Discoveries made at the time of Googling T. Alan photos: Did nayyyy realise there was a girl in this band

Discoveries made upon shortly enlarging said photo: Dreadlocks do not equal vagina

In all possible seriousness: Tyrannosaurus Alan, for lack of better words, rock my socks. I caught them opening at the very same Camden Underworld gig as I saw the Mighty, Mighty Skints-tones*

Despite the graveyard slot (opening for their other, more prestigious ska-punk luminaries such as Random hand and Moral Dilemma. It was even too early for seemingly 12-year-old kiddies that permeated the later sets to have to breach their curfues for), I’m most definitely not gonna lie: Tyrannosaurus Alan stole the show.

And NO.

It was NOT just because of their unbelievably cheeky-chappie hot trombonist

It was because of the laddish, 2 tone riffs that sounded like the Arctic Monkeys buggered on Scrumpy Jack. It was because despite the slightly GCSE Anarchism song titles, such as ‘Bombard the BBC’? (Nah, you’re alright thanks), the rousing chorus of the aforementioned song - ‘We’re breaking, we’re breaking down, we’re never backing down, we’re backing out’ - and the others in their too-short set inspired Tourettes fist-pumping in a crowd initially populated by three shuffling hipsters. A couple of songs in, more and more people were bobbing their necks - there was full on mouthing of unknown lyrics by the time the driving, repetitive chorus of gorgeously brassy fan favourite ‘Tunnels’ (‘YOU’RE THE BETTER MAN! YOU’RE THE BETTER MAN!’) rolled around.

And by gum, it was the fucking size of lead singer (rapper, shouter, ringleader) Ollie’s plugs. Man alive**

They are ridiculously underground. Ridiculously so. So ridiculously that i couldn’t even find a single bootlegged 30 second clip of a live show, recorded on a Motorola V220 (remember when EVERYONE had that phone? remember when YOU had that phone?) on SoundCloud, so Please Please Please check out TheirSpace. Listen especially hard and fast to the shabbily recorded but sweetly suburban ‘Cheer Up’

*For all you young ones or non-third waveducated ones, I’m making a Mighty Mighty Bosstones reference. You’ll know it when you hear it, trust :)

**That reminds me - anyone got the stunning Everything Everything’s new album ‘Man Alive’ yet? I’m gagging for it