Sideways at SXSE (again)
Same as before, all the characters and events are fictionalised and any resemblance to persons real or historical is entirely coincidental… I promise.
Images by Tabby @tabshootsphotos
13th September, 2025.
3:20 pm.
On my way to Camberwell, I got caught in torrential rainfall and found myself in the midst of two protests. A biblical downpour began slashing the Earth as I walked through the anti-fascist demonstration marching down Aldwych and the Strand. Crossing Waterloo Bridge, my path was barred by the fascist protest shuffling towards Westminster. British and English flags waved like storm clouds over a sea of bald white heads, smashed bottles of Budweiser crunched underfoot, and men publicly urinated in groups on walls. What a stupid vortex of testosterone, coke, and bigotry I found myself in. I was mentally prepared to catch a couple of slurs - and weirdly disappointed when I didn’t. How quickly, I wondered, would this repulsive crowd turn on me if I screamed, “GET FUCKED FASCISTS” at the top of my lungs? Best to pick my battles.
By the time I reached Camberwell New Road, I was damp, rattled, and thirsty. After five short months, here I am again; even wearing the same Hawaiian shirt as last time. Tabby and Eliza will be joining in a couple of hours. For those who have no desire to read my first outing at South by South East (SXSE), the set-up is the same. Dash the Henge is that shop outside which a crowd of leather jackets, corduroy trousers, and Docs are smoking straights. Across the road is The Old Dispensary where an equally eclectic crowd is doing the exact same thing. Bands are playing in both places all throughout the day and we’ll lose all sense of direction moving back and forth between them. Such a vibrant and diverse collection of people, all dressed in the same flavour of charity shop cool. It’s dopamine dressing for the smoking area; nicotine dressing, if you will.
Behind the counter at Dash the Henge was Tim, one of the owners who can be found here on any given day with a baseball cap on his head and truly infectious cheer on his bearded face.
“You’re the writer!” he beamed after I gave my name.
“I’m afraid so,” I grimaced.
An immaculate vibe exists in every record store in the world. It’s constant. They’re places of cultural convergence where every frequency in the world harmonises to look for something new or old or just to idly flick through the shelves. When the pandemic felled Rat Records, Tim took over the space to prevent it from becoming the 10th chicken shop on the same stretch of street. A proper community venture, members of local bands like Nathan Saoudi of Fat White Family and Chris OC of Meatraffle came together to help promote and operate the record store. Here comes Chris right now, a prominent face framed by shoulder-length hair and a proud moustache. Tim introduced me to his sound man like he’d known me for years. Venues like this, The Old Dispensary, The Bear, The Windmill, The George Tavern, Paper Dress Vintage, The Old Blue Last, The Shacklewell Arms, Sebright Arms, etc… these are beating hearts of musical communities. Hell, just a stage and a fried-up sound system is enough to attract fledgling bands willing to make noise. Aware of this simple alchemy, Tim has thrown open the doors for any band that walks in and asks for a gig. Turning obscurity into a badge of honour is exactly what makes this such a welcoming place for performers and audiences alike. With SXSE they simply turn up the volume on what they do day in and out.
So what musical treasures have been washing up on the shores of the scene like flotsam from a shipwreck?
Ever wondered what a dulcimer with reverb sounds like?
I heard the graceful twanging of this antique instrument during Aidan & Evern’s sound check. Ditching the Vox Phantom he usually plays with Jeanie and the White Boys; Aidan Clough sat sedately on stage with an acoustic guitar. As he picked out this sorrowful melody, Evern wistfully bowed something stunning on her viola. What I thought was a singing bowl was actually deep and moaning feedback from one of the amps, so perfectly did this intrusion fit into their sound. These sultry woodland ballads were far from the concussion-inducing freakouts I’ve seen them both undergo on stage with Jeanie Crystal. His deep, throaty singing made the whole thing sound like some ancient dirge being chronicled for the first time in centuries.
As Dash the Henge steadily filled up, they picked up the tempo as Aidan strummed a rollicking rhythm which Evern pierced back and forth with her energetic bowing. Swept up by their sound, people swayed and tapped their feet. Overcome by a spot of self-consciousness, Aidan apologised to the crowd for his playing, holding out a tremblingly sober hand. I thought he played quite steadily despite the shakes.
I spotted an instantly recognisable head of bleach-blonde hair. “Hello Seamus,” I said to its owner.
