| venue / date | source |  date |
| London Kilburn National - 4 april 1991 | melody maker | 13 april 1991 |
ATOMIC WASTE
NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN
KILBURN NATIONAL, LONDON
OH, for f***'s sake. Over there, they're doing the conga, over here
they're piling onto each other's shoulders like it's the circus, and
on stage five boys are doing The Dustbin - a simultaneous flailing of
the head and pogoing of the body - to the sound of their own thunderously
crass boogie. Meanwhile, your hapless scribe has been winded by hordes
of stampeding Nedheads, flung from wall to wall like a squash ball,
and performed more banana skin routines than Buster Keaton managed in
his entire career. Pools of sweat? We're talking snorkel salesmen at
the door. Welcome to your worst nightmare. I come not to bury Ned's
Atomic Dustbin (too easy), nor to praise them (too far-fetched), simply
to check whether their meteoric rise to prominence is irrevocable proof
that the whole country has been mysteriously hypnotised by interstellar
brain police, afflicted with collective amnesia, or gone stark raving
bonkers over the last few weeks. What can I tell you? Ned's are too
tuneless to be pop, too slow to be thrash, too lame to be funky and
too clumsy to play with the speed and efficiency required for the best
metal. Maybe I'm prematurely senile, perhaps I'm not taking the right
drugs, could be I've just been blessed with immaculate good taste. Whichever,
the crowd goes monkey-poo, while yours truly stands in a comer and quietly
waits to die. You bastards, Neds.
But they sell! And they got in the charts! Yeah yeah, and 10 million
morons read "The Sun" and people love the smell of their own
farts, I know. Listen, before we get too excited about the dazzling
array of "alternative" new groups building bridges into Gary
Davies-land, let's consider who this renegade confederacy of stars amounts
to: Carter, Jesus Jones, The La's, Beautiful South, The Wonder Stuff,
Inspirals and The Farm. Well whoop-de-f***ing-do. Excuse me if I don't
rush out to buy cakes, party hats and streamers. If Ned's Atomic Dustbin's
appearance on "Top Of The Pops" to play "Happy"
-
which, like tonight's other 19 songs, they deliver with laddish energy,
waggish exuberance, cheerful vigour and sundry other horrible "punky'qualities
- signalled some sort of victory for "us" against the hallucinatory
powers-that-be, then I'm with the authorities every time. Just call
me Stalin, bud. Neds, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. One,
you bounce around like the world's one big student disco. Two, your
songs all sound like "Do Anything You Wanna Do" by Eddie And
The Hot Rods, only without the hooks and chorus. Three, you're as un-glam
as un-qlam can be. And four, you get gorgeous girls in your audience.
Jealous, me? No, don't worry - I always go that colour when I'm feeling
sick.
PAUL LESTER