19.00, New Stage

There’s something about THE WARLOCKS that grates on me, and I can’t quite pin it down definitively. Is it the fact that for the most part they look so damn perfect on stage, black-clad and the (engineered?) epitome of drugged-up and blissed-out cool? Is it the fact that, while playing guitar, eyeliner-wearing frontman Bobby Hecksher has an irritating habit of bobbing up and down and gurning like Ozzy Osbourne trying to force out an especially troublesome shit (this, I should add, is not the epitome of cool)? Is it the fact that they have two drummers who, because they play exactly the same drumlines, just seem like an attention-seeking gimmick? Or is it the fact that there’s the nagging feeling that, while songs like ‘Hurricane Heart Attack’ and ‘Shake The Dope Out’ are certainly decent, this sort of narcotic rock has been done earlier and better by The Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, The Jesus And Mary Chain and even Black Rebel Motorcycle Club when they’re in the right frame of mind? Needless to say, I can still see myself getting a copy of Phoenix. Am I a sucker?