Busking is a vastly under-valued trade. Over the years, it's bequeathed us legendary performers like Shack's Head Brothers and Can's Damo Suzuki, who was recruited by his bandmates while allegedly shouting at the sky on the streets of Munich. Makes a change from the Bob Dylan songbook, that's for sure.
The latest crucial recruit from the busking circuit is Barrow-in-Furness native JON BYRNE. He has the distinction of being discovered by no less than The Clash's Mick Jones while singing his heart out on London's Portobello Road. Indeed, so impressed was Jones that Byrne soon became a regular at his Carbon Casino Events and he's since become a hero of Glastonbury's Left Field stage. If all these plaudits weren't enough, he's even been described as “fuckin' cool, man” by John Cooper Clarke. The pinnacle of anyone's career, surely.
Thankfully, instead of retiring after JCC'S praise, Byrne has hooked up with Geoff Martin's Militant Entertainment label and cut a largely fantastic debut album, 'It's Boring Being In Control'. As you might expect from a performer growing up in the tough, Northern town, Byrne's songs are gritty vignettes touching on life, love and lunacy, delivered with liberal helpings of humour, sorrow and desperation. Collectively, they are a vividly accurate depiction of these troubled, recessionary times.
Byrne's electic guitar and voice has been expanded with a core group featuring bassist Bobby Kewley (The Christians) and drummer Paul Tsanos (Pete Wylie, Ian McNabb) presenting a tight, economic combo sound and Alabama 3's Devlin Love providing the sweet and soulful vocal foil where required. She soon makes her presence felt on the rough-edged opener 'Cocaine' where Byrne also sets out his blunt, expressive lyrical stall in no uncertain terms. Over a cocky swagger of a groove (think Alabama 3 meets The La's), Byrne rips into drug-induced denial:“when you look in the mirror, what do you see?/ That desperate, washed-up fucker looking back at you.” Wake up and smell reality's eau de ammonia indeed.
As it turns out, he's only just getting started. ASBO-aspiring songs like 'Scumbags' and the bleak 'No Future Generation' (“you get pissed all day, you never bother with school/ you're as thick as two planks, you'e addicted to glue”) are deadly accurate portraits of a modern society where having nothing to lose is the norm. The Withnail-meets-Shallow-Grave plot of 'Voices' is arguably even better: a quality suburban murder ballad (“I killed a man with a hammer and relieved him of all his cares/ I buried him along with the Taxman in the cupboard beneath the stairs”) set to an incongrously poppy stomp of a backbeat.
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Thankfully, Byrne also appreciates the importance of leavening the madness with some well-placed ribald humour. The hilarious 'Cigarette Song' finds Jon desperate for a light but ending up on the receiving end of a lot more than he bargained for. 'Nothing My Dear' is a tragi-comic portrayal of a dysfunctional relationship involving all-important minutiae such as sleeping on the sofa and buying sheds and 'Don't Let Life Get You Down' is a waywardly brilliant tribute to the travails of being different in a conservative town like Byrne's hometown of Barrow.
There's the occasional stumble. Byrne's limited vocal range is raggedly exposed on the solo 'Halfway To Ruin' and the sincerity of 'Wonderful Woman' sounds strained and forced. The grand finale of 'Funny Old Town' is excellent though. The band all weigh in with personal bests; Devlin Love turns in a fine, doo-wop style performance and the extended, soul revue ending is both unexpected and convincing.
Outspoken and militant, Jon Byrne's biting British social realism may be too stark for those keen to bury their head and hope the current climate goes away. In a world where the likes of the X Factor still hold sway, though, his stinging commentaries are nettles we could all do with grasping.
(http://www.myspace.com/jonbyrnemusic)
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