Brothers Matthew and Alasdair Smith collided with Paul Rafferty sometime during the middle of 2003 whilst otherwise busy working shitty temp jobs and dicking about in a number of local bands. They traded mix-tapes, played stake-raising games of record swapping and found that their musical thoughts seemed be headed in similar directions.
By the time the autumn was upon them, they’d already formed a band called Hot Club de Paris (named after a well known bargain-bucket/service station Jazz CD compiled from the music of Django Rheindhart and Stefan Grapelli) and had set about writing their first set in a cold, damp room they had discovered sitting unused at the bottom of a rickety old warehouse.
Their songs were finally unveiled in their hometown of Liverpool in April 2004. Early performances poked fun at the performances of the local bands they’d grown bored of watching and their approach gently mocked the usual po-faced execution of so called ‘experimental’ bands. Their wonky free-jazz workouts were punctuated with 300mph wobbly prog-punk blasts and were met with either unfaltering admiration or downright distaste. One journalist felt so unlucky to have witnessed their first show that he felt compelled to use the word ‘pretentious’ eleven times in his review.
Now signed to Moshi Moshi, Hot Club de Paris are one of the most exhilarating live bands you’re likely to see. Oodles of humour and back-chat abound, they successfully manage to marry technical musicianship with pure fun. Their barbershop-style acapellas punctuate their set to produce a form of entertainment that once witnessed, makes you wonder why everyone’s not doing it. And this is far from your ‘post-punk-art-rock-pop-band-do-harmonies’ affair, it’s so much more than that. These kids actually manage to make a room full of awkwardly shifting voyeurs dance to a 7/8 beat and sing along to their acapella musings about “fucking anything that moves”.
