The Kills

I really don't want to be here. I'm in a bad mood, I'm PMS-ing to all hell, and I'm trapped in a smoky basement rammed to the gills with fashionistas and the Prada Meinhoff are out in force. Sure, I could amuse myself perving over the Dirty Dronerock Boys milling about the place, but honestly, most of them look like they're about 14, they dress like they got their fashion tips off the back of a White Stripes album and besides, I doubt a single one of them could name a single member of Throbbing Gristle. Fashions go in 17 year cycles like sunspots or locusts or something, and here we are with another set of Velvet Underground reissues and whole new generation reinventing the wheel. Sigh.

The Futureheads do nothing to dispel my mood with their Gang of Four tribute act. I am consumed by the overwhelming urge to shout "POST-PUNK IS OVER! FACE IT! ADAM ANT KILLED IT, NOW TAKE YER POLYESTER BUBBLE BUTT NO WAVE FASHION AND GET OUT OF MY FACE!!!" but my friend restrains me. She kinda likes them, but what does she know? She owns Adam and the Ants records. They think their staccato harmonies sound all quirky. They are wrong. They sound like the post-punk Bohemian Rhapsody. I have a mate who listens to this sort of music on road trips because it is so irritating that its sole purpose is to keep you awake on long car drives. I don't want to be irritated, I'm irritated enough already. I am forcing myself to hide in the corner to avoid ripping people's heads off. I feel mean and bad and cranky and if the bloody Kills don't start soon, I am going to just get up and walk out. Grrrrrrrrrr.

So the skinny chick with the dirty hair gets onstage and faces off with the scruffy looking boy. With her back to half the audience, like she doesn't give a shit what you think, she writhes like a snake and spits sex and hatred in equal portions at the scruffy boy, who fights back, teeth bared and guitar like a weapon. OK, yeah, this I can handle. This is more what I'm in the mood for.

Yeah, I know, the "New" "Rock" "Revolution" is officially over. The Kills are not the first people to rehash The Jesus and Mary Chain, minimal pile-driving drum machine and blues abused guitars. The shadow of PJ Harvey hangs long over the evening, and if Patti Smith were dead, she'd be spinning in her grave. But they've got something that sets them apart from the superficial shite like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs that they are superficially lumped in with. Maybe it's the edge that the drum machine gives them, ancient blues up against technological precision, like John Henry neck and neck with the steam engine until his heart bursts. And maybe it's the way that *VV* snarls and shakes, the coolest girl in the world, because she doesn't give a flying fuck about cool. Arrogance as put-on attitude smells like last week's stylist, but this performance is hardly directed at us, it's directed at each other.

"Christ, it's like watching a couple snog in public for 45 minutes" complains my friend. No it's not. It's like watching a full-scale Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf fight or fuck, fuck or fight, no holds barred domestic. The stage is huge, but they're right up against one another, so close they could reach out and slap one another - or kiss, you're never quite sure. The war of the sexes, Transatlantic tension between outspoken American girl and sullen British boy, obsession descending into psychosis as they snarl at each other like a white trash Lee and Nancy with a bad case of PMS. "Don't you leave me, bitch!" Call me crazy, but this is sexy.

"Fuck the People!" they howl over a gale of pummelling drum machine and cat scratch guitar and it's not the shallow, hollow brattiness of stadium punk, it's the genuine defiance of born losers, beaten back and beaten down, nose bleeding but still swinging. Beautiful losers, I love them.