Title Contenders
The Duke Spirit/Creepy Morons, Barfly, Birmingham, Friday November 16 2007, 8.45pm.
So whatever happened to The Beatings? Seems like some of 'em, at any rate, turned out to be Creepy Morons. But Creepy Morons, nonetheless, who know how to thrash a decent tune from a fashionable two-piece unit of guitar and drums. It's a raw blend of blues and folk infused with a give-a-shit attitude and an instinctive feel for a pleasing groove. Definitely worth checking out.
Headliners The Duke Spirit are also old friends of Parallax View back on the scene, a band we've reviewed and reported on many an occasion since catching them support The Shins three and a half years ago. 'Fret not' advises singer Liela Moss, 'we're back and we've brought some new songs with us' and the band don't look back for the rest of the set, introducing a whole raft of new material (generally more melodic and of more varied pace than debut album Cuts Across The Land) as well as the usual live favourites like 'Red Weather' and 'Love Is An Unfamiliar Name'.
Sometimes you need to meet someone again to realise how much you've missed them, and that's the over-riding sensation your cheerful correspondent feels during a lively and enlivening set ring-led by the shamanic Moss cutting a cool and confident figure upfront to increasing appreciation from the sizeable crowd. 'We'll be back in the spring' advises Moss as they finally depart from the stage, which is yet another reason to wish the winter over with godspeed.
The Duke Spirit/Creepy Morons, Barfly, Birmingham, Friday November 16 2007, 8.45pm.
So whatever happened to The Beatings? Seems like some of 'em, at any rate, turned out to be Creepy Morons. But Creepy Morons, nonetheless, who know how to thrash a decent tune from a fashionable two-piece unit of guitar and drums. It's a raw blend of blues and folk infused with a give-a-shit attitude and an instinctive feel for a pleasing groove. Definitely worth checking out.
Headliners The Duke Spirit are also old friends of Parallax View back on the scene, a band we've reviewed and reported on many an occasion since catching them support The Shins three and a half years ago. 'Fret not' advises singer Liela Moss, 'we're back and we've brought some new songs with us' and the band don't look back for the rest of the set, introducing a whole raft of new material (generally more melodic and of more varied pace than debut album Cuts Across The Land) as well as the usual live favourites like 'Red Weather' and 'Love Is An Unfamiliar Name'.
Sometimes you need to meet someone again to realise how much you've missed them, and that's the over-riding sensation your cheerful correspondent feels during a lively and enlivening set ring-led by the shamanic Moss cutting a cool and confident figure upfront to increasing appreciation from the sizeable crowd. 'We'll be back in the spring' advises Moss as they finally depart from the stage, which is yet another reason to wish the winter over with godspeed.
Labels: gig reviews, meta
2 Comments:
Don't hear a lot of folk in Creepy Morons, I have to say...
As for The Duke Spirit, there's definitely more in the way of melody and variety in the new material - but it didn't all grab me, I must say.
Review to follow on SWSL - beaten to the punch by you again...
The reason why you don't hear a lot of folk in Creepy Morons, Ben, is that there *is* only two of 'em, and only one sings.
Slightly more seriously, Wikipedia themselves concede that there's no satisfactory definition of folk music. Meaning people can use the term to represent whatever they want it to mean.
Whereas Creepy Morons do deliver their music with a certain offhand elan, nevertheless they're not exactly re-writing the book in terms of their style or musical set-up. Therefore they are operating within traditional structure to fairly traditional effect, ie. catharsis. On this basis, they can indeed be considered folk.
You may argue that on this basis all music counts in some way as folk music, and if so I would broadly agree with you.
That said, I wouldn't recommend hanky-dancing to the next CMs gig as it might well encourage a battering...
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