Paperjam

Gold Chains - Notts Rescue Rooms - 11th May 2003

Gigs // Steve // 15th May 2003

It's a Sunday night in Nottingham, and frankly the crowd aren't up for it after a vast amount of drinking in the various locals over the weekend. I stayed in on Saturday night, so I was far too excited.

Local heroes Icons of the Yukon impressed with their admittedly old fashioned but entertaining electro-breakbeat and fucking ace video projections, and fey lanky laptop bloke Cursor Miner has just cleared the room more effectively than a man in a gas mask throwing tear gas could ever do. You ain't the laptop Jarvis Cocker, sir.

There's no-one better live than Gold Chains right now. Despite walking with the aid of a stick - he explains that he broke his foot in London, he soons casts this off, pressing go and instantly breaking into a sweat, bouncing round to the insanely poppy and oddly lewd "Code red" - "do you like it from the top?... or do you like it underground?". He races through tracks from the album, all the ones that have "just a little more bump". Recent single "The Game", which sounds a little polite on record, is much better live.

Once again, the crowd weren't nearly as into as they should've been - shit Midlands audiences are becoming a habit, every gig I go to I'm the lunatic jumping around at the front, when I should be just one of them. Let go, daft English people.

And it's all over far quickly. We'd hoped to have heard "I come from San Francisco" at least, but "Rock the Parti" rounds it off, with just a quick tech-electro burst from the laptop before the end.

Thing is, it's time for Gold Chains to break out into the charts. He should be on Top of the Pops - you'd be discussing him the next morning, "did you see that crazy short arsed geezer on telly last night?" - and your younger sister who likes garage would toss "21 seconds" aside, and be yelling "I treat your cootchie like a maze" at the top of her voice into the bathroom mirror.

He's played to 50 people for long enough - time to release the radio edits, get interviewed in "Smash Hits", do the Missy duet and sell millions.

Links

• Hear Gold Chains
• Video excerpt from "Nada" - plus short biography
• A few words from GC, from the BBC
• All the GC info here - www.gold-chains-worldwide.com
• Young Miss America - out now, and is marvellous