Camden’s Jazz Café is an excellent venue, with upstairs seating, a large dance floor and a very nice long bar. Tonight, for Halloween, it is the home to Dalston’s finest, The Urban Voodoo Machine who have taken over the venue and are hosting a festive Gypsy Hotel event here to celebrate.
The doors opened at seven o’clock and DJ Barry 'Scratchy' Myers was already warming up the patrons with his unique brand of ‘The Rock and the Roll of the World’: a lovely mix of obscure tracks from various generations, along with more well known stuff like The Cramps ‘TV Set’.
The first act to hit the stage was MISSA BLUE, with a unique Halloween take on burlesque and who bought her own brand of voodoo to the proceedings. After this came TONY GARRULO with his unique take on improvisational comedy. His comedy magic act was an absolute scream, especially with the sword swallowing – as he turned around, you could see the tip of the blade protruding from his backside!
At nine thirty or thereabouts, THE URBAN VOODOO MACHINE hit the stage in a riot of black ‘n’ red. This was the first time I’d seen them for several months, and it was certainly worth the wait. Featuring a mix of tracks from their first two albums, along with some of the crowd pleasers that are going to be on their next release – ‘Love, Drink and Death’ which is scheduled for release in March.
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The venue was packed and the floor in front of the stage soon became slippery with beer as the audience went wild for tracks like ‘Not With You’ and ‘Killer Sound’. There was a treat or two in store for fans, the band playing ‘No Bail Blues’, and ‘Two Ships’ both of which haven’t featured on the set list for a while. In addition to this was the first airing of a completely new track ‘Don’t Mess With The Hat’, which was only written shortly before the sound check that afternoon.
Once again, the band pulled out all the stops. They always give the audience one hundred per cent, and that was reflected in the applause and evident enjoyment of the capacity crowd.
The Urban Voodoo Machine have a new vinyl single (which was recorded with Wilko Johnson) set for release soon, as well as one or two UK gigs before Christmas. If you’ve never seen them before, get yourself along to one of the venues; this is a band not to be missed. If you’re already a fan, look out for the single, and the new album next year. The next few months promise some cool voodoo activity!
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