A handsomely weathered face turned around in pleasant disbelief. “This keeps on happening!” he said as we embraced. We’re losing count of the number of times we’ve run into Seamus Hayes at gigs and pubs just in the last couple of months. Busy musician and host of On the Move Radio, he’s in three places at once interviewing musicians and bands who’re making brilliant noise on the scene. Hence the bulging shoulder bag full of filming equipment which he intended to use on tonight’s target, SLEAZE. Sizing him up from his red socks/loafers combo to his leather jacket and sunglasses, I told him of Tabby and Eliza’s impending arrival.
“Of course they’re coming as well,” he scoffed happily.
“We come as a package deal.”
It was 4:05pm when Seamus led the way to The Old Dispensary where his friend Gareth Freiheit was about to play. The place bathed in the pale glow of a grey sky through the windows above. That spidery chandelier is still there; plastic gems covered in cobwebs hanging off it’s sabre-like legs.
Under the bloody red stage light, the band looked like pilots out of their flight suits; Gareth with his Frank Zappa moustache and sunglasses while the bassist left-handed his Fender upside down. The handful of singles he has recorded to his name drench the carefree sensibilities of pop with energetic rocky instrumentation. Through his scratchy guitar riffs he embodies the sound of an open road unfurling before you; like things will be alright somehow, somewhere. Their musical chemistry was abundant on the closing riff of Downtown (Where I Lost My Baby) where everything sounded so delightfully tight. While the drummer and bassist kept Gareth’s focus, he kept ours. Skipping around while playing the solo of Back to The Shops, anyone on their feet began shuffling as they were unable to resist his infection stage presence.
“They’re usually a five piece,” Seamus told me, “the drummer is the lead guitarist.”
Gareth came leaping off the stage, a pint of Guinness had magically appeared in his hands. “I’m gonna go huff a big bag of glue in the alleyway,” he turned to me and spoke. His face said he was joking but his voice conveyed otherwise.
Another one of Seamus’ friends and bandmates, Rez, materialised before us, running on very little sleep but still keeping it together. No one item of clothing went well with the other - but all together, the whole look just worked. I couldn’t stop feeling his fluffy white hat.
“Looks like I missed out on the memo to wear a blazer,” I said to Eliza and Tabby – in blue and black respectively – as they crossed the street towards me. Tabby had turned up with a Nikon FA around her neck and an Olympus MJU II in her pocket. She meant business. Meanwhile Eliza, in her own words, looked like “the haemorrhaging halfway-point between John Cooper Clarke and Gemma Colins” with all her jewellery and copious hair. We went to Dash the Henge to pick up their wristbands from Tim but as the night wore on, I realised the wristbands weren’t being checked. Which is just as well because this doesn’t seem the type of community that cares whether you’ve paid your way in here or not – although supporting the festival is preferred.
At half-five we were back at The Old Dispensary where a middle-aged man in a suit was finishing up his set. A weathered face and sharp suit gave him the appearance of an undertaker grabbing a drink at the local saloon after work. His sandpaper voice dragged over the twanging of his small guitar playing these dusty tunes that propelled the place back by half a century. Recorded in the studio with a full band, Flame Proof Moth have a whole compilation album and a singular single under their belt. The songs on The Best of Flame Proof Moth, Vol I climb up your neck exactly like man climbing a grain silo on the album cover. The orderly drumming marches along the expressive blues-rock guitar work like a swift queue at airport security. Such tight instrumentation only emphasises Tim’s silly lyricism about loving your darling more than your bike or describing how to use a broom or being unable to sing while playing guitar. Though cut in 2018, the album sounds like some obscure recording from the British Invasion that gloriously caricatures itself. Their most recent single Yes, Ban Planes proposes that the answer to all of society’s ills are to ban planes, shopping, cows, and to divert all road-building funds to sedatives for van drivers. This treatise delivered over a guitar spewing out overdriven electric sludge.
So it was really curious to see just the frontman, Tim Siddal, flying solo. This happened last time too where only the vocalist for The Woodentops was present for that ambushed hypnosis of a set. The crowd were creasing with laughter when we walked in as he performed a rendition of The Broom beaten black and blue.
Writer’s note: I’ve lost the notebook in which I’ve scribbled all my notes from this day. Everything from now on relies upon shaky memory.
Drinks in hand, we decided to go terrorise the honest folk having a cigarette outside. While Eliza chattered away with a nurse from the Centre for Psychedelic Research (perhaps the most niche job in such circles), Tabby and I got terrorised instead. A nonagenarian told Tabby she had a cute nose and proceeded to boop it. I, meanwhile, got accosted by the most extravagantly bizarre specimen of my race I’ve ever met. Of course, the first question he asks me is where I’m from. A walking flea market with the number of trinkets upon him, the man had the pomp of a peacock. A small crocheted effigy hung off his bag like a voodoo doll, he rolled cigarettes out of a tin – not a pouch – of tobacco, and he almost rivalled Eliza in the amount of jewellery worn. His blazer was emblazoned with all manner of embellishing doodles done using a Posca pen; piano keys running up his lapels and “Two Scoops” written across the back, accompanied by a rendering of an ice cream cone with, you guessed it, two scoops. That’s what we decided to call him from that point onwards. A peculiar charm about this man ensured that each time he said something outlandishly lewd, he got away with it because we were too stunned at his remarks.
