EVERY great scene needs its arty poseur element, from the Andy Warhol crowd in Sixties New York, to punk's Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood and the Chelsea set in Seventies London, to Tony Wilson's Warhol-influenced Factory in late Eighties " Madchester". When the cool-hunting rich, the aspirational poor and the art school counterculture accidentally collide, creative sparks fly.

There is an area where all this is happening now: east London.

Although the square mile around Shoreditch and Hoxton continues to provoke a bewildering media debate about its cultural worth - think sneering references to haircuts, anorexic models and an insular world of artists and fashionistas pretending to slum it - a new spirit of dance music, rock 'n' roll and boozy hedonism is coming together in dark haunts of E1, E2 and EC2.

Shoreditch established its musical credentials in the early Nineties in a former jazz club called The Bass Clef.

Before it was closed down by a neighbour's complaints in 1997, Blue Note nights such as Goldie's legendary jungle club, Metalheadz, and the Mo Wax label's Far East re-established an eclectic, innovatory dance wave for hip clubbers just five minutes' walk from one of the poorest housing estates in Britain. Despite the influx of artists, style mags and new media companies attracted by cheap warehouse and loft space, the area had edge.

That edge and affordability led to the opening of new music venues such as 333 and Cargo, which inevitably led to the arrival of new bands. The area's DJs began to mix dance beats with rock, electro- pop and camp classics, both reflecting and influencing the bands' messy aesthetic.

The Click photographic studios, which were responsible for much of the Nineties style mags' "heroin chic", became the Rouge studios, where The Libertines rehearsed. The current vibe of live rock 'n' roll mixed with eclectic DJ-ing in such small, atmospheric venues as The Fortress, The Rhythm Factory and Whitechapel's 93 Feet East, points to the bare fact that music has replaced fashion as the Shoreditch thing.

East London is now spitting out hot new bands by the day. The music is dominated by electro beats, loud postpunk guitars, dressing up (combat gear has been replaced by the decaying glamour of second- hand suits, dresses and DIY chic), and confrontational performances which veer from the cheeky to the downright violent. It is no accident that, after disbanding Pulp and rejecting pop, Jarvis Cocker chose to base his ironic electro-rock Relaxed Muscle band in an area awash with a similar trash aesthetic and screw-you attitude.

As the first of the East End's newwavers to go mainstream, Bethnal Green boys The Libertines (along with their main man Pete Doherty's spin-off projects Babyshambles and Wolfman) are vitally important to this scene. They have reinvented early punk's cockney minimalism and their lyrics, which hit home with funny tales of London wasters, hustlers and nutters, of glory snatched from east London poverty.

The New York- influenced Razorlight (whose first single, Golden Touch, is released on 1 May, album to follow in June), led by former Libertine Johnny Borrell, are also making an impact with music that harks back to the late Seventies. They cleverly throw a 21st-century London spin on the New York art-punk of Patti Smith and Television.

BUT the mutant Shoreditch blend of punk, glam and electro is best encapsulated by the brilliant, controversial electro-punk duo Selfish C**t, whose Full Swing/Authority Confrontation single (to be released by Horseglue Records on 3 May) and chaotic, provocative live shows purvey a raging anger at the war in Iraq, corporate values and the poverty that dominates the real East End.

Many of Selfish C**t's most incendiary shows have been at word- ofmouth guerrilla-style gigs in east London art spaces, rehearsal studios and warehouses promoted by veteran Sean McLusky, whose weekly Sonic Mook Experiment nights at On the Rocks showcase the best of the new bands.

"Selfish C**t are the cream of the crop, really," says McLusky. "The singer Martin Tomlinson is a real phenomenon. He's like a one- man revolution."

All this is exactly what you would expect from a generation reared on dance music which is rediscovering the joys of guitar noise and pop glamour and reacting against the cosy, dressed-down MOR rock of Britain's post-Britpop "indie" scene.

Tough guitar gangs Neil's Children (Clockwork Orange-styled urchins reminiscent of early Manic Street Preachers) and the shaggy, stroppy, post-punkish Black Wire aren't going unnoticed, while maverick bands from outside the capital, such as Sheffield's Pink Grease (early Roxy Music meets The Darkness) and droll synth satirists Fat Truckers play regularly to a Shoreditch crowd that understand their twisted humour.

McLusky also points out more arty, theatrical bands Twisted Charm, Ten Minutes With My Dad, Collapse and the eccentrically named Gob Sausage, a mix of rude windup and ironic cabaret performed by strippers from a local gentleman's club.

The current hottest East End tip, though, is Whitey, whose strippeddown, droning electro-pop has been signed by Parlophone, and whose leader, Nathan Whitey, has recently remixed Kylie Minogue's Red Blooded Woman single.

"They've all got that loose, rolling, angular guitar and electronic noise," McLusky explains. "Sloppy and contemporary.

It's hard to give it a name."

Running parallel to Shoreditch's glam-punk is the garage/hip hopbased "grimy" scene, coming out of nearby Bow, led by Dizzee Rascal and Wiley.

Wiley's superb debut album, Treddin' on Thin Ice (released in a fortnight by XL), represents a local black music scene raised on pirate radio, underground raves and striving to survive amid inner- city pressure.

THERE is little crossover between the two very different scenes, but Shoreditch DJ venues such as Herbal and Plastic People ensure that the presence of a black club culture exists side-byside with the scuzz of On the Rocks and busy late-night drink 'n' dance den Catch 22.

East London is reclaiming Shoreditch from the style-media and art crowd, despite attempts by some to make the area into a tourist attraction. Doom merchants have been regularly predicting the appearance of a Starbucks on every corner. But the bands, promoters, DJs and venue owners who have shaped Shoreditch 2004 are resisting becoming the new Islington.

Will Shoreditch become the permanent London equivalent of New York's art-punk East Village? Or just implode under the weight of selfconsciousness, commercialism and too much, too soon? Only time - and the potential impact of Selfish C**t, Whitey and Razorlight - will tell.

(c)2004. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.