“This is a bit like The Doors, that kind of shit…”

The guys behind me, two of them, continue to chatter; for a second my attention’s diverted, stolen from the scintillating Pete Simonelli, livewire and wiry frontman of San Francisco’s Enablers. His band – three men crafting delicate one moment, mighty the next quasi-post-rock constructions that tower and topple with alarming regularity – don’t sound a fucking thing like dead drugfuck Jim Morrison’s ridiculously praised shitweasels.

My focus returns to what should be a stage, if it were raised in any way. Tonight we’re in the Red Room of Brick Lane’s Vibe Bar, a strangely decorated space where bands can roam freely about the crowd: there is no dividing line, no change of level to aid viewing. Simonelli takes full advantage of the environment, weaving his way through the front few rows once, twice, again, each time finding another’s eyes to meet, another soul to scorch about the edges. He, you see, is where much of the audience’s attention is directed, for while Enablers’ music is dramatic and powerful, it’s Simonelli’s words that truly make this quartet unique. Comparisons have been made, wrongly: mouth ‘beat poetry’ at the vocalist and he’ll likely kick you in the shins and tip his beer over your head. Like previous references to Slint so far as the band’s music goes, scribes placing Simonelli atop a pedestal previously reserved for Kerouac et al miss the point; the point being that this is an experience that defies precedent, that stands alone of specific influence or exact peers on a level playing field. All bets are off from the opening screech of impassioned vocals into microphones into monitors into ears pierced, literally, by the intensity of it all.

Joe Goldring and Kevin Thomson play jarring guitars, repetitive rhythms one side meeting warm overtones of fuzz and fumbles in the dark after three too many like oceans colliding off the Cape of Good Hope. Their skyscraping sonic artistry provides the perfect foil for Simonelli’s remarkable performance: the man looks like an Irish bar drunk, hunched more often than erect, hair working its way back, back, back to that which grows from between his shoulder blades; his tongue, though, is the perfect athlete, electric, unstoppable. Mention must be made, also, of drummer Yuma Joe Byrnes, whose brushing percussion loses all patience frequently, resulting in a bombast predominantly reserved for the most brutal of metal outfits. The effect is overwhelming, utterly: faces stare, stunned, as Simonelli embarks upon yet another engrossing late-night venture into his own synapses, into the darkest crevices of his creativity. To wander his mind would be comparable to finding a countryside pub with Will Self, Ghandi and Einstein around the same small table, in a side booth where the almost-muted football match – old division three – couldn’t disturb their trivial discussions. Questions would, and do, go unanswered, each new tangent leaving behind twists never remedied, turns never completed. The car went off, down the hillside, exploded in flames of fuckin’ furious wonder.

“This is a bit like The Doors…”
Yeah, and there they are. Perhaps you should have used ‘em sooner.

Photo by Sophie Haines