Forty Sense

This might not have been the greatest day of music I've ever seen, but it's the sort of thing that should always be celebrated.

FORTY YEARS OF PROMOTION, PRODUCTION & PERFORMANCE, ITS ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC, Port Mahon, 2/9/23 

This event is part of a month-long celebration of local promoter Osprey’s career spanning 40 years onstage, at the mixing desk, or at the helm of multiple gigs. There’s palpable love for the man himself on display from today’s punters and performers, and this reflects Osprey’s greatest trait as a promoter: passion. There are legions of successful musicians who got their first break at one of Osprey’s nights, as he took a chance on some nascent promise, and there are other acts to whom Os has stayed loyal for years, even if they’ve never picked up a following. Every healthy music scene needs this sort of supportive underpinning, just as much as it needs hip young gunslingers and breakout successes, and with that in mind this review will highlight acts who may not have had much previous coverage in this magazine (and if you need to know that he didnt, Beaver Fuel, The Foam Heads, and Matt “Charms Against The Evil Eye” Sewell are worth your time we prescribe Nightshifts passim, stet).  

The garden hosts a surprisingly varied roster, and starts strong with uke-slinger Bill Frizzell. His runaway -jalopy run through the top 10 singles from 40 years ago is unpretentious fun, but his musical setting of diary extracts from his time building Australian railroads in the 70s is brilliantly funny and dramatic: a one-man Edinburgh show surely beckons. Nash also has a playful approach to covers, mashing up contemporary pop culture tunes with a bit of hip-hop and a bourbon-blessed blues growl, but Paul Lodge makes him look predictable by comparison: the garden might have the vibe of an open mic night, but how often do you see people setting words by Nietzsche, Wordsworth, and a 12-century visionary abbess to delicate Dylanish music at your local? 

Tiger Mendoza is a name well known to Nightshift readers, of course, but how many times have we seen Ian de Quadros barrel through his tunes with only a trusty acoustic? Even shorn of their electro-hip-hop settings his songs stand up and his voice proves to be strong enough to take the spotlight...also, weirdly, he does the second cover of the day of ‘No Diggity’ - the Blackstreet revival starts here, we guess. Ben Jacobs deserves praise for turning in two sets of fluent, assured songs, but our favourite new find is The Station, a Newbury trio whose high-energy romp-pop falls somewhere between The Jam’s socially conscious concision and the fringe-flicking sensibilities of early Gene. Finding yourself in a small room, tapping a foot to a band who look like they’re having the time of their lives might not make the headlines, but captures the spirit of an Osprey event. We're looking forward to the fiftieth anniversary already. 

Alopecia The Action

"That" song is "I Wanna Live In Your Buttcrack", which is how you imagine it but less mature. Harry implausibly were selected to support Girls Aloud (who are pretty great, in case there's any uncertainty) at a Children In Need gig in an RAF base. There, now you know everything.

HARRY ANGEL/ TOUPE/ BEAVER FUEL/ JAMES BELL – Moshka, The Bully, 3/5/08


We’re fascinated by acts that nearly don’t work, performers who skirt the shores of musical embarrassment and somehow arrive safely at the port of artistic integrity. James Bell is a fine example; his supersized, falsetto-heavy cabaret acoustic shows, replete with implausible covers and frenetic leaping, should have all the charm of a precocious toddler, yet somehow he not only escapes with pride intact, but also manages to sneak some powerful emotions into the room. His cover of “Canadee-i-o” may sound like Thin Lizzy, but it reveals a deep fondness for traditional folk song, and “Last Of The Corners” manages to mix Elvis Costello’s lyrical intricacy with authentic Waterboys yearning. A real talent.

That song aside, Leigh Alexander’s songwriting for Beaver Fuel can actually be more subtle than is generally perceived, and he cuts big issues down to size with cheeky verbosity a la Carter USM. Having said that, the new tune is called “Fuck You, I’ve Got Tourettes” so let’s not get carried away. Beaver Fuel is an act that doesn’t normally thrive in the live environment, ending up a stodgy mess. Not tonight, however. Something’s changed in Camp Buttcrack since the lacklustre EP launch scant weeks ago: Leigh’s voice may not be the most versatile in town, but he’s clearly been working on his projection and his lyrics sail clearly over a surprisingly neat and bouncy band. We still wonder whether lumpy punk with Mojo solos is the ideal vehicle for Leigh’s writing, but this is a band improving steadily.

Slap bass. Swearing. Boob jokes. You’re not going to believe us that Southampton’s Toupe are geniuses, are you? Led by stand up comedian Grant Sharkey, they use drums and two basses to create propulsive and surprisingly varied smut funk, coming off like a cross between Frank Zappa and The Grumbleweeds, like a pier-end Primus. Oxymoronically, they survive because they don’t take their silliness too seriously, and goof off more to amuse themselves than to create an air of calculated wackiness – and beneath it all the music is actually superb, with magnificent drumming from Jay Havelock. One of the best bands you’ll see all year, though we know you still don’t believe us.

It’s been two years since we last saw Harry Angel, and we’re glad to report that little has changed. The early Radiohead references may have been swapped for some mid-period Sonic Youth, but otherwise they still spew out fizzing amphetamine goth, a huge wall of irascible noise with Chris Beard’s vocals as a black smear across the front. They also look like they’re playing in the last few seconds of their lives. “Proper rock n roll”, shouts a drunken punter. Girls Aloud must still be getting over it.