December 6, 2003

Selfish C--- : Britain Is Shit/Fuck The Poor

East London art punks in blinding Single Of The Week shock

Selfish C--- are going to annoy you. Not just because Dalston-dwelling Martin Tomlinson and Patrick Constable possess the painfully studied air of dandyish Shoreditch Twats desperately trying to shock-rock their way to winning the Turner Prize. And not just because The Guardian recently stuck them on a list of Britain’s Top 40 bands after only about 12 London hipsters with asymmetrical Hoxton haircuts had seen them play. But mainly because, beyond any whiff of insider hype and media manipulation, the duo’s debut single is unexpectedly very good indeed. Annoyingly good, in fact.

Selfish C--- are going to rock you. Because ‘Britain Is Shit/Fuck The Poor’ is a fearsomely exciting double-barrelled shotgun blast of guttersnipe beatboxpunk aimed squarely at this nation’s twin obscenities of festering poverty and imperial misadventures in Iraq. It sounds like the Sex Pistols 2000 with trashed
beats courtesy of Berlin’s Digital Hardcore label, or
Rage Against The Machine fist-fucking Soft Cell. In a pop era of controlled scandal and polite protest, of Britney Spears milking some played-out Tatu titillation game by not-quite-snogging Madonna, of Travis holding up carefully neutered anti-war placards at the horribly stage-managed MTV awards – with the forces of evil, at least Selfish C--- hit home like a refreshingly nasty kick in the crotch.

Selfish C--- are going to disappoint you, eventually.
Their untamed mania may never get beyond the
fanzine-culture in-joke status of, say, Huggy Bear.
But even if they reach the next level, they could soon
hit the glass ceiling of public indifference like
Andrew WK or Fischerspooner did as their hype collided
with mundane reality. And even if they get beyond
that, they will inevitably lose it like the Sex Pistols or bottle it like the Manic Street Preachers or blow it like the KLF. But for now, at least, all bets are off. Let them tear
your face off and douse your rotting flesh in petrol.

Stephen Dalton