Just before six, Belle Greenwood politely took the stage with her backup, Tsivi Sharett on keys and Winston Skerritt on bass. Both women were gracefully giving aunt energy. With the calming demeanour of a yoga instructor, Belle was embodying cool aunt in her patterned sleeveless top and black leather trousers while Tsivi’s floral blouse and curly hair was radiating wholesome aunt who’s baked you a sweet treat. Meanwhile Winston was just happy to be on stage. During their first number, What Will It Take, the keys briefly wobbled out of time but soon Tsivi tightened the screws enough to play keys and melodica with each hand in easy sync. The twinkly piano and bass were the leaves over which Belle’s dew-drop voice and acoustic guitar rolled. Listening to her, one can feel a deep reverence for folk tales and the mythical side of Nature in her songwriting and sound. I imagine her songs going down a treat at a peaceful protest.
“No need to stand so far away,” encouraged Belle, and she was right! The crowd moved closer to the stage where she picked a warm and skipping melody on her guitar. As she lalala’d in a whispery soprano, Tsivi mimicked her vocals on the melodica. It didn’t take much for the audience to join in too.
Out in the smoking area, I kept spotting Two Scoops out the corner of my eye. Blazer paired with shorts was enough of an affront to every notion of style but his whole look took the affrontery to its most illogical extreme and the good people of Camberwell were eating it up. Tabby was shooting at everything in sight.
At 7:05pm, a posse of immaculately dressed gentlefolk took the stage that was barely big enough to accommodate them. It’s apt that they all looked like cowboys-turned-pimps since the band is called Kansas City Playboys. More than the leather dusters, brown suede jacket with tassels, and silks; the fact that they all wore bandanas around their necks made them one of the best dressed bands of the night. And their unhinged music was at least as loud as the patterns on their shirts.
Tuning their instruments to a full house, the frontman Ivan with a full face and curly hair announced, “We’re Kansas City Playboys, established in 1954 in Kansas Missouri, and we all have an excellent skincare routine.” I believe him.
During their careening set, they played way more than the two singles they have recorded (with an EP forthcoming). Without mincing notes the band rolled into Greens Turn to Grey, its opening riff zapping through the room. For a song about all things – even love - being subject to the decay of time, it’s skipping country rhythm makes it such a cheery, sun-drenched banger. Three guitars (one of them being a lap steel guitar) lends them a full and explosive sound, especially when everyone’s playing the same melody. Though a banjo magnifies the country vibe on the studio recording, its absence isn’t too conspicuous live. I knew this was going to be a riotously fun gig when Francis, the steel player began spanking Teddy, the lead guitarist’s ass.
Between songs, Ivan said, “As you may know, Tommy Robinson and his band of fascists have decided to darken our doors today and to satisfy his own perverse ambitions and of those around him and of those above him. And I would just like to say, fuck you!” Teddy strummed a few chords to bolster the approving hoots and howls from the crowd.
They launched into a tune that’d perfectly soundtrack an all-out bar brawl; stools and glass bottles flying across the room to the heavy reverb and delayed chords smashing through the song. The crowd was fast approaching this restless energy…
It wasn’t until bassist Ben Fox began playing slap that I realised how much of the band’s swing relies on him and the drummer’s galloping beat. No matter the tempo of the song, each time the rhythm section gave it a fun, palpitating heartbeat.
Given their wild antics and outlandish characters, the band played Upward Draft with a melancholy wistfulness that I didn’t think them capable. Entranced by emotionally charged harmonies layered over each other with the density of a heartache, the crowd began waving phone torches and lighters in the air.
While the band were chatting shit, Ben played the punchy bassline to Weird Sex God which, engorged by the rest of the instruments, tilted the room into a frenzy. People were throwing themselves around like ragdolls in the mosh pit that had manifested in the crowd. Naturally I leapt in there too while simultaneously taking notes, my pen dancing around the page like a seismograph needle during an earthquake. As I ricochetted through this pinball machine of a crowd, the stinging pain on my upper arm reminded me of the folly of jumping into a mosh pit with a tattoo still healing… After snake-charming the sweaty pandemonium of the room with a whiplash guitar solo, Ivan grabbed Teddy by his bald head and began making out with him.
