Far more than two dancers at Wild Beasts show in aged surroundings.

Words Luke Turner

Photograph David Ma

If the Grade II cast iron pillars and drapes of the Hoxton Hall could speak, what stories of infamy they would tell? This Victorian music hall was opened in 1863, but it had its licence revoked eight years later following police complaints about the behaviour of its clientele. One imagines devious top-hatted coves lurking on the balconies paying more attention to the pockets of gents distracted by rouged dames flirting for a sovereign than what was happening on-stage.

It’s the perfect setting, then, for this intimate celebration of the release of Wild Beasts’ new album, Two Dancers. That’s not to say that in this context Wild Beasts are reduced to evocations of past times; soundtracking a building, if you will. Their sound is too current, and too unlike anything else for that. Instead, tonight’s venue accentuates what’s already present on Two Dancers: an atmosphere that’s at once louche and camp, euphoric and dark, entirely instinctive and sensual, a mist of hormones delivered in sonic form.

These album launches, packed with industry coves, can be static, joyless affairs, but this cloud of whatever it is isn’t just making the two pulchritudinous dames down the front gyrate enticingly, it’s sending waves of movement out through the crowd. Over yonder it even looks as if Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood is partaking in a wiggle.

Who could resist? Wild Beasts worked quietly for this, but they’ve worked hard, with barely a break from recording or touring since their Limbo, Panto debut last year. And it shows - one of the things that’s been so refreshing about Two Dancers is the increasing ease with which the four members play together. Hayden Thorpe’s falsetto might garner the most praise (and objection), but it’s how it interacts with Tom Fleming’s deeper tones, and how they both sit over the scratchy, percussive guitar from Ben Little and Chris Talbot’s understated backbeat that give Wild Beasts such life, and sends us out into wet London streets with, to borrow from the Kendal boys, the taste still dancin’ on our tongues.

After Skins, after two nude cover shoots, the paparazzi attention and grotesque tabloid fascination with Beth Ditto, after that fucking song, where exactly can the Gossip go next? The British public is notoriously fickle, swift to chide and slow to give the blessing of longevity, no matter if you’re a group who’ve earned your chops slogging it around the live circuit preaching queer and gender positive activism for years. The Gossip effortlessly deal with this by simultaneously stripping things back and reaching for new ground, returning with a single like ‘Heavy Cross’, which eschews a chorus like The Hit in favour of a fresh, electronic tint to the familiar dance punk.

Then they play gigs like this, packing the faithful into the Scala for riotous introduction to their new material, giving a roll call of their most loyal fans after their first song. These Southern folk... they know family. Alright, so Ditto is styled to the nines, but the power and passion in tonight’s performance suggest that the Gossip would still keep going even if Sony decided a queer-focused label was as necessary as an account for ‘flowers and candles’, and sent them packing back to the dive bars.

In his grey vest and trucker’s restroom moustache, Nathan is dressed for that eventuality. But, of course, it won’t happen. Because the Gossip are, hands down, one of the best dance bands we’ve got out there. Their music is instinctual, and not earnest, as has become the American indie rock norm. It’s what propelled them to the heart of the British mainstream while they remain a fringe concern in their homeland. Once our reserve is broken in the way that the Gossip have broken it, and do again tonight, we Brits love a good frug. Adding a new member on bass and guitar has helped, certainly, filling the spaces to give the songs old and new a real boost, and allowing the synth-heavy leanings to really come to life. Some tracks from their fourth album, Music For Men, are bizarrely akin to a soulful Killing Joke or Sonic Youth if they’d listened to disco rather than Glen Branca in 1979. New single ‘Heavy Cross’ has hints of Bowie’s ‘Ashes To Ashes’.

It all ends with ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’ and Ditto asking the crowd to “be gentle”. And this mixed audience, pleasingly free of boozy lads, are gentle, even as they make the floor shake and fill the air with screams. Yet neither this, nor the a capella cover of ‘Private Dancer’ that makes for the encore, eclipse any other song tonight.

Q&A with Nathan Howdeshel, aka Brace Paine

Were you worried, after it got so crazy, that people would turn on you?

“Yeah, kind of. But people have been really cool and responsive, and I’m surprised there hasn’t been a huge backlash, though I expect there to be at some point. There always is.”

How has the craziness affected you?

