** Also featured in a forthcoming issue of Volume Magazine **
** Pictures by Dan Wilton - http://danwilton.zenfolio.com - 07779 101241**
The ginger-haired old temptress Vivienne Westwood once remarked that “eccentricity is such a badge of honour to be given in these conformist times”. Doubtlessly, she wasn’t making reference to the increasingly greying world of indie rock, but she should’ve been. What’s left of Britain’s sordid hovels of torment – masquerading as gig venues – are plagued more than ever by beleaguered music Nazis, all debating the latest Joy Division-aping shitehawks. Lazy journalists would perhaps claim it’s indicative of the dreaded ‘current climate’, but yours truly wouldn’t be so trite. We’ll merely suggest it’s Fallout 3 as orchestrated by the indie shitterati.
La Shark are comparable to Terminator’s John Connor; a beacon of hope in an apocalyptic wasteland. This 5-piece Vaudevillian, labyrinthine pop marvel, formerly called Le Shark before a clothing company intervened, have been a vibrant alternative to their naval-gazing contemporaries in London for a while now. For a group so arresting and ostentatious live, they had rather humble beginnings. “I hadn’t really a background in any kind of band whatsoever”, admits lead singer Samuel Deschamps. “I’d been writing hip-hop for 2 years. I was just used to spoken word, I used to rap. So for my first project I just did that with piano, and then I got Nick (Buxton) to drum on it, and then Louis (Maynard) on bass. It took until Ben (Markham, guitarist) to join before it started taking shape”.
The original trio of Samuel, Nick and Louis were formerly the backing-band for magnificently-coiffured folk minstrel Josh Weller, an experience which “tightened us up” musically. Since concentrating on their own group, and armed with Ben and keyboardist Tyler Spitchwick, they’ve carved-out a sound that “is less ramshackle, but in no way less energetic” than their early forays. Indeed, their grand dram-pop is light years away from the diet-schmindie or plodding sub-Goth guff peddled by a worrying majority. There’s slight elements of other sources – the cold stare of Sparks’ Ron Mael, the cosmic whimsy of the first Coral LP, even the ‘Brechtian punk cabaret’ of Dresden Dolls – but nothing more than hints.
However, at the minute their work can only be experienced live, bar a couple of “crappy home demos”. Ben even claims their original concept was “being a live band with no recorded songs”; an idea which they’ve now budged on. These gigs are an absolute spectacle, with Deschamps a twitchy and captivating ringmaster. “There’s not really many bands that think about their aesthetic on-stage”, says Ben. “When you go and see a band live you want them to put on a show, rather than see them standing still and looking at their feet. It’s boring, you might as well just buy the fucking CD – or download it for free!” Performances have featured costumes, make-up, mannequins and frequent outbursts in French. “I do think of things very visually”, says Sam. “I can’t settle with things looking shit. I’ve always been really interested in drama”. La Shark’s experiments with the more theatrical elements of their live show continue to progress, but they weren’t always so successful. “The more extreme statement you make visually, the more people are weary of it”, Sam admits. “We went way over-the-top for one gig and wore Kiss make-up. It was ridiculous, and there were people in the audience going ‘this isn’t music!’, but it sounded exactly the same; it was just the fact we were wearing certain stuff. We haven’t backed away from it, but we’re starting to re-think things a lot more. I mean, before we used to go around and be like ‘let’s buy a shitload of fruit and throw it all over the stage’, and we did that, but we didn’t want to start associating it with the music and all-round message”.
The diligent chaps are currently finishing music degrees, under the tutorage of “the Satan and Jesus of Goldsmiths University”. “I’ve an amazing teacher called Simon Deacon”, laughs Sam. “He showed me a picture of himself the other day as a full-out drag queen; he’s just a bloody character. I started off doing piano lessons and it kind of turned into singing lessons…I don’t even know if he knows how to teach singing, but we kind of have conversations…he’s quite sexual”. These penniless years as grubby tax-dodgers have only augmented their self-belief. “The good thing about Kiss (was) they didn’t have any money but they made out like they did by having the most ridiculous fucking live show ever; literally people lifting the drum kit on two sides of the stage to make it look more spectacular than it actually was. I think that’s a great way to think of things; if you act like you’re the most famous band in Britain in your live show then in some ways that’s how people start thinking of it”.
Like all the finest beat combos, La Shark carve-out their own universe. It’s certain that there won’t be any lily-livered indifference towards them; they’re very much a love/hate proposition. Fortunately, this seems to be something they relish. Discussing a recent support-slot with Those Dancing Days, Deschamps says, “I’d never have expected the audience of a Swedish all-girl pop-band to get so violent and aggressive. That was pretty funny. We got a message the next day from this girl, she was a big Those Dancing Days fan, and she said ‘I’m never going to get that half-an-hour back’. How did we upset them so much?”
The group will be upsetting and delighting audiences (most likely the latter) throughout 2009, including a May support tour with the Maccabees. There remains the feeling that things will only get increasingly extravagant and otherworldly. “I think that things are going to get pretty messy in the next couple of years”, acknowledges Sam. “I just want to stand out from these armies of bands that just become associated with each other and are just part of scenes. I want be some kind of blossom. It’s not just some walk-in-the-park where we go out and get pissed every night and think ‘this might be a cool idea’; we try and think of as many different angles as we can. We haven’t got any kind of forcefield (or) settled into any kind of safety zone”. Ben pipes-up. “There’s a lot of genre-rules in popular music, but we try and avoid all those rules, and that’s the only way you can make anything worthwhile really’. Expect gibbering hacks to be pulling fuck-awful shark puns from infested waters very soon indeed.
www.myspace.com/lasharkband
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