Preview
Music
The Go! Team
Two drummers, a hand clap machine, guitars, samples and a rapper called Ninja. This is the line-up for UK band The Go! Team, whose sound has been described as falling somewhere between Sonic Youth and The Jackson 5. Considering that these aforementioned groups have about as much in common as power tools and preserved fruits, it will be interesting to see what kind of an audience the Brits will attract when they play Beijing and Shanghai as part of the Bacardi Breezer Sino Sessions.
This is the fourth of the liquor company's promotional concerts, which has already brought out the likes of beatboxing dynamo Killa Kela and indie darlings Maximo Park. Also featured on the bill for Beijing will be local band The Verse, while Flying Fruit will play in the Shanghai gig.
Now veterans of the international festival scene, The Go! Team has made appearances at the Glastonbury, Leeds and Reading festivals as well as the Big Day Out in Australia and Lollapalooza and Coachella in the US. Add to this tour supports with The Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, an appearance on UK TV show Tonight with Jools Holland and a critically acclaimed debut album titled Thunder, Lightning, Strike and you're talking a band that can seemingly justify the exclamation point in their moniker.
Tracks such as Power is On and Ladyflash will give the uninitiated a pretty good clue as to what to expect from The Go! Team's live set. It's the kind of stuff that could quite easily fit over the top of a montage from any Rocky movie - a high-energy fusion of rock, funk and soul with a few sirens thrown in for good measure. And unlike more traditional methods of songwriting, like when a band recollects their troubled childhoods and then channels these emotions through loud guitars, the genesis of The Go! Team sounds more like the beginnings of an electronic act.
"I got an old Eighties sampler and a four-track (tape recorder) and (along with brother and engineer Gareth) just started welding ideas from songs with samples I'd heard in random places and live instruments," said Ian Parton, the man credited as band leader (and as far as we know he's no relation to Dolly).
The sprightly appeal of The Go! Team's sound has not been lost on marketers either as the band's music has helped spruik Honda cars and US College Football Games. A few of their tracks have also appeared on the soundtracks of sporting videos and featured in video games. Dawson Creek-esque US teen drama One Tree Hill also used one of their songs (presumably not during a make-out scene).
And if a snippet of The Go! Team's new material is characteristic of their forthcoming album, you can expect them to stick to the street carnival dynamic of their older stuff. A new track, Grip Like A Vice, which has been doing the rounds online, is an even more intensified effort to mash together rapping, squad cheers, horns, screaming guitars and (gasp) samples from obscure '70s and '80s sources.
The Go! Team: Tonight, Star Live, Beijing; Saturday, Absolute House, Shanghai. Doors open 8:30 pm. Tickets: 120/80/60 Standard/Advance/Student
Ben Davey
(China Daily 06/29/2007 page20)