“For Beth, it’s always crazy. I’m glad that neither Hannah or I are in that position. It’s a bummer because Beth can’t even go out and have fun in London without somebody being weird. We still all have a good time together when we’re here, though.”

Has the level of interest in Beth been strange to you, seeing as you’re such a solid trio?

“Yeah, we try to do interviews all together - to nail that point home. People have been cool asking us about the record and stuff. They always have their questions about Kate Moss or something, but it’s like... whatever. We try to make it a point that we’re a band.”

It hasn’t caused any tension?

“No, not at all. If you think about The Smiths or many other bands, the singer always gets a lot of attention. I don’t want that kind of attention - it’s not interesting to me, and to have that hunger is weird.”

There always was a huge mainstream potential to what you’ve been doing, and your political beliefs ought to be taken into the mainstream. Is there a Trojan Horse element to what you’re doing?

“I think so. The reason that we signed to a major label was because we kind of felt like we’d taken it as far as we could with Kill Rock Stars. For us it’s important to have some influence on kids. The whole Nirvana thing was so important to us. Some kid could read an interview and hear us talking about no wave records or underground punk records and learn from that. And that’s exciting: opening kids up to politics and music.”

How about Skins in the UK? That played a huge part in making you big.

“That was done without our permission, by the way. Back Yard (label that put their last LP out in the UK) gave it to them without asking us, which was ridiculous. We didn’t even know what the show was, then someone was like, ‘Oh, you’re the ones that did the theme songs for Skins.’ We YouTubed it and were like, ‘What the fuck?’ It was really random.”

Did that make you keen to lock down how your music is used?

“We try to. Especially on a major label where you’ve got a bunch of goons working for you... well, not necessarily goons - some of them are really nice - but you’ve got a load of people who are working as a job and have no interest in integrity or whatever. You have to make sure that you’re in touch with everything.”

Your last album became a pop record by mistake, but this one has more polish to it. Was that deliberate?

“Before we used a guitar and a drum set-up and that’s easy to record - it can be done in a lo-fi way. But we’re using a lot of new gear now, playing synth and piano, and we wanted Rick (Rubin) to do his sound magic. We wanted to be careful not to sound over-produced, and I don’t think it does - it sounds big and that’s what I was hoping for. Over-production is the death of all bands. Making a rock record that sounds like Kings Of Leon is not anything interesting.”

What was Rubin’s impact?

“He came in every once in a while and checked everything out. He was really cool, and it was amazing how much we were on the same wavelength. We listened to PiL and John Cage and talked about The Slits and house records. He really understood all the references and he wanted to keep it minimal too. It was important to us that it still sounded like a Gossip record.”

Did the time slogging away before you hit the charts keep you grounded?

“I’ve talked to some people that read their own press and I feel like I understand it when they talk about how ‘that song should have been a hit’ or whatever. I think what has helped us is not worrying about it ever - being able to make the records you want to make, play what you want to play and put on a good show. That’s all that matters to us.”

How much of that attitude derives from the fact you’re from the South?

“Probably a lot. In the South, you’re told to be humble all the time. Beth and I were raised to be humble and honest. I think that we’re pretty equal about how we feel about everyone. I think modesty and humbleness are really important, especially in this industry, and especially when you’re on a major label.”

The slip case’s contents repaid curiosity, A-side ‘So Bored’ a paradoxically ferocious shoulder shrug that sprinkles drugs on its breakfast and goes straight back to bed with Pixies on full-whack. Listening to it, you might suppose Wavves would be to grunge what Times New Viking are to eighties lo-fi.

The reality’s more like middling Sebadoh. Essentially the project of San Francisco-based Nathan Williams, parts of tonight’s set sound shambling and not nearly nasty enough, although the aforementioned ode to ennui and ‘No Hope Kids’ offer compelling evidence of one well-schooled in the art of power-chord pop.

A little of Wavves’ bad-resin fumes permeate Canadian headliners Women’s outlook, but their vision is tempered by compositional flair and musicianship somewhat in advance of Señor Williams’ inchoate mumbling. Their recent, self-titled debut lingered in many a critic’s memory for its ambitious collage of art rock, noise and lush sixties pop, so expectations are understandably high tonight.

Despite the listless air of shuffling collegiate sorts we’ve become accustomed to in North American bands of late (is it possible to slope on to a stage?), the five young menfolk of Women snap into focus as they tear into material both new and old with dexterity, suggesting tracks like the Beach Boys-ish ‘Black Rice’ were no accident.

