JosieJo's great Big Pair
of Tips
The JosieJo Show 5
I'm JosieJo and each JosieJo
Show contains two tracks from two very different artists. There s no
thread or genre linking the two tracks.This means that the upside of
this is that you may just, unexpectedly, find your new favourite band
even if you hated the other track in the show. So let's try you on
this one.
The Empty Can are from
Dudley, in the middle of the UK; what is known as The Black Country.
This makes me very happy because I can describe this band as BLACK
COUNTRY BLUES. With slide guitar and a lived in vocal you might
expect soulful stories of lost love and hobo travels, but James
Stevens and Steven Henly have much more to say than that. There's
social comment and witty observations in every tune. Couple this
with the almost orchestral violin of Rachel Slater brilliantly mixed
in and the music takes on a life of its own. The Empty Can is on
the Sticky Mamma record label and if you find them on Facebook you
can download the whole of the first EP for free. This is British
Blues with no buyer remorse. As a lover of narrative how could I
resist a track called “The Greatest Story Ever Told”? It starts
with that plucked, deep-south sound, but this is no glorious tribute
to the great American Way. It is an uncomfortable comment on that
element of society that just wants you to “keep your head down”
and “tow the line”. Just a warning though, if social criticism
and rude words are not your thing this track contains them both. The
track has a wonderful classical swell that kicks butt and ends with a
spine bending, wobbly reverb. I can't discern a chorus as such, only
a thumping, repeated pattern that drives home the theme of the track.
Life is too short and if received wisdom isn't questioned we'll run
out of time. Listen carefully to The Empty can and “The Greatest
Story Ever Told”
I found the last band
because they supported another band we played on Round At Milligan's
called Flat Stanley Got a New Hideout (you can hear archived versions
of Round At Milligan's by going to www.milligans.biz
and click “Listen To The Show” www.milligans.biz)
I also get myself to live gigs and this delivers amazing and
unexpected experiences.This is how I found Paul Hawkins and Thee
Awkward Silences. There is a wonderful lady called Kate Arnold who
is in several bands including Fear of The Forest and Lime Quartet and
she opens up her living room to invited guests and gives you tea,
cake and a live band. I kid you not. The cake is great and the
atmosphere is intimate, intense and quite remarkable. Her last
“Living Room Special” featured Paul Hawkins and Thee Awkward
Silences. That's “Thee” as in “I vow to thee my country”.
You see Paul constantly plays with words in a way that had me
laughing out loud which, when the audience is small enough to fit
into a front room in South London, kinda gets noticed by the band and
everyone else there. It's a very extraordinary experience seeing
live music like this. Paul Hawkins has played both Latitude and Swn
Festivals aswell as other large venues and the band includes Death In
Vegas guitarist, Ian Button. All the tunes involve unconventional
stories of unconventional characters. It's black comedy about a
bunch of oddballs that I can strangely relate to. It's “outsider
pop” which, I suppose, is, in itself, a dichotomy. Paul makes the
weird accessible and the odd oddly personal. He takes the sort of
strange story you hear on the next table in a pub and puts it to
music.
This track “The
Precautionary Principle” is best heard on headphones or really
good, wide spaced speakers because it arrives from the left and
leaves boring through your skull. It's about a sort of scientist
geek that you imagine wants to blow up the world just to see what
colour it would be as it burned or what sound it would make as all
life was extinguished. However, he doesn't because the precautionary
principle stops him. The subtext of the song is “I really want to
ask that girl out in a funny crazy way, but I won't just in case my
heart gets broken”. Break your heart anyway with Paul Hawkins and
Thee Awkward Silences “Precautionary Principle”
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