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In a world where we’re being updated on a near hourly basis about who’s who of the next big things can really take its toll. The bar is high nowadays for emerging bands and artists to really prove that they are something different and worth mentioning. Enter Cat the Dog, half-Canadian half-Brightonian rapscallions bringing with them their bohemian retro rawk. The band seem to have appeared out of nowhere to play this sell out show at KOKO tonight in support of the massive Eagles of Death Metal. Googling them results in pages about pets, and their back story appears particularly hazy. What we do know is that they supported The Bravery , Kooks and Automatic, which the band describe as ‘a laugh’, and which seem to have won them an army of over seven thousand Myspace fans. With their debut single only just released and an album not due to appear until March 2008 it’s hard to imagine how they could be playing such an iconic venue so early on.
But this may not be your usual band, drummer Andy Newton and guitarist Chris Melan arriving in the UK after being expelled from separate schools in Canada, came to work in London and due to delinquent form ended up jobless and sleeping in parks and eventually Greenwich cemetery before moving to Brighton and meeting bassist Dan Logan and second guitarist Daryl Preuss.
Throughout the interview Newton views Gigwise, like a cat, with a certain amount of contempt, through half-closed red eyes. Answering questions obscurely, if answering at all rather than shrugging. He encapsulates a certain arrogance that the band must possess to create such an overly bombastic racket. During tonight’s gig Gigwise would be unable to decide whether the crowd at the front of the stage were floored with wonderment or merely deafened into submission. This arrogance is taken a step further when you discover that their deal with Virgin was secured because they showed up at the offices one day with a demo tape and were signed immediately, easy as that!
Both Newton and Pruess also seem to have a certain suspicion of the press and calmly explain that Gigwise can pretty much write whatever we like as they won’t read it anyway. Offering to tell Gigwise a story, Newton explains how they recently recorded part of their forthcoming album in an old Tudor house, and that numerous strange things happened while they were staying, including the spontaneous combustion of a telephone and some strenuous bed shaking. When asked whether any acid may have been involved he replies, stony-faced “What’s acid? No, what’s LSD? We don’t know anything about drugs.” Which, unless he has a medical problem with his eyes, may or may not be the case and casts suspicion over anything that the drummer might say. Lightening the mood Logan adds, “Or otherwise we’ll end up like Robbie Williams, Googling our own name every 5 minutes…”
Melina and Logan seem far more relaxed and enthusiastic. Logan like an excitable puppy departing information left right and centre. “Did you hear about the Haunted house? I got this tattoo when I was 15! It might have been a bit of a mistake…” The band, on the release of the new single all went out and got matching tattoos saying ‘Romantic’ in script across their chests, which reminds a little of The Libertines brotherhood and camaraderie, Logan stretches and exclaims “It’s because we’re in this together now!”
Links with other bands have already been noted by many reviewers and the band evoke many many associations. Malian’s vocals for example, hang somewhere between Kurt Cobain and Liam Gallagher, while the band’s sound takes in indie like Oasis, The View and Holloways, along side the blues rock of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, adding the noise of old school Dinosaur Jr. along the way. When asked if comparisons to Nirvana are hard to live up to or flattering Newton simply replies, “But we’re called Cat the Dog” and offers no more response.
Reviews for the single have been mixed, which is understandable for a band who are so hard to place and who literally blow away fans at their gigs, one gig reviewer even commented that they wished they’d taken the earplugs offered to them. But as Melina says, “I think we sound like a lot of bands, but I don’t think there is anyone who sounds like us.”
