Yuck were born out of the ashes of Cajun Dance Party who, while quite popular and quite competent in their chosen genre, were pretty “of their time.” They were one of a hundred English indie bands that proliferated around 2007/2008 and disappeared shortly after. The one thing they did have on their sides however, was that they were young. Really young. Much was made of the fact that they made their first album while studying for their A levels.
Two of the core members of Cajun Dance Party left to form Yuck, recruiting American Johnny Rogoff on drums and Japanese bassist Mariko Doi, and the racket they make is a million miles away from the contemporariness of Cajun Dance Party. Yuck are partying like it’s 1991. Their sound has much more in common with Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr than it does with The Kooks or Mystery Jets.
Tonight they are playing the tiny, 100-capacity venue in Edinburgh that has made a name for itself over the past two years as the place to go in Edinburgh for great gigs – Sneaky Petes. The support comes in the form of Edinburgh noiseniks The Young Spooks, who combine elements of Joy Division, Spacemen 3 and an extremely art-literate attitude to performance that sets them apart from a lot of the try-hards on the Edinburgh scene. Their performance is raucous, chaotic and pretty captivating, the way they wrestle an impressive drone out of the feedback from their instruments being a particular highlight in their sound.
The main support though, comes from Glasgow’s PAWS, who are a great choice of support given that they inhabit a similar space to Yuck, combining traditional, simple song structures, with crushing levels of distortion and hammering rhythms that take those very same structures into far more interesting territory.
The main event though, of course, is Yuck. They shamble onstage with very little in the way of ceremony, tune up their guitars and absolutely hammer into Holing Out, which sets the tone for the gig perfectly. It’s loud, it’s melodic, and it’s pretty damn glorious. Singer Daniel Blumberg has a spaced out, hollow look on his face throughout, yet manages to intone each melody with conviction and strength, and it’s these melodies that truly set these songs apart, and above, what could realistically have been a pastiche.
The set continues with highlights being Georgia, The Wall and Suicide Policeman. Their stage banter does leave a little to be desired though, with audience communication delegated to drummer Johnny, who for some reason decides to pick me out of the crowd to ask how my day has been. However, nobody cares about crap banter, especially when the songs around it are so lackadaisically explosive.
The packed crowd are captivated by the relentless noise and melodious beauty of the songs and switch from rapturous applause, to near silence during the quieter moments. By the time the set is over, the chants of one more tune ri
While it’s clear that Yuck owe a lot to looking backwards, you get a strong feeling that it won’t be long until they turn their heads around and plant their stare steadfastly forwards.
