Cops & Robbers have listing the best bands at the best DIY gigs in Leeds, hands down, for a decade now. What do you mean you’ve never heard of them? They’ve even got a half-decent website now! Being a non-profit organisation, they do need to raise funds to cover overheads now and again – sometimes gigs, sometimes other means. Today, here’s a brilliant little DVD compilation of various Leeds-based bands and friends – and it’s only £3.99! Totally bargainous, eh? Put together by Claire from Printed Circuit and featuring some super-swanky artwork by Kathryn Cooper, I have no hesitation in recommending you buy one now. But hang on a minute, maybe you want to know what’s on it? Okay, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere goes…:

The finest live rock band in the land, Bilge Pump, open up proceedings with a rough video recording of their performance at the C&R 10th anniversary jamboree at the start of this year. Their song is the oft-quoted classic “Thank You Very Much”, and features even more giddily-excited call-and-response choruses from an ecstatic crowd than ever. A fantastic way to start.

Next up are the fabulously costumed Beards, who look like something out of Willy Wonka’s candy-addled nightmares and contribute a choppy and mildly deranged live track “Gold Medal”.

Executive Legs have a live version of “Monkey” recorded at an infamous Chinchillafest at the venerable Brudenell Social Club. Their track is bouncy, feisty, wonky fun fun funk.

Printed Circuit contribute a hilarious video of their future club-classic “My Butt Hurts”. It’s like Spike Jonze’s video for ‘Praise You’ re-imagined as a laugh down the pub after a few pints, and is all the better for it.

Cowtown‘s home-animated video for their classic “Kitty Runs Away From Garlic” features Mario, Pokemon and runs like Michel Gondry’s kid let loose with a video camera and a bunch of toys.

Yoko, Oh No!‘s video for “I Play Guitar” matches the ultra-glitched-up electro-pop against tweaked computer animation and an unexpected “cameo” by Mayhem, of all people.

Cleckhuddersfax do live track “Buses”, which sounds like Super Furry Animals on some particularly strong PCP and features some beautifully honky keyboard sounds.

a.P.A.t.T. serve up a music video for “The Face Of A Crow”, which looks and sounds like prime ’80s-era Prince funking it up with a broken Moog, and features some arsing about whilst dressed up as a crow from the old Kia-Ora adverts. Reassuringly weird.

Chops‘ completely bastardly broken rock-electro-noise is given a visual accompaniment with a distinctly home-made chop-up of archive video and bizarre staged rituals for their song “Ill-Eagle”. It’s very strange indeed.

Tigers! pop up with a super-rough, super-rocked live track “Taipei”, which features glittery costumes, a guitarist dressed up like an Ewok and a completely distorted bass sounds that only adds to the feel. The “Oh yeah!” shouted when they stop the song on a dime makes everything feel fuzzy and warm.

Last up, non-Leeds-based Caifornians Kit do a soundcheck and 4 songs live at the Leeds Irish Centre as support to a Deerhoof gig, strutting their herk-a-jerk Shaggs-meets-Deerhoof-uptown-with-Huggy-Bear stuff. Sorry, it’s better than that, featuring a totally awesome headbanging drummer and the ugliest bass guitar you’ve ever seen.

So that’s it. Pretty bloody good for less than £4, eh? Plus, if enough copies of this are sold there’s promise of a second volume, featuring an entire Quack Quack gig! You can buy this DVD from the Maximum Party website for £3.99 postpaid anywhere in the world. Go! Buy! Go buy now!

http://maximumparty.net

http://www.copsandrobbers.net

Pifco are brilliant. I just wanted to get that out of the way right now.

A fantastically unique two-piece from Leeds, they consist of Ste (clanging guitars and yelping vocals) and Mary (super-motorik drums and keyboard drones) and this is their first release proper after some compilation appearances and a self-released tape that was dead swanky. I can’t even recall how long Pifco have been going any more, but they always seemed to have been ‘around’ and have perked up many a live show I’ve attended. Kudos then, to Run of the Mill, for getting them to finally release something.

It’s a pretty tasty package too, with a full album’s worth of tunes squashed down and packed into barely more than half an hour. Pifco songs rarely get as far a bridge or coda, but then Pifco really don’t follow any musical ‘rules’ – they are a perfect example of a band that exist entirely in their own universe and, by God, it’s a great place to visit sometimes.

The official press release for this album, fantastically named “Pifco A Go Go”, mentions Sonic youth, the Fall and the Coachwhips, but to my mind they’ll always make me think of those early Stereloab records (you know, the really good ones, before they went all cafe pop). It’s probably the Roland keyboard drones that Mary tends to use as a bass guide for Ste’s rambling, jangling guitar lines, but there’s also something of that killer combination of Neu!-style droning motorik with simple pop hooks that works so well on so many songs on this killer of a little album.

Reputedly, Pifco have three more albums’ worth of material good to go. They’ll probably record them in their cellar, as this album was. I, for one, can’t wait.

http://www.myspace.com/pifco

http://www.runofthemillrecords.co.uk/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUKj0VuCBl8[/youtube]