James Chance et Les Contortions at Stereo Bar, Glasgow, March 12, 2015

James Chance, Stereo Cafe Bar, Glasgow, 3.12.15, by Jayjay Robertson

Joe Whyte was at the show in Glasgow last night at the Stereo Cafe Bar for Louder Than War, and loved what he saw & heard.

He’s tonight accompanied by a French three-piece band and quite probably the last time Glasgow witnessed a band as drum-skin tight would have been Mike Watt’s gig at Broadcast last year. This latest Gallic incarnation of Les Contortions are as lean and as precise as a band are ever likely to be; swerving from be-bop jazz to popping funk to Van Vliet-style discord in the blink of an eye or a wave of Chance’s fist, they carve into the material with an assuredness that’s jaw-dropping.

I’m left wondering if this sort of thing is the purest form of that old devil called punk rock. Guys like James Chance are the true outsiders, the risk-takers, the experimenters. It’s light years away from angry men with guitars, but sometimes it’s the people who play music entirely for themselves that are the true renegades. And James Chance is certainly that.

Read the entire review at Louder Than War.