Capping the set off with Hop In, the strange sliding screams from Francis’ steel guitar drenched the song with a speed-freak energy. Unable to resist themselves, the band rocked with frenetic section of overdriven chords, spacey guitar effects, and animalistic howling locking together like a battle chant. As the band wound down, Ivan laughed into the mic and said, “Thank you all very much… 1234!” And they suddenly rocketed out by picking up that violently fast tempo again, sending the crowd into one final attack of delirious thrashing before disappearing for good. Leaving only smoke and jet fumes across the sky.
I was totally intoxicated from the unhinged energy of the crowd as I floated outside for some fresh air in the smoking area. I spotted a familiar face; a young man in camo, curls hanging over his amiable face. I’d seen him right at the front of the crowd of basically every gig in and around South London.
“Excuse me, sorry,” I said, approaching his circle of conversation. “I’ve seen you all over the place and I’m just curious as to what your name is.”
“It’s James,” he smiled and extended his hand.
After letting him know of the tenuous ways our paths keep meeting, I went out to join Eliza and Tabby. “See you around Jake!”
Later, on my way to the toilet I was stopped dead in my tracks by weird noises emanating from the stage. A sweet-faced woman, with hair as long and flowing as her skirt, was moving all but one of the mic stands out of the way. On her Yamaha keyboard was a small controller with keys and dials connected to a laptop; a man with a sharp face and a ponytail was messing with it. This contraption was responsible for this haunting howl flooding the room as if it were a sinking ship. It sounded like a choir of ghosts echoing down long and lifeless corridors.
“Do you hear that?” I went back outside and said to Tabby and Eliza, who hurried through their cigarettes and skipped inside with me.
It was just before 8pm when Carolina Cury finished her soundcheck and had the stage all to herself. “Hello everyone, thank you for coming,” she spoke in a soft lilting voice with an accent from two opposite ends of the world. “My name is Carolina Cury, like the curry you eat but with only one ‘r’”
She began picking out these discordant chords that steeled along like some stalker in the dark, her hand pulling away from the keys as if too hot to the touch only for her to strike another. To make this overture even weirder, she resorted to elbowing and punching the keys with martial art accuracy. Initiating a pulsing, droning, warbling drum track on the laptop, Carolina sang a bizarrely jaunty verse about what I think was spiders…? Her voice, solid and tangible, soared through the air weightlessly while her fingers deftly danced over the keys.
Carolina has come very far since her 2018 debut album Carnaval, a pristinely-produced collection of ballads and incantations. Singing in English, Italian, and Brazilian-Portuguese, there’s a deep intimacy with the musical culture of these languages. Even this early on, the trembling power in her voice and her feathery hand on the piano is vividly apparent. And the backing band soar just as brilliantly, embellishing her theatrical flair with deep grooves.
Since, she’s completed an MA at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire, won the gold medal at the institutes competition a year later, performed at the London Coliseum, and opened for the likes of Max Richter. Her classical-contemporary sound that was already prevalent on Carnaval has been touched by the avant-garde. Whether it’s the glitchy soundscapes she explores in Hypereyess – her duo with Konstantino Damianakis, the handsome man helping her soundcheck earlier – or the way she turns anywhere with a piano into a ballroom, there’s restless sonic experimentation going on. Her Socratic refusal to stick to one kind of playing or singing makes her formidable. And if there’s such a thing as a gig being below or “too small” for a musician, Carolina doesn’t believe in it; otherwise she wouldn’t be on this tiny stage. Clearly the festival attracts music makers from beyond just the local scene.
An ethereal transformation occurred in the air when her fingers tip-toed into a mournful rendition of Teenage Spirit, of all songs… With the voice of an angel hugging you farewell forever, she brought an apocalyptic silence over the room as her words manifested into hopelessness. You can hear a similar vocal prodigiousness on the track La Bellezza off Carnaval. Throughout the set her hair has been blowing with ghostly effect because of the stage fan pointed at her, reinforcing her spectral image. A strand of her hair was caught on a mic stand she moved out of the way earlier, blowing listlessly along to her performance.
A chorus of lost spirits came gasping from the laptop, there was something percussive and expectant in their orderly vocalising. In a sorrowfully heavenly timbre, Carolina sang,
She goes
she goes
she goes
she goes out of control
out of control.
Her arms waved – like her hair in the breeze – softly around her, as if trying to keep her head over the water of her voice. Everyone in the room was immobilised by the heart-rending falsetto with which she sang the verse. Her fingers descended upon her keys like a falling leaf and played the very sound of inevitable grief itself. When the song faded to black, an immortally brief silence clung to the room before the chattering of drunks picked up again.
