The Flesh Happening @ Ocean Rooms 6th August (Opendoor Fundraiser)

There's a message on my answerphone, it's from The Flesh Happening's manager and it says 'Answer... the phone.' Genius.

I had planned to check out The Flesh @ Cowley Club on saturday 5th August. However, arriving @ said Anarcho-Diner-Library-Venue, I was politely informed that the gig had been cancelled, and I should instead accompany the band to Preston Park's Pride celebrations as compensation... I do have some vague memory of doing exactly that, but I also remember waking up, hours later, in my own flat, unable to remember my own name. It was some time later that I remembered The Flesh were also appearing at Ocean Rooms, the day after. I wouldn't even need to remember my own name for that.

Equal parts shabby and fabulous (depending on what they do with the lighting) Ocean Rooms has always been more of a Club than a Venue, but it's recently begun opening its doors to all manner of live acts. Tonight Ocean Rooms plays host to a seriously ecclectic selection of performers: Kitty Hudson, Jacob's Stories and The Flesh Happening.

Like The Darkness, and to a lesser extent Towers of London, Kitty Hudson make a kind of music that was seen as terminally uncool until very recently. What goes around really does come around, and what comes around with Kitty Hudson is 80's style American Bubblegum Metal. Think Motley Crew without the spandex or the willfully Gonzoid stupidity... Think Wildhearts. Think New York Dolls.

Kitty Hudson play it confident and intense, and you can see they're having a whole lot of fun performing: the guitarist / vocalist radiates a rawk-like confidence; the female drummer (there's always something instantly cool about a female drummer) is a limitless source of energy; the bassist / vocalist looks as though he is about to O.D. at any moment, but this only adds to the tension.

They are punk in the way that Motley Crew or Guns and Roses were punk: which is to say that they owe a lot more to glam-rock or AOR than they do to punk. But even these days there's perhaps a lot more stigma attached to metal than to punk rock.

Jacob's Stories are a complete contrast, one of the least likely acts imaginable as a follow-up to KH. They craft some delicious ambient torch-songs from keyboards, viola, vocals and minidisk. Highlights of their set come when a delay pedal is employed to shape some live loopage of the vocals. Fabulous and hypnotic in a kind of post 4AD / This Mortal Coil way.  But when the delay finishes its loop, and the post-Warp (via Radiohead) minidisk gets switched off, it all ends up feeling a little bit too Coldplay (via Radiohead). No such reassuring M.O.R. Indi referencing from headliners The Flesh Happening however.

I first witnessed their antics some months ago and they seemed a shambolic, lolloping affair. Singer Ollie drew one song to a hault in order to berate the drummer for playing too fast, or too slow. The band members sounded as if they were each playing an entirely different song. Tonight they are a tight, tight like a virgin sphincter, with a style and confidence totally at odds with their chaotic reputation. Yes, there is campness, yes, there is some country style stomping and some cliché musicality in places, but hey, it works for La Frange...

Singer Ollie conjures up an almost ritualistic vibe with his eyes-wide tales of debauchery and heartache. Then there's the legendary wardrobe - which, as usual, he steadily removes, one layer at a time, over the course of the set.  Effortlessly flitting between cowpunk, Joy Divisional epics, and comic-tragic cabaret, The Flesh are raw, edgy and untamed, and go from strength to strength.

Rollo Kim