Drenge - Drenge

Aged Approval

As widely reported, Tom Watson’s promotion of Drenge as ‘awesome’ in his resignation letter to Ed Miliband is surely odd considering the context, but suggesting such promotion is the kiss of death because Tommo is 46 is surely odder?  He likes them for fuck’s sake. I’m 13 years older and I like them for fuck’s sake. Mind you, I wouldn’t mention them in a resignation letter, though in the one I did write three years ago I wish I had said ‘fuck off’ or more explicitly that I was, amongst other things, ‘fucked off’. And Watson was actually making a heartfelt if rather twee point about Ed needing to have some chill-out time as a normal human being, not that Eddie could ever be or that you’d chill out to a band like Drenge whose two brothers apparently weren’t ecstatic that Watson had expressed his accolade, though they allegedly said they were not totally overjoyed which is actually far more diplomatic and chilled as euphemism than telling him and Edward to just fuck off.

When I say I like them it’s not like I think they’re awesome. They play a garage punk that is probably all the better for being seen and heard live in a festival field, as old guy Tom did, and perhaps he’d had a few too which is something Ed certainly couldn’t do in public but I think it would take more than a couple to get Labour’s leader interested in Drenge let alone cool enough to win the next election, sadly. But I think Labour do need getting elected next time around – more as an alternative to what we have now than for a dynamism I think they should display and which Ed clearly doesn’t – far more than Drenge need approbation from this ancient music reviewer. They pound it out, some fine drumming and general loudness on Bloodsports , and I’ve headbanged as far as I dare with this bad back as I type, but that’s as far as it goes, though it’s still an approving cranking up of the volume.