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Mokita Review
Here's the review I did of my mate as I only review mate's bands - read it before this thread disappears up a memory hole
Mokita – On the Rocks 19 January 2006
The trouble with playing venues that litter what is ‘affectionately’ known as the toilet circuit is that 8 times out of ten, regardless of the fact that you may be witnessing the best band you will ever see, the sound will be quite disappointingly bad. It would be far too easy to blame the engineer in as much as it would be to accuse the band of playing through a crystal radio set behind a giant wall of foam. Any London band playing On The Rocks should by now should know the risks of playing what is technically a charnel house for sticky-trainered flagellants and accept that bad sound and bad beer come hand in hand at this level.
Though Mokita suffer in spades from this seemingly unavoidable aberration they struggle valiantly through a set that somehow segues rather seamlessly from a (very) late soundcheck into their first song, “Just Because You Read a Book…..�, beginning a pleasing though frustrating experience as the ever longer pauses between songs (mostly the band getting to grips with the ‘sound’ issues) attest. The band’s foundations lie on solid dependable basslines that underpin and wrestle with angry sinister guitars, creating a joyful thunder that falls somewhat irreverently south of Sonic Youth at their imperious best, (‘Schadenfreude’) and Shellac if Steve Albini was more liberal with the tone control (‘Better Than This’). Only the sparse, skeletal drumming which somehow keeps everything from falling on its backside survives intact though singer/guitarist Theo Graham-Brown nonchalantly changing and retuning a string mid song in time to kick back in, would win the Stoic Frontman Award should it ever be invented. Proof that sometimes the live experience is not for the meek of heart.