MANY were called - 1,200 to be precise - but few, if you can call 54 few, were chosen to play at In The City Unsigned. Over last weekend, the 54 battled it out in venues all around Temple Bar - and come Tuesday, only three were left standing when it came to the final in the new Temple Theatre. Hats off to Ballymena band The Bedhangers, who made it to the last three and seem destined for great Therapy?-like things; and congrats also to The Pecadiloes (their own spelling, from Bedford) who were also in there. But the winners of In The City, in our city, were an all-female four-piece from Manchester called Hoop La Baby.
The band are: Jo Greenwood (vocals), Kathy Arnold (guitar), Sheralee Lockhart (bass) and Fi Kellet (drums) and because this is their first interview, don't blame me if it's crap. "We sort of knew we were going to win this award," says Kathy. "I don't mean that in an arrogant sort of way or anything, but we knew what we wanted. We've only been going one year and it was seeing In The City last year in Manchester that gave us the inspiration to have the band ready for this year's event."
Influences? "We don't really have any, except maybe The Beatles," says Sheralee. "Our sound is guitar-based and vocal-based and is a sort of powerful, build-it-up, build-it-down sound. It's certainly not grunge, as some people have described it, and it's not a `wall of sound' - but it is explosive and passionate as well as being sparse and vulnerable." Goodness.
Hoop La Baby won £3,000 for their efforts, along with a curiously-shaped "two apples and a banana" sort of sculpture thing. What are you going to do with the dosh? "We're going to use it to pay for our flights home to Manchester," says Jo, "and we're probably going to use some of it to buy some equipment." Although the joint winners of last year's Unsigned competition, namely Kula Shaker and Placebo, went on to sign big money record deals (and incidentally Kula Shaker are at number two in the singles chart this week and their first album, K, is expected to debut in the album charts at number one next week), the band aren't signing just any piece of paper thrust their way.
"We're not looking for a label, we're looking for a deal and the difference is important," says Jo. "We're not going to rush into anything and basically what we want from any record company is total artistic freedom." Quite a draw on the live circuit, Hoop La Baby have played with The Space Monkeys and Baby Bird as well as being invited on to a Shakespear's Sister tour and they say that because they had such a "smashing" time in Dublin, they'll be back very soon to play a few gigs. Remember the name.
TALKING about Kula Shaker, they're playing at the Temple Bar Music Centre next Thursday night and since their chart success, they've cancelled all their interviews with Irish journalists - see you on the way down, fellas. The strange thing about Kula Shaker's position in these post-Britpop times is that while their contemporaries are happy to recreate all the music from the mid-1960s, Kula Shaker are actually progressing the genre by taking their influences from 1969 era psychedelia onwards. It all reminds me of the time George Harrison went a bit funny, started playing the sitar and mumbling away about "kharma", but don't let that put you off... Because they only tour about once every 12 years, it would be well worth your time catching The Blue Nile at the National Stadium on September 25th and if you haven't heard Peace At Last yet, particularly the beautifully sad, Tom Waits-like Family Life, that's your problem ... Following on from their great gig at the Olympia last Tuesday (their first in Dublin in two years) A House will be with us next week telling us why they have no more apologies.