Writer’s note: Right. Found my notebook, it was on the stairs leading up to my flat and not dropped on the tube as I had suspected. I can go off more than memory now.
Out in the smoking area, another character had entered our erratically elliptical orbit; one of Eliza’s friends from the poetry scene called Rikard. In blue denim overalls and a spiky beard covering his face like a soft cactus, he struck me as someone who could defuse the vibes like a bomb. We were chit-chatting to him when I spotted Two Scoops storm out of The Old Dispensary, an instrument-shaped case in his hand and curses flying from his lips.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“They won’t give me a mic,” he huffed, his mad trinkets ruffling like feathers. “All I’m asking for is one mic, it’s bullshit.”
“What do you mean?” Eliza inquired.
His face knotting spitefully, he said, “I asked for a mic during the soundcheck but they said no. What the fuck is that?”
“Are you supposed to be on?” was my question. I was curious because he wasn’t listed on the line-up.
“Yeah. Does anyone have a cigarette?” he investigated.
“What happened to your tobacco?” Tabby threw her question in the ring.
“I want a straight,” he said and went off to find one.
I suspect Two Scoops got turned away when he asked to play during SLEAZE’s soundcheck which was currently occurring inside.
No one spotted James arrive in his camo outfit until he announced himself.
“Oh hey Jake!” I greeted
“It’s James,” he corrected politely.
“I wish I could write you a review of SLEAZE but I simply wasn’t there and I’m not about to fabricate an entire gig.” I wrote that from my previous visit here when SLEAZE played the final slot of the night. Well, this time I’m here in mind as well as body, so here’s the review I owe them from last time.
The queue outside the toilet resembled something from a Taylor Swift gig because some idiot – most probably a man – had shit on the floor of one of the two unisex cubicles. So everyone preferred to use the other one. Dave Ashby, the vocalist, came out of the urinals wondering what all the commotion was all about, wanting a peek of the shit on the floor. Uproar whipped through the queue as people thought he was trying to cut in.
“Fuckin’ hell guys I just want to see the shit for myself,” he flashed a razor-blade smile and made for the stage. His slicked back hair, sturdy plastic glasses, and blazer gave him an academic look which he was about to destroy. The bowler hat and thick handlebar moustache gave the guitarist, Laurie Yule, the appearance of an Edwardian gentleman… holding a Gibson SG. Filling in last minute on bass was The Old Dispensary’s very own soundman who’s name I should know at this point.
Jumping headlong into one of their singles, Push Tuck, the band electrified the air with depraved grooves. Lyrics revelling in self-disgust, the instrumentation oozed a ‘so-what?!’ air with chaotic guitar and keyboard parts scribbling over a determined bassline and ‘out-of-my-way’ drumming. What they performed was looser but no less proud than what they recorded.
Getting all their studio material out of the way, they played their only other single, Daffodils, next. So nice, they recorded the song twice; with cleaner production the second time. As Dave took a long gulp from his Guinness, Al Grumble on keys let out a carnivalesque melody that sounded like being stood up on a desperate date. The drummer Percy Mackay plodded them along steadily, despondently; while Laurie decorated the rhythm with these smooth and vibrant chords. Belting out a hopeful plea that some lover might accept his gesture of cheap flowers from Savers or Sainsburys, Dave grabbed a bright orange maraca and drew a face on it with a Sharpie. Almost everyone in the room knew the words to the song; and now I do too. Alongside the final notes of the song, Dave launched the maraca into the crowd like a wedding bouquet. Everyone grasped, it bounced off someone’s hands on the floor right in front of me and I held it up triumphantly like some future bride!
It was getting too hot for his blazer so he threw it aside to reveal a chic dalmatian print shirt underneath. The guitarist and bassist lashed out a riff that would get them a speeding ticket if played by the roadside. When the drums and keys kicked in, the whole room erupted instantaneously into a mosh pit. Tabby was shooting like a war photographer; I had to cover her in the pit so she could get to the front and take pictures. Hurling himself around right next to me in the pit was Ivan, Kansas City Playboys’ frontman.
With guitar and bass deliciously intertwined, they played a slower number next which got people’s heads rather than feet moving. Eliza, wearing sunglasses indoors and a satisfied grin, bobbed along while waving her pint around. I spotted a child no older than 10 on the fringes of the crowd, wearing sunglasses and ear protection, grooving to the music in his father’s arms.
Returning to their usual brain-melting programming, the drummer picked up a brutal tempo on Lucky Seven. If the band egged the crowd anymore, there’d be people swinging from the arachnid chandelier above.