In spite of surface scuff the band performs with a restless, metronomic rigour. To this end ‘Group Transport Hall’ is transformed into a cryptic, slow grind from its rather perkier acoustic-based guise on the record, and even ‘Shaking Hand’’s giddily rushing coda seems premised on certain mathematical certainties.

The fairer sex may be nowhere to be seen among the band’s ranks, but Women are most definitely in the house.

Recently, though, they’ve been collecting acolytes with enviable rapidity, and tonight they play with the perceptible swagger of a band no longer content to sit on the sidelines. Their music is made to be heard in a live environment - it swells and bulges through a sticky back room in Hoxton, transporting all those present far from their sweaty confines and into the mistiest, most magnificent depths of the Scottish Highlands. Led into the mountains by the pied-piper call of the melodica (bagpipes for times of economic hardship?) in ‘Crocodile’, we are lulled with the sparse sea-shanty hymnal of ‘Island’, before being punched in the gut by the wrenching, distorted riff of ‘Halfhound’.

All those years masterminding their plan for world domination have endowed The Phantom Band with an obviously refined sonic vision that seems to entail more instruments than your average orchestra, and new ways of playing them, too - although at one point pedal-man Greg Yale looks particularly lost on a banjo, as though he might never have seen one before. Frontman Rick Anthony extends his arms out over the audience in a weird conjuring motion throughout, while most of the rest of the band sport screwed up faces of concentration.

Well they might concentrate, too, as The Phantom Band specialise in distended, proggy Scot-rock that tends not so much to surpass as to shit all over the three-minute mark. With time constraints disregarded, atmospherics and attention to detail are paramount, though they indulge in wonderfully light-hearted touches, including an unexpected barbershop chorus in the anthemic ‘Throwing Bones’. If only one band is predestined to dominate the smaller stages during the coming festival season, The Phantom Band are it.

R.E.M.'s performance has a refreshing element of unstructured chaos to it. Evidently, they have been unleashing different songs for each night of this tour; an admirable tactic considering far smaller bands mostly cling to the safety of careful choreography and cast-in-stone set-lists. Perhaps their impulsiveness is a blow for those audience members expecting a glittery, big budget Spielberg-crafted spectacle, but it's something profound for the many others who relish the dark flipside of one of the most influential groups of recent history. Being a popularist rock band worthy of artist status, R.E.M. owe it to us and themselves to not be regurgitating their MTV-centric hits of 15 years ago.

It's not that R.E.M. are ageing gracefully, exactly. With his thick NHS glasses, grey stubble and newly discovered smokers' rasp, Michael Stipe seems to be embracing what will soon be his fifth decade on Earth with reckless abandon. Rather than defying the ageing process with soft-focus hocus-pocus, he appears to be highlighting it. At this rate he's going to live out his final days as a dead-ringer for William Burroughs. Yet Stipe remains the thinking man's rock star incarnate. He lurches, dances bizarrely, yells "come ooooon!" to the over-stimulated audience and still appears possessed by a superior sense of enigmatic beatnik cool. For someone who claims to be educated through magazines, he's certainly doing something right.

Old nuggets like 'Electrolite' and the Mike Mills-sung '(Don't Go Back To) Rockville' are performed superbly, but it's the new tracks that really resonate. The politicised shriek of latest single 'Man-sized Wreath' is timely while remaining as bouncy and vitriolic as anything off their 1987 long player Document. All you sad and lost apostles hear this: the spark that made R.E.M. legendry in the first place has returned in fiery abundance.

Q&A with Mike Mills

With your latest call-to-arms record, Accelerate, coupled with the largely obscure set-lists you've been performing on tour, it seems R.E.M. have reclaimed themselves from the rock establishment by becoming outsiders once more...

“I would agree with that. It's due to the cyclical nature of everything. It was amazing to me that we were so popular for as long as we were. But, of course, no one can maintain that forever. People enjoy taking you down a peg when they get the chance, but once they've done that they are perfectly happy to welcome you back.”

Has touring Accelerate altered the way you perceive the record?

“It hasn't. I never listen to our records. The only time I do is when I need to re-learn one of the songs. Touring has reinforced what I thought about the album: that the songs are all good and very focused. We always thought they would be very good to play live.”

