LATE OF THE PIER - BATHROOM GURGLE

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LATE OF THE PIER - BATHROOM GURGLE

"BATHROOM GURGLE is the kind of thing likely to leave you jaw gaping and speechless in appreciation"

Review by Mike Bond

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Bathroom Gurgle (Radio Edit)

MOSHI MOSHI RECORDS

An energised lesson in edgy, left field pop; Late Of The Pier are a fired up duo from the East Midlands with a neat line in squiggly techno beats, poptastic melodicism and the odd lurch toward pretentious prog rock bombast.

New single BATHROOM GURGLE is a song that simultaneously recalls Soft Cell, Roxy Music, Klaxons, Yes and ELO. A three and a half minute odyssey that begins in electro pop territory before sidetracking into glam rock art school directions and then unexpectedly erupting into progressive rocking pomposity and energised synth assisted punk rock buoyancy. Nothing if not, intriguing and ear catching; Late Of The Pier make enough of a glorious racket here to suggest themselves an outfit worthy of your complete attention.

BATHROOM GURGLE is the kind of thing likely to leave you jaw gaping and speechless in appreciation, let's hope there's much more sonic madness to follow.

BIOGRAPHY

According to Wikipedia Late Of The Pier are:

"An Electro rock band from the East Midlands, but their main success has been throughout London and the new clubs and scenes in the area. [citation needed] They have been met with considerable interest especially in the recent New Rave genre. Late of the Pier have played a considerable amount of the Way out West club nights, which are becoming increasingly well known throughout London. Late of the Pier are considered one of the big four of Way out West including Fear of Flying, Cajun Dance Party and The Video Nasties.(Usually determined by the top friends on Way out West's myspace page – www.myspace.com/wayoutwest3). Late of the Pier have also played a gig at a prestigious French venue, the Paris Paris"

But that's well boring.

Late Of The Pier was created somewhere in the mists of 2003, born from the warped minds of Sam Eastgate and Ross Dawson somewhere in the mists of G.C.S.E's. No-one can remember exactly how it happened but lets just presume it went something like…

'Lets start a band'

'OK'

…ignoring the fact that neither Ross or future guitarist Faley had only ever touched their instruments once at this point. (Ross had a knock-about on Sam's drums one evening, Faley skipped school to get stoned in Sam's attic and make a song 'Wasted Intellectuals'... probably LOTP's first song)

Sam's dad Rick was a musician himself, playing in various 80's-Electro-fused-world-music bands such as 'My Dog Has No Nose' and 'Smokey & The Fall' and had amassed a rather nice collection of synths, guitars, mixers and various other music equipment. Naturally this equipment found itself locked away into Sams attic bedroom and toyed with for years. Drawing inspiration musically from the likes of The Beatles & The Prodigy, Sam began to write simplistic pop songs on guitar and basic lo-fi and techno on his computer using a mash-up of Fruityloops and Cool Edit. The next year or two found Faley, Ross and Sam spending a lot of time sat around in Sam's attic making a lot of noise, irritating Sam's parents and neighbours and recording basic demo's of little pop ditties. These were later put onto home-made demos and handed out to friends and promoters, including Liars Club's Ricky Haley whom Faley had befriended after spending a lot of time sneaking into his club underage to watch early incarnations of bands/DJ's such as Bloc Party, Art Brut, Scissor Sisters, Franz Ferdinand, Gravy Train, DJ Hell and Erol Alkan.

Somehow one of these few demo's found its way into the bedroom of an A&R scouts brother, and from there to the major label A&R. Fuelled by this initial record label interest and witnessing Cut Copy's first UK show, Late Of The Pier decided to take to the stage.