Their final song was perhaps one of their oldest bangers, I’m Not a Monster. Played with an absolutely repulsive tone, the riff vibrated out of the floor and into people’s stomachs, compelling them to throw themselves around with wanton abandon. Percy totally whacked his kit as if the pieces were ravenous animals after his hands. And despite what the song claimed, Dave chanted the chorus with a frantic energy as if he wanted everyone to know that he was, indeed, a monster.
Out in the smoking area I was beginning to regret how underdressed I was for the weather. Summer had grown timid and left without saying a word, leaving me as the idiot who’s still wearing a purple Hawaiian shirt in single digit temperature. “It’s fine,” Eliza said, “drink yourself a beer jacket.” Tabby and Rik were smoking straights.
“Where did you get those from?” I asked, teeth chattering.
Apparently, Rik had stepped outside gasping for a straight and Tabby helped him locate someone smoking one. Politely he asked this stranger for not one but two straights so he could pay Tabby a finder’s fee.
“Did you manage to get your interview?” I asked Seamus who glowed under the halo of a streetlamp.
He gave his bag of camera equipment a satisfied pat.
Two Scoops was still floating around with his instrument, disgruntled that he got snubbed. He handed Tabby a plastic egg shaker but got distracted and wandered off. It wasn’t until tomorrow that I realised this random character is actually quite a prolific and well-respected musician who goes by King Khan. This revelation came with a text from Tabby, “He’s like a sound legend… and I have his egg!”
Under a pitch-black sky, this intersection on Camberwell New Road felt like a nerve-ending of the city. All the drama, daring, and distress happening across London finding its expression here through music and hedonism. The wild lyrical and instrumental excess of the music today is a distortion-drenched opposition to the bigotry being stoked today by repugnant people. Beyond an opaque layer of dense clouds, the world whirled round with vertigo dizziness.
It was bordering on half ten when we made our way to Dash the Henge to catch Kuntessa and The Skanks. We said hi to a gleefully drunk yet composed Tim on our way as we squeezed to near the front of the crowd. Given the long and narrow shape of the store, I was wedged up against the records close to the stage while Eliza and Tabby were deeper in the fray. Up on the stage were a quintet of absolute power queens.
With a drum machine on her kit, Iris layered these nimble fills over a slow, trancey track; her pale hair glowing against her orange corset and black dress. Koko, the bassist, cut a gracefully feline figure with her sharp jawline, majestic cheekbones, and inky black hair. Using the same orange Fender Mustang played by SLEAZE’s bassist, Koko dragged a sketchy bassline over its strings. In tartan trousers and a blouse that matched their pink and green hair was Cyan on synth. On guitar was Maeve whose dark-brown hair draped over her shoulders like a snake made of silk. Ambient chords drenched the rhythm with the neon light of some subterranean nightclub. Then there was Kuntessa who gave off the energy of one who could take everyone in this room in a fight. With formidably curly hair and eye-make up so sharp she could wink steel in half, she glittered like black obsidian in her black sequinned hoodie and jewel green mini-skirt. Swaying to the band’s languorous hypnosis, she said enchantingly, “If you don’t like to be a little pawn in this capitalist world,” she wagged her finger and mmmmhmmmm’d disapprovingly, “this song is for you little girl.” While she sensually sang Lazy Bitch, a song about throwing off the burdensome yoke of worldly responsibility, I was struck by how much Grace Jones energy this was giving. It almost sounded like Nightclubbing. Wildly more unhinged than the studio recording, Kuntessa whined into the mic over angry slides up and down the guitar.
Iris crashed down on her drums and Cyan twisted the dials on their synth like keys in a malfunctioning car while Koko and Maeve attacked their guitars. Kuntessa danced and kicked about during this instrumental freakout, hitting the floor at the end of this opiated overture. Before these carnal chords fully withdrew, Iris clicked on a dancey drumtrack which she empowered with her sticks. As the band coaxed themselves into a frantic and greedy tempo, Kuntessa threw off her glittery hoodie to reveal nothing but a mesh top underneath. I had barely gotten over the stun of her blazing confidence when she charged into Balloon Demon, an irresistible tune about huffing up as many balloons as possible – brain damage be damned.
I WANT ANOTHER ONE
I WANT ANOTHER ONE
I WANT ANOTHER ONE
I WANT ANOTHER ONE
I WANT ANOTHER ONE
went her freaky refrain. Rolling out one punky club banger after another, I realised just how much of their sound is laced with the 80’s.
