Lesser Panda

Lesser Panda

04 September, 2008
by: Domzig

Why are so many bands named after friggin’ animals? I mean, just glimpsing through this month’s schedule and you’ve got Deerhunter and Seabear at The Dome, Happy Penguin, Hungry Bear at the Buffalo Bar, Dog Soup at the Jazz Café, The Whybirds at The Borderline, Woodpigeon at The Luminaire, My Tiger My Timing at Blow Up Metro, and the Stray Cats gig at the Brixton Academy. There’s even a festival dedicated to cats in October.

I may be making a big deal about this, but I spent all day one Saturday in a van with Hackney based post-punk/ electro outfit Lesser Panda just to try and figure it out. This is what the bassist Chris Fenner had to say about it:

So why are you called Lesser Panda again?

The name originated when we got booked for our first gig, before that we didn’t have a name at all. When we turned up to the show, we noticed the posters didn’t have a name – just some blank spots where our name was supposed to be.  

At the time Chris (guitar/drums) was smoking these filthy strong cigarettes called ‘Lesser Panda’ he'd been given by a friend in Japan. We all took a liking to the name and just decided to call ourselves it on the night, so we took a big fat marker pen and vandalised all the posters with our new name in an ‘art statement’ sort of way.

So it just kind of stuck?

Yeah I guess so.  We didn't really think about it when we first came up with it and just went with it. It was a sort of a no-effort name we came across and is definitely nothing to do with our love of pandas.

A panda has a white face and black eyes: is that why people reckon you’re a goth band?

Not sure about that really, can an animal be gothic?

Yeah, a bat.

True, true. I mean there are some great old gothic bands like Bauhaus, The Birthday Party, Killing Joke to name a few that I love and have gothic sounds. I guess the tag is more about our sound than our looks: we don’t look like Pandas do we?

We’re just doing our own thing, which is kind of dark and moody, people are always going to label us someway as gothic and that’s fine, but it’s nothing intentional, it’s the sound that comes out of us naturally.

Do you feel there’s sort of this dark disco scene in London you’re being dragged into?

I definitely know that there's an Italio Disco scene that's happening in London right now and a lot of people are following that.

Not really sure what you mean about the Dark Disco scene but its sounds kind of interesting. 'Moody Disco'? Does that involve people crying and dancing at the same time?
 
You played the launch of that Joy Division DVD in Manchester recently, how did that go?

It’s hard covering Joy Division; they’re such an important band to a lot of people it was really important we pulled it off. I think we did it justice – everyone was really receptive: it was a bit of an honour really.

Lastly, who would win between a cat and a panda?

A cat. Panda’s are the most pathetic animal ever, all they do is sit around chewing bamboo, a cat would hammer it.

So, in conclusion no-one else really thinks about it. Just me.

Anyway, continuing on with the live music coverage of this September, I’ve got just a few column lines to tell you about all the non-animal related music that's going on. Let’s see, you’ve got the amazing Black Lips playing Heaven, Nail The Cross taking over New Cross and the Shoreditch Shuffle doing a similar thing around Hoxton. Oh, and make sure you catch Rolo Tomassi’s record release party at Old Blue Last, should be amazing.

Lesser Panda have a new record ‘Ghostdance’ out on October 6th, and will be celebrating with a few dates in Paris this month, before playing a set at the Last Days of Decadence on the 13th. The kind people over at Universal have also given us a few copies of the excellent Joy Division Documentary to give away.Check out the Competitions page to find out more.

Domzig