SELFISH C*NT
THE WORKING ROOMS, DALSTON
MAY 17, 2008
WORDS: THOMAS PODMORE
A god-forsaken trek down Kingsland Road is the last thing on earth I wanted to be doing at 10 o’clock on a Saturday night, especially as I had spent the entire day hidden in a bed I made on the sofa, avoiding the sheer horror of people and Camden. All I’m saying is that I couldn’t be bothered leaving the house to go to this gig. And guess what was on telly later on too…Commando. So it’ was 11 o’clock when I got to The Working Rooms. That’s all I had to go off and no one told me it was just some scumbag door into some shithole abandoned building. I only find it - luckily - by mistake. I thought I was lost and had to dip down an alley because I genuinely thought I was going to shit myself, for the second time that day, when I saw a guy doing a piss and asked him where the venue was. He said ‘Here’. I probably shouldn’t refer to it as a venue; everyone I overheard inside referred to it as a ‘space’. There was even some a sign spray-painted on the wall inside saying: ‘This is here’. Wow. Bodacious. I wad told to be there at 11 but Selfish Cunt didn’t start until after 2, so I had to watch three painful support acts. I didn’t catch much of the first, he was some acoustic singer songwriter, as was the second. That guy was painful, he really was. He was the kind of guy your parents would love if he was your boyfriend; with his denim jacket and delusions of grandeur. You know that he sits alone in his little bohemian apartment every night, playing his guitar by candlelight with Nick Drake on, mouthing the words, dreaming. Dreaming. His output was dross. He even gets cheered into an encore, for which he gets on some kind of plinth in the middle of the audience and sings without a mic. Everyone in the audience sssssshushing anyone talking and someone says over the system ‘Can everyone in the crowd be silent for the next few minutes please?’. And despite this, the giveaway of bogus ‘sensitive’ singer-songwriters: confidence. They’re dogshit if they’ve got it.
The singer of the next band was wearing a tight red jumper, shirt and tie. I’d watched I Know What You Did Last Summer earlier on today, and at the time had genuinely believed that it would be the worst thing that I would watch this week. Finally, Selfish Cunt are on stage. People only read music reviews of bands that they’ve already seen or listened to, so fuck it, you’ll know what Martin’s like. He has a great job; displaying his ballet dancing past, cavorting around the stage in a shimmery silver top that even makes me fancy him (only a bit), which he ditches later on so that he can reveal himself more openly in a vest. I know a lot of people who preferred Selfish Cunt before they had a full band, when it was just the two of them with a beat machine - but the band works as well. It seems to make it more of a show; and Martin is a front man - THE front man - to end all infidels. Who else can get away with screaming: ‘WHY ARE THERE SO MANY UGLY PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE TONIGHT? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY UGLY PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE TONIGHT?’ for a about an hour and get a cheer? That is some privilege. My mind has chosen to exclude myself from his statement, so I just smile a smug grin, thinking about all the ugly people that cheered the second performer into an encore. It is Selfish Cunt’s musical and lyrical punctuation, their cadence and use of intervals, however, that sets them aside from all the other shit bands in London. It is genuinely powerful stuff. It is an opera. You feel totally engaged, and really, that is the thing that you miss when you go to see a shit scene band and feel hollow afterwards. He is engaging. I wonder what he’s like when he makes love. Selfish Cunt will get no bigger than they are. They are destined (doomed) to the London small scene, but are at the top of it. It is good music. They are parodied on Nathan Barley, and that is something. They are current and…OH MY GOD, they are different. Isn’t that what you moved to London for?