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Gig Review

Wake The President
Middlesbrough, Westgarth Social Club

Article written by Jon L - May 14, 2009

Wake the President

There's something about Glasgow. Pete Frame's legendary and intricately assembled 'Rock Family Trees' would need an encyclopaedia sized tome to detail the city's bands and their constant interweaving of members through the last three decades. And more than any other city, he would be able to compile an album which traced the city's musical heritage from the post-punk era to the modern crop of bands. With each generation you can hear the influence of previous generations running right through the middle of their sound.

Postcard Records, with their 'Sound of Young Scotland', may be long gone, but they are evidently not forgotten judging by the sound of this bunch who chuck almost thirty years of Glasgow pop into their pot and boil it down to a jangling, chiming brew of Orange Juice, the BMX Bandits, Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes and the Orchids. As the band themselves say in their forthcoming single 'Miss Tierney', 'Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.'

We are in the Westgarth Social Club in Middlesbrough tonight and although perhaps an unlikely setting, it is becoming quite the place to be in town. Recent visits include Ivor Novello nominees Leisure Society, American whispering folkies Horse Feathers and King Creosote. Tonight there's a more youthful line up of local bands before Wake the President, spearheaded by twins Erik and Bjorn Sandberg, arrive on stage looking like evacuees clad in tank-tops and slightly half-mast jumbo cords and sporting hairstyles courtesy of their mum's pudding dish. They breeze through their set, mostly consisting of songs from their début album, 'You Can't change That Boy, on the Stowe label which first brought Belle and Sebastian to our attention, with plenty of astute, articulate lyrics, jangly hooks and enough sha-la-las to keep any card holding C86er happy.

Links:
http://www.myspace.com/wakethepresidentband