The Surgens - live at The Green Man, Stamford

Having met Pat on Friday at the wedding, I thought it would be a nice idea to go along and see his band, The Surgens on Sunday, since they were playing a gig in Stamford. I had never seen them play live, and had heard a couple of tracks on the myspace site, and liked what I heard. It was also an opportunity to see more of Pat, and make up for a little lost time - although for most of the proceddings, he was on stage making some sort of noise - usually through a loud hailer, but sometimes with a saw.

I was a big fan of their previous incarnation, Plastic Hip, indeed for my own pleasure I remixed Dumb Cowboy back in the day. The Surgens though are a more stripped down, rawer sound, eschewing samples and synths in favour of a sparser, but very dense, organic rock n roll cum country cum blues cum rockabilly sound. Either way, it was f*cking noisy and I liked it.

Barry said the sound reminded him of sand, and thats not a bad description, theres a desert feel to what they do. If Ed Gein had made musical instruments from the bones of his victims, instead of furniture, this is what he would have played. But don't think for a moment that this was in anyway goth or death metal, you misunderstand me - the music was as warm and alive as you or I, with a full bloodied emotional content to the lyrics, it just had a vague wiff of putrefaction to it, probably enhanced by the prehistoric amps and kit. Most of them are bald as well.

The gig was well attended, and it was clear that at least some of the audience were regulars at their gigs, having clearly built up a bit of a following that seemed broad in its demographic. They have found some noteriety, in the higher echelons of celebrity too, having played a live set for Mark Lamar on Radio 2.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get any decent pictures, my camera isn't much cop in dark conditions, even there was blazing hot sunshine outside, so these rather crap ones will have to suffice.
It was a good day generally, Hel was due to come, but couldn't make it, Barry on the other hand could. What time we spent not listening to the quality choonage was spent chatting with Pat, Begonia and the Latin entourage. A very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon and I will be seeing The Surgens play live again soon as I can. In the meantime I'm going to be getting my hands on the superlative Wolf Man 7", which is so zany, you need one of those Jukebox adapters to play it on your turntable spindle.

Anyway, best you check them out yourself as I'm not doing them any justice here with my babbling. Check them out at:

http://www.thesurgens.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/thesurgens