Huck & The Handsome Fee are very good, if a little one-paced, and Tamara Parsons-Baker vocals really shine in this unabashed ‘50s throwback. The Roundheels’ trad rocking is less intense, a bit of a light, fluffy country meringue, but is pleasant enough. The Delta Frequency make out that they’re all about the aggressive, subversive rock, but what we hear is like The Foo Fighters playing over a tinny old Front 242 LP. Ho hum.
Undersmile amuse us, not least because their name sounds like coy slang for a fanny. They supply a thick, dense grunge sound that just trudges on slowly forever, like a man ploughing treacle. The twin vocals detract from the Babes In Toyland effect a little, sounding like two girls who don’t want to eat their sprouts, but that aside they’re a fun new band.
Far more fun than Charlie Coombes & The New Breed, despite the fact they’re several squillion times more experienced. Actually, he’s not that bad, and has a very smooth voice, like a 70s sit com vicar having a crack at Nik Heyward, but the songs just aren’t there. He only needs one great Crowded House style pop hit and we’d love him, but for now we’re bored enough to consider going for a quick game of chess with the guy from the Mexican food stand.
With flagging energy levels, Riverside keep back three excellent acts to round off the day. The Family Machine still have the chirpiest pop songs in Oxford concealing sharpest barbs, but they feel distant on the big stage. Beard Of Zeuss make a sort of bang bang bang noise for a while and it sounds bloody great; by the end we’re not only unsure whether it is wrong to spell Zeus with two esses, but we’re wondering whether a few more might not go amiss.
Borderville synthesise the twin poles of the sometimes mystifying Riverside booking policy. They play “proper” music, with choruses and schoolroom keyboard technique and a respect for rock classics, yet they also throw it together with such calculatedly wild abandon and desperate drama that the gig becomes almost aggressively experimental. They start with a string quartet, which is over-amped and out of tune, but sets the tone of faded glamour from which the set springs in all its camp glory. This is what Glee would be like if Roxy Music sat on Mount Olympus and Pete Townshend carried amps down Mount Sinai. Improbably excellent music.
Showing posts with label Huck And The Handsome Fee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Huck And The Handsome Fee. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Payslip Park
This review, from the latest issue, is the last Nightshift review I have in the archives (for "archives" read "pile"). From now on you'll get them as they're written, roughly one per month. Fret not, there are still loads of Oxfordbands pieces in the posting schedule (for "schedule" read "desperate random selection").
HUCK & THE HANDSOME FEE/ BARBARE11A/ LORD MAGPIE & THE PRINCE OF CATS, Big Hair, Cellar, 7/1/10
The implausibly named Lord Magpie & The Prince Of Cats offer guttersnipe rockabilly that can hardly be called tidy, but has the clumsy alluring grace of a newborn foal. They have tiny amps that probably came from a Kinder Surprise, atrocious backing vocals, a strange ungainly vocalist who camply croons like a cross between Andy Warhol and Waylon Jennings, and enough energy to outweigh any amateurism. Some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll is primal, and whilst Lord Magpie isn’t angry, or sweaty, or sexy, the music does seem to come from the very core of the performers. They’re also fascinating: how did this weird lot meet? How do they rehearse? Hang on, have they ever rehearsed? If there’s one thing missing in rock music today, it’s mystery; Lord Magpie is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a butterfingered cover of "Hi-Heeled Sneakers. Seek them out.
Barbare11a grabs the attention too, looking like a horrific mixup in the costume departments of Mad Max and Two Gentlemen Of Verona: ruffs, leathers and leggings. They play greasy glam rock, and though the vocalist talks like a strange Swedish Eddie Izzard, he has a strong Bowie-inflected singing voice. They’re like a version of Borderville from out of a Christmas cracker, and as such are great fun if a touch unconvincing. Then again, they’re playing with a man down, and they do give us a wonderful lilting waltz, and a superbly slurred Booze Brothers cover of “Minnie The Moocher”, so it’s a victory in the end.
Huck & The Handsome Fee could probably give seminars on how to build a set (though, with their grubby white vests they’d best not set up as stylists). The gig is a compact, well-constructed suite of songs that builds from a quiet bluesy narrative to a punked up Sun Records crackle without a wasted second. Humphrey Astley has a voice that milks the maximum drama from his dark songs, intoning “The Fall” like a mixture of Roy Orbison and Nick Cave and his backing is rock solid. Perhaps the dour country blues balladry feels thin after the flamboyant character of the support acts, but this is a decent band for a quiet evening of listening and solid, melancholy liquor drinking.
HUCK & THE HANDSOME FEE/ BARBARE11A/ LORD MAGPIE & THE PRINCE OF CATS, Big Hair, Cellar, 7/1/10
The implausibly named Lord Magpie & The Prince Of Cats offer guttersnipe rockabilly that can hardly be called tidy, but has the clumsy alluring grace of a newborn foal. They have tiny amps that probably came from a Kinder Surprise, atrocious backing vocals, a strange ungainly vocalist who camply croons like a cross between Andy Warhol and Waylon Jennings, and enough energy to outweigh any amateurism. Some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll is primal, and whilst Lord Magpie isn’t angry, or sweaty, or sexy, the music does seem to come from the very core of the performers. They’re also fascinating: how did this weird lot meet? How do they rehearse? Hang on, have they ever rehearsed? If there’s one thing missing in rock music today, it’s mystery; Lord Magpie is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a butterfingered cover of "Hi-Heeled Sneakers. Seek them out.
Barbare11a grabs the attention too, looking like a horrific mixup in the costume departments of Mad Max and Two Gentlemen Of Verona: ruffs, leathers and leggings. They play greasy glam rock, and though the vocalist talks like a strange Swedish Eddie Izzard, he has a strong Bowie-inflected singing voice. They’re like a version of Borderville from out of a Christmas cracker, and as such are great fun if a touch unconvincing. Then again, they’re playing with a man down, and they do give us a wonderful lilting waltz, and a superbly slurred Booze Brothers cover of “Minnie The Moocher”, so it’s a victory in the end.
Huck & The Handsome Fee could probably give seminars on how to build a set (though, with their grubby white vests they’d best not set up as stylists). The gig is a compact, well-constructed suite of songs that builds from a quiet bluesy narrative to a punked up Sun Records crackle without a wasted second. Humphrey Astley has a voice that milks the maximum drama from his dark songs, intoning “The Fall” like a mixture of Roy Orbison and Nick Cave and his backing is rock solid. Perhaps the dour country blues balladry feels thin after the flamboyant character of the support acts, but this is a decent band for a quiet evening of listening and solid, melancholy liquor drinking.
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