There is a lesson to be learnt about bands and that is always give them a chance as you may just find a gem. Of course at the same time there can be some terrifying ‘how are these famous??’ bands, such as 30 Seconds To Mars. But before I start one of those fucking annoying comment wars like on every youtube video, (no YOUR mum) I will cut to the chase…
One of my links led me to Lancashire’s Alternative to every music genre, Bikini Black Special. The 5 piece seem to have put on their dark worship robes at a full moon and thrown into the pot every type of music they can think of. But instead of a explosion of shit occurring on the final synth loop, these guys have completed the impossible. Or have they? Actually they have!
With a beautiful female vocal range mixed in with snapping bites from the male backing, it makes you listen to the lyrics rather then the usual Friday night pub band where they are just shouting to the drum beat (bark, bark!). As for the music itself, it is better to just watch the video at the bottom of this page.
Keep it fast spoke with Bikini Black Special to find out what is going on in their subversively seductive minds:
When you walk onto the stage to an audience who doesn’t know who you are, how do you try and make an impression to the crowd?
By standing impassively in a line, as if the Pet Shop Boys had somehow magically reproduced and staring, just… staring. Alternatively, usually what we do speaks for itself, just go in hard and loud and kick the whole thing off as we mean to go on.
Is there any difference between the tracks you record and performing them live?
Not really, no – we’re pretty proud of the fact that we do this big wide studio sound out there in the big wide world. We make a few more mistakes live, like.
Do you have any BBS followers? If so do they dress up for the occasion?
There’s a few dotted around – we keep seeing more and more of our world-famous Zombie Invasion t-shirt in the crowds, and occasionally bump into them on the street. We have a pretty wide fan base, ravers, metallers, old folks, and of course the fairly intense acoustic folk contingent – so they all dress quite variably.
Have you had any offers to have your music featured in a b-movie? If not would you accept offers?
Some animators wanted to use BBS tunes for the soundtrack to a movie about an alien invasion being battled by a tea drinking private investigator. Never heard any more about it. We’d be delighted to be on a B-movie soundtrack though, especially if we could be extras in the movie, zombies or aliens or something. Even better if there was a scene in the movie with zombie/alien band playing in some zombie/alien bar. It’s the dream.
If you were performing live and there was a power cut, could you still give the crowd a good time? If so how?
Using Laura’s firelighting skills, Paddy’s culinary skills, and Bobby and Andy’s raw physical strength and powers of intimidation, we’d cook Jonti and give everyone a good feed.
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Below is live footage of them playing the track Nagasaki… Enjoy!
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Links:
Bikini Black Special official myspace page
