Partyshank & Frankmusik @ New Cross Inn

Partyshank make crazy 'toystep' music by somehow wiring together hundreds of brightly-coloured childrens' toy instruments to create something that sounds like it was made by Crystal Castles, if Crystal Castles were cartoon characters from Japan.
Frankmusik makes emotive powerpop layered over neon synths and 808 drumbeats. As well as having a voice more haunting than ex-Simian and now Black Ghosts vocalist James Ford, he also has the most amazing haircut ever to be banned from most schools. Frankmusik is the male Robyn, if Robyn was a man wearing huge white glasses.
Saturday saw an all ages all-dayer with both performing awesome live sets in the tiny venue that is the New Cross Inn, with support from insane shout-rap outfit Puppy Bucket & Donny Choonara, and a fourpiece of 15 year olds who seem to have a lot of potential and were really nice.

I'm not going to post any mp3s of Puppy Bucket & Donny Choonara, because I have heard them and they are really badly recorded, lacklustre and sound rubbish. To the contrary, their live set was actually really fun and full of raw energy. Me & my small group of friends were the only ones dancing, but it was still pretty amusante.

Next up were Lethal Concept, the aforementioned teenagers who've only got round to writing three songs, so spent most of their set covering other people's song, but made up for it with this infectious enthusiasm for performance. I think they'd payed all their friends to come to the show, or maybe they are just REALLY FAMOUS without me knowing, but the tiny dancehall erupted from the very first track. A young Enter Shikari in the making, perhaps. (Me saying that is nothing to do with the fact they played two Enter Shikari songs.)

Next up was Frankmusik, whose set we nearly missed all of, but from what I saw looked pretty awesome. For some reason everyone got the urge to stand on things at somepoint during the show, and I was no exception. Until the barmaid very kindly asked me to stop dancing all over the bar. Which was fair enough really.

Partyshank finally took the stage, one of them dressed in the obligatory hotdog costume, and the crowd was mental. I managed to lose both my shoes but made the decision to keep dancing and ignore the increasing pain in my feet and focus on the 'music'. The absolute highlight was when FrankMusik took the stage and there was some kind of crazy collaboration which should be a band in its own right, and they should call it PartyFrank. There was murder going on in the moshpit, and to be honest I was amazed that such a violent atmosphere could accumulate in such a tiny venue. Peace and Love clearly has no place in New Cross.

DOWNLOAD: Partyshank - Gary
DOWNLOAD: Frankmusik - Made Her Smile
LISTEN: Frankmusik - 3 Little Words (Partyshank Remix)@ The Partyshank Remixes Page
www.myspace.com/frankmusik
www.myspace.com/partyshank
www.myspace.com/lethalconceptband
www.myspace.com/puppybucketanddonnychoonara