You've remained musically relevant for a virtually unprecedented time in the world of pop music. How have you achieved that?

“I don't know. I think we're all pretty self-aware; we don't operate in a vacuum and we're all pretty intelligent people. We're not concerned with fads, but we're very conscious of the current reality and I think that filters into our music and our lyrics. We've never been musically trendy; the music we play has always been within us, and has always been outside whatever the current fad is. By doing that, you never become dated because you're never of a particular time. I think music should have a timeless quality to it, and we've never been pegged into a particular era.”

It must have been a battle to stick to your musical guns within the overbearing infrastructure of the music industry.

“We've always done whatever we wanted to do and we've always rejected the things that people told us would make us popular. Like, 'If only you would have that eighties sound,' or, 'If only you'd have that eighties hair.' I think that has stood us well.”

What is people's biggest misconception about R.E.M.?

“That we're this dour, grim, humourless bunch. Certainly that's never been true, and I think people realise that a little more now. But in the eighties and nineties people thought we were these serious, arty, have-no-fun kind of guys.”

Has being famous ever felt creatively stifling?

“I've not been aware of that consciously. We've always made music that pleases us and if it doesn't please us then we don't do it. If we don't enjoy playing it, why would anyone enjoy listening to it? We've never made music to sell records, so we've never felt the pressure to write music that would do so. The label would love it if we did, but when labels sign us they know what they're getting. We make music to make ourselves happy, and sometimes that ends up with big sales and sometimes it doesn't. That's just the way it goes.”

R.E.M. are synonymous with their political activism, how are you gearing up for the next election?

“We're not so much gearing up; we've done our bit and have certainly made our views clear. I think Obama is going to win, and while we're watching the presidential race, we're busy doing our own thing right now, and in order to do the tour justice we have to focus on that.”

Would an idealistic young Mike Mills be proud of the man you've become?

“Well of course! I think we've managed to keep our integrity, and we never did too much stuff that was overly embarrassing. Also, when I look out into the audience I see a lot of kids, which means our music is still having an effect on people.”

How is R.E.M.'s birthplace of Athens, Georgia shaping up these days?

“It has changed a little. We have a pretty progressive government now, which is very helpful. There are a lot of people there who are concerned with keeping it a beautiful place and they're doing a good job of that.”

You spend much of your time in LA, which seems a rather un-R.E.M. type of place...

“What can I say about LA that hasn't been said? It's everything you think it is... and less.”

After the success of your latest record, in which direction do you see the band heading next?

“I don't know. It could be similar to Accelerate but more spread out. Peter and I are always writing music but we're currently focused on the project at hand, which is putting on a great live show.”

R.E.M. iconically joined the cast of Sesame Street for a singalong of 'Shiny Happy Monsters'. What other TV shows are you desperate to make cameo appearances on?

“Being on TV is not as much fun as you'd think it is, but Sesame Street was good because it was so fantastic, in the sense of fantasy. You end up talking to these puppets as though they are real people. I even named one of them. I forget what I called it, though.”

Nissennenmondai’s Western admirers apparently include Lightning Bolt and Battles, and they share the raw repetitive attack of the former with the rhythmic, trance-dance contortions of the latter, if Battles were three tiny Japanese girls in matching white linen sleeveless dresses, and not a rather po-faced bunch of math rock muso blokes. Once begun, Nissennenmondai’s neo-mystical, psychedelic groove also triggered atavistic recollections Holy Fuck or Boredoms, or of the thunderous intensity of Liars coupled with the naïve (and feminine) rhythmic genius of ESG, or of a perfect, suddenly inevitable collision of Krautrock and no wave: percussive, primitive, abrasive, instinctive, hypnotic and utterly danceable.

Despite struggling with borrowed equipment (the result of having to navigate their entire UK tour by National Express coach), Nissennenmondai conjured three lengthy instrumental pieces driven by the amazing, diminutive Sayaka Himeno on the kit, a blur of swinging ponytail and flailing sticks. She maintained a solid disco pulse on the kick drum beneath a blizzard of hi-hat beats, hitting snare and toms only when absolutely necessary, and so locking into that sexualised pattern of tension and release that distinguishes all great dance music.

