OK. So... Tuesday is the New Black, because Engine Room Club's 'Burlesque Rock and Roll' evening takes place on a tuesday. And let's face it, there is no place more tuesday than Engine Room Club, on a tuesday.
How many people must walk past this place every night looking for something seedily rockin' and have no idea that there's even a club here? I've regularly spotted hordes of Eastern-Block-Rock looking foreign exchange students, presumably staying in the hotel next door, loitering outside with no idea that just a few feet and a spiral staircase away lies the heartland of all things... Rawk. At least in Brighton, after hours.
Engine Room could be so much more if they just broadened their horizons a little and started booking some real alternative bands and DJ's rather than the same mainstream metal / quasi-punk that everywhere else supplies. Apparently Burlesque means Nu Metal with dancers?
Take the stairs down and take a look at the entrance hall: it's crying out to be tarted up a little bit somehow. But it all just sits there gathering dust and blown speaker cabs. Imagine those alcoves with some suitably sleazy drape curtains, some dodgy bohemian lighting, hell maybe even a cheap chandelier or two.
The Burlesque dancers, diminutive Betty Page punkers in top-hats and feathers, shake their tiny booties to the likes of The Cramps and Sinatra, but the rest of the night is devoted to the same Old Nu Metal / Rawk stuff, with bands seemingly chosen at random. Last week it was a bemused French ambient post-rock band.
At least tonight they've got the live act right. With a subtle undertone of sleaze, The Dirty Cakes do a nice line in trans-rock-cabaret. We are talking real-life Dickensian Punk here. Oh yes.
Curiously ageless singer Mr Flynn looks like the aborted child of Mick Hucknal and Vivienne Westwood. Fortunately for the rest of the band, he survived the abortion. He has one of those raspy, gin-soaked, Nasal-Shirley-Bassey-Gay-Cabaret voices. Instantly authoritative. Like a posh, alcoholic aunt. Like a hot screwdriver cooling off in a glass of whisky. Surprisingly powerful in a non-rock way. And therefore something of a refreshing change.
With his vast main of frizzy blonde hair and chizzled visage, drummer Evan would have looked perfectly at home behind the vast stadium drum kit of some late 80's Glam Metal outfit. Revolving drum-riser, tubular bells, a couple of gongs, three kick drums, the works. But there's a whole lot more going on in his beats than your average tub-thumping scag-whore.
Max, the Horrors-u-like bassist / piano player is equally fresh-faced and lantern-jawed. Imagine if Tim Burton redesigned Action Man. And he can play. His bass is a wall of razor-wire-topped filth, with enough power to render any guitarist redundant. Which is probably why they don't have a guitarist. These people were clearly BORN to be in a band.
The Cakes describe themselves as "a voluptuous, vociferous rock-cabaret." They are perhaps more consumptive than voluptuous. Rock-cabaret sounds about right. But it's also a soulful sound. And very, very entertaining to boot!
Check them out for yourselves @ www.myspace.com/thedirtycakes
