Buster Shuffle

Event information

BUSTER SHUFFLE:

Grab your Converse and get ready for a right old knees up because Buster Shuffle are about to give you the time of your life.

Something new, refreshing and fun has been brewing in East London pubs and clubs and now the band are ready to unleash the rockney magic on a greater scale ' without any kind of record company involvement. The proactive lads have decided to take matters into their own hands after a flirtation with a major label. They haven't got time to wait around for budgets to get signed off, they just want to gig, gig, gig. Give them a postage stamp and they'll play on it.

The four-piece have been energetically slinging a piano, double bass, guitar and drum kit all around London for two years. And with their ska, rock'n'roll sound and feel-good songs, they already have a huge fan-base, especially in the East End.

Jethro Baker, on piano and lead vocals, 'the best drummer you could find' Terry Mascall, on drums, Tim Connell aka Popeye Doyle, on double bass and Danny 'I-love-a-rollie' Piper does the knee-bending at the front whilst playing the guitar.

When they supported Jersey Budd and Goldie Looking Chain at top indie club night 'This Feeling' in January 2008, a member of the Welsh rapping band told the boys: 'Don't take this the wrong way but my Mum would really like you and so would my Girlfriend.' But that's alright because this is the charm of the band and piano stomper Jethro was told by another fan that, 'Everyone's got a bit of Buster Shuffle in them.'

Meanwhile The Pixies frontman Frank Black has told the Madness-esque band that he's a mega fan and Damon Alban requested them for his 'Monkey Journey to the West' production's wrap party.

You can't fail to have a good time at one of Buster Shuffle's gigs with beer-swilling-in-the-air-tunes like,'Me, Myself and I' and 'You're Alright'. At gigs, the crowd are a mixture of young girls in 50s get-up, lads with their beers in the air and the odd old geezer jumping around in the corner.

It's their no-nonsense, unpretentious, stuff-your-wingeing-skinny jean-boy lyrics that has caught the eye of likes of Art Brut guitarist Ian Catskilkin, who produced their DIY first album out in September. Buster Shuffle decided to follow in the footsteps of American bands like Vampire Weekend and The Fleet Foxes, who also put together homemade albums. Jethro says: 'We did two days in a studio to get all the drums and the backing tracks down, nailed it and then spent two weeks in my bedroom in my sleeping bag - used as a sound-booth, gaffer-taped to the roof

THE VORTEX:

Bonehead's (Ex Oasis) band The Vortex are main support.

True enough, their edgy, soulful, pounding brand of indie-rock is evocative of much that was good about their forebears and, yes, they have that distinct (and marvellous) Manchester swagger.

Yet here's the thing. They are cocky and egotistic - they really are - and their music bristles with simmering menace and jaunty arrogance. And people love it.


"Always trust in Manchester music. The Vortex are set for big things, They have been setting the controls for the heart of the northern anthem as if Kasabian never existed." - Alan Mcgee

http://www.myspace.com/thevortexmanchester

SUBSET:

They have been likened to Joy Division, The Rakes, The Pixies, The Strokes and Noir Desir.

..so yeah I went to see this 4-piece rock band based in Islington, 4 tall guys with looks emerging from a dirty rock album; they've crap jobs, no cash and a tendency to crash into amps and fall over beer glasses on stage.

The bassist looks like a tall dark yeti with native American ancestry kicking out some kind of new wave capoiera. The drummer is a shy, precise, blue-eyed rumbling engine hidden under pounding waves of cadence the likes of which are usually found in a submarine torpedo exercise. The guitarist, with looks straight out of a shampoo advert that went completely wrong; his eyes glazed, lost in a Ramones' music video. Lastly the singer: completely full of booze, unbalanced, with a style that's a cross between Serge Gainsbourg, Kurt Cobain and Julian Casablanca but without any of the prestige. He seems totally possessed by the beat.

They appear to come straight out of a secret rock squat with no lights and no nonsense.

http://www.myspace.com/subsetlondon