BREAKFAST OF BANALITY 3: THE EGG
I am not a gready person. I have been known to share a bottle of Tanq or two with other like minded people. Never hear it be told that I did not stump up for someone’s birthday (though I some of my friends are getting a bit bored of getting different coloured ear protectors every year). And I could quite happily make do with one tactical nuclear weapon a year to obliterate whatever town appeared to be gestating a musical scene. 1990 Manchester would have got it. 1988 I would have happily bombed Stourbridge. 1992 Bristol. And 1995 – Oxford.
I hate Oxford. For a place so relatively small it has certainly spawned some terrible music. Supergrass, Radiohead, Thurman (hah – I’ll get back to them). And The Egg. Who, you ask if you are lucky enough never to have been played at by this bunch of chancers, who are The Egg? Let me try to describe them without damning them in one sentence.
The Egg: Psychadelic-dance- jazz-fusion.
Ah well, failed there. Would it surprise you to hear that The Egg are popular on the festival circuit? Would it surprise you to hear that each one of their individual songs goes on for about twenty minutes? Would it surprise you if I told you that the band members dressed in white sheets infront of a white backdrop and then project even duller psychadelic films on themselves? If those things would surprise you then let me tell you something that won’t surprise you. They are crap.
The idea behind The Egg is one that every drummer probably had in 1990. Dance music was encroaching and with dance music came the drum machine putting them out of work. Also with dance music came people who were terrible at playing live . Sequenced music left them with nothing to do but dance, which is the one thing no-one in a dance act – like DJ’s – can actually do. So what is the conclusion? Wouldn’t it be great if we could, like, play dance music live. From here on in we allow the Ozric Tentacles of this world on to the stage. But when the drummer who thinks this is a jazz drummer, and he lives in Oxford (a place where frankly a paraplegic one man band could get a gig) a band like The Egg are formed. The kind of band that has a great live rep but not much in the way of recorded output. The kind of band you need to take very strong drugs to watch. The kind of band who should be hunted down now by Interpol. Anything but cracking.