Live report: The Tough Alliance (+ The Fine Arts Showcase) @ Tack! Tack! Tack!, London UK 10/16/06
I remember seeing The Embassy at Tack! Tack! Tack! a few months back and thinking they were shit, but after this evening's "performance" by The Tough Alliance, I realized that I needed to invest a little time in my definition of "shit". At least the guy from The Embassy sang, albeit out of tune. The Tough Alliance did not play live music. It wasn't karaoke - the lone microphone on stage wasn't turned on, and the pitiful attempt by one of the two guys to mime singing was abandoned half way through the first song. It wasn't even a DJ set since the mixes and cross-fades were pre-recorded. Even The Embassy had a guy who pressed "play" and "stop" on the tape recorder.
So what did they do? They jumped around the stage like a couple of dorks who couldn't believe their luck, while some vaguely passable lo-fi electropop played over the PA. They dived around, knocking into each other, mouthing the words to the songs, and as I stood in the middle of the club I quickly realized that each song was three and half minutes of my life I would never get back. It's times like this that one considers the small mercies in life... Nick had kindly put me on the guest list, so it was just time and not money I was hemorrhaging at the expense of these charlatans.
Just before I turned to leave the club I was afforded a momentary peek behind the charade. As the two cretins on stage cavorted around, they caught each other's eyes just for a moment...imperceptible to all but the most seasoned concertgoer, and the silent exchange between them was framed in time for half a second: "these English wankers are actually buying this shit".
"Shit" however, is word that doesn't do justice to The Tough Alliance. It's too vague, it doesn't sum up the complex levels of shitdom that go into an enterprise founded on delusional perceptions of post-post-ironic hoodwinkmanship clothed loosely in some indiscernable lo-fi credibility bestowed upon them by people I neither know or would like to meet, because if I ever discovered who they were I would have to fight the overwhelming urge to behead them with a rusty farm implement.
The Tough Alliance are a shit sandwich. Without the bread.
- Luke (Popsicle)
Official statement from Tack! Tack! Tack!:
Caveat Emptor.
Notes to Editors:
The Tough Alliance performed between 1027 hours and 1103 hours on Monday October 16 at the Social Oxford Circus, London.
That is fact.