Skip The Budgie

The Junction is a small pub with nice wood interiors and friendly staff. The PA is too close to the bar, with one speaker aimed sideways at the door so that people don't feel left out. It is fully endorsed by the local alcoholics population, who disappear at some undisclosed point during the evening, probably confused and disorientated by the evening's attack of innovation and distortion.

Cowtown are visiting from Leeds and feature guitar, tiny keyboard, manic drummer and no bass. I am initially horrified by their blatant disregard for harmony and melody, the guitar seems completely out of tune with the synth and they are heads-down ignoring the drummer's attempts at pulling something together out of the chaos. I clearly have to readjust my expectations here. Jagged guitar chord motifs compete with sustained keyboard notes, short little ostinato melodies clash with each other but there is a pattern emerging and... Is my head nodding? Not only that, but I can't help but smile at the inherent comedy in the music.

On occasion the keyboard player picks up a bass or guitar for a change of timbre, lending a solid amateurish bassline to the angular music. There is much going on behind the self-conscious minimalist exterior as the choppy guitar makes way for some more complicated riffs over understated electric synth-organ chords. Elements of rock and punk and lo-fi keyboards all combine with the support of the frenzied drummer creating an extremely danceable and enjoyable sound. The local alcoholic begs everyone to shut up so she can hear the girl do a solo, a request that is embarrassedly declined.

I have heard that Bristol band Soeza have been greatly influential, playing in various forms since 1996 and formed on a hotbed of musical talent and innovation in Bristol. Being utterly oblivious of this I am of course open minded and keen to discover how two drummers and a french horn fit with the usual collection of guitarists and singers. So why do they leave me so dry and perplexed? The music is based around stabbing chords and rhythm with instruments jumping around each other - sometimes anarchic, funky, sometimes full-on rock all backed up with good solid basslines. The french horn rapidly becomes irritating, sitting atop the mix and screaming. The lyrics rarely sit well with the music, frontman half talking, shouting, grinning his singing companion who lends a hand on some tracks, vainly trying to sing sweet, odd melodies that seem removed from the music.

But it sounds like the mix has gone slightly wrong, as if the quest to innovate has overtaken any desire to be really involved with the music itself. I'd been led to believe there would be double drumming extravaganzas but tonight the drums rarely separate, leaving me wondering what the point is. Except when the girl sits behind a kit and something a bit more exciting ensues, but it's not enough to save the set. Looking around, I see many faces that completely contradict my own experience - grinning heads moving, even a bit of bobbing up and down and huge applause at the end of each assault.

Three-piece Quack Quack create a frenzied dance music with huge distorted bass and funny little keyboard melodies all backed up with brilliant dancey-breakbeat drumming. The keyboardist gaffer-tapes a single note down and moves over to a basic spare drumkit for a big percussive break. This is what you can do with two drummers, it seems to say to me. This is what happens when you really love playing. They play a storming set, ranging from hypnotic single-note post-electro, post rock, post dance, post genre-defining noise to fast, pumping complicated dance music that shakes your body and gets you grinning like a maniac.

It is as grinning maniacs that we emerge out onto the dark streets of nearly inner city Bristol. The alcoholics are just around the corner, oblivious of what they have just missed although I'm sure by now they don't really care. I hope the smiles will spread throughout the land, as Quack Quack are surely headed for great things.