Cheesecake Truck

Could two more different bands have been thrown together? The sleekly styled, glam-grooves of DNA Doll, kitted out in sharp black suits, showcased next to the..well, mental nekkidness of Cheesecake Truck. Yet these two bands have played together before, at the Bull and Gate last month. And if the pair of them went down well there at last month's Org night, well they're positively adored at this one tonight at the Garage.

DNA Doll play one of their most frenetic sets to date, whirling through an all too brief setlist; the atmosphere is very much blink-and-you'll-miss-it. Ooh, faster than a speeding bullet, there goes the dirty, lustful "Insight", swiftly overtaken by "Everyone Loves Stars", and quick, there's "Nostalgia Addicts"!! The DNA boys have a fairly early stage time, but people are already clustered tightly around the stage to catch the London starlets' biggest show to date, grooving to their early-Suede-stylings. Best received is recent debut, Glamma Glue Girl (A-listed on Xfm), all angular electronica beats and squealing guitars. DNA Doll are starting to find themselves endowed with that ever-present label of "The New Manics", but really, they're a whole lot more primal than the Manics have ever been; each and every one of their tunes squalls "fuck politics, let's shag!" And judging by the reaction of the crowd, it's worked. They're right, everyone does love stars.

Onwards then, to Cheesecake Truck. Hmm. What can one say about Cheesecake Truck? Hmmmmmm. How about "waaaaarrrrrrggghhhh!!!"? That's what the crowd said, anyway. Describing Cheesecake Truck is like trying to describe an atomic bomb. Words really don't do the phenomenon justice. Really, they're startling. On my first encounter with them, I hated them. This time, I was won over completely. They have songs that sound like particularly brutal computer games. They have a rather spectacular bass player, sporting a fringed pageboy bob circa 1489, complete with a Captain Hardbroom handlebar moustache. They are the musical incarnation of the inside of Freddy Krueger's psyche before a particularly demented display of violence - at once cartoonish and horrific. They're utterly unlistenable.

But boy, are they fantastic. I should point out at this stage, that this won't work in your bedroom, on the spanking new stereo that you got for Christmas. This only works on a stage, with the participation of a particularly up-for-it crowd. An example: the bass player announces, "This is a beautiful song." The keyboard player picks up a violin. And the band, spurred on by their face-painted leader (who begins the show in most of a three-piece suit and ends it in a gaffertaped g-string) proceed to inflict a cataclysmic avalanche of noise upon the willing crowd. That was one of their gentler numbers. Their lyrics too are memorable - gems like "muh-muh-muh-muh-muh-muh" and "woooo-haaaa, woooooo-haaaaaa" (at one point graduating to "nah-nah-nah-nahhh") do their part in whipping the audience into a frenzy. At one point crowdsurfing is attempted, although the crowd are all squashed right at the front, so it doesn't really work. Never mind, they had fun trying.

And therein lies the fucked-up genius of Cheesecake Truck. Musically, they're meaningless. They're not clever, they don't artfully spurt intellectual truisms or discuss the state of Norwegian politics (for from that far-off land do they hail). They just shout "woooooooooooo-haaaaaaaaaaaaa" really really loudly at you. They make you reel in shock, laugh, and jump like a mad thing, all in the space of the first two minutes. They're completely off their trolleys. This band are not going to sit comfortably in semi-famous Llama Farmers middle-ground. They will either rise to the top like psychotic overlords, trampling all in their paths, and inspiring 13 year old girls and boys to don stick-on moustaches and gaffer tape, or they will sink without trace. Personally I'm hoping for the former, it'd be really funny to see 12 year olds running around with handlebar moustaches.