Matinée Club join Planet Clique
Jan | New Artists
"The current obsession with materialism in
contemporary music appeals solely to the impoverished
mind. Let's have something new. Let's move on." These
are the bold sentiments of Chi Tudor-Hart (vocals and
electronics). Matinée Club bask in a sexier,
synthetic and forward-thinking space. Obsessed with
glamour, theatricality, synthesizers and style,
they're pure pop with brains and balls, electro pop
with warmth and tunes, with a sharp New Wave edge
that makes them appealing to rubber-clad Goths,
Hoxton indie scenesters and unashamed pop kids alike.
Their music moves from luxurious plastic symphonies
like 'Goodbye Means Forever' through the seductive
filter disco of 'Tokyo Girls' to the twilit grit and
glitter of 'Suburban Culture' and back again without
ever losing sight of the melody or being more than
seconds away from a great chorus. As flamboyant as
Scissor Sisters, Matinée Club are about low life and
high drama, rainy streets and lost weekends, packed
nightclubs and empty cinemas. "We are," summarises
Chi accurately, "an antidote to pub rock."
Matinée Club’s two founder members are Nathan Cooper and Chi Tudor-Hart (both vocals and electronics). South Londoners born and bred, they met at the age of 14. Nathan was in a band called Syntax Error, "New Romantic at the worst time you could be New Romantic, when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were popular". Chi was in a Def Leppard-inspired outfit called Toxic Truth. Having left school with one A Level between them (in home economics), they moved into a dilapidated doctor's surgery, where they decided to run a nightclub to fund their experiments in sound. While the club's first incarnation, The National Plastics Society, was a disaster, its successor Fantastic Diamond Nites attracted a large and loyal following of dressed up ne'er-do-wells who wanted to hear dark wave synth pop south of the river.
Emma Cooke (vocals) was another Diamond Nites habituee, an East London-born actor whose CV includes roles in 'Miss Marple', 'Sex, Chips And Rock 'n' Roll' and an 'EastEnders' special where she played the young Pat Butcher! Matinée Club’s legend dictates that the first song they performed together (in their previous incarnation as The Modern) was a Casio version of Diana Ross' 'Chain Reaction', after a scuffle over an Einsturzende Neubauten record silenced the Diamond Nites DJ. However, admits Emma, the song "was actually a really cheesy Europop composition of our own."
After working on some songs and playing a "really scary" dance music festival, Matinée Club decided that, to get signed, they would need a gimmick. "The idea was to get an open-backed lorry, set everything up and do a circus performance with us playing, driving past all the major record labels," remembers Emma. "Then we found out that bloody Status Quo had done the same thing! So the day we were going to do it we played Filthy McNasty's instead." The performance at the famous North London pub was enlivened by a ballet dancer friend of theirs dancing onstage in a gimp constume, having dashed from Sadlers Wells round the corner where he was performing in 'The Nutcracker'. It convinced Matinée Club that they were onto something. "We'd gone into dance music thinking maybe this was a foot into the industry," says Nathan, "but the instant we started doing the music we loved, more electro pop stuff, the response showed us straight away that that was much more where it was at."
Since then, Matinée Club have written prolifically and played everywhere from gothic club Electrowerkz, where they converted, as described by Emma, "a dark, damp room full of people in black rubber with their bum cheeks out", to supporting Steve Strange at Electrogogo in Leicester Square, to a night at Coventry University "where they were playing 1994 happy hardcore before we went on", to indie scene stalwarts like The George Tavern, East London and the Paradise Bar in New Cross. With their reel-to-reel tape player, Blake's Seven-style stage setting and projections, filmed by the band themselves, it's clear before they've even played a note that Matinée Club's ambitions stretch far beyond most bands'.
"We don't want to follow the traditional rock band conventions," explains Chi. "We like to follow the rules of theatre, and we like to dress up and put on a show."
However, the breadth and extreme enthusiasm of Matinée Club’s ever growing audience is ultimately down to the music, which blends anthemic pop with post-punk intelligence in a way not achieved so successfully since the early Eighties. "People are finally seeing how influential bands like The Cure, XTC and Joy Division were, bands that were guitar driven but were also pop," says Nathan. "We want to combine the electroclash, synth pop, edgy guitar image and production values with pop songs that people latch onto. In the Eighties, pop was interesting. The Cure appealed to angsty teenagers but they could also be on the cover of Smash Hits. There just isn't that kind of crossover band any more. You've got pop which is for seven year old kids and you've got indie and there's nothing that bridges that gap. Our music can be enjoyed by a large spectrum of people, it's not just aimed at 'cool' people. I reckon we could cross every boundary. Anyone can like it because of the songs."
