TweeOFF!

Has anyone heard of tweecore? Got a tweecore playlist on your iPod have you? Have you? No, and why not? Because it’s an absurd name for a genre, made up by music journalists (real ones that is, not pretend ones like me) and it doesn’t really exist, that’s why not.

The concoction of ever more ridiculous genre descriptions such as tweecore or – I don’t know – mathstep maybe, or shit-hop – whatever – enraged a bunch of music fans at Norwich Arts Centre so much that they decided to do something about it. That was how the NAC’s sometimes monthly, sometimes not, live music event series TweeOFF! came into being. Its aims are simple. Since music genres are essentially irrelevant now – except to the people who write about them – it makes a lot more sense just to bring bands that are doing something, anything, fun and exciting to the people in Norwich who are into fun and excitement.
In the year or so that TweeOFF! has been operating, they’ve managed to seduce an impressive list of names into Norwich, including Scottish band Errors (coming up 12th March) and LA based Health, who later said that their gig at the NAC was the best date on their tour. Bands like coming to Norwich. We underestimate ourselves. We get so used to missing out on our favourite bands when they tour that we somehow think that they don’t want to come here. ‘Band members: us and you,’ is scrawled on TweeOFF!’s MySpace page. ‘If we build it they will come’

And this is the beauty of TweeOFF! They recognise the importance of the relationship between band and audience. It’s two way. Health performed much of their set at the NAC from within the crowd; B K and Dad played a set from the side of the room. ‘We like to give the audience something they’re not expecting.’ Anyone checking out the Errors gig this month may be in for something even more outlandish from local electronica act Sukoshi.
Whereas many of the bands playing at other venues in Norwich are somewhere on the gentle decline from glory (I didn’t mention any names, Reef; don’t get so paranoid), TweeOFF! Specifically look for bands that are still excited about performing live, and will therefore be exciting to watch. You should probably start going – see you on the 12th.