The Shake Some Acton train is as unstoppable as ever!
As prolific as we at Punktuation like to think we are, we can’t quite measure up to Mannie of Shake Some Acton fame. Putting on gigs can be a damn stressful business (certainly more so than writing about them), but he’s somehow managed to make nearly fifty of them happen this year alone! Mate, as ever, we salute you, and tonight we’re back at the Hope & Anchor for the latest SSA shindig.
Flesh Tetris are brilllianrly bonkers. Not many bands write songs about finding slugs in your food (the closing ‘Slimy Garnish’), but then the quartet have clearly never set any limits for themselves – and thank goodness for that. They’ve been described as ‘Retro Sci-Fi Eurotrash’, and hey, if we need to put a label on their eclectic electro/punk/funk/avant-garde performance art, that’ll do just nicely. You sense they’re exactly the kind of oddballs that give suburban parents nightmares; young Tarquin and Clarissa would never be quite the same after witnessing the Flesh Tetris live experience, after all, and they should bloody well be grateful for it. Check out the photo above – says it all, really, and we can’t recommend them enough.
We know we’re in good hands when we see that none other than Roger – of our favourite outsider-pop combo Narcotic Hearts – also plays bass for the next band, High Rise Reptiles. Unsurprisingly, they’re a seriously groovy bunch, with a kind of post-punk sound and a great dual vocal approach courtesy of Vince and Michi. There are no weak links to their set, but we particularly like ‘Holy Cow’ (featuring a snippet of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’!) and the highly danceable ‘Mind The Gap Home’. Great stuff.
Parisian headliners The Arsenics lean more towards hard rock than punk rock territory, but they certainly have a knack for great riffs, and you can’t fault them for showmanship; their guitarist takes at least three trips into the crowd to rock out amongst us. Plus, a couple of turbocharged covers of The Offspring’s ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’ and Jet’s ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ ensures they depart victorious. Shame there aren’t more people watching them, but like all tonight’s bands, they give it 100% anyway.
Cheers to Mannie for having us along for the ride, and check out details of future Shake Some Acton gigs – including one hell of a Christmas bash! – on the links below.
All Photos: ALEX GOOSE
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I spend my days teaching English to foreign students, and my evenings attending as many gigs as possible. Raised mainly on a diet of 90s third-wave punk, my tastes have grown to include just about anything from trad ska to thrash metal. The Ramones are my musical gods.
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