MARTIN TOMLINSON
Martin Tomlinson the artist and singer formerly of Selfish Cunt is real...
not a fake and secretly trying to be super popular and a popstar in the process.
He's an artist.
Read what the Guardian newspaper said about his band Selfish Cunt
before they called it a day.
If you were being politic, you might say that Selfish Cunt's appearance in last year's Guardian feature on Britain's 40 best bands had something of a mixed reception. One reader wrote in to point out that they would never get anywhere with a name like that. The NME found time between predicting that every band that appears in its pages will change the world to accuse the Guardian of "insider hype".
And, indeed, their name alone makes Selfish Cunt sound like the sort of arch, irritating joke beloved of east-London fashionistas. Yet it swiftly becomes clear that Selfish Cunt are not joking. Rail-thin, his eyes ringed with makeup and dotted with sequins, singer Martin Tomlinson radiates a genuinely unpredictable hostility. Having announced his arrival by tearing handfuls of camouflage netting from the venue's ceiling, he turns his destructive attentions to the metal crush barrier in front of the audience. A bouncer squares up to him. Tomlinson stares back. "Good evening," he says cheerfully.
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Their sound colonises an unsettling area midway between the hammering drum machine and guitar of controversial 80s trio Big Black and the murky noise of early Throbbing Gristle. The divertingly titled anti-war songs, Britain Is Shit and Fuck the Poor may lack a certain lyrical finesse, or indeed any lyrical finesse whatsoever, but at a time when most protest in rock music comes with an air of meek appeasement, their uncompromising rage sounds strangely refreshing.
Meanwhile, Tomlinson has become involved in a scuffle with a member of the crowd. The bouncer, wearing the expression for which the phrase "long-suffering" was invented, chases him back into the spotlight. It's all vastly entertaining, and it's over in 20 minutes. Tomlinson throws his microphone to the floor and clambers from the stage again. This time, the audience wisely parts for him, and he stalks out of the room.