THE JIM JONES REVUE
London Madame Jo Jo’s
March 5th
Sleazed into a sold-out Madame Jo Jo’s, the UK’s best-kept rock ‘n’ roll secret is exploding onstage.
THE JIM JONES REVUE (5/5) take the fire of Jerry Lee Lewis, gargle down a bottle of cheap pills with a whisky chaser and spit it out on great tunes like their current single ‘Cement Mixer’. Culled from their cracking debut album, songs whistle past in a barrelling rampage of punk rock fury and hard licks as Jones stalks the stage like a man hopped-up after a session toking on Chuck Berry’s adrenal gland.
It ain’t new and it ain’t pretty, but it’s so raw and passionate that Big Cheese wants in big time. The Jim Jones Revue will make you love rock ‘n’ roll again. You’ve been warned.
El Prez
STRAWBERRY BLONDES
Newport TJs
February 21st
With the current recession triggering alarm bells about the decline of the UK live music scene you could be mistaken for thinking that tonight punters might be a bit thin on the ground, but it looks like they’ve had to widen TJ’s door frames to accommodate the crowd that has swelled into the legendary venue to witness the triumphant return of Newport street punks STRAWBERRY BLONDES (4/5). Back on home turf the Blondes explode onto the tiny stage and the crowd erupts into a flailing mass of limbs as front man Mickie Stabbs leads his mob straight into prime rabble rousing anthem’s ‘Rebel Rebel’, ‘Rise Up’ and the ska infused ‘Beat Down Babylon’.
New songs such as ‘Social Control’, ‘Hard Times’, ‘No Way Out’ and ‘Fight Back’ show that Strawberry Blondes have that knack of writing songs that perfectly capture the mood of the times. After an all-too-brief forty five minutes an incendiary ‘Kingmob’ brings their set to a close as they leave the stage to a barrage of feedback and chants for more from the sweat drenched crowd. Tonight there’s no encore but something tells me we haven’t seen the last of this lot.
Tim Grayson
