NEVER MIND THE BOSSA NOVA
HERE'S BLOCO VOMIT
When you look at a CD's sleeve notes and find people credited with playing
the surdo, puppet and banana, you know you're not dealing with yet another
bunch of Kangol-wearing lads trying to be Oasis. And Bloco Vomit, yet
another damn near essential band hailing from Scotland's capital, are as far removed from
Los Bros Gallagher as it is possible to get.
If an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters were held at gunpoint and forced to think of two kinds of music that would sit well together, it would take them at least a fortnight to tentatively suggest "punk and samba?". Bands like The Clash and the whole 2-Tone thing in the late 70s/early 80s made the ska-punk crossover seem natural, but no-one with a spiky haircut and a safety-pin has ever looked to the heady and intoxicating rhythms of Brazil for influence before. Or at least if they have, they've kept damn quiet about it.
Quiet is not the first word that springs to mind when you slip "Never Mind The Bossa Nova..." into your unsuspecting hi-fi. Formed by a group of like-minded drumbeaters from the Edinburgh Samba School in 1995, Bloco Vomit (at the last count a 10-piece) combine a traditional and accomplished punk/new wave line-up with a multi-piece Brazilian percussion section, resulting in a sound that captures the best spirit of punk and safety-pins some addictively loin-stirring BIG rhythms to it. Imagine Los Pistoles Sexualez or Gloria Estefan wearing a ripped bin bag and drinking snakebite and you're sorta close.
5 minutes into this and you'll be pogoing round your living room like Speedy Gonzales. On speed. After the punk classic of Crass' "Do They Owe Us A Living?", "Jilted John" (y'know - "Gordon is a moron...") is the first number to demonstrate the monumental power of the percussion section, exploding around the novelty new wave song like firecrackers at a Mardi Gras. If you were trapped inside a nuclear submarine going full-speed ahead whilst Godzilla dropped depth charges onto your head, this is what it'd sound like. More than slightly daft, yes, but visceral, vital and vucking good fun.
An LP full of punk covers (with one exception, the effective traditional "Gambinda Nova"), each song willingly lays itself bare - allowing Bloco V to clothe it in gloriously OTT Brazilian festival outfits - then pogos around the place, resplendent in its new gear with a big stupid grin on its face. "Pretty Vacant", "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?", "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!": each gets the Bloco treatment and comes out - if not better than the original - then certainly none the worse for wear. Indeed, the band treat the songs with an irreverence that is decidedly healthy and seem to be able to cope with the fact that music can be fun, not just po-faced, introspective and requiring a 20-piece string section. And live, when the band go the whole hog and cross-dress in traditional Brazilian street party style (complete with puppet show), New Seriousness is the last thing on anyone's mind.
If you're old enough to remember the originals, this will fill you with nostalgia and have you looking out the bondage gear again (then putting it away again when you find it doesn't fit any more). If you're not old enough, who cares? Come to Bloco Vomit's party anyway...good times guaranteed.
Punk's not dead - it just learned to samba.
You owe it to yourself to pay them a visit.
