The Tough Alliance/The Honeydrips @ Tack! Tack! Tack!
4 Comments Published by Tom on Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 22:44.
Tack! Tack! Tack! is a club dedicated to Swedish music and they have been putting on monthly nights at London's Social for a while now. Tonight it was the turn of the electro pop side of things.I have seen a range of sights at gigs these past twenty odd years but I have never seen an act using their mobile phone as their sole source of instruments which is exactly what Mikael Carlsson aka The Honeydrips did tonight.
Despite having some excellent songs taken from the recent Here Comes The Future album this was a pretty subdued affair due to the lack of activity on stage. The electronic beats coupled with Carlsson's laid back vocal style made rewarding listening for those who knew the songs but visually it was poor with Carlsson resulting to some pretty dreadful Andy McCluskey style dancing. Hopefully that will not cost the Honeydrips the following they deserve - technology eh?
No such problem with The Tough Alliance who put on one of the most amusing spectacles I have seen for a while.
The band play a mean and energetic brand of synth pop. Forget the fact that they mimed through most of their 20 odd minutes this was well worth catching. There was no sign of the fracas which have seen shows in their native Gothenburg banned but the bands interaction with the crowd, pounding beats and their non stop dancing left us with a huge smile on our faces. The fact that they played such a short set meant it was almost perfect although as some of the music strayed into Whigfield territory towards the end we can mark them down a point or two.
It was an entertaining night. If they keep this up Tack! Tack! Tack! will certainly see me and no doubt many others again.
[Honeydrips on My Space]
[The Tough Alliance on My Space]
[Tack! Tack! Tack! on My Space]
I saw the Honeydrips once and his live shows are really symptomatic of one of the many issues I've got with that whole scene - it's all Bez and no Ryder, so to speak..
As for the Tough Alliance - I've never heard of them having any trouble with the police over here - I suspect that's a fabricated story.. Must say they've got the right idea about the ideal length of gig though.
According to what I have read (and have been told) The Tough Alliance have had police injunctions to prevent their shows. Is it a load of ol' pony then?
I really like The Honeydrips album but live it wasn't the greatest experience.
I have no memories whatsoever of ever hearing that police injunction story until TTA started doing promotion for the UK.. Also, a quick Google in swedish turned up no relevant results (you'd have thought a story like that would have gotten some attention here as well!), which does support my suspicions. I don't know about "ol' pony" - I'd call it clever marketing.. ;)
POLICE INJUNTION
http://www.sincerelyyours.se/yours0042.html (not that the lin which relates to the Police intervention was in the cancelation email from TTA/Sincerely Yours).
COLLAPED STAGE (see here) http://www.sincerelyyours.se/yours0041.html
If you want to know more about the statement about bullshit then see here:
Yes very clever marketing, and I wrote it. So much so that the show was a packed house.