This live version of Kiki was a completely different flavour of party compared to the single on their Pussy Pitstop EP from two years ago; but no less fun. Where the electro-pop studio recording sounds like a lowkey gathering involving ambient lighting and downers, the fuzzed-out live performance sounds like that same gathering a couple of hours later when the uppers have kicked in. Cyan and Maeve sang powerful backing vocals to Kuntessa’s sesh-shopping-list while Koko and Iris kept the rhythmic chandeliers swaying.
“If I was having a Kiki tomorrow, you’d all be invited,” she said in her regally deep Italian accent, “I’d like to know WHO! is a hospitality worker in here…” Many voices make themselves known in the crowd, including my own coming out of the past. “RIIIIIIGHT we got a few! we got a few! This song represents all the hatred and DISRESPECT that we feel for the customeeeeeers!” she declared with fiery eyes. “Don’t come over to my bar and annoy the shit out of me, stay home girl. This song’s called Bartender Rant.”
The bounce to the guitar and bass parts of this song had something very Tubeway Army about it; meanwhile Cyan sprinkled the mix with organ-y melodies with the satisfaction of spitting in some bastard’s drink. The riotous chorus crashed and screamed with the zest of finally putting a customer in their place. As an ex-bartender, I feel very vindicated by this song.
Over Iris and Koko’s gleeful beat, Kuntessa rattled off a list of victims; Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl, ALDI… Shoplifting, her national anthem for kleptomaniacs, sounds like something you’d hear at a resort on holiday and then the sudden urge to swipe the bowl of olives on the bar overtakes you – even though everything’s all-inclusive. Through the medium of this club banger, she makes it very clear that corner shops are exempt; steal from the big boys only.
While on the note of societal ills, she took a moment to call out that distasteful cavalcade of racists from earlier today. The imbeciles outnumbered the anti-fascists by some order and Kuntessa urged everyone in the room to show the fuck up. Thanking and crowd lovingly, she and the band threw themselves into their final song. With every ounce of thirsty determination, they smashed out Bike Seat, a song about, well… wanting to be someone’s bike seat. One could pedal at full tilt to Iris’s drumming and Koko’s energetic lines as she played over Cyan’s synth bass and well-timed bicycle bells. Once again, Maeve’s motorised guitar-playing gave the live performance a punkier blast than the studio recording. Tabby thrust her camera in my hand and told me to take care of it just before leaping with Eliza into the mosh pit which had formed as the band somersaulted into a breakneck chorus that felt like a bike bobbing and weaving through moving traffic. The swirling, ricochetting crowd felt like some visceral chemical reaction. And with that, the band bowed us out, indelibly leaving their mark on my brain.
The queue for the toilet at The Old Dispensary reached all the way out into the smoking area round back. Seems there’s still shit on the floor in that cubicle…
The final band of this carnage evening, Spanish Horses, began bringing the house down just before 11pm. I could hear their righteous racket from the bathroom queue – I was in too deep to give up my position. Brought together by the collective need to relieve oneself, some pretty interesting conversations strike outside the stalls. What is a person willing to say in the vicinity of the toilet which they won’t utter anywhere else? The movement of the queue was helped considerably by multiple people going into the cubicle at once and emerging sniffing.
“DO YOUR JOB AND COME SEE SPANISH HORSES!” I got a text from Eliza as I chattered away with a couple of cokeheads hunting for pizza.
A quintet of smart gentlemen were making ungentle noise on stage. Their buttoned shirts, trousers, and boots exuded a brutal sophistication reflected in their music under thick layers of distortion and overdrive. On guitars and vocals were Tom Onezime and Albert Cocker; even the mightiest of vessels would capsize in Tom’s sunken eyes while Albert’s huge glasses and soft features lent him a delicate innocence. On bass was Victor Michee who kept it cool as a cucumber up there even when total pandemonium ensued. The room was so stuffed that I could barely move to see Cyril Stephen on drums and Spike Davis-Yuille on keys – but I could hear them alright. Their EP, As She Rides By, from last year has the sonic quality of getting caught in the crosswind of a flummoxingly fast-moving object.
When Tom scratched out the opening riff to 605033345 and Cyril began drumming at about twice the tempo as that on the studio recording the whole band erupted into violence. Albert played this phasing melody throughout the song, over which Tom tested the breaking point of his strings during a chaotic solo that turned the crowd feral. Rik, wearing Eliza’s sunglasses, was bashing himself around in the pit, undeterred by everyone’s size relative to him.