For this a fourth member (Sam Potter) was found. Well… I say found. It really just happened, like childbirth. A wonderful and beautiful thing. Hideous and confusing to witness, but wonderful non-the less. During Late Of The Pier’s first gig at Castle Donington Village Hall, Potter was asked to climb onstage and tap one key on a synth for one song. Boy did he tap that one key. It was the most over-the-top, alcohol-fuelled, frenzied key-tapping the word ever saw… and when he grabbed the mic and started rapping Dr. Dre lyrics to the 'older women' in the room it became clear that Potter was to become a key part of Late Of The Pier. Influenced by Cut Copy, Sam bought an Akai sampler off Ebay and this became Potters weapon of choice. The gig was a huge success and Late Of The Pier didn’t play again, or even practice together for over 6 months.

This absence was spent being young. Wandering fields, camping in caves, spending summer days lazily puffing on psychedelic jazz-fags in the grounds of stately homes and writing seemingly nonsense-filled short stories and poems. Late Of The Pier became Late Of The Pier in those 6 months. They realised that in this modern generation there is a lot more to being a band then just music, more then a lifestyle or a career. Late Of The Pier became a creative collective of ability, thought and talent with ambitions of stimulating and inspiring people to think outside the proverbial box in whatever they do and enjoy it, while trying to keep a caring consideration of making everything they do unique and different. Each song is an oxymoron in itself and a contradiction to the previous song, this sound (while constantly shifting) was/is built upon a developed knowledge of synths and a love of some badly labeled music genre of one description or another.

After this break Late Of The Pier took a new direction. Inspired by the music and shenanigans of the previous 6 months they began to experiment crossing acoustic and electronic sounds to try and create something interesting, having become tired of the current sludge of dime-a-dozen indie

bands and the seemingly boring and mundane lives of people around them. Late Of The Pier became obsessed and inspired by both new and old crossover music, each-other and the spaces that no-one else fills. Sam began to flourish as a truly excellent songwriter, both in guitar-led pop music and dance-floor based electronic music and the two began to intersect and become

apparent in Late Of The Piers music.

Slowly the whole band began to lend itself towards live sets, taking on a more dance-floor appeal (Liars Club taught LOTP to dance. Very badly in Faley's case. But damn do they dance. Especially that Potter. Wow) The versatility of the sampler allowed Late Of The Pier to look at live music

from a new perspective. Using noises/sounds that practically no other band were and allowing infinite new possibilities for experimenting with their music.

Late Of The Pier began playing a few small live shows locally for friends and were soon asked to play at East London's steadily growing Way Out West all ages club night at Brentford Football Club in March '06. It was there where they found management in the form of promoter Keith Anderson, whom they instantly connected with due to an honest love of music and a genuine passion for what he was doing… that and the fact he's fucking good at what he does (nice one Keef x).

From here things moved a lot quicker then anyone expected. Live shows became regular and Late Of The Pier began to hone their skills, aiming to add another dimension to the music. Late Of The Pier consider live music as an event, an extension on recorded music. Irritated by the older, static crowds LOTP set out with the intention of making people once again move to live music, to think with their feet and stop over-complicating the simplicity of music.

They found a home in Way Out West and it's all-ages gigs, their feelings reciprocated by the new generation. Stuck mid-way between an older generation of somewhat static crowds and a younger generation of hyper-active kids, LOTP gained a dedicated following in the younger generations through myspace.com and for the energy of their live shows and in the older generations for the music itself. The Klaxons/NME had just coined the phrase 'Nu-Rave' and Late Of The Pier's ideas of live music began to become popular with the mainstream. With this came more interest from the music industry… NME and Radio1 quickly picked up on the band, noting them as one of the bands to watch out for in 2007 and music industry king-pins and affiliates soon became regular attendees to London gigs, often for pleasure instead of business.

And I suppose that's where we are now.

Floating around in a haze of fun,

Enjoying being young and what we do in every way we can and constantly

driven by everything around us, from places we visit to people to meet to

emotions we feel and of course our feet.

Everything is a source of inspiration.

Waiting to be tapped into.

We're the plumbers.

(and check out the size of my wrench!)

2007 : Year Of The Pier?

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Samuel Dust