Yuri Zaikawa restricted her bass playing to the most minimal of punk-funk figures, while guitarist Masako Takada almost seemed to be playing high school metal riffs, repeating them through a loop pedal and a relatively minimal selection of effects. Yet the combination was so much greater than the sum of its deceptively simple parts.

We staggered out utterly enervated by their too-short set, and next morning cursed the fact we’d failed to buy CDs from the merch stand, that are otherwise impossible to acquire in the UK. But this can’t last long. Nissennenmondai are far too good to retain the element of surprise forever.

Thankfully promoters DF didn’t give up on the idea, instead choosing to re-invent and re-brand the event as The Edge Festival. Just how this ‘new’ endeavour would be affected by the lack of big money backing soon became clear when the programme was published.

Gone were the stadium shows, and so too were the number of high-profile international acts. Instead, the focus shifted to emerging talent with a few crowd-pleasing names thrown into the mix to ensure numbers.

On paper it looked like a chance to unearth some previously hidden gems and to discover the next generation of Scottish bands. In reality, it was a decidedly hit and miss affair that, although not without some truly memorable nights, overall failed to dazzle.

One of the first bands hoping to leave their mark was London quartet Longview but due to malfunctioning equipment, songs that were found wanting and a real dearth of atmosphere, their rather lacklustre display proved less than enthralling. The same could be said of former Joseph K linchpin Paul Haig whose run-of-the-mill set provoked little reaction from the sparsest of crowds.

A couple of nights later, back at the Cabaret Voltaire, things finally picked up with the arrival of Stockholm’s Shout Out Louds. The quintet’s multi-layered brand of indie pop may have suffered early on due to muddy bass-heavy sound but, by a particularly joyous rendition of ‘The Comeback’, proceedings were pulled back on track, where they remained until a rousing encore of the aptly-named ‘Hurry Up Let’s Go’ brought their set to a close.

Twickenham folk popsters Noah And The Whale may have pulled a full house, but armed with songs that more often than not felt like background music, mustering any real enthusiasm for the four-piece was an effort. The one song of note, ‘Five Years Time’, did prove memorable but mainly due its opening riff’s similarity to Cornershop’s ‘Brimful of Asha’.

Of the four Scottish bands appearing at the Liquid Room the following night for a Your Sound Showcase, only one left its mark - Woodenbox With a Fistful of Fivers. The combo is the brainchild of Glasgow-based Ali Downer, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter with a knack for writing upbeat bluegrass-infused folk songs that can get a crowd moving, and Downer and his three-piece backing band did just that.

Performances from psychedelic dance trio Midnight Juggernauts, Clare and The Reasons and the effervescent Bombay Bicycle Club rounded off the inaugural Edge and ensured proceedings finished on a high. But with many of this year’s gigs feeling like fillers, it remains to be seen if we’ll be returning in 2009.

Special Mention

The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit / Liquid Room

The chance to see two of Scotland’s best bands on the same bill was always going to be hard to resist so, not surprisingly, the Liquid Room was close to bursting for tonight’s appearance by The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit.

First up were Selkirk’s finest. Watching the Rabbit in full flight can be an intoxicating experience - the passion of their performances has the power to captivate an audience - and tonight it did just that. Energy radiated from the stage from start to finish, but felt especially euphoric on ‘Fast Blood’ and ‘The Modern Leper’.

A genuine spine-tingling moment was provided by the sublime ‘Poke’, sung a cappella, Hutchison’s vocal proving achingly fragile and truly transfixing, while set closer ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ succeeded in sparking the biggest sing-along of the night from the increasingly sweaty but happy crowd.

Like their bunny friends, The Twilight Sad perform with the kind of honesty most bands aspire to but seldom attain. Clad in black, and throttling his mic, James Graham delivered his darkly-lit lyrics with hypnotic, raw emotion. On ‘And It Would Darken The Memory’, that emotion exploded with volcanic force, Graham lost in a Twilight trance, screaming expletives as the guitar-generated chaos engulfed him.

But don’t think this is a one-man operation. Mark Devine’s pounding rhythms and Craig Orzel’s telling basslines provided the strongest of backbones over which guitarist Andy MacFarlane, a picture of stoic reserve, manufactured wave after wave of effect-laden guitar; sounds that were brutal but beautiful, visceral but still very much melodic.

“Ah, Latitude. Me too.”

