March 16, 2000

Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach

..he's making the leap into the 'live' arena, he's opted for a cross between[a]Lo-Fidelity Allstars[/a] and an Eastern European gameshow. We don't know why...

A cloth hanging of Elvis with the eyes punched out rests on top of the speaker stack, watching benignly as the Play School idiocy unfolds below. A man wearing a giant Smiley head sits stage-left. Presently he gets up to enact catalogue model poses, while Sgt. Rock busies himself with looping the sticky acid breaks. Someone else wearing a Kendo Nagasaki mask (Er, seminal Brit wrestler - sportz Ed) wanders up to the mic. He seems to have something to say.

"FUCKIN' 'ELL, FUCKIN' 'ELL, FUCKIN' 'ELL."

Well, what were you expecting? Sgt. Rock is a man whose eclectic DJ sets have previously aroused the interest of, ooh, dozens of amyl-crazed 20-somethings; now he's making the leap into the 'live' arena, he's opted for a cross between Lo-Fidelity Allstars and an Eastern European gameshow. We don't know why.

Yet even after the initial whiplash of bafflement, the whole thing feels so right. Debut Wiiija single 'Yeah Word Party', like its predecessor 'Superdickie', is a brilliantly fruggable, biscuit-tin big beat concoction for people who find Fatboy Slim a little too sophisticated. As old-skool acid revivals go, this locates the scene's heart with far more precision than the usual Day-Glo wankery.

So it's stupid. But as Smiley attempts to drink his pint, before remembering that he doesn't have a mouth, the message seems to be: aren't we all?