Crack

In a video montage on the band's MySpace page, The Chapman Family’s front man Kingsley Chapman, says: “We’ve had reviews saying we’re the worst band in the world, which I thought was brilliant. I’d much prefer to see a band that’s been billed as the worst band in the world than a band that’s quite good.”

A bold statement and one that tessellates nicely with the age old cliché, ‘we’re-just-in-it-for-the-music’, that every member of The Chapman Family seems to promote whole heartedly along with a hundred other seemingly credible acts. The difference is with this band, it’s a doctrine that appears all the more genuine after you’ve witnessed them live.

A family band, but poles apart in terms of musical ideology, The Chapman Family are a band trying to reattach a pair of currently absent testes onto a pop scene inundated with "shitty middle of the road indie bands" (Pop Chapman). Their sound is a bit like listening to The Enemy, while operating a disc cutter full of crunchy gain and pounding, repetitious bass thumping.

Their stage act is equally vigorous, with Kingsley Chapman (guitarist, vocals) wrapping a mic chord around his neck as he hurls out guttural shrieks onto a docile but sizeable crowd. Pop, the bassist, lifts and stamps his feet, throwing his fists side to side at any opportunity in some sort of demented tribal fashion, while Phil Chapman, blasts out fast, predominantly tom-heavy, beats and sweats, a lot. As the set draws to a close, Kingsley attempts to clarify the bands position muttering into the mic, "we’re a pop band but we’re just a bit noisy".

During the gig they singularly ignore all the politics and their band’s brooding discontentment with a music scene that sounds "fuck all like anything" (Kingsley Chapman). I think this blunt, little statement pins the tail on a violent bucking donkey. Pop music with its balls back.



Words: Ben Street

http://www.myspace.com/thechapmanfamily

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