Cheeky wee bastards.
What with them taking in vain the name of one of my few political heroes I'm perfectly within my rights to actively dislike this group, but I think I'm mellowing with age. Or at least I calmed down a bit after listening to their music.
Julius Martov and the Sexy Mistakes hail from either Widnes or Runcorn, which means that if and when they get the twenty questions treatment on Pop World, they'll claim they are from Liverpool, and from what I can gauge from their MySpace page as a band they are ridiculously young**, playing their debut gig only four weeks ago - in Runcorn - but that's good. No need for a panic attack just yet. A band should only start worrying when Runcorn's the last place they will ever play. No sleep 'til Huyton and all that.
From scanning the set list of their first ever gig, and the fact that it' takes pride of place on their profile page, I'll hazard a guess that 'Sexy Mistake' is the song they'd release as a single tomorrow if some bloke chomping a cigar popped by and offered to bankroll their first record . . . but only if they first signed these ten sheets of blank paper he is carrying in his briefcase, of course.
This blogger's ears detected the influence of The Rapture when the music kicked in but though I liked the humour of the lyric, I think the vocal actually detracted from the music. It's almost as if it was inserted into the middle of the song as an afterthought, though I take on board the band's explanation that they " . . . recorded the music live as a band and then recorded the vocals shortly after, so although it means a few mistakes and that, it is a true indication as to how we sound . . . "
'Hogarth' and 'Frometa' are the strongest two songs out of the four. Yes, the lyric of the first song of the two indicates that it is about that 'Hogarth', and whilst I have no idea what 'Frometa' means, I get the gist of what the lead singer truly thinks about Salma Hayek. Yeah, she's my favourite actress as well. I'm guessing that with mention of Hayek, who played Frida Kahlo, and the cryptic references in the lyric to Bauhaus and Cubism that the Frometa of the title is this painter. Looks like somebody's doing an Art History course in college.
I really like these songs. The vocals and the music gel and, though you won't believe me, I did cotton onto the Mark E. Smith influence in the vocal and music before I scrolled down the page, and saw that the Fall were mentioned as a major influence. (That's the downside of the MySpace music pages. You can't fall back on saying, 'Well, this sounds like such and such', 'cos more often than not the band under the microscope has namechecked the other group before you have the chance to.)
'Baby, I Will Even Buy You Ice-Cream' is the last song of the four, and the most poppy of the bunch. It screamed C86 to me, but they probably don't know their Stump from their Close Lobsters, so I'll just put that observation down to me being an old fart locked in my dotage.
As I mentioned above, my stumbling across a band named after Martov could have exploded into an *cough* incident and an incandescent rant but, on further reflection, I think this is good news for the criminally unknown Menshevik Internationalist. 'Cos, though the General Without Armies will deny it, who had really heard of Trotsky before Hugh Cornwell sang that song?, and don't get me started on the one weekend-a-year smash the staters.Vini Reilly did more to popularise anarchist-communism in Britain than a thousand Clifford Harper woodcuts or the image of a shaggy haired Tony Wilson introducing the Sex Pistols on 'So It Goes'.
The Publications Dept of the SPGB should finally get round to giving the green light to reprinting 'The State and the Socialist Revolution' before the band hits the heights and the publishing arm of AK Press Warner Bros smell the cash, and get in on the act.
*Once again I find an excuse to paraphrase that bullshit quote from Lev.
** Except the bass player, of course - they are born looking old. Think about it, Bruce Foxton, John Deacon, Bill Wyman, Tina Weymouth, John Entwhistle, Andy Rourke, the nameless blokes from Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand? They all look like they could also be in the tribute bands for the aformentioned bands.
UPDATE
The image of Martov that is on the band's myspace page is nicked from this famous photograph. The legs in the picture may or may not belong to Vera Zasulich. As this post went to publish, it has yet to be confirmed.
FURTHER UPDATE
Feeling decidely peckish, I eat some humble pie here.
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