Worcester Music Forum

Well they're the first supergroup to come out of the two counties - formed from the living flesh and the decaying remains of Toasted Egg Sandwich, Tastyhead, The Labels, SuperFredSeven and The Stetsons. This was only the second gig for We Do Kung Fu in as many days after far too many aborted debuts. It's fair to say that this mammoth seven-piece ska-based outfit took a few numbers to get their individual levels adjusted and it was only until 'I Can Climb Mountains' that the combined effort kicked in to great effect - hope they hit the ground running at the Jamstand in Ross this weekend!

The enigmatically named Trevino Slaxx are an offshoot of legendary Worcester rockers The Berts featuring the Richard Ashcroft look-and-soundalike Paul 'Cret' Martin on vocals. Very much a Distorted Waves feel to their no frills stoner beat. But if you can get the audience dancers onto the stage like say James and Flaming Lips you'll have an act to die for - how about it guys?

Visiting outfit for the night were The Return from Birmingham - classic Green-Dayish powerpop with a touch of Fallout Theory - but for me this was a great Berts reunion night and good to bump into ex-Darren Brothers drummer Steve - now with another Berts spinoff Skewwhiff (whoops another spell-checker failure) - catch them with Trevino Slaxx at the Lamb in West Malvern next Saturday!

Hope you enjoyed last week's live session from the wonderfully offbeat Nozstock Festival - seems like all the great and good from the two counties had descended on Bromyard for the weekend, so I took the opportunity to wander between the four stages in action on the night.

Arrived just as How To Dress For Cricket were winding up on the main stage - more from them later. Once again impressed with Rupert and the Robbers - featuring Pedro from Brandon Steep helping out on bass. Haven't heard of Hereford hip-hoppers The 102 Crew before but they're a decent bunch of rappers - send us a CD guys!

The Friday Session stage kicked off with the melodic Irony from Evesham

- swiftly followed by the intricate drum loops and guitar swirls from solo virtuoso Sam Knight aka Theo. Sam Isaac performed a rare solo acoustic set of his Badly Drawn Boy-ish ditties - he'd be on the main stage with his band later in the evening.

Elsewhere I caught The Foxes from Redditch - decent blues metal from this lot, also Lou Richardson who delighted at the Wyeside and The Dead Marvins who I remember from last year - a bit like Goldie Lookin' Chain in red and black suits! Mentions also to Ebony of Smokestack, Siani and Stu of The Donns, Al of BSN [4:20], Dave of Jivestick and Jules of Johnny and the Outtakes.

Highlight of the night was probably Zebedy Rays who ripped up the script and thrashed out their demented numbers to what seemed like half of Malvern - great drum-banging intro guys! Thought Bruno Gallone did extremely well to follow them with his thoughtful acoustic set.

Second gig of the evening for How To Dance For Cricket (H2D4C to their

mates) - quality heavy rock from this threesome with their trademark cover of 'Cars' thrown in at the end.

Managed to catch a bit of Sketchbeat's manic thrashings on the main stage and the pleasing Nikki Rous in the acoustic tent before the weird and wonderful Alienzz landed on the Friday stage - from 150,000 miles above Malvern apparently!

It was getting dark as the mammoth session closed off with the furious screechings of The Fallout Theory - I reckoned I caught 18 different acts on the night - all good training practice for the Jamstand tomorrow, The Big Chill next week and The Worcester Festival in a couple of weeks time!!