The Next Manics
Ever since the Mainstream Street Preachers swapped leopardskin for Littlewoods, self-mutilation for C&A, the race has been on to find the young pretenders to the throne, the young bucks who will take their place as a figurehead to angst-ridden teenagers everywhere. Here are some of the recent contenders....
Jizzmonger
After the success of their debut album, I Like to Do it With Blokes, Jizzmonger were awarded Best Eyeliner at the NME Brat Awards. They hope to build on this success with their forthcoming comeback album, No Honestly, I Really Do Actually Like to Do it With Blokes. Their charismatic frontman, David Evil, likes to relax by licking pure cocaine off an altar boy's genitals, and is reputedly so evil that dogs bark at him in the street and cucifixes start to weep spontaneously in his presence.
KY23
This hotly-tipped Irish trio have received much critical aclaim thanks to the unique vision of 17 year old singer-songwriter Nigel Scrawny, who explains his ethos as follows, "It's about the sense of deep existential terror you get when, like, you're stuck in the sixth form common room and you've lost your homework and you can feel your conscience weighing you down like a prefect's badge." The band have recently been nominated for the category of Most Sullen-Looking Bass Player at the Brit Awards. Their long-awaited album, I Hate Myself And I Want a Cup of Tea, is expected to sell dozens.
Jailbait
Riding on the back of a series of mid-life crises by various Melody Maker journalists, Jailbait are four teenage girls from Tyneside, staying true to the faith of punk attitude, glamour and wearing short skirts whenever press photographers are around. Singer/guitarist Lola Sparkle (real name Karen Splott) says of their music, "We only ever play one chord in our songs, to show that we're punkas who just don't care. Oh, and because we only know one chord." The band's career has had something of a downturn lately, after several members of the band hit pubery.
Latex Excellent
Forming after the demise of the ill-fated Glam-Futurism movement, itself an offshoot of the ill-fated Romo movement, Latex Excellent have recently instituted the Cyborg Situationism movement, which aims to take up where the previous two movements left off. They plan to kidnap Simon le Bon, Douglas Coupland and Nicky Wire, and then use the latest genetic engineering techinques to splice their DNA together, thus creating the biological embodiment of their vision. Previous attempts to do the same have been unsuccessful, creating first a glam-Godzilla that tried to eat Skegness while wearing mascara, and even more horribly, a loathsome entity that mutated into Kula Shaker, and had to be humanely killed in order to prevent the wholesale massacre of Indian music and culture.
Impending legislation will make it a criminal offence for hideously ugly people to form glam-rock bands.
Spuse
These surprise newcomers from Devon have recently been tipped in the music press as "Honiton's answer to Half Man, Half Biscuit". The intensity of their live performances have captivated audiences from as far afield as Truro and Exeter. When recently asked by a journalist whether he thought the slaughter of innocent babies for fun was a bad thing, singer Steve Blubbermee replied, "Oi don't know much about politics. Oi'm from Honiton, but Oi can milk a cow."
Llatikcuf Gynff i Fllem
Originally rated as major contenders in the vanguard of new Welsh bands, Llatikcuf Gynff i Fllem generated a minor flurry of press attention with their recent demo We're from Wales, So give Us a Sodding Record Contract. However, this turned out to be short-lived, after they turned out to be not from Blaenau-Ffestiniog, as they had claimed, but from Ipswich, and they were not playing weird experimental rock-techno in the Welsh language but had merely sent out a tape of their songs played backwards.
Queen Ponce
Queen Ponce, having accidentally superglued themselves to each others' arses in a jape gone wrong
Queen Ponce are, respectively, Ug, Spug, Plug and Dug, four ex-builders from Swindon, spearheading a return to sexually explicit glam rock. Singer-guitarist Ug says the band were formed because, "We saw that Nicky Wire on the telly, and he looks a right poof, but the birds can't get enough of him, so we went down to Boots and got some mascara, and way-hey! Aren't we sexy?" Guitarist Spug concurs, adding, "I be a right fanny magnet now." Queen Ponce's controversial debut single, We Don't Want No Fat Biffers, celebrates the joys of anorexia. "I reckon I must be anorexic", says bassist Plug (5'2", 26 stone), "cos every time I look in the mirror I see a fat ugly bloke." Other songs from Queen Ponce laud similar pleasures created by recognised mental disorders, including such tracks as I'm Manic About Bipolar Disorder and the upcoming single Auditory Hallucinations (Your Mother is the Devil Spawn).
Glucose Overdose
Glucose Overdose are an all-girl rock band drawing influence not only from the Manics but also from Hole, Babes in Toyland, Kittie and that bird with the computer book off Inspector Gadget. They exemplify feminine attitude and riot grrrl power. Singer Nigella Twystleton-Smyth says of their outlook, "Women have for centuries been held back by male oppression. I mean, only last week Daddy refused to give me any extra pocket money. Bastard." The band's debut EP, Being On the Blob Isn't Very Nice, was well received, especially by certain male journalists who mysteriously disappeared to the toilets with a bundle of the band's publicity photos. The band recently announced that they would be taking their rock-feminist message to the provinces with a new tour to promot the EP. However, this tour had to be postponed because Nigella had to stay in to iron her boyfriend's shirts.
