GIG REVIEW: Esser
- Posted on July 21, 2008 10:31 AM
- 0 comments
Esser
So So Modern
Transgressive Hot Summer Tour
The Cross Kings
16th July 2008
Review by Matt Killeen
It is a given that no matter what route you walk towards a football game, you will see people going to the same match walking in the opposite direction. It is more unusual for this to happen going to a gig so I was surprised to see Ben Esser striding towards me on his mobile as I left King’s Cross Station. However, my real shock is reserved for the fact I recognised him at all.
I have a terrible memory for faces. I was standing next to some Indie luminary recently at a festival for well over an hour as the kids mobbed him and for the life of me I couldn’t place him. The fact that I knew who Ben Esser was means that he must be very memorable indeed. This is a good thing. If Esser want to be big, if they want to be The Next Big Thing™, people are going to need to know who he is.
I watched Esser at Wakestock and was reasonably impressed. It wasn’t the best environment, a mostly empty and cavernous tent with a non-partisan audience, but they did enough to convince me they were worth having another look at. I was therefore heading for the Transgressive Hot Summer Tour for Round Two. It was a label gig and it was going to be pretty packed. If they couldn’t do it tonight, if I couldn’t be converted then maybe there’s nothing to them. I had a feeling, the slightest of sensations that they may be the real deal.
Trangressive have that ‘lovely little record label’ tag so I was surprised to find that supporting act So So Modern were so hard and aggressive, as well as being, well...modern. They’re an interesting example of how low price, accessible samplers and onboard effects have not only changed the way bands sound but have made punching buttons a genuine live instrument. To call it ‘rave’ in any combination of other words, woefully over-simplifies the new freedom that this gives musicians to create – people who have grown up with many different flavours of dance music are now making unusual combinations. Although they have occasionally discovered Pink Floyd and others by a different route, it sure beats yet another guitar based band. So So Modern are vigorous and exciting to watch, glorious atonal on occasion and this actually raised the bar for Esser to clear ten minutes later.
Moving upstairs amongst the Camden leisure pirates, I have to push past some guy who looks like a reject from the Bros museum and that sets the scene for what feels like a journey into the past. Musically, Esser have the easy familiarity of a single digit Now album. Their tracks are beautifully constructed pop in the Eighties mould, somewhere between Level 42 and Electribe’s work with Alien Sex Fiend. The tunes are crawling with hooks, repeated just enough to get their claws into you but not enough to make you want to kill in the manner of Scouting for Girls. The words conjure simple but oddly twisted images of entrapment and connection. They might be a little thin on record but live they’re oddly reminiscent of the psychobilly of The Highliners, a band I haven’t seen since the last time looking like Ben from Curiosity Killed the Cat was an acceptable fashion statement.
Ben Esser is essentially a solo artist. He’s constructed these tracks and is the creator of their essential desirability. His voice is accomplished enough. Bizarrely, he might just be the weak link in the chain.
A frontman requires many things, a complex concoction of different attributes. They should be someone you want to be or someone you want to have sex with, regardless of looks. That comes from a careful balance of ego and insecurity, invincibility and fragility. Ben Esser looks self-assured but somehow lacks the confidence of a true star. In fact his assurance comes across as conceit. The belt of his trousers is a little too high, his hair a little too perfect. I’ve known several people eerily similar down the years and although I came to like them all, they started out annoying me for no adequately explainable reason. Does he know this about himself? Is he self-aware enough to make his apparent arrogance turn into apparent superiority? Can he truly lead the line and be a star? Maybe the question is, will the world come to love Ben Esser as he seems to love himself?
On the plus side, it’s early days for Esser. The live band is animated, enthusiastic and good to watch. There’s plenty going on and the addition of the anarchic Mr Skeleton provides good interference in the Bez / Chas Smash style. The music is more arresting fed through some human hands and by the end I’m almost, almost convinced that Ben can be the focus of all that they promise. You see, for So So Modern, a little success would be perfectly acceptable. For Esser, anything less than a major chart career would be a waste of potential. That’s the challenge.
The next day I still have his songs running through my head. Now that’s no guarantee of anything, there’s many a jingle that has crawled into my brain to set up home. Then my wife pointed out that I was still talking about them.
“...and you haven’t slagged him off once. Not properly.”
She was, as she is so often, completely right. Against what I laughingly describe as my better judgement, Esser have got under my skin. There might be a way to go yet, but unsuspecting and ambiguous wills are likely to give them far less of a fight than I did.
Related links:
Esser on MySpace.
Esser concert tickets.
Single review: I Love You/Long Arms.
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