What exactly motivates Adrian Kaye is left unanswered by this 3-track demo CD. I suspect that Adrian busks around given the predominant acoustic guitar that plays urgently across the tracks. Overall, it’s a fairly ramshackle affair but to his credit it packs bags of charm.
On ‘Chameleon’ Adrian asks: ‘Are you a man or a woman? Or are you a chameleon?’ I’m not sure if he’s addressing someone in particular with this question or if he’s being rhetorical. I’m also unable to determine whether or not being a chameleon is a good or a bad thing. His cryptic teaser is set to a verse that starts like a slowed down version of The Cure’s ‘The Blood’ from ‘The Head On The Door’ but breaks into a jaunty chorus that also sports a rather fetching organ break.
‘Miss Vanity’ is a punk-skiffle track – a kind of Buzzcocks: Unplugged if you will. The song has some great rhyming couplets: ‘Mystery and magic, glued to a comb / Standing by the mirror like a garden gnome’ for starters. There’s also a touch of Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band in Adrian’s quirkiness and quintessentially English viewpoint of his subject. Vocally he’s nothing like the heroic Vivian Stanshall, more of an English Euros Childs from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.
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A fuzz-box blues riff opens last track ‘The Ballad of Little Red Riding Hood’. I don’t remember the story of the crimson caped cutie the same way as Adrian – I’m sure she didn’t get eaten as well. Musically it’s another punk-skiffle number but with a welcome addition of psychedelic hillbilly. It could also be The Stooges: Unplugged. Basically I don’t really know, but I do care.
Any more where this came from?.
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