MAY
Wed 12th - LONDON – 93 Feet East
Fri 14th - LONDON – Borderline ‘The Queen Is Dead’
Tues 18th - LONDON – Bull & Gate
JUNE
Thurs 17th - GLASGOW – King Tut’s
Released in March 2004 recent EP ‘Under The City’ contained four tightly-packed fizz-bombs of perfectly-formed punk – the latest in a lineage that takes in three minute heroes like Buddy Holly, Beach Boys, The Clash, Supergrass and The Hives. But this is no re-hash of old riffs. The Needles deal in future retro-ism – timeless melodies about love and life and loss delivered by men with one eye on distant alternative futures, and all glued together by an instinctive Ramones-esque brotherly bond. Splendidly-titled follow up EP (out mid-June 2004) ‘1-2-3…5!’ ups the ante, cranks up the tune quota and ejaculates technicolour sounds totally at odds with the grey world around it.
Resplendent in matching threads, The Needles are like Satan’s own High School prom band, all insurgent pop-flecked punk shockers, angular shape-throwing and a deluge of hormonal anthems delivered with the precision of a frontline soldier with a hand-grenade pin jammed between his teeth. Hi-octane. Do or die. Mainlined straight to the heart. Not for nothing are they called The Needles – music doesn’t come any more direct or spikier.
Formed in Aberdeen at the end of the 1990’s as a means to survive the trials and tribulations of school together, The Needles quickly became the biggest band in town and released a series of singles and EP’s on the local Lithium label, all recorded in a disused church. “When we started out we loved Guns n’ Roses and Nirvana, but they were too complicated for us,” explains wired singer Dave Dixon. “Britpop meant nothing to us because we were detached from it – it seemed like a London thing so we turned to the simplicity of the earliest rock ‘n’ roll for inspiration. There was something quite sinister about Gene Vincent but tender too. There was an ambiguity there. Raw, exciting rock n’ roll made utter sense to us.”
The late teenage years saw the band playing everywhere from old people’s homes to In The City, mental hospitals to T In The Park. But the granite city could only hold The Needles for so long and they relocated to Glasgow where they’ve recently been championed by NME as key players in a scene that also includes Franz Ferdinand and Dogs Die In Hot Cars.
The collapse of Lithium Records spurred The Needles into action and in 2003 they hooked up the production team from the legendry Sawmills Studio in Cornwall, who had previously discovered and developed Muse and Supergrass. Much radio play ensued from Radio 1 (including winning the ‘Fresh Meat’ slot on the Zane Lowe show) and in March 2004 The Needles released the aforementioned ‘Under the City’ on Dangerous Records, described by Rocksound as “Like Buddy Holly after he’s been projected into the 21st Century and handed a new pair of dancing shoes. Fantastic.’
Like a joke-shop tin of snakes springing forth, live The Needles explode into action, Dave Needles a sinewy, bespectacled blitzkrieg ringleader with a PT Barnum-esque patter and a fine sense of self-aggrandising, finger-popping shtick that would shame Elvis or James Brown. A Needles performance necessitates the members getting into their ‘rock zone’, a previously unchartered mental space that’s been responsible for a catalogue of injuries – skewered limbs, broken teeth, endless miles of stitching in local A&E wards…
The four men called The Needles are well schooled in the fact that rock ‘n’ roll is the very place where mortal men become heroes, where the fantastical is do-able, as Dave, the Needles ring master explains:
“Jacuzzis and private jets – all the trappings of the material world - would be fine, but we know that rock n’ roll is pure madness and folly. We have this gift and the spirit with which to accept this gift.”
“And when you’ve got that you can’t fuck with it - you’ve got it to put it out there, spread it around. The people understand. Even if they don’t know it yet…they understand. Because The Needles fan is the wise man.”
Dave Dixon - guitar / vocals
Paul Curtiss - bass
Richey Wolfe – keyboards / vocals
Johnny Wolfe – drums / vocals
www.the-needles.com
http://www.logo-magazine.com/livereviews/display.asp?ReviewID=452
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