Short circuit ... Bad Robots, one of the groups battling it out in Channel 4's MobileAct Unsigned
Channel 4's MobileAct Unsigned has made for addictive viewing over the past couple of months. Not because it's the future of British music in microcosm. Quite the opposite. The fun is in watching the sweats, squirms and grimaces of judges Alex James, Jo Whiley and A&M's Simon Gavin as they strive to convince themselves that the hopeless bands they have put through to the latter stages of competition are anywhere close to "making it" in the real world.
The best of a terrible bunch are Hijak Oscar, a cadaverous York outfit who do a reasonable Tom Waits impression. The problem being that no label in the land is going to take a punt on the new Gomez.
Battle of the Bands contests are simply not cool. If a successful act ever does admit to once entering one they will invariably say they came last, just to prove how much cooler they are than the clueless squares who judge these things. Plus BotBs simply aren't necessary when there's an A&R scout propping up the bar in every gig venue in the country. These days, if you're good enough, MySpace ensures you'll have some oily record company spiv round sweet-talking your mum before you've even broken out of your bedroom. Conversely, if you've been hammering the pub circuit for three years without a peep, you're never going to get signed, however hard you belt out those Coldplay covers.
I do feel Alex, Jo and Simon's pain, though. I was once forced to help judge a national Battle of the Bands contest organised by the magazine I was working on at the time. The folly of this endeavour became apparent when, six hours of tuneless blundering and moronic derivative dross later, we realised there were only three tapes in the "yes" box. Bands were frantically put through based on their name, the quality of handwriting on their cassette cover, and their proximity to the venues for the heats.
Judging these live heats became hazardous missions, not least because the competition's sponsors had booked them all into the backrooms of rough working men's clubs where the regular clientele took offence to the bands disturbing their poker games (and fair enough, really). We took to only announcing the winners of each heat once we had a taxi running outside in order to outrun the local lynch mob labouring under the ridiculous illusion that "their lads" were the next Oasis.
The one good band in the whole competition - a mop-topped psych-rock trio named after a Black Sabbath song - were booted out after trashing one of the sponsor's microphones. In the end, the national final was won, at the behest of the self-same uptight sponsors, by an ageing and painfully earnest folk rock group called Salt of the Earth. The magazine folded a few weeks later out of sheer embarrassment.
Good luck to Hijak Oscar, Mancini, Bad Robots and the rest - but the fact you're entering a Battle of the Bands contest to begin with, even if it is essential viewing on national telly, has already sealed your fate.
