album review: yuck. yuck. 21 february 2011. fat possum records
have i ever told you how sockformation got its name? it all begun with a drunken discussion with my friend steve about starting a band. a few days later at a los campesinos gig in colchester we had forgotten the brilliant name we had come up with. once again drunk, we decided to text aqa with the question “what’s the name of our band? we’ve forgotten”. only probably slightly less coherently. aqa did not let us down, and the reply “we don’t know, but do think ‘sock’ would make a good name” came in a few minutes later.
both being huge men behaving badly fans, we instantly related this to a scene where the landlord of the crown, les, is confusing gary and tony with football speak. to try and get out of the conversation they retort with some made up rubbish about how it wold be better if they deployed the “sock formation” and other such crap. a name was born.
sockformation became the name of the band, along with everything i did from fantasy league teams to passwords (note to criminals: not anymore) and eventually my much loved blog. great.
not quite great actually… this christmas i recovered my men behaving badly dvd boxset from a 3- holiday at my brother’s house. when i returned to london i eagerly sat down to reacquaint myself with gary, tony, dorothy and (the weak link) debra. i knew the now infamous line was in the episode ‘drunk’.
emma was round and watching it with me. the moment came. i was excited. and then the words. “sock master”. sorry. what? the line was “sock master”, not “sock formation” at all. all i’d worked for and knew to be true in the world had just been destroyed by a six letter word. devastated.
still, what you going to do? this place is still called sockformation and won’t be changing.
what has this got to do with the debut yuck record then? nothing. i wanted to try and avoid mentioning cajun dance party too early in the review though and have succeeded.
as it happens, i feel much more inclined to compare yuck not to their (sort of) previous incarnation but to the mighty sonic youth. there is no way an album that is part influenced by one of my favourite bands, combined with part populated with former members of another of my favourite bands is going to be something i don’t like. what next? thomas bangalter recording a version of ‘silent alarm’? the velvet underground re-releasing ‘the velvet underground & nico’ but with kate jackson in the nico role?
with further nods towards the cure, ash and even del amitri to be heard on multiple listens the album has exceeded my expectations.
i really didn’t want to get carried away with a review so early on in the year, but fuck it being january. it’s just another month and this is a top quality album that deserves the praise.
it isn’t officially out for more than a month, but i get the feeling it is only going to grow on me in that time. say hello to the first album of 2011 that i’ve got overexcited about.
9
thanks to shellzenner for the witty title.
