Another Friday night, another new venue in Shoreditch. Deep in the basement of the Ace Hotel on Shoreditch lurks a bar called Miranda with a small stage, nice sound system and reasonable stage lighting. The audience was a bit of an eye-opener as well; sparkly dresses and bright eye make-up as opposed to the jeans, cowboy boots and faded tour t-shirts I usually see. The reason for all the finery was the launch of the first EP by Daisy and the Dark, the latest incarnation of Sarah Kayte Foster, a former Mediaeval Baebe.
Not surprisingly, Sarah has a superb voice and she’s surrounded herself with quality musicians, including Keltrix violinist Sharon Sullivan to create a full live sound augmented by backing tracks and accompanied by back projection and four dancers; not so much a gig as a multi-media event. Opening with the EP’s lead song “Circus”, the set was well-paced and demonstrated Sarah’s stunning voice in a variety of musical settings as well as across a huge dynamic range.
If you like your live music with a bit of theatre and glamour, this is for you. There’s a lot going on, with guitar, drums, two backing singers and four dancers, not to mention the illuminated, flashing hula hoops. All of this is cleverly woven in to the songs themselves and it works in the same way that a Kate Bush or Bjork show does; there’s always plenty to watch. Sarah has a voice that has been compared to both of those singers (and Florence Welch), but a setting like Miranda also gives her the chance to relate to the audience and create a more intimate experience.
It’s been a while since I saw anything quite like this; a spectacle rather than just a gig, but Daisy and the Dark do it very well indeed and by the end of a short set, the audience was hooked and I was impressed by Sarah’s new material. It’s time for this Daisy to see some daylight. Here are some photos from the gig.
Have a look at the video for “Circus” to get some idea of what it’s all about:
I shouldn’t have found it funny when Steve Jenner’s latest “Tales from the Towpath” was a gig that coincided with the Germany/Italy Euro quarter-final on Saturday. Four days later, karma kicked in and I found myself in Leytonstone for the Wednesday What’s Cookin’ session at Leytonstone Ex-Servicemen’s Club while Wales played Portugal in the semi-final. So now we know where my priorities lie.
What’s Cookin’ has been a fixture in East London since 2004, occupying various venues around Walthamstow/Leyton/Leytonstone under the direction of Ramblin’ Steve (Ferguson) and has landed in a function room above one of the few surviving social clubs. The venue scrubs up nicely when dressed with a few lights, a mirror ball and some faux foliage to create a nice domestic ambience that enhances the relaxed feel of the night. If you add proper, well-kept beer that doesn’t involve taking out a second mortgage, you’ve got a recipe for success, football permitting.
First out of the blocks was Dan Webster from York. He’s touring with Amelia White at the moment and the two helped each other out through both of the opening sets. Dan’s songs are mainly in the folk storytelling tradition and his laconic delivery worked perfectly as an opening to the evening as he ran through a selection of his material including “Haul Away”, “Dancers” and “Elvis”. The songs are well-crafted, combining folk tradition with the modern singer/songwriter idiom; a lovely way to start of the evening.
The volume increased a few notches with Amelia White as she ran through an electric set, most of which was accompanied by Dan. “Dogs Bark” and “Home Sweet Hotel”, an insight into life on the road, stood out in a set of fine songs from. Amelia’s voice is individual and intriguing, lending a plaintive touch to her succinct and slightly skewed lyrics. Not mainstream and not for everyone on the night, but it worked for me.
After a last-minute travel hitch the planned headliners, The Uptown Toodeloo String Band were replaced at the last minute by Morton Valence, fronted by Robert Hacker Jessett and Anne Gilpin. The set started with Robert performing a solo version of the wordy “Lower Middle Class Dilemmas” before being joined by Anne and, a little later, the rest of the band. The full band line-up introduced some superb harmonies and some fascinating textures, including Anne Gilpin’s Ebow guitar, which added a layer of brooding menace. Their musical vision felt a little out of place on this particular bill, but I’ll be making an effort to see them again.
What’s Cookin’ was a great midweek night out, with a friendly atmosphere, interesting setting and an eclectic choice of performers. The only jarring note was the number of people leaving just before the collection to pay the musicians. Maybe it was about public transport, but it left a sour taste to see so many people refusing to contribute. Anyway, check out the What’s Cookin’ website; you may just find a reason to go to Leytonstone on a Wednesday or Saturday night.
