DEATH OF GUITAR POP.

Let me tell you about my latest new favourite band.

When I first heard the name Death Of Guitar Pop, I imagined a dour, The Jesus And Mary Chain, 1980s-style skinny-jeaned combo, all Ian McCulloch hair and pouting misery. DOGP are the exact opposite, although they do take some of their musical and visual cues from a 1980s band – North London’s finest, Madness. DOGP are just what’s needed in pop music right now: a life affirming, cheeky, laddish skank around the UK’s collective dancefloor.

The Madness comparison is a fair one, because DOGP (thinking about it, their acronym is another one of their jokes) put as much effort into their videos as they do their infectious, ska influenced songs. They’ve crafted an inviting, vivid world of geezerish chancers, happy drunks, congaing workmen and nutty neighbours.

Their videos are so good natured and funny, you immediately want to move to Essex. My favourite video is the first one I saw, ‘Rickety Old Train' (below), in which Slinky (vocals) and Top Kat (guitar and vocals) embrace by an Essex Way street sign, skank away in front of a brick wall, then shuffle around a shopping centre in a cardboard train. Genius.

Apart from Madness – in one of their videos, Slinky and Top Kat wear T-Shirts proclaiming ‘Sex, Suggs & Rock and Roll’ – DOGP have other modish influences, notably Blur’s three-part state-of-the-nation address, Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). You can hear the swaggering cockney narrator from ‘Parklife’ all over ‘Ska Is The Bollocks’, ‘69 Candy Street’ and ‘Singles Night’, while the legacy of Blur character-songs such as ‘Tracey Jacks’ is in the DNA of DOGP’s ‘The Squire’, ‘Mike And The Landlord’ and ‘Back Of A Lorry’.

The video for ‘Cinderella’s Fella’ (below), which follows the winking lothario through various musical scenes like punk and 2-Tone, includes authentic Britpop references, from the Parklife sleeve left on a pub table, to the names ‘Jarvis’ and ‘Mel B’ chalked up by the dartboard. Now, that’s what I call knowing your pop heritage.

Slinky and Top Kat’s ‘Consider Yourself’-vibes are peppered with social commentary, building on a fine tradition of mixing dance music with politics that, in England, stretches back through the Pogues, Dexys Midnight Runners and the Specials. In 2019, DOGP recorded a charity single for CALM – the Campaign Against Living Miserably – called ‘Feeling Like A Right James Blunt At Christmas’. The lyrics accurately nail the bitter-sweet nature of the Yuletide holiday, mentioning “racist Uncle Trevor” and, in a clever double meaning, being “sat here with my old made Stella.”

Like their contemporaries The Molotovs and Laurie Wright, DOGP are great believers in music as community and, like the former two bands, thrive on their relationship with their audience. At the time of writing, the band’s Facebook page is encouraging fans to post their favourite tracks, so DOGP can compile a classic set list for their prestigious headline show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire in May. I know they’ll fill the 2,000-seat theatre.

When you consider DOGP remain committed to releasing material on their own independent label, that’ll be one helluva achievement.

See you down the front. And make sure you’re suited and booted.

All images © Death Of Guitar Pop 2024