Demented Are Go / Helvis

October 22 1999

Nottingham Old Angel


Wasn't entirely sure what to expect for this one. The name was familiar, but never heard the music.

First were Helvis who come across as the punk bastard offspring of Iron Monkey. Well in the vocals that is, where the hardcore yaaaay is replaced by a more punky yaaaay. Bit irritating, but there you go. If they know they irritated a bit, then I'm sure they'd be happy. The music was ok, though nothing stuck for me. Well apart from one riff which really did sound like an early Metallica riff. Ok, so that just means it was a chugathon, but hey, I could've just pissed them off there. Most people, well apart from being sat on their arses, thought the drummer should be sacked. Methinks they know the man.

Demented. What to say. Well, the newkie brown is taking hold, which means somewhat silly thoughts go through the mind. The first was the spotting of the upright bass. Not a silly thought, a stark reality. So all you people who thought The Living End were the first and only "rock'n'roll" band to do that thing are wrong. Second thought as the band troops out is that "my God, it's a rawwwwk'n'roll Misfits. Shades adorn the vocalist in his tight leather. Then I spot it. Ah, that's better. Makes me feel better. The one thing worse than have a bald spot with long hair (which I'm working on rather faster than I'd like to), is having the bald spot on a bonce sporting a mohicanised quiff. Ah, thankyou lord. The music starts. It's rockabilly. Rockabilly Misfits. It does little for me, at the end of a over long set (3 encore songs - I don't think so) I still can't recall one song. Mind you, that doesn't stop some. It's funny, we've got some real old hardcore looking punks dancing around. Suddenly so many links that seem to be always denied spring to mind. Like there's these old school punks dancing to rocakbilly style punk. Not anarchistic. Not dangerous. Fairly old fashioned in a way. Struck me as a contradiction anyway. Well at least if you believe punk is purely about anarchy. Then there was the "rock star" image of this guy. I thought punk disliked the "rock star" thing. But some people lap it up. Then there's the two nu-metal / skatecore punky girls who dance the entire set, get on stage, and you get the impression know sod all about the band but are oh so desperate to be seen. So you've got your old school punk dance going on together with yer nu-metal "point to the sky oh lordy rejoice" dance going on. Ok, so maybe I have a different sense of humour and logic to some people. Or maybe it was that newkie brown again. Does strange things to you so I'm told.