The 2 Bears,Hot Chip

Playing a gig with a difference, Hot Chip overtook proceedings on the final night of tongue-twister-in-waiting Oxfam’s Oxjam to launch its Dalston store. The band curated the whole evening, playing a DJ set themselves as well as inviting along their own special guests, including Four Tet, Simian Mobile Disco and The 2 Bears.

Whether starting the night off with a set from The 2 Bears was to demonstrate the waste nothing psychology of Oxfam (one of the Bears happens to be Hot Chip member and co-writer Joe Goddard) or simply a logical use of Hot Chip band personnel is neither here nor there; it was a good choice. For the first part of the set Goddard was alone. But like (except this isn’t a simile) a muso in a record shop, he looked happy enough, playing a mix of his beloved house music, some old school hip hop and even managing to mix a Tina Turner record with jungle music. Fellow Bear and collaborator from the Greco Roman Soundsystem, Raf Rundell eventually pitched up and the music’s tempo increased in line with the growing crowd of people inside the charity shop. Just in case you could forget you were in a charity shop and not an East London pub, Goddard handed Rundell a white and blue knitted cardigan, complete with hood and ears for his baby bear. Nothing says charity shop like a bit of knitwear.

Rails of clothes, shoes and bags were still accessible to buy throughout the evening, though being behind the stage and its accompanying tangle of wires and sound equipment, made the bookshelves off limits. A huge collection of vinyl and CDs more than compensated for the literacy shortfall - and the records on sale were as eclectic as Hot Chip’s DJ set. New Kids on the Block and Lemar alongside shared shelf space with Deadmau5, Elton John and the Fine Young Cannibals.

This intriguing mix of music was put to good use when Hot Chip DJed. Given the challenge of playing old charity shop records, band member Al Doyle asked the crowd to be patient: ‘It’s a bit weird and panicky just playing songs from the charity shop, so please bear with us!’ In a red hairband with fake plaits attached Hot Chip frontman Alexis Taylor began his DJ stint with Dolly Parton’s ‘9-5’ before quickly segueing in Salt n Pepa’s ‘Let’s talk about Sex’ and other party favourites. Sadly, being primarily a shop although the venue was pretty busy, dancing was kept to a real minimum to both Hot Chip and The 2 Bears.

Far more activity was happening at the other end of the shop: the till. All of the acts donated old music of their own – some even had the original Oxfam labels on them from the first time round they were on sale at this Oxfam store, others were signed by the acts here. And impressively prices were kept affordable.
It was only right that the band finished off their musical contribution to the evening with one of their own: as ‘Flutes’ playground sample vocals and wooden percussion beats stuttered into life Taylor told the crowd the percussion instruments were bought a couple of years ago from this very store.