It seems like Lower Clapton Road has cleared up a bit these days. Certainly since those shagsacks Oasis came and made a video in the Round Chapel. Terminally uncool, the Burnage boys would've been oblivious that just up the road is another place of worship, Biddle's Bar.
Apparently a former hardware store, the place looks pretty much unchanged from those days. I guess. They've certainly still got the original signage. Quite a tiny little gaff, it's still big enough to have live music in the back bit. The first band I saw there were Hackney's veteran gypsy-punk renegades, Walking Wounded. Man! They tore the roof off the place that night. Thirty years, nine albums and still going strong.
The next act I saw there was Public Speech. Basically a project of Joe Eye Joe, onetime guitarist with Dalston's Pearl Jam soundalikes The Dolmen. Joe became something of a Hackney equivalent of Eminem - if a white boy can't rap in an integrated community like Dalston, then what's up with the world? The kid was good, he mad himself known and got a load of hits on his MySpace.
He couldn't leave his geetar down though, and Hey Presto! From beats and samples, Public Speech have become a full fledged band. And Saturday night's show indicates he's on track at last. One can't escape the pub-rockness of it all. who would want to? Joe's a tasty guitarist, from skanking Wilko-isms to far out Hendrixy flourishes. Other times they sound like a weird cross between The Specials and Hawkwind! And this is just a wee trio in a back-bar in Clapton!
But better still, those teenage observations still hold true. Truer! And Joe's lyrics are sharp as a tack. The posing DJs, the casual sexism of the Daily Star brigade, Hackney's own middle-class ghetto just up the road in Stokey. and now, the hilarious and self-explanatory 'Twitter'.
There's something really rich and vibrant about the Hackney scene. The salt and vinegar spirit of cynicism and protest is very much alive and well. A living, breathing heir to Ian Dury, Joe Eye Joe and Public Speech have taken something old and worn and made it new and very real indeed.
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