It may be stretching a point to provide a ‘tales from the towpath’ where we had to catch a combination of trains and tubes to get to this gig, but hey, this is London after all – and unless you’re going to Dingwalls you really shouldn’t expect to float to a gig.
The crowd might have been a bit sparse for a Saturday night but a whole bunch of people had decided to spend another two hours of life watching Germany win on penalties after extra time. Clearly, in a week of surprises no doubt a predictable, nay, inevitable outcome was a comfort to some. But those who did so missed a storming, uplifting Saturday night out.
And that, in essence, is what City Funk Orchestra are about. From the get-go you just know you’re in safe hands. Within the first half a dozen songs we’ve had a slick, uptown “Back Together Again” where the blend of voices paid genuine homage to Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, Patrice Rushen’s “Forget Me Not” featuring some real ‘period’ bass playing from the absolutely imperious Rick Mitra, a great version of “Love TKO” which took the pace down briefly before the first set ended with a very acceptable “Ain’t Nobody”.
The voices of Noel McCalla and Louise Warren matched each other beautifully, even if Noel was occasionally a little bit found out when ‘doing’ Barry White. Quite simply, he’s very competent in the lower register but he’s absolutely astonishing and has a genuinely soulful intensity when he heads up the scale. By the same token Louise was astonishing when she let fly at Aretha’s ‘Rock Steady’ but seemed a little at sea on material which perhaps needed a little more control such as Sister Sledge’s “Thinking Of You”.
High points of the set for me were a warm and sinuous version of Luther Van D’s “Never Too Much” and a crowd-pleasing “I’ve Found Lovin” which really rolled back the years for many of the assembled.
As already alluded to, the rhythm section of Rick Mitra and Geoff Dunn never missed a beat. Guitarist Nial Tompkins showed he was equally at home playing the funky scratch you need for the likes of “Good Times” alongside occasional pyrotechnic lead fills, and Gary Sanctuary on keyboards had his hands full providing the depth and breadth of backing needed to ‘trick’ the assembled into not missing a horn section – which is probably the main thing that was missing.
But you can only review what is there – and what was there was enough to have the floor full of dancers and a room full of smiley Saturday night. City Funk Orchestra go out there and Do The Deed. They really are a party on legs. The set may have been a tad predictable but what did you want for your money? And to be fair they were considerably less predictable than Germany on penalties.
The implosion of the music industry in recent years has made it increasingly difficult to make a living out of making music, but it’s also led to a some creative thinking on the part of artists about getting their work out there. One of the more creative solutions has been the songwriting collective; The Jar Family in the north-east and The Buffalo Skinners in Sheffield are a couple of examples. There are similarities between the two (apart from working out of former northern industrial strongholds); each has four frontmen and the influences they pull together create an eclectic and electric mix. Even by today’s standards of eclecticism, “Cease Your Dreaming” is a very, very varied album and you’re never quite sure where it’s going next.
The album opens with the simple skiffle stylings of “We Get Along” (with a nice fiddle solo thrown in), moves through seventies pop-rock with “Sam’s Chop House” before “Play to Lose” has a walking bassline and harmonies that could easily come from an early Beatles single. You shouldn’t get the idea that all of the influences are fifty years old though; keyboard and mandolin player Kieran Thorpe’s vocals have a definite indie intonation, sounding a lot like the Kooks’ Luke Pritchard. The range of instruments played by Keiran, James Nicholls, Peter Secombe, Miles Stapleton and Robbie Thompson allows the band to move between various styles with ease as they move from slapback Sun Studios to English folk, sixties pop and the Mexican feel of the album’s penultimate song, “Remember Me”; they’re completely convincing and comfortable whatever the tempo and style.
There’s plenty to like about “Cease Your Dreaming”, nothing to dislike and a couple of songs to love. If you twisted my arm, I’d probably say the Mexican-tinged lament, “Remember Me” and the lo-fi tale of the failed guitar-slinger, “Delta Blues” are standouts. As I say far too often with bands like this, you really need to get out and see them live. They’re doing the UK and Europe at the moment; go on, make the effort to go and see them.
“Cease Your Dreaming” is released on Friday July 15th on Loose Chat Records (LCR005).
