A Flash In The Pandemic

I've just found this review. I think it was written for BBC Oxford years ago (the TOTP and Lavigne references date it hugely), but that the Truax part wasn't used, which is why most of it was recycled for later reviews. Oddly, I reviewed Truax again for this month's Nightshift, and I'll post that on Saturday, just so you can see that I generally repeat myself tediously - I mean, I'm gloriously consistent.

The Epstein-Barr Virus Band dropped 3/5 of their name soon after this.

Oh, the review is rubbish, by the way, no wonder I'd forgotten about it. Atrocious ending.

THE EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS BAND, SCHWERVON, THOMAS TRUAX, Trailerpark, The Cellar

You've got to love Thomas truax.

Not just because he plays grimy pieces of grotesque Americana, like a nice neat Tom Waits after a bucketfull of Lockets, but because of his wonderful homemade instruments. Sister Spinster is a clanking mechanical drum machine, based around an old pram wheel, and is the sort of thing that might have transpired had Hary Partch been involved in designing the Roland 707.

I'm not even going to begin to describe The Hornicator - part instrument, part sculpture, part headgear - but I'll tell you that when if goes through a giant delay pedal, it sounds like Portishead as prodiced by Wilf Lunn from The Great Egg Race.

Over these queasy, lurching rhythms we find twisted vignettes about the fictional municipality of Wowtown. Now, if there were any justice in the world Truax would have a huge hit, and perform "The Fish" on Top Of The Pops, and every kid would have a Wowtown T-shirt.

Then, to make this fantasy even remotely plausible, he'd be instantly forgotten, and, in twenty years, the ability to recognise a Hornicator would be pop quiz gold dust, like correctly spelling "Sk8rboi".

Schwervon have a man with a guitar, a girl on drums, and a bunch of trashy blues progressions. but I'm not going to mention The White Stripes, because a) they'r eprobably fed up with it, and c) The Stripes hardly invented the concept of lo-fidelity, hi-octane garage punk, now did they?

The clattering workouts are relatively inept, but they're pretty endearing, especially the comical inter-song bickering: Schwervon, the Terry & June of swamprock! Sadly the effect begins to pall after about ten minutes, and attentions begin to wander. Oh, look at that over there...

Is it me, or is there a lot of country rock in Oxfordshire? Not that I mind, it's just unexpected.

Still, The Epstein-Barr Virus Band have got to be one fo the best on offer, cranking out their slide-laden laments with great aplomb. Alright, precious few boundaries are being broken here, but the songs burst out and envelop the room like warm zephyrs, so who's worrying?

They have slight trouble with the quieter bluegreass number, "Leave Your Light On", but generally they truck along fine. With lines like "If I can't have the one I love, I don't want no one at all," they even manage to get away with real cliches. I wonder whether I can: EBVB are a darn good toe-tappin' li'l band.

Apparently not...

Greatest living Canterburian

Here's an ancient one, to start things off, from BBC Oxford back in the day.

LUKE SMITH/ THE FOLK ORCHESTRA/ A SCHOLAR AND A PHYSICIAN, Trailerpark, The Cellar, 11/02.

Barry, the first act, doesn't show up. I don't know whether Barry is man, band or beast, but Barry's not here. So, at the last minute Olly, vocalist from local synthpoppers Trademark is drafted in to do strange things to a laptop. Various slices of pop cheese old and new (cf Beddingfield, Daniel; Hammer, MC) are scrunched and mashed in realtime. The experience - something akin to Manchester noiseniks V/Vm at an office party - is, surprisingly, rather good fun.

Folk Orchestra. Now there's an oxymoron. Orchestra: Huge dinner-jacketed embodiment of 19th Century opulence and emotive Romanticism; Gustav Mahler; Leonard bloody Bernstein.

Folk: Libertarian tradition of populist comunion, eschewing complexity and the strictures of the musical salon; Harry Smith; Joan bloody Baez.

How can these diametric opposuites be reconciled? Answer: they can't, at least not tonight. We get a six-piece folk-pop combo, which is a little bigger than most folk-pop combos I'll grant you, but hardly deserving of orchestra status. And it's pretty standard folk-pop combo fare too, at times mercurial and immediate, and times earnest and dull. They aren't helped by a muddy sound mix that destroys any chance of intimacy - the accordionist reached levels of volume for which most metal guitarists would sell their leathery souls.

Luke Smith sings at the piano, with his Dad on drums. As if this weren't reason enough to love him, he tinkles out an hour of wry, funny, sincere songs about his quiet Canterbury life, all infused with a nervous charm. Musically it's not complex, with echoes of music hall singalongs and simple 70s pop, but it's performed with more than enough jazzy dexterity and aplomb.

It's hard to describe what makes Luke such a great prospect. Phrases like "catchy dittes", "homely honesty" and "subtle drum accompaniment" could be employed, but they call up such horrors as Chas 'n' Dave, or Richard Stillgoe. I suppose Luke is a little like that, but imagine a parallel universe where "Snooker Loopy" is an elegant and moving anthem.

Can't? You'd best attend the next Luke Smith gig, then.