Euros Childs last week and Sweet Baboo this...Birmingham Promoters are doing more for Brummie / Welsh relations than, well, pretty much
anyone. First up though (and nothing at all to do with Wales as far as I know) RickWellings who, when he’s not doing his solo stuff, is also the frontman of Birmingham
band The Bombergs. The last and indeed first time I saw him was on a barge
during Oxjam, perhaps one of the more unusual places and times (it was early
afternoon) for a gig. He ended up playing a mash up of Take That and Nick Cave
on the barge’s piano...trust me, you had to be there. Anyway, this evening was
a little more conventional with a good half a dozen original tracks and a
suitably languid cover of The Smiths’ The Boy With The Thorn In His Side. Somewhat
unusually Mr Wellings’ hasn’t got any of his own stuff up online yet but closing
track Second City (a homage to dear old Brum) could well become our national
anthem whilst It Isn’t Going To Work Out hints at an acoustic Ian Curtis.
Promising.
Big Tent & The Gypsy Lantern win tonight’s award
for the most instruments played by a band with various drums, several guitars,
an accordion, a uke and a trumpet (at times fed through some weird box of
tricks that made it sound a little like a Dr Who sound effect) all being
employed to create their own unique brand of prog folk. Prog Folk I hear you
asking...well that’s how it sounds to me. Take opening number Brightly Coloured
Walls for instance. It’s trotting along simply enough then it whooshes off into
far more complex territory. It’s a trick they repeat on a number of tracks this
evening, leading you gently down a folk path then dragging you down a prog
alleyway for a little mind bending. Pick of the set was the more
straightforward 24ft March though, an impressive fusion of XTC at their most
pastoral and folk poster boy Seth Lakeman.
Despite looking a little like he should still be
doing his maths homework Sweet Baboo (aka Stephen Black) is apparently
celebrating a decade in the ‘music biz’. I hate to use the phrase ‘baby faced’
of another man but heck, he is. The look fits in with the voice too. I spent a
fair part of the set trying to place it and ended up with a cross between a broken
hearted choirboy, Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue and Daniel Johnston (who,
appropriately enough gets a name check in one of tonight’s tracks). As a
relative newcomer to the Baboo-niverse I wasn’t sure what to expect, but from opening
number The Morse Code For Love Is Beep Beep, Beep Beep, The Binary Code Is One
One (surely a contender for longest / oddest song title of all time) right
through to the charming Two Moles you knew you were in safe hands. As love
songs go The Morse Code is a bit off the wall but somehow that makes it all a
hell of a lot more genuine. We’ve all had enough of “Ooooo baby, I wanna give you
my heart and make sweet love honey, oooooh yeah”, how much more refreshing is
it to learn that the binary code for love is "one and one" eh? It’s this unique
way of looking at love, life and all the stuff that lies in between that makes
Sweet Baboo such a great listen. Take If I Died for instance, a love song from the
perspective of someone contemplating their own death and the impact it would have on their other half. Okay, break out the razor
blades, on the face of it a pretty depressing concept right? But it’s wrapped up in
such a jaunty tune (tonight featuring a surprisingly vigorous rock out from
Stephen) that it somehow manages to be strangely life affirming too. Speaking
of tunes Sweet Baboo (this evening performing as a/with a band) dip their toes
into a dizzying number of different styles, adding a little country twang to I’m
A Dancer, a touch of afrobeat/tropicalia to brand new song Tonight You Are A
Tiger, a dash of new wave to Do The Buzzard and even a little early rock ‘n’
roll in Bounce.
Sure the influences are subtle but they’re there and, like the
lyrics, they reward the attentive listener. In between songs Stephen has that
easy going but slightly befuddled patter that seems to be a trademark of great Welsh
male artists these days (see also Gruff Rhys and Euros Childs). “I’m staying in
Perry Barr this evening...in a Travelodge” cue the odd cry of horror from the
Kings Heath crowd “I was meant to be staying near Rob (Jones aka The Voluntary
Butler Scheme) who lives in Stourbridge...but I got Perry Barr mixed up with
Brierley Hill...and I’m not going to lose £30 on the room now”. Or try this
one “This is another song about squishing your brain into someone elses” or how
about “This song’s like Thin Lizzy...sung by a small fat Welshman” Awww bless. This
last quote is just one example of his self deprecating nature, something that
often crops up in his lyrics, perhaps most notably of all on the previously mentioned
If I Died, “And Daniel Johnston has written hundreds of great tunes...and I’ve
got six, so I guess there’s some catching up to do...”. On tonight’s showing I’d
say he was getting damn close.
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