Live
< The Dash at 93 Feet East
words by Danny Canter
pics by
DASH FRONT MAN MARC HAYWARD IS rutting his Fender Telecaster like a crazed Hendrix hound dog… in mating season… heavily dosed up on V. Wheezing and feeding back, the six stringed piece of wood is bent over the singer’s monitor while the cowboy-booted punk is on his knees and bringing tonight’s East London set to a close. With the final howls of ‘Sunshine Kids’ (a song that starts off with Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’-esque drums and guitars) we’re reminded that, while Klaxons now belong to housewives and blue-collar workers nationwide, the mainstream has left alone plenty for us to revel in. On the face of it, The Dash are Razorlight before they were more bothered about being fulltime Camden Leisure Pirates or Dirty Pretty Things without the overshadowing burden of rivalling The Libertines. ‘Hmmmm, so The Kooks, then?’ you’re probably thinking. NO! Burn that sticker you’re about to put on this band and - if you are indeed the sticker type – use a thick dark marker to compare this trio to The Buzzcocks, if anyone. This is grub-punk-rock, which, fortunately for The Dash, is something that they’ve mastered, marrying with it chart friendly melodies.
Drinking red wine throughout his band’s set, Hayward, it appears, is a forlorn, metrosexual lothario of Peter Perrit ilk. “How are the free drinks treating you,” he slightly slurs on arrival, before new debut single ‘Broomhouse Road’ clangs about to hint that maybe Arcadia is still within all of our sights.
The rutting is to follow once a half full 93 Feet East witnesses 25 minutes of honest pop-punk that may not be reinventing the wheel but rather unashamedly bolts two proud stabilisers to the side of it in celebration of simplicity in loud songs about love.
One Telecaster is left with a very soar input socket, we’re left with a new band to optimistically torture our crushed hearts with until Jools Holland and his Mercury’s catch up, which could be very soon.
Originally appeared in volume 1, issue 27 of Loud & Quiet magazine
