Soundclash & The Sheffield Scenester Present: Fret Death Featuring: Jackson Caged The Jokers Poxy Reason SKM @ The Boardwalk 9/9/10

To help celebrate the electric guitar and those who play her....Soundclash and The Sheffield Scenester got together (yet again) this time to present Fret Death! With four amazing guitar based bands showcasing/strutting their stuff this was promising to be a good night! It was also the night when most of The Sheffield Scenester team met up with each other for a good old fashioned chin wag....so we all could put names to faces!

Having got a good round of drinks in we settled down to enjoy the first band of the night, SKM, an act we’d previously seen at West Street Live. Back then guitarist Matt had made quite an impression on us with his Blackmore style of play and stance as well, tonight was no different as they began their set with a very guitar orientated introduction before proudly announcing “We are SKM!” With both front men happily doing their thing, banging out tunes of their own like ‘Ladies man’, one of the fastest tracks of their set and ‘High Rollers’, a catchy rhythm based song that had definite echoes of Deep Purple’s ‘Black Night’. Mix all this with the classic coordinated guitar antics that takes you back to the heady days of 70’s metal shows, when metal was an almost innocent art form. They actually did two cover songs, firstly the S Club 7 track ‘Don’t Stop Moving’, which always goes down a treat, and secondly a cover of The Cult’s seminal 80’s classic ‘She Sells Sanctuary’. This was the song we enjoyed the most as due to Matt’s extended guitar solo this brilliant song was even longer than usual.

After that dose of retro fret-ripping entry on the night’s list of mayhem it was time for Poxy Reason, a band who have turned a few heads in our area before. Opening with a hard and fast driving rhythm, it was at first hard to tell if they were either an indie band or a metal band, but as soon as the driving rhythm gave way to an almost hammer fisted riff, it was obvious their roots were purely metal based! Unfortunately we neglected (partly due to our love of metal and partly due to the good time we were having) to pick up a set list, but to be fair it was the way lead singer Burt described them that stuck in our memories more than anything else. The first and funniest description was “This one is based on the opening sequence to that film Cliffhanger, the bit were Sly Stallone drops that bird from that rope at the beginning!” I mean how on earth is that relevant to a song? Following this were two songs, one likened to “Something stuck in your eye” and a second one, not exactly ballad material, described as “You know when you get angry and then punch someone!” It was moments like this that not only entertained....but picked the crowd up nicely, and without a doubt made them memorable.

Musically they were a good, fast onslaught of screeching guitars, slapping bass and speedy drum work. As a unit they could take a song and midway through chop and change both the pace and tempo without so much as a blink of the eye, great fun to watch and great fun to listen to!

Following this was this week’s import, The Jokers, a four piece from the west coast who have most definitely paid their dues! With their hearts firmly based on classic metal and an eye for showmanship they made it their mission to put on a show worth writing home about! With the bass player, Jokers Jet donning a cast plastic mask...made by the same people who did Slipknot’s as we were informed in a pre-show interview...and a guitarist, Paul Hurst, who obviously spent quite a while at the Kiss school of theatrical presentation, this was shaping up to be a riot of a show! Musically it may not have been the most accomplished of the night, but it certainly had no problems in the entertainment department. In fact they did, in a fun way, remind me of a show I’d seen earlier in the year by the American group Steel Panther, basically all they want to do is entertain, and without shoving numerous hang ups or pretentious connotations down an unsuspecting audience’s throat! In a quick pre-show interview with these guys we were told;

“We’ve got a new album out called ‘The Big Rock & Roll Show’ and a single, ‘Jamie Jane’, which is due for release on October 4th. The album was mixed in Canada by Mike Fraser, who’s worked with the likes of Metallica, and has received good reviews in Kerrang. We’ve a three week tour with Hawkwind starting on December 3rd, but this is the first time we’ve been to Sheffield! We played with an ACDC tribute band in Birdwell and Joolz spotted us there and asked us to do this. To be honest we’re just playing anywhere we can to promote ourselves, Planet Rock has been playing us a lot and they’ve mentioned this show so there should be some fans out there for us. We’re really looking forward to tonight cos it looks like a good venue and the guys from the other bands seem a good bunch. We’re a Rock ‘n’ Roll band and we’re here just to play some Rock ‘n’ Roll, Sheffield people are right nice people and that’s the kind of fans we want to play for!”

Back on stage Paul, suggestively flicked his tongue at anyone and everyone even as he played guitar in as many position as possible. Jokers Jet lurked menacingly in one corner of the stage, occasionally venturing to the front to stick his demonic clown mask in the face of the nearest camera! This set was definitely a no holds barred Rock ‘n’ Roll show with a dose of double barrelled entertainment!

Finally to wrap things up was one of our favourite bands, Jackson Caged who, since the first time we saw them at the O2 Academy, have hooked us with their live shows and enthusiastic dedication to their art! They’ve shocked many an unsuspecting crowd with demonic clown face paint, and traumatised an entire Bon Jovi Experience audience by walking on stage caked in blood, the question was, what would they do tonight? Opening their set with ‘Welcome To The Show’ all seemed normal with just the usual great music and tongue in cheek sadistically lyrical vocals. Admittedly with Fraz trying his best to sing without laughing it was hard to take it all too seriously, though in his defence he did have his mum in the audience, and with that level of profanity maybe he was slightly embarrassed!
For the first time ever we saw them perform ‘Jaws’ mid way through the set....but Big M still took his guitar for a walk out into the audience, this time stepping up onto table and stopping to play there for a while!

Doing covers of ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ as well as ‘Hit The Road Jack’ finally led them up to one of their most profanity strewn tracks, ‘Pardon Me Miss’. This was to be their surprise of the night as Fraz dragged a blow-up doll on stage to play with....apparently her name was Lola! And being stark b*ll*ck naked, was definitely a showgirl! With mum in the audience he seemed at a loss as to what to do with her which made the whole show quite hysterical, so as the final chord of the song rang out he shyly said “Sorry Mum!” Intending to finish, they blasted out ‘Every Fall’, easily their best song for our money, but Joolz insisted they do another, so after a quick discussion gave us an extra song to finish the night off!

It’s a long time since we’ve been to a metal dedicated night, but it was well worth the wait, hopefully a Fret Death 2 will rear its ugly head. Maybe between them, Scenester and Soundclash will come up with another dedicated night, we do have a few ideas but as yet nothing concrete, just watch this space!

Words Geoff and Gail Buckthorpe

Photos by Liam Farrelly & Malcolm White