[Clear And Refreshing holiday report]

The Purr nights at Moles are a classic example of everything in music gone right for a night. Starting out as a bi-weekly club event putting on live music by fuzzy, trashy indie-punk and graduating to, well, a weekly club event putting on live music by fuzzy, trashy indie-punk, Purr has maintained such a level of quality over the years that no-one thinks about what bands are on, they just know there'll be something worth watching.

Komakino are barely visible tonight behind a towering throng of A&R people and they play like a band who already know they're going to be big. And maybe they will. They're a record company's dream band, for the moment at least; good looking, oh-so-NY hair, all the right influences (Joy Division, a dash of Interpol, that sort of thing) but all the angst sees a bit studied and when the singer clutches his face in his hands and shakes his head, one audience member mutters something to the effect that there are too many I'm-so-fucked-up-daddy-wouldn't-buy-me-a-pony rock stars these days and not enough Brian Ferrys.

Fortunately for our friend in the audience, The Fog Band are fronted by Brian Ferry. Or at least what Brian Ferry would look like if he was actually Prince William. Except that he's neither, he's called Bobby Grindrod (wow!) He stands almost motionless, intoning his lyrics silently into the dead microphone for the first song while the jagged guitars and hyper-kinetic rhythm section pound about him. Mic fixed, they march onward, unstoppably charming, never seeming to move and yet never settling into one pattern long enough for your attention to stray. New single out soon on Purr Records and will be available to purchase on-line at http://www.glaiverecords.com/

After the breezy, effortless, art's cool, art school of The Fog Band, Neil's Children are a big, pretentious, badly dressed slap in the face. Is that a pair of black eyes you have there or are you just heavily influenced by The Manic Street Preachers? Eyeliner aside what Neil's Children bring to the table is a lot of ferocious guitars which they wield like machetes, big wild staring eyes like they're going to bite your ears off if you keep looking at them like that, and affected, nails-down-a-blackboard vocals. It's a broiling mixture of psychedelia and punk, which is what they intended, but also of exhilarating and plain annoying, which could well also be what they intended. Ho hum...

After the dust has settled, the night is on the home stretch with Bobby from The Fog Band stepping up to the DJ booth and spinning a lovable selection of 60's pop before giving way to Purr's own DJ who spends the rest of the night tossing hard hitting post-punk disco bombs onto the dance floor until the men with the puffy black jackets and thick necks finally come and throw us out. Fun. -Ian Martin, Mar.19.04