Klaxons

I don't watch much telly these days - but with BBC1 & BBC2 being shown here in Amsterdam I always make sure I catch the The Culture Show. Whether it's high art or or pub rock, they treat each piece they cover with consideration and objectivity.....while leaving a platform for letting rip with opinions in the on-set discussions.

Watching this week's episode I was not surprised to see the Klaxons on there....but I was surprised to see what kind of Klaxons. You see, about this time last year I saw them perform here in Amsterdam at the Vice Magazine launch. Everyone was pissed-up on free Heineken and not paying them much attention. I was transfixed though. Not because they were good (they were fucking terrible), but because I couldn't believe the audacity of these guys. They looked like first year uni students who'd attacked their little sister's fluro paint set in the midst of a cocaine psychosis and had decided to form a band...only days before. They were off key, off tempo and looked as though they'd done one gram slugs of coke moments before hitting the stage. Yet much like the first time I saw The Libertines, I couldn't take my eyes of this car crash waiting to happen. And much like The Libertines....there was no inkling that you were seeing future stars in ascendance....just a feeling (which may or may not be amped-up by hindsight) that you had seen something different.

Fast forward a year and they have a strong debut album, NME hyping them to the stratosphere by way of claiming they've pioneered a new genre (Nu Rave), legions of fans...and a slot on the Culture show no less.

During the segment it seemed as though no-one has been more surprised by their success than they themselves. No false modesty here - just shellshock that what was seemingly a laugh by a bunch of chancers (and believe me they were chancers) has paid Gold.

It seems they've already calmed down on the drugs....no Doherty disintergration here. They spoke of a time in Paris where one of them had gone missing, one was roaming around the city in a bunny suit and the other was projectile vomitting and how at this point they realised that the extreme hedonism wasn't part of their success, but detrimental to it. They've been given their big chance and they're not going to fuck it up. They're smart kids. They're managing their image...their way. They do their own album artwork, know which directors they want to shoot their music vids and even manage their web comms with their fans. Good luck to em (and anyone labelled with Nu Rave that thinks to cover Grace's 'Not Over Yet' is fine by me).

Below is their latest release Golden Skans where they've moved on from the fluro (and possibly Nu-Rave) and on to glitter and streamers in this Jackson 5esque effort from director Saam.





Update: QT here (hat-tip to cliptip)



And the drug-fucked fluro Klaxons I'm more familiar with (also directed by Saam):



Large QT here