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Review: 'JAZZ BUTCHER CONSPIRACY, THE'
'London, Brixton, The Windmill, 21st August 2014'   


-  Genre: 'Indie'

Our Rating:
I arrived early enough to hear all of the support act LOCAL GIRLS who are actually two girls and two guys. They played a very half-arsed sounding set of sub-sub-PJ Harvey meets a tone deaf version of Throwing muses with a drummer who barely managed to keep time let alone anything else. The longer the band's set went on the more ragged and unrehearsed and just pointless they sounded.

This might just be because they are the 50th band I've seen this month and they'd not make the top 40 bands I've seen this month. I would probably give them a couple of years to figure out how they want to sound and to learn to play together as a band before investigating Local Girls. Oh, and the best thing about them is the guitarist has hair that makes him look like The Melvins' King Buzzo.

So onto the 51st band of the month, the all new line-up of THE JAZZ BUTCHER CONSPIRACY or is it Quartet? we'll need a top detective to figure that out for us, but the current line-up is Pat and Max as you'd expect, joined by the two Steves (New and Garofolo) which does of course ask the question about all the Obituaries that can be found online for Steve New. Is it the same one or a second Steve New? Sorry I don't have the answer to that question - just ask Colombo as he's a top detective.

Either way, this Steve New plays the a big butch bull fiddle very nicely indeed, plucking it gently on the opener Animals. It seems apparent from the start that he is doing his best to play like Slam Stewart. This version of the Jazz Butcher is soft and restrained and with Pat wearing a calico linen suit adding to the lounge appeal of the band.

Shame About You sees Max Eider get fairly tricky on his Gretsch that he claims he's been practicing on as he doesn't play much guitar these days. I don't think anyone believes him. Still they play a very cool laid back version of Last Of The Gentleman Adventurers: the title track of the most recent album. In between songs there is much banter about who is and isn't a great detective: a question that might get answered during Tombe Dans Les Pommes but my French isn't good enough to know either way. Merde!

Max then took lead vocals on Count Me Out so that Pat could concentrate on his acoustic guitar playing - or was it his lager drinking? Not sure. So I'm not willing to guess at what the next two songs were and my notes don't help either but they were followed by a very cool version of Black Raoul that really sounded very hep.

Shakey has enough bathos in the lyrics for an entire set but the melancholia they are evoking makes this seem totally normal and will sound perfect by the time they are playing the 80's Indie cruise scene in the mid 2020's. Solar Core is the closest they come to taking off for space this evening and Steve New's bowed bull fiddle once again works a treat.

Ah, as always with the Jazz Butcher it is indeed Party time once more and what a way to meet people it is. This was cool and I'm sure Pat wanted to be a wallflower with a Jazz ciggie hanging from the side of his mouth throughout it. That was followed by Max singing again, this time I think it was the title track to his solo album Dissatisfied. I'm sorry in advance if this is wrong.

We then got the highlight of the set for me as they played a cover of the Slim and Slam classic, Dunkin' Bagels In the Coffee. The last time I heard it live was when Slim Gaillard performed it with Will Gaines at the last day of the GLC festival in 1986 while it snowed. No snow this time but Pat and Max did their best Voutaroonie asides and nailed it. So great to hear this hit live again.

It was also the end of the set, so they sort of went off but came back for an encore with Max singing D.R.I.N.K. which was almost the band's theme song in the old days and I hope they enjoy the bottle of Panamanian Rum I gave Pat before the gig which I'd pledged while they were raising finds to record The Last Of The Gentleman Adventurers in 2012 and have only just come good on my promise.

This was a very cool set and if you can get to the other shows they have in Japan and, er, Islington I'd recommend it.
  author: simonovitch

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