Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine !! Brixton Acadamy 2nd Nov 2007

Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine !! Brixton Acadamy 2nd Nov 2007

The standard by which all gigs must be judged.

Carter Usm are terminally uncool. Let's get that out of the way right now. They were buried by a bunch of cloth-eared journalists chasing Mancunians Forever Indebted To The Beatles, and ***** in suits singing spiky nothings about being brave, inbetweeners, and cockney cor-blimey guvnors. Carter's unique selling point – a determined punk rock attitude, spot welded to Pet Shop Boys style electronics, buzzsaw guitars, and lyrics easily superior in pathos and wit to any other band of their era – became a liability when Oasis happened. Every band has it's brief moment, invincible, in the sun – what Neil Tennant calls the 'Imperial Phase'. Carter's ended the moment they came off stage after headlining Glastonbury in 1992. At the time when people were lucky for indie groups to make the top 37, there was no higher anyone could go. And then, five years later, having becoming a trio (quite good), and a sixxo (not great), they split after supporting Madness in Guildford. A whimper of an end, really.
Every band reforms. And some bands really don't deserve to. The fear is that they are old and crap, it doesn't sound right, the magic is lost by the lure of money and glory.

Fear not. For those of you who liked Carter, be assured that the final ever Carter show at Brixton Academy is a glorious finale to the story. The band return to their favourite venue in the world (and a short walking distance, by the way, from Fruitbats house), to provide one last reformation-thank-you-20th-anniversary-hello-and-goodbye show.



Close your eyes, and it's 1991 again. Open your eyes, and it's 1991 again. It's a perfect replication of the bands heyday. The sounds, the sights, the smells. The lightshow is an absolute 100% Storm-und-drag epic recreation of the time. (In fact, the band have recreated the former sound and light crew, as well as studied old VHS tapes of their shows to re-create it perfectly). This is the greatest Carter tribute band in the world , Carter themselves, bowing out and saying goodbye in one final moment of glory. For two hours, nothing has changed. The people who used to follow them around in kitbags and big shorts turn up at the same pub they did in 1992, albeit now with less hair, more fat, and big mortgages.

I've seen a few reformation shows. I make this claim not lightly : no band I have seen on the reformation trail has ever been quite as good as they were at the time. Often VERY close, but never as good.

**** that, this time round, Carter are BETTER. (or, if you thought they were ****, they're even shitter than ever). The set is an enormous 2 hour extravaganza. You can name songs you wanted to hear, but realistically, no band can play for 7 hours. This is the creme-de-la-creme. Their songs still sound, even now, timeless, dated, perfect and invigorating. The lyrics are an acerbic, intelligent and sensitive rage against the world of injustice. The guitars crunch in the way that sounds exactly like the kind of weapons I use to fight off the mundanity of life.

At 9pm, it starts. The chant. THAT chant. it ushers in the fabulous, Beach-Boys-meets-Ramones-and-Kraftwerk of "Surfin' USM". Guitars spiral and fall, vocals elevate us, and in a brief moment, everything crap about life stops. It's as if life is no longer a place of fear and duty, but a place of promise. Life can be, for one night, full of wonder. This is a time machine made of drum machines and electric guitars.



Carter USM were always fecking brilliant. They reached my heart the way very few bands ever did. The songs just keep coming : paranoid sketches of London you can shout along to. For a few short hours, we are all young again. The music is a furious mix of guitars, attitude and a sadly under-rated wordsmithery that became horrendously out of fashion around the time idiocy became the height of aspiration.

The whole room is in tears at the end of the last song : the wonderful, heartfelt singalong of "GI Blues" - a song about a man battling against the conception of the Alpha Male, and yet being so twisted and broken. Turn your eyes to the children. I don't want you to see me this way.

This wasn't a brave new world – nor a great new future. This was a history lesson : and what history. So easy to forget, so easy to write off as uncool, and yet so absolutely vital to some of us. These are the songs that made our lives worth living, these words that helped us get through the drudgery, the dull years of Tory misrule. After these two hours of unstoppable, brilliant music, it comes to an end. This event was exactly what a final reformation show should be. A grand finale, a climatic, essential end as we all said hello and waved goodbye to a band that we loved dearly. It was exactly like it used to be, and that's what I think many of us needed. To say goodbye, and part on a glorious peak. Hello, good evening, welcome... and goodbye.

 

Went to see them in 91 at college!

They were brill!

 

Jim-Bob is the best lyricist that ever lived

Check out Jim's solo stuff done in various guises and Fruity's ace punk band Abdoujaparov. Almost, but not quite as good as Carter USM.

http://www.jim-bob.co.uk

 

My boss...

...won an auction on ebay for Jim Bob to come around to his house and play a live gig - it was quality. He was absolutely sh*tting himslef doing a live acoustic set in someones living room. Top guy.