The whole band met out in Paris; Tom and Cyril have known each other since school, whereas they met Albert in 2022 at an Ian F Svenonious show. The trio fell into a band together called Endorphin Transistor. They met Spike while opening for his band, The Dada Movement, at a place in the 3rd Arrondissement called Serpent à Plume. Their endorphins ran out a year later as the band broke up but immediately formed Spanish Horses alongside Cyril’s childhood friend Victor. The brutal regimen of gigging and recording their EP had left the boys feeling out of sorts so they fled the Parisian blues and kicked London soil on April Fool’s Day this year.
Things slowed down considerably with Visions of Purgatory as the drums and bass jogged along with a searching rhythm while Albert played this bluesey tune perforated by Spike’s howling keys. There was a hopeless desperation in his voice as Tom sang a verse before crashing right through a brick wall with a bombastic chorus involving Cyril firing away at his drumkit. I spotted Two Scoops in the crowd, smoking a cigarette indoors, unwilling to give a fuck.
Spike blowed away on a harmonica during this wistful banger called Greenway with Albert singing deeply on lead. During the chorus of this electric ballad, harmonica wailed over enmeshed guitars while Cyril provoked them along with angrily melancholic drumming.
Things got groovy with A Guy like Me where Victor played a bassline that sounded like he was looking for trouble over Cyril’s restless drums. Upping the ante on the harmonica, Albert pulled out a slide which made his guitar sound like a malfunctioning spaceship. With a charming smile, Tom played rapid-fire chords throughout the song like daggers flung in all directions.
Tom barely finished noodling the opening melody of Sisters when the crowd cheered at recognising exactly what he was playing. One can feel the wind blowing through their hair with the tempo of this song, driving at full speed in an open top car away from all your troubles for a while. Every note of this rueful banger adds kilometres between you and your struggles. After a particularly heart-rending solo from Tom, the song’s structure began to unravel as Cyril fired away at his kit, the guitars began screaming menacingly, and Spike whirled out one strange chord after another during this cacophonous instrumental meltdown.
They effortlessly handled the pressure of being the last band of the night with airtight chemistry and incendiary playing that broke every fire safety rule of the house.
Rik bade us goodbye during Spanish Horse’s final song, Seamus and Rez were long gone, and James was looking for an afters. Me, Eliza, and Tabby were ravenous so we went to one of the kebab shops opposite The Old Dispensary. We really were spoilt for choice here so I’m glad Tim and company stepped in when they did to take over Dash the Henge so the space wouldn’t turn into another fluorescent late-night eatery.
Eliza was unbalanced by the sudden realisation that her sunglasses weren’t on her head. “That bastard Rik stole my glasses!” Eliza huffed light-heartedly. James ran off trying to look for him in case he was still around.
Rejuvenated by a falafel wrap, we slinked off to The Old Dispensary for a final drink because we’d accepted that an after party wasn’t in our future tonight. On our way we saw Tim and Chris locking up Dash the Henge with an entourage of people around them. The pink sign radiated warmly into the night. They were heading to The Bear for a drink so we said our drunkenly effusive goodnights.
It was just after 00:30 when we squeezed into The Old Dispensary which was bathed in this underground crimson glow. The bar was slammed and people were dancing to old rockabilly tunes playing at full blast. The night was just getting started for most on this ardent Saturday. Dazed and ripped from a whole day of head-splitting music, I was slowly coming down from a tremendous high. I felt like I’ve had a 7-course taster menu of whatever weird magic the music scene around these parts has been cooking up. SXSE has tapped into the strange alchemy of this place to such an extent that it’s an active participator in it. These small stages and eager crowds are pitstops for these musicians on their way to greatness or complete anonymity. Either way, they’re going somewhere.
As I nursed my drink, I saw Two Scoops disconsolately walk up onto the stage from the crowd and sit down on a stool next to a microphone. His mind felt lightyears away as he opened the instrument-shaped flight case to unveil an utterly beautiful sitar. About the height of a small child, this work of art was engraved with intricate arabesque patterns running along the base and neck. Its seductively perfect varnish spoke of the great care Two Scoops took of this instrument.
The frantic motion of his hands suggested he was playing something complex but you couldn’t hear a thing over The Cure pounding from the speaker. Dancers in the crowd stopped to contemplate the scene through their eyes or their iPhone cameras, wondering what he’s up to. Overcome with pity by the dejected expression on his face I went up to ask him what’s up.
“Can you ask them if they can turn one of these microphones on for me? I’ve tried…” he said, tapping the one right in front of him to no effect.
I asked around at the bar but the soundman was long gone and all connection between the stage and mixing desk had been severed. I delivered this unfortunate news to him. “I just want a microphone for a couple of minutes,” he said more to himself than me. I didn’t know what else to tell him. So instead, I watched intently as this man played a sitar to an indifferent world. No one, not even he, could hear himself play - but that didn’t seem to stop him.
