[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Next ]  P.178                    TABLE OF CONTENTS                       INDEX OF CATEGORIES AND ARTICLES

 

HOT HOT HEAT

Hot Hot Heat want you to love them. Like hopeful suitors eager to prove they are the perfect date, they serve up a palatable hybrid of punk ethics and pop professionalism. One moment Steve Bays, the wiggling bouffant and wobbly voice of the band, is settling himself behind his keyboard, looking like Bruno from The Kids From Fame, and chewing quick-fire lyrics over boisterous ska rhythms. The next he's handing out bottles of water to the dehydrated but devoted crowd at his feet. Their contrary music may respect no boundaries, but Hot Hot Heat are here to entertain. Hot Hot Heat are so accessible and defiantly commercial that they already look faintly out of place in these sweltering indie environs. They bury evergreen melodies beneath a welter of colliding influences. Their debut, Make Up the Breakdown, is a dance album for people who loathe dance music. The pulsating drums and pop rhythms crawl beneath the aggressive guitar that refuses to give in to the feelgood melodies. Imagine watching Elvis Costello take on the powerful punch of the Specials on a disco-friendly dancefloor and you're close to the peculiar power of Hot Hot Heat. Bays is a cocky ringmaster. Striding around to the funky Oh Goddamnit, before pausing for a practised pose beside bass player Dustin Hawthorne, he is a hyper-active child seeking not just attention but glory. "This is our radio song," he says, "but it's also a dance song." As the groove of No, Not Now begins, slinking through Paul Hawley's swinging drums, the melody sounds significantly thicker than on CD. You're Making Such A Mess, a new song, has the same confidence, as bombastic as it is edgy. Bays's truculent, angular voice reveals the fact he's obviously having fun as he shakes his hips, draping himself over his keyboard and nodding his head wildly. The warmth they show the crowd - Bays continuously entices, thanks and flatters - is mirrored by the affection Hot Hot Heat show each other. Guitarist Dante DeCaro, having roughed up the smooth edges of Aveda with urgent, thrusting chords, wanders over to Bays and grabs his shoulders proudly, displaying the shining sincerity that makes Hot Hot Heat something special.  

Thebans
Scotland's enduringly successful poet and playwright Liz Lochhead follows up her hugely praised adaptation of Medea (2001) with a triptych of playlets based on Oedipus, Antigone and The Phoenician Women. Poet and dramatist Liz Lochhead was born in Motherwell. After attending Glasgow School of Art, she lectured in fine art for eight years before becoming a professional writer. In the early 1970s she joined Philip Hobsbaum's writers' group, a crucible of creative activity - other members were Alasdair Gray, James Kelman and Tom Leonard. She is one of Scotland's most popular dramatists. Her plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987), Perfect Days (2000) and a highly acclaimed adaptation into Scots of Molière's Tartuffe (1985). Like her work for theatre, her poetry is alive with vigorous speech idioms; collections include True Confessions and New Clichés (1985), Bagpipe Muzak (1991) and Dreaming Frankenstein: and Collected Poems (1984). As a performance artist she sets up a lively rapport with audiences, bringing to bear an impeccable sense of timing. She has made successful collaborations, notably with Dundee singer-songwriter Michael Mara. Imbued with a sense of humor that is laced with surprise and irony, her work as a whole is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.