To most of tonight's crowd the sight of this most unusual of groups - part day care professionals, part welfare mums - should come as no surprise. The Scroggins sisters have always cut the least conventional shapes, simply being an 80s Post-Punk girl band was enough. (One bystander is heard to ponder amusingly, "Which one is Sporty?")
It was chance, of course, that they found themselves at the vanguard of the No Wave movement in 80s New York, at the confluence of Post-Punk, Disco, Hip-Hop and the emerging dance culture from which would germinate House. They played the closing night of the Paradise Garage at the request of legendary DJ Larry Levan. Played the opening night of the Hacienda, released their first EP on Factory Records at the request of Tony Wilson and under the production of Martin Hannett. And all this after starting out as a family band, fond of soul and Latin and a little shaky when it came to playing the instruments.
So, perhaps it doesn't matter to the crowd at the newly revamped and re-branded Camden Palace that ESG roll out in their sweatpants and take gaping great pauses between each track, announce the seminal "UFO" and then potter around the stage aimlessly for minutes before actually playing it.
After all, we're thinking about those early hip-hop classics that sampled that siren. We're thinking about the sweaty nights dancing to the twin revelations of amphetamines and bass-enhanced tribal drums enjoyed by mid-80s NYC types dressed like, well, half of Hoxton is now. And, we're thinking about this black girl band onstage at the Hacienda, as if they were beamed down into Northern England from the otherworldly Planet South Bronx specifically to lift the urban gloom and hold out the promise of a better place within the beat. The problem comes if we actually want to dance, heads down, deep inside these legendary beats.
Sadly this is not the place, as it resembles a record fair somewhat more closely than it does the Hacienda or Paradise Garage. If there's anything this crowd shares, it's probably over-developed forearms built up spending hours flicking through great piles of dusty vinyl. It's a shame though that ESG appear to have become the sole preserve of the 'aficionado', remembered and consecrated more for the 'theory' of their music than the practice. Largely because it's rubbed off on their performance with disappointing results, tonight rendering both "Moody" and "UFO" dispassionate run-throughs that can, nonetheless, be depended on to elicit a cheer.
There are certainly moments when the thrilling drumming of Valerie Scroggins is entrancing, as she hammers out those insanely fast breakbeats over a simple bass and the chants and yelps of sister, Renee. Still, they're destined to be more a curiosity for their powers over the destination of late 20th Century music – discovered and coveted by Hip-Hop fans in the 90s and discovered again now as Post-Punk undergoes its inevitable critical re-evaluation. Hence, their appearance here at the high alter of London's most cerebral club night, Eat Your Own Ears.
A Certain Ratio, Liquid Liquid, PIL and the other (currently deeply fashionable) acts that booked ESG as openers back at the height of Post-Punk's self-consciously arty phase surely admired the lack of pretension with which they had stumbled across their sound. Recapturing that innocence was never going to be easy.
