The Magic Numbers and Dawn Of The Replicants

The Magic Numbers

Saw the Numbers for the umpteenth time on Tuesday at Shepherds Bush and once again they were top! Felt a bit weird seeing em in this much bigger venue after catching them at The Barfly a couple of times and also in various record stores just before the album came out but the sky id their limit, I think they are going to do rather well thank you in the U.S, and all the reviews suggest this to be true. It will be interesting to see what happens next in these isles, will they headline festivals next year that I’m not sure but they will certainly be playing yet bigger venues when they come back here next spring.
Aside from most of the debut album, The Magic Numbers treated us to an old non-album track, their contribution to the latest Warchild compilation, a version of Close Your Eyes their collaboration with labelmates The Chemical Brothers and also a great cover of Beyonces booty-shaking classic Crazy In Love which was more of a flared cord shaking version to be honest but great nonetheless!
They finished their set with the other new song that they have been playing since the album came out, tentatively titled “The Beard”. It’s a lovely hoe-down of a song that reminds me of Johnny Cash and The Dukes of Hazzard and shows that there are still tons of great tunes coming out of Romeo Stodarts rather hairy head!

You can find live versions of Crazy In Love and The Beard at this blog here.





Dawn Of The Replicants

Heres another of my late 90s under-rated faves, DOTR were formed in 1996 by Paul Vickers and Roger Simian of Galashiels, Bonnie Scotland, they were both previously involved with superb independent music magazine Sun Zoom Spark, which was a ray of sunlight for me in my formative indie-schmindie years! The Reps quickly became favourites of the late John Peel and also Mark and Lard at a time when the short-lived Britpop scene began to snort itself up its own hooter and record companies were no longer looking for the next Oasis. Bizarrely Dawn Of The Replicants were signed by eastwest records(their lower-casing, not mine),a bit odd considering the skronky skewed pop tunes that were in the Reps mighty canon, and not usually the preserve of a label that was home to the likes of The Corrs, Tori Amos and ginger-haired tosspot Mick Hucknall!
The first album to come from the deal was One Head, Two Arms, Two Legs, for me their best longplayer, there were some great singles-Lisa Box, Cocaine On The Catwalk and the Radio One playlisted Candlefire. The band ended up supporting the could have been bigger than The Beatles prog-rock majesty that was Ultrasound(more of them in future posts!) on their national tour and that’s where I got to see the live spectacle of The Reps! Shambolic, funny and destructive shows that will live long in my memory. Flying model aeroplanes into the crowd, throwing glitter everywhere and the gear trashing at the end were all regular occurrences as was crowd participation. I remember one gig where Paul Vickers tried to introduce a new catchphrase into common parlance, “You’re Never Not Near” he would say and we, the audience would shout “A RAT!”. I still think it could catch on personally!
Another album followed for eastwest the equally long(ish) titled Wrong Town, Wrong Planet, Three Hours Late which was still a good album but by this time the post Britpop comedown had seen all the bands signed in the wake of successful mid 90s bands mercilessly dropped and The Reps parted company. I must admit I thought that was it for them but 3 years later they returned with Touching The Propellor a less wonky sounding record but still with the particular charm of the earlier albums and a couple of great London gigs. The Extra Room followed in 2003 and this year saw the band being invited to the South By Southwest Festival where Orlando Bloom was spotted in attendance.
Next year sees the 10 year anniversary of the band and a new album titled Fangs is due for release.
In the meantime there is a one-off gig at London’s Borderline on Thursday November 10th.

The Reps official website is a thing to behold and at the time of writing has a sheer cornucopia of downloads for your perusal. This includes all of their Peel Sessions here and a couple of preview tracks from Fangs here.

Download.
Listen.
Enjoy.