Having recently signed to Planet Clique Records, Matinée Club’s next move is to release a limited edition white vinyl and CD version of their new single ‘Discothèque Français’ on March 5th 2007. They are currently putting the final touches to their debut album , which will be released in 2007.
www.matinee-club.co.uk www.myspace.com/matineeclub
Matinée Club’s two founder members are Nathan Cooper and Chi Tudor-Hart (both vocals and electronics). South Londoners born and bred, they met at the age of 14. Nathan was in a band called Syntax Error, "New Romantic at the worst time you could be New Romantic, when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were popular". Chi was in a Def Leppard-inspired outfit called Toxic Truth. Having left school with one A Level between them (in home economics), they moved into a dilapidated doctor's surgery, where they decided to run a nightclub to fund their experiments in sound. While the club's first incarnation, The National Plastics Society, was a disaster, its successor Fantastic Diamond Nites attracted a large and loyal following of dressed up ne'er-do-wells who wanted to hear dark wave synth pop south of the river.
Emma Cooke (vocals) was another Diamond Nites habituee, an East London-born actor whose CV includes roles in 'Miss Marple', 'Sex, Chips And Rock 'n' Roll' and an 'EastEnders' special where she played the young Pat Butcher! Matinée Club’s legend dictates that the first song they performed together (in their previous incarnation as The Modern) was a Casio version of Diana Ross' 'Chain Reaction', after a scuffle over an Einsturzende Neubauten record silenced the Diamond Nites DJ. However, admits Emma, the song "was actually a really cheesy Europop composition of our own."
After working on some songs and playing a "really scary" dance music festival, Matinée Club decided that, to get signed, they would need a gimmick. "The idea was to get an open-backed lorry, set everything up and do a circus performance with us playing, driving past all the major record labels," remembers Emma. "Then we found out that bloody Status Quo had done the same thing! So the day we were going to do it we played Filthy McNasty's instead." The performance at the famous North London pub was enlivened by a ballet dancer friend of theirs dancing onstage in a gimp constume, having dashed from Sadlers Wells round the corner where he was performing in 'The Nutcracker'. It convinced Matinée Club that they were onto something. "We'd gone into dance music thinking maybe this was a foot into the industry," says Nathan, "but the instant we started doing the music we loved, more electro pop stuff, the response showed us straight away that that was much more where it was at."
Since then, Matinée Club have written prolifically and played everywhere from gothic club Electrowerkz, where they converted, as described by Emma, "a dark, damp room full of people in black rubber with their bum cheeks out", to supporting Steve Strange at Electrogogo in Leicester Square, to a night at Coventry University "where they were playing 1994 happy hardcore before we went on", to indie scene stalwarts like The George Tavern, East London and the Paradise Bar in New Cross. With their reel-to-reel tape player, Blake's Seven-style stage setting and projections, filmed by the band themselves, it's clear before they've even played a note that Matinée Club's ambitions stretch far beyond most bands'.
"We don't want to follow the traditional rock band conventions," explains Chi. "We like to follow the rules of theatre, and we like to dress up and put on a show."
However, the breadth and extreme enthusiasm of Matinée Club’s ever growing audience is ultimately down to the music, which blends anthemic pop with post-punk intelligence in a way not achieved so successfully since the early Eighties. "People are finally seeing how influential bands like The Cure, XTC and Joy Division were, bands that were guitar driven but were also pop," says Nathan. "We want to combine the electroclash, synth pop, edgy guitar image and production values with pop songs that people latch onto. In the Eighties, pop was interesting. The Cure appealed to angsty teenagers but they could also be on the cover of Smash Hits. There just isn't that kind of crossover band any more. You've got pop which is for seven year old kids and you've got indie and there's nothing that bridges that gap. Our music can be enjoyed by a large spectrum of people, it's not just aimed at 'cool' people. I reckon we could cross every boundary. Anyone can like it because of the songs."
Having recently signed to Planet Clique Records, Matinée Club’s next move is to release a limited edition white vinyl and CD version of their new single ‘Discothèque Français’ on March 5th 2007. They are currently putting the final touches to their debut album , which will be released in 2007.
www.matinee-club.co.uk www.myspace.com/matineeclub