Uranium Club

Wharf Chambers

Support: Pop Vulture and Solderer

"The band who built the wheel"      

After an eight-year absence, since their last outing at the once beloved CHUNK, The Minneapolis Uranium Club (Uranium Club) have returned to Leeds. This date is the first on a brief UK tour in celebration of their fourth LP, ‘Infants Under The Bulb’.

Uranium Club are internet introverts and, for that reason alone, I often forget they exist. They have no social media presence and so the regurgitation of vinyl, tour and physical merchandise promotion, that many bands rely on, simply isn't there. In truth, their digital footprint is so small that I have never seen a live video of the band and so, on this occasion, I genuinely had no idea what to expect from a Uranium Club show.

Selling out Wharf Chambers on a Monday night is the band's first magic trick, particularly when the crowd have learned about the gig primarily through word-of-mouth. 

Opening the bill is new egg-punk outfit Solderer, featuring a number of Leeds DIY veterans. Today's promoter Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe (Thank, ex-Beige Palace) is on bass and it's unusual to see him without a microphone. His on-stage remarks are refreshing, genuinely hilarious and staple to a Thank gig. But this is not Thank - Solderer are keen to push the boundaries further. On vocals, Kelly Bishop (another ex-Beige Palace alumni) has strapped together two microphones creating an octave effect that is somewhere between Mr Blobby and the Abzorbaloff from Doctor Who. Competing with her on the weirdness scale is Theo Gowans on strings. Whilst the guitar is a fairly noble instrument in comparison to his standard cutlery drawer-cum-synth (in Territorial Gobbing), he manages to make equally as much turgid noise. The set ends with Freddy getting at least one quip in, shouting "Has anyone got an Allen key? My bass is literally falling apart, if anyone is wondering why it sounds like complete shit." 

Pop Vulture are next, another Leeds band, who are more post-punk in nature than egg-punk (and I say this only because their instruments are made by Fender rather than Fisherprice). Whilst they score lower on the weirdness scale, their versatile use of percussion to create dance punk rhythms is a huge success, with more cowbell and wood block action than normally prescribed. For one song, the drummer switches out with a guitarist, shifting the groove into unexpected territory. The rhythm transforms from being tight and angular, to chaotic and sporadic. 

As Uranium Club took to the stage, I sensed that Wharf Chambers' choice to allow glass into the gig room may have lacked foresight on this occasion. Bottles skimmed across the concrete floor as the band of science teacher lookalikes (a cliché, but believe me) charged through ‘Who Made The Man?’ and whipped the crowd into action.

Unfortunately, positive gig etiquette wasn't observed by all, and one bad egg did manage to give the first half of the set an 'edge'. Commencing his mischief by spraying two bottles of Hooch in the air formula-one style, only for it to drip from the ceiling onto the crowd for the next twenty minutes, the individual then proceeded to be aggressive in the pit. He also removed a microphone from its stand mid-song, which was quickly rescued by the ex-bass player of Spring King (an unexpected but welcome crowd cameo). The menace, however, was short lived and he was shunned to the back of the room by the crowd, only to be tailed by his girlfriend shouting at him like a naughty toddler.

In the second half of the set, good vibes were restored and the band ripped through fan favourites such as ‘Opus’, ‘That Clown’s Got a Gun’ and ‘Operation pt.II’. 

Drawing to a close with the snapping of a guitar string, the band announced that an encore was not to be. However, following desperate chants of "one more string", the band caved. The wait for an encore was a tender moment, and you sensed that the crowd knew they had just witnessed one of the best DIY punk bands of recent years. Only to be affirmed in their thoughts, as the band closed with a raucous rendition of ‘Sun Belt’.

Words and photo by Magnus Pike.