Heart of Noise

Seeing as it’s my first gig and first blogpost of 2010, I decided to stay local. And for me, local is Brixton, the pumping heart of south London and home to reggae and ska; riots and attitude. In my quest for a gig a week, I’m hoping to discover new music genres, unsigned bands and new venues. But there’s plenty of time for all that. To ease me in, I thought I’d stick to my (adopted) roots and go in search of the ska scene.

First up was the eight-piece Skamonics, playing upstairs at the Ritzy. Billed as the Four Tet of ska/jazz fusion or “what Herbie Hancock might have come up with if he had been born in Kingston, Jamaica,” I thought we were in for some hardcore musical soul searching with an old school Brixton-ska flavour.

So I wasn’t too impressed when we caught the end of a James Bond theme tune cover as I was coming in, followed by a fairly straight cover of the can-can. The clean-cut Ritzy crew were all very polite, clapping after every song and sipping their over-priced organic cider and vino, but seemed relieved they could go back to chatting to their date across the table when the band took a break. The second bit of the set consisted of even more covers, with the (female) keyboard player taking up the mic to sing ka classics Baggy Trousers and Aye ya ya, before it decended into My Boy Lollipop.

As a wedding band, they might have made the grade. If the guests had all been plied full of cheap booze beforehand. But as a Friday night gig, billed as original ska, which the audience paid to see it didn’t cut it.

Luckily, a trip to Hootenanny, down towards Herne Hill proved that ska is still alive and well in Brixton town. First Radio Station, a local band who have been doing the rounds for years, had come in at the last minute and were rocking the hundred-strong crowd.

The punchy sax and trumpet solos sailed over a tight rhythm section and despite looking like they’d been round the block a few times, the core guitar players and front-man had the crowd throwing shapes on the grimey dance floor. There was no east London scenesters posing at this Brixton dive; just some good old fashioned, hearty fun, catering for the Camberwell art students just as much as dreadlocked Brixton locals.

The lead singer kept telling the crowd how proud he was of his sax and trumpet players - they hadn’t played with the band before and were drafted in at short notice – and we were proud of them too. Hell, everyone was so loved up that spilling a pint of Guiness over one of the punters was received with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders.

The Ritzy might be the cover girl of a gentrified Brixton, complete with skinny lattes and a winelist, but after a night of ska dancing at Hootenannys, you’ll have got under its skin.