For the last year or so, you might have overheard a lot of conversations about CSS. Initially, I thought the chatterers were talking about Cascading Style Sheets, a style sheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in mark up language. That is the kind of girl I am.
But of course they weren’t. You’ll probably know by now that CSS are a Brazilian dirty disco band (CSS standing for Cansei de Ser Sexy – ‘Tired of being sexy’ in Portuguese), whose style / sound is now being aped by the likes of Bonde Do Role. This evening, CSS are playing the second night of a two night stint at the Astoria, part of their ‘It’s Already a Sensation Tour’.
The crowd, I think, are left over from the G-A-Y night on Saturday. It is now Monday, and they’re still very sweaty, and still very receptive when CSS play such anthems as ‘Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above’ which transports me (and only me) back to the height of mid-1980s synth pop; ‘Alcohol Failed…’ which asks the silly question “do you want to drink some alcohol?” and most recent single ‘Off The Hook’.
Singer Lovefoxxx is being fittingly foxy (jeez, give a kid a name like that and how do you expect her to turn out?), whilst Ana, Carolina and Luiza are bash it hard on the keyboards. Lovefoxx herself is out to confuse us all, comparing stage diving to “giving birth” and causing a stir by excitedly exclaiming “isn’t that Bjork in the crowd?!”. She wasn’t…
However, CSS’s set is very short - not more than 30 minutes or so, including a cover of L7’s ‘Pretend We’re Dead’ (L7! Remember them!?) - something which highlights their lack of material. Thankfully no Shampoo covers follow, but overall it’s difficult to tell whether CSS are genuine or merely having a joke at our expense (exhibit A; the song called ‘Meet Paris Hilton’) given that cheesy eighties pop is referenced so, so relentlessly in their songs. Our guess? They’re just having a lot – a lot – of fun with it.