26/8/2008 Dead Monroe & Cherry Brakewells @ The Rhythm Factory

Subject	Dead Monroe & Cherry Brakewells @ The Rhythm Factory
PostedDate	8/26/2008
	An interesting evening in the East End. I'm only at the Rhythm Factory to see Dead Monroe out of the four bands playing - I'd never heard of any of the others. The name of the band playing when I arrive escapes me - they weren't bad, but nothing to write home about. Dead Monroe were on next, and gave a good account of themselves as usual. They sounded well polished - even more so now that they have added a keyboard player (out of shot in the pictures). The band have apparently been attracting some 'record label interest' of late. I know that tired old phrase is standard muso bullshit that many bands claim, but tonight some record company guys actually turned up to see the band - I heard later that they were quite impressed, in spite of the sound mix not being very good tonight. Dead Monroe certainly have plenty of catchy tunes with some witty and intelligent lyrics, so maybe they will finally get some of them in the shops... They are followed by a fairly generic pop/punk band - quite good at what they do, but with little to distinguish themselves from the hundreds of similar bands around at the moment. Earlier, I'd asked Alex from Dead Monroe what the other bands on the bill were like. He said the last band had a really good soul singer. I was intrigued by this so I decided to hang around and check them out. I'm very glad I did. Some of the girls I'd seen bopping a bit to the earlier bands got on the stage and started setting up equipment. They looked a bit like some retro 70's disco or soul act, or maybe an all girl pop act - only they had guitars! Now I was even more intrigued. The moment they started playing it became very obvious how deceptive appearances can be - this was a rock band! But it was a rock band unlike any I'd seen or heard before. I know some very good all girl bands, but I've never seen one who look like a pop/soul act - and sound like a heavy and hard riffing funk rock band! Imagine a Led Zeppelin groove, mixed up with the heavy riffing of Rage Against The Machine, the funk of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and a soul singer belting it out like Aretha Franklin! This is the Cherry Brakewells - the best new band I've seen in a while, and quite different from any of the bands I normally go and see. I've checked 'em out on their MySpace since, but I think they sound much better live. Sometimes you discover a band by accident, but you know straight away that you'll be going to see them again - this is one of those bands...

PS: The guitarist on the left in the Cherry Brakewells pictures is in fact Anna Calvi who has since gone on to achieve some success in her own right as a singer/songwriter. She's pretty good on the guitar too!