Exterior. The doors to Mono open and the queue of fans of Perfect Pussy, Joanna Gruesome and Tuff Love move inside in a, for the most part, orderly fashion. Just as well as it’s Glasgow and it’s raining. Again. Cut to interior.
Act One. Tuff Love. Nervous but eager to please, Tuff Love casually throw their endearingly uncertain harmonies over a duvet of C86 meets garage rock and make everything seem warm and cosy. Everybody feels the love in the room.
Act Two. Joanna Gruesome. As if to provide a counterpoint, Joanna Gruesome throw the duvet on the bonfire and set about the rest of your fluffy post C86 expectations with a hammer. Sure, all your favourite sugary sweet female vocals are in there but the angular brutality of the riffs and rhythms suggest that handing over your pocket money right now would be a good plan for Joanna Gruesome are the kind of band who would escalate a difference of opinion into a power chord war.
Act Three. The star turn, Perfect Pussy. Now we’re really in trouble as their songs make every Ramones song seem like an extended disco remix. The guitarist is clearly a serial abuser of power chords. The bass player cannot resist the urge to go subterranean at the most trivial of provocations. The keyboard player has fallen victim to psychotropic substances. The drummer beats the skins like a man who drinks napalm for breakfast and, to cap it all off, Meredith Graves darts in and out of the sonic maelstrom ranting like a prophet warning of some imminent societal apocalypse. The theatre of aural brutality is in town and we’re all in the front row.
Cut and print.