The Video Nasties
Demo

When DiS regularly reviewed demos and asked for submissions, many lives were lost under the resulting mountain of CD-Rs. Unable to cope with the tearful phone calls from the loved ones of the assumed deceased that ensued - there still remain some scribes unaccounted for, presumably still laying somewhere amongst the discarded demo cases in the corner of DiS HQ - demo reviews were cut back, reserved for special occasions and locked away like fine china.

The Video Nasties’ demo is not so much fine china, more Tupperware; no frills, robust and functional. Self-released ahead of their debut single due in August, the Nasties’ demo is six tracks of budget-recorded jangly punk barely brushing two minutes per song. Vocalist James Nasty conjures up a sound somewhere between Medium 21 and XTC, and on occasion a less poetic, more to the point Maximo Park thanks largely to the similar-sounding keyboards present behind him.

Perhaps it’s the retro recording values, but the demo bears a strong resemblance to the alternative movements of the Seventies and occasionally Eighties – 'The Heartaches', for example, displays a touch of The Cure mixed in with The Damned, whilst the agitated delivery of “If you're out I'm staying in on my own” in 'Jorgenson's Horn' contains more adolescent frustration than Jilted John ever managed with a nod to The Undertones for good measure.

“Since I turned twenty, my life's become a video nasty”, laments James on the demo’s eponymous closing track. He has no real reason to be so despairing; not only have the band he fronts concocted a potion for the present out of that which was consigned to the past, they’re favourites of Les Incompetents and Xfm’s John Kennedy, they've made waves at several of our capital's club nights and they’re still in their first year of existence. That the Video Nasties have managed to do all this with a demo that suggests you’re listening to it through two yoghurt pots and a piece of string is quite a feat indeed.