With the plethora of exciting-looking events on offer in the social hub that is London Town, it can often prove somewhat of a challenge to decide how to fill up our busy social calendars, but there are certain factors that will swing it for me. Free entry? Good start. Karaoke? Meh. Live bands? Better. Free pizza? I'm there. Yes, that's right, monthly club night Smithfield Raw at Karaoke Box in Smithfield offers all these wonderful delights, including free pizza courtesy of the lovely people at Karaoke Box. And they're not stingy with it either - just when we think we've had enough, another freshly cooked pizza appears as if by magic. Marvellous. But enough about pizza, Smithfield Raw also presents some cracking live music, and tonight we're treated to a bit of electro pop from Liverpudlian duo Kids On Bridges.
Formed as a studio band, Kids On Bridges was originally a four-piece before being stripped down to two members, Christian Bragg and Danny Rankin. Lead vocalist and lyricist Christian came up with the band's moniker after his car was hit by a brick thrown off a bridge in Manchester. 'The name stuck with me,' Christian tells me. 'Obviously we're not kids but the idea was to represent really grim northern imagery with glitzy pop music.'
When trying to describe their sound, they declare that they're 'caught between pop and a hard place.' Christian says, 'I'm a bit like a frustrated rocker. You can get into pop music but pop always seems to be a dirty word, but to me it's just popular music. We strive to create pop with a bit of an edge.'
The duo's live show is usually accompanied by visuals 'a bit like Daft Punk's, but obviously not on the same scale, just to make the songs come to life a little bit more.' Danny, who creates all the visuals, explains, 'I just try to represent what's going on in the music, just to give people more clues as to what we're about and what's being said in the songs. It's that northern gritty imagery with glitzy pop idea again. It's quite flashy and fast-moving but it has a lot of gritty imagery like riots and fighting and that kind of stuff.' We'll have to take his word for it though as, due to technical difficulties, the duo has to make do without visuals tonight. 
They kick off their set in the proper manner by introducing themselves. 'We are, we are, we are the Kids On Bridges,' they sing over a rocky, poppy, electro beat. They follow with radio-friendly 'Anywhere But The Middle', which Christian hopes will be their first UK release. 'We hooked up with J2K from the Roll Deep crew. It's a nice mix of hip hop and electro.'
They then perform 'Popstar' before launching into swear-fest 'Y Don't U'. 'Why don't you fuck right off? Maybe another man would take this shit and talk things over...but you're not worth it.' Tough break-up, Christian? 'It wasn't written to try and be controversial. I went into the studio and I think I'd been listening to Prince. I liked the way he just tells things as they are. I'd had a bad relationship and it just came out like that. I sent it to Music Week and they picked it up straight away, they loved it. It was never intentionally meant to shock people, but it was an honest song.'
They round off the set with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark'. Surely they must be worried about abuse from dedicated Boss fans for murdering a legendary, unsurpassable song? 'Well that's the problem,' Christian admits. 'But at the end of the day I'm not trying to take the mickey out of it; I'm trying to do it justice. And I'm pleased with it. I think it's going to be a love-hate thing. People are going to hate it, but it was done with the best intentions. It's also about introducing new audiences to Springsteen. But people seem to like it. It was first played in America on the radio and people love it there so fingers crossed.' Hmm, I'm dubious, but the crowd tonight certainly seems to enjoy it - they're singing and dancing along whilst screaming 'Woo! Yeah! Woo!' Mentalists.
The crowd continues to dance into the night with more electro pop from Dansette Junior and Ronnie Joice, fuelled by cheap Jack Daniel's and, of course, a lot of free pizza.
The next Smithfield Raw night will take place in August at Karaoke Box and will have a rock 'n' roll theme, with live music from Rage Against The Machine-esque Illegitimate Sons of the King. Keep checking Spoonfed for more info and full line-up details.
Fancy checking out Kids On Bridges yourself but can't make it to their live shows? Just contact them via their Myspace page and mention Spoonfed to receive a free CD.
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