting and I kept thinking "Ooh, I wonder who's winning?" then realising I didn't actually care either way.

We got to Catch and said HOLA to The Clamp, including our very own Mr T 'Tiger' McClure. We'd timed it well as we had time for a quick chat before they went off to get ready, and I noticed A Figure From The Past standing nearby. I went and checked and LO! it was Tony The Manager, formerly manager of the band Prolapse. It was he who used to CHIDE me when i'd OPENLY MOCK Tim for having almost NO Rock & Roll adventures when on Proper Tour, saying "That's not what it's like in the real world of touring." This is probably what put me off trying to do it "properly"!

There wasn't much time to do more than say hello tho, as The Clamp were about to start and we HIED it down to the front. Brilliantly, it was a continuation of seeing Bands We Like Being Really Good, as they were GRATE! Lazarus Clamp are the ONLY band from the Durham Ox bands of Leicester, mid-90's who are still going (well, apart from us, obviously) and they TOO have matured into one of those grown-up bands where everybody's clearly a) doing EXACTLY what they want to do b) really good at DOING so and c) REALLY enjoying it. Some people, twits, mostly, say that the most exciting bands contain Young People, as they are HUNGRY and EAGER, but I find this to be INCORRECT. Bands of Young People are usually DESPERATE to be LIKED and/or COOL, whereas bands that have been on the go for over a decade without being troubled by the NME etc are ONLY doing it because they want to and therefore do not have to give a flying shit about what ANYBODY thinks.

HENCE: excitement, experimentation and also GOOD TIMES. I also noticed during the set that Lazarus Clamp have become somehow FUNKY. My inner vision of them is coloured by many many gigs many many years ago when it was all JERKINESS and RAGE and LOUDNESS and, while that's still a part of what they do, it's ALSO mutated into Melliflous Melody, LOVELY interplay between the instruments and a TIGHTNESS of playing that becomes DANCEY, even in the varied time signatures they play in.

Is this starting to sound like Music Journalism? If so: APOLOGIES. Basically it was GRATE to watch, GRATE to hear, and all round FAB. The Words On My Lyric Sheet had been nudging me to ask for a REQUEST throughout ("that one that goes 'we're underneath the moon and the stars'") which happily they DID at the very end (although I'd always thought of it as the one that goes "we're UN! derNEATH! the MOON!and the star-ARS!") and she was so pleased she went and bought a CD. We finished with hugs and congratulations and then strolled off to the train station, singing as we went. Lovely!

posted 7/7/2008 by MJ Hibbett

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Thank you!
posted 8/7/2008 by Anonymous

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