No, sonny, not Latitude. If you ever wanted to wipe out 98 per cent of The Guardian’s readers in one sweet little napalm strike, aim for Latitude. And, while your there, hit Aldeburgh too.

I was heading 20 miles north, near Lowestoft, to Pontin’s Holiday Village, home to The Wildest Cats in Town Rock’n’Roll Weekender, which is put on by promoter Richie Gee. Mr Gee has been organising classic rock’n’roll concerts for decades, bringing legends over from the US to perform in front of huge crowds of immaculately dressed Teddy boys and girls. Most are now grandparents and it’s humbling to think of them stepping out 50 years ago in these clothes and giving birth to word ‘rebel’.

The classic Butlin’s-style seaside holiday camp, with its cavernous sprung-floored ballroom, was the perfect venue for such a spectacle. British favourites Matchbox, Porky’s Hot Rockin and The Rhythm Aces got the crepe soles tapping, and I saw a wedding party on Saturday drink Newcastle Brown Ale all night while waiting to see their favourites, Crazy Cavan, play. They weren’t disappointed.

The weekend’s highlight for me began with a 15-minute set by Texan Chris Casello, who played that Fender with such attack and virtuosity it brought a tear to my eye. Casello then moved aside and joined the backing band for fifties Sun Records legend Johnny Powers. His voice still hits the spot and he couldn’t leave us without playing his hit ‘Long Blonde Hair’ twice, Casello filling Powers’s guitar shoes for the lead solos with humility.

I can’t wait until next year. I’m actually going to dance. I’m taking jive lessons and ironing my drapes already.

Almost immediately it proves, somehow, to be pretty good. Both he and Gibby Haynes look match fit and, along with the rest of the classic line-up, they launch into '22 Going On 23', one of the tar-black psych rock misadventures from Locust Abortion Technician, replete with howling Gibbytronix vocal FX and samples of mooing cows. They may play a lot of material from albums after 1993's Independent Worm Saloon, but even that sounds better now that time has moved on. Tracks like 'Moving To Florida' really pack some punch, even if Gibby is 12-step clean and sometimes looks like he doesn't know what to do with himself. Really, this is party music from hell and even the sober can't help freaking out to the Satanic Black Sabbath pastiche 'Sweat Loaf', which has Leary, Haynes and bassist Jeff Pinkus doing synchronized Can Can dancing.

The Buttholes were one of the best heavy rock bands of the eighties - fact. They were hamstrung by a preposterous acid-fried, pot-head sense of humour that valued outrage and scatological humour over being po-faced or taking themselves seriously, and they've suffered heavily because of it. Very rarely are they given the props they deserve for their truly unique sound. Well, no one's laughing tonight and if only The Forum's piss poor PA could be turned up louder, monolithic songs like 'Graveyard' would be terrifying as well as anvil heavy.

As for those pesky kids? Well, what could be more Buttholes-esque than having a 16-year-old girl playing a smoking solo under a viciously strobing light and images of hardcore pornography? The kids, and the Buttholes, are alright.

Seeing Sartain on stage for first time in two years, I'm struck again by how diminutive and ridiculously fresh-faced he is. At 26, he could still pass for a teenager, especially now he's shorn off the sleazy pencil-line Pachuco moustache (worthy of Esquerita) he used to rock. Live, he burns away anything extraneous in his mondo primitive / minimalist hybrid of fifties rockabilly and sixties garage punk. Previously I'd seen him completely alone, just backing himself on guitar. Tonight he's augmented by a drummer and bassist. It doesn't make much difference: Sartain's fluid, slashing and emotive twang-y guitar and wailing voice dominate, drenched in ringing distortion.

Tonight's terse adrenaline-jolt short set includes a sprinkling of familiar songs ('Flight of The Finch', 'Walk Among The Cobras', 'Replacement Man') and lots of exciting-sounding new unreleased material. Sartain is no purist or revivalist: without ever trying to slavishly emulate, he evokes the spirit of early Sun Records. In 2006, I got the impression hopes were being pinned Sartain to become the next White Stripes-style breakthrough phenomenon and, at the height of the garage punk explosion, he toured with both White Stripes and The Hives. The crossover hasn't happened yet. The diverse and imaginative influences Sartain draws upon (Joe Meek, Gene Vincent, Alice Cooper, Mexican mariachi music) don't get you on Radio 1 or T4. Judging by the reception he gets in London, though, cult stardom seems assured.