Bright Young Things- They’re supporting Bloc Party and can’t even get into their own school’s battle of the bands , they’ve played in front of thousands and still don’t get recognized at school, Oh yeah and these guys are still only 13.

If ever there was a band who embodied the current musical climate it would be Lo-Fi Culture Scene. They’ve only been properly playing for 7 months, they’ve played only 4 gigs but they’ve being touted as the next big thing and are being trailed by a host of major labels. Even more extraordinary given the band have a combined age of 65 (that‘s between 5 of them). Still we ought to be used to this sort of thing by now. After all, the Kooks, one of the most successful bands of recent years, were signed after only 10 gigs. Despite their young age, the band are keen not to be viewed as merely a novelty band, as some sections of the media have come to view them. Time Out recently referred to them as ‘midget imposters‘ which the band are slightly embarrassed about, “It’s annoying, we’d rather people talk about our music rather than our height”. Still they shouldn’t worry about being over hyped as it’s their music that differentiates them from their elder peers. It contains the youthful energy of the Arctic Monkeys, the longing of the Libertines mixed with the emotional clarity of Bloc Party. When asked about influences it is hardly surprising that the three above bands were mentioned, but their influences don’t stop there “every time we see a band that we like live we suddenly start writing stuff like theirs. We’re seeing Cajun Dance Party tomorrow night so we’ll probably go and write songs influenced by them“. This is certainly one of the defining features of a new generation of bands, the likes of Cajun Dance Party, Bombay Bicycle Club and Kets who are as influenced by each as they are by anyone else, spurring each other onwards. These bands all played at the massively influential All Ages Clubnight, events where young people of any age could go and watch bands without fear of being asked for Id. In fact at the All Ages summer festival you have to be under 18 to get in. Lo-Fi attribute much of the band’s rise to the advent of the club, particularly when they played alongside Foals and Shy Child at Kings College, but they admit that the club is now a victim of its own success, and is now more of a “social thing“. Still despite having played in front of thousands, they are still relatively unknown in their own school, “we’re not very big in our own school, we just got rejected from our school’s battle of the bands contest”, even more extraordinary considering the fact that they are supporting Bloc Party soon and are due to play higher on the bill at the Truck Festival than more established bands such as Blood Red Shoes and Pull Tiger Tail. Despite the hype surrounding the band they are in no rush to get signed and join the to crazy carousel that is the music business. Who can blame them given the fact that the average shelf life of a band these days is measured in months. “We don’t want to sign to a label for another 5 years, and only then for one billion Dollars!” says singer Jacob mischievously. This figure may not be as ludicrous as it seems given the fact that schoolmates of theirs, Cajun Dance Party recently signed a deal reputed to be over a million with XL records. “We’re just going to keep writing, practicing and gigging, we don’t want to peak too early“. And perhaps most importantly, “we’ve got GCSEs in two years time“.

So what does the future hold for these bright young things? The band are going into the studio next month with acclaimed producer John Fortis to record some new material but they aren‘t anxious to release anything in the near future, “We might release an ep on our own label or something”. They would like to tour with other teen sensations Poppy and the Jezebels. When pressed about potential inter-band romancing the band became quite coy, “Maybe…, they’re really nice and cool, we’d like to do a gig with them”.

www.myspace.com/theloficulturescene


Will Holloway

ps Big Hello to Greg, the newest member of the Random Access Team