Quotation dictionaries – aren’t they great things altogether? Not only can you use them to help kick start those difficult-to-begin reviews but also you can learn all sorts of interesting facts from them. For instance, these song lines, which may be familiar to some sad musos – ‘Golden Slumbers fill your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise’ are not in fact Beatle-words but actually originate from the hand of one Thomas Dekker, (1570 – 1641) and a poem called ‘Patient Grissill’. I know absolutely nothing about Mr. Dekker sadly, although I must make further enquiries, but all of this is really just a roamingly roundabout way of saying the following – Kenny Anderson sure is one smiley fellow.
To use his stage moniker, King Creosote has been ploughing his own fertile furrow for some years now, both on his own and as part of a loose musical conglomeration called the Fence Collective. He most certainly has the right to smile at the moment, riding high on rave reviews from various sources both for his latest album ‘K.C. Rules O.K.’ and also for his current live tour backed by the very able outfit The Earlies.
And having seen Mr. C once around a year ago supporting James Yorkston and enjoyed his set thoroughly, I was looking forward to catching him here in his full extended glory (and since I am only really familiar with KC’s ‘Rocket D.I.Y.’, I’m afraid the following will inevitably contain erroneous song titles).
Kicking off the show with his ‘six piece invisible band’ (i.e. a solo song), our amiable Scot of the sunny countenance goes straight to work displaying his main strengths – namely his lovely, soft-rolling plaintive, burr of a voice, completely different yet oddly reminiscent in its own Scottish way to Bert Jansch, and his witty, wry and acutely observed songs. Unlike many other minstrels it is Creosote’s humour and musical playfulness that saves him from the worthy poe-faced excesses of his ‘Other Voices’ contemporaries as much as anything else (for those not in the know ‘Other Voices’ is a highly successful music TV show here in Ireland that is a bit like an ultra-pompous Jools Holland for ‘artistes’ who sometimes take themselves far too seriously).
When the band eventually joins him on the second song, ‘Not Good Enough’, they play with a fiery, hell-for-leather edge and good-humoured abandon which ensures that the evening doesn’t ever become dull or too safe and folksy. Here and elsewhere our lead guitarist weaves dense but perfectly controlled sonic shards of feedback around a spiral-y bass and funky drum patterns, which sounds perfect. Indeed, the band tonight throughout are excellent, playing with imagination and unity of purpose and most importantly, really know what is required to present KC’s songs to their maximum effect without just willfully showing off their own chops.
Following on with ‘Twin Tub Twin’, KC warns us that it was a ‘complete shambles’ the previous night in Dublin (difficult harmonies I suspect) but no such gremlins affect the band tonight as the song is played brilliantly and with oodles of energy – Dublin’s loss. Somewhere along the way during the next few songs, KC’s monitor speaker goes awry and he complains in gentlemanly terms about his guitar sounding like a ‘bag of nails’, for us in the audience however the sound is crystal clear thankfully. Some more dissonance is introduced on ‘You are Good Aye (Eye?)’ via a Baby Korg (perhaps) and a sound akin to a scratchy Theremin, again the fuzzy logic working to good effect.
|
Evoking the spirit of Jimmy Shand, the piano accordion is next to make an appearance on ‘Pure as the Driven Snow’. Whereas Jimmy was famous for his dexterous technique here KC’s squeeze-box is utilized more for its droney qualities and makes a more than acceptable replacement for the synthesizer. It features strongly on a brief interlude of ‘Hava Negila’, the quite rude ‘Bootprints’, ‘My Favourite Lavvy Seat In All The World’ (possibly not the actual song title) and a cover of James Yorkston’s, the title of which I unfortunately cant decipher from my scrawled notes (It was dark, alright?).
Donning his guitar again Mr. Creosote and band leave us on a high with a powerhouse, rocking rendition of ‘6,7,8’ reminding us in no uncertain terms that this is Rock n’ Roll, not parlor music. Time constraints in the form of another band on afterwards still doesn’t stop KC from giving us 2 solo encores avec accordion – a lovely ‘Friday Night in New York’, that beats the album version I have and lastly a song which features a gushing reference to a certain 70’s musical which delights my girlfriend who grabs my notebook and writes ‘Grease reference – cool!!! Girls are weird…
So all in all, an extremely professional, warm and generous gig from KC which ends on just the right note of intimacy. It’s good to know that there are still people today making passionate, inventive pop music (for want of a better title) without an overt commercial ‘eye on the prize’ or wantonly over-delving into the past for inspiration. Unlike so much stuff you hear these days, KC is someone making music just for the joy of making music, letting whatever happens, happen and there can be no higher praise in my book than that. It’s only February but already I can safely say I think that this will be one of my top gigs of 2006 come the end of the year.
And if that’s not something to smile about then what is?
|
