Review:
'EDWARDS, TERRY/ LYNAM, CHRIS/ READERS, THE'
'London, Kensal Green, Cabaret Futura, 17 Jan 2011'
- Genre: 'Pop'
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Our Rating:
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Cabaret Futura is currently held at Paradise by Way Of Kensal Green on London's Chamberlayne Road.
I haven't been to Richard Strange's long running club night in about 15 years at least partly out of fear that Richard might be performing some of his music, as any time I have seen him do so I've had the urge to violently heckle him. However, as an actor or host of a club he is actually pretty good and Paradise by Way of Kensal Green is local enough for me to walk there in under 15
minutes.
I got there just after The Readers had come on to a packed room. They are a 7 piece band of, er, transvestites of every stripe who were playing music that sounded like a mix of Artery, the
Bolshoi and Cindytalk with lyrics read from books that sounded rather Brechtian. They wouldn't have been out of place at The Gypsy Hotel either. Very cool indeed.
After a short break, on came Roger Ely performing as The Devils Shofar. He started by walking through the crowd reciting some poetry and then spent about 10 minutes with the aid of his
assistant making some very evil drinks. This is pretty much the same act he used to perform when I last saw him umpteen years ago. While having the drink he gave us some stories in the cut up William Burroughs drink-drenched mode you'd expect from a bloke in his 50's in a nice suit. He had a cool riff on good old Dr Benway, it was nice to see he's still around.
Next on was Jamie Russell who messed around for ages while trying to get his stuff to work before making his own looped backing tracks and creating extreme bed-wetting songs. Oh
they were bad but it got worse when he put the lyrics to the third one on the screen behind him. Totally uncool and I was shocked to find this wimpy waste of space used to be in LA Guns at some point. I hope to avoid seeing him again.
After another break next on was the infamous Mr Chris Lynam: a very funny physical comedian who performs with loads of props and even more costume changes. He was very funny indeed and his closing skit that involved him stuffing as much chocolate as possible into his mouth while dancing around the stage in a tutu (before smearing himself in the stuff) was always going to be tough to follow.
How tough was emphasised by the fact that as soon as Chris Lynam finished half the audience got up and left, not even bothering to hear a single tune by Terry Edwards. Now, as something of a fan of Terry Edwards and his many many bands this was annoying enough, what it was like for Terry to see the room clearing before he even started couldn't have been easy. His opening gambit that Chris Lynam had stolen his set was a good way to put a brave face on it.
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On his current solo tour Terry, for the first time in the 25 odd years, is doing a set played mainly on acoustic guitar rather than sax, keyboards or the electric gutar that I saw him play last year. This show is based around his new album 'Cliches', his tribute to Alex Chilton and his album of the same name that was a tribute to Chet Baker, if that makes sense. Having stood very close to Terry at what turned out to be Alex's last ever
european show at Hyde Park opening for Tindersticks (featuring Terry) I know he really liked Alex's work.
He opened the set with the old Dr. Feelgood classic down at the Doctors and followed it with Big Star's magnificent Give me Another Chance, featurin some very dextrous guitar playing. This
helped convince a few more people out the door (the fools) as they missed a beautiful version of My Blue Heaven played in the style of Bing Crosby and Harpo Marx.
Just asking for a bit of quiet before he played the John Peel theme Picking the Blues did for another couple of people, but damn I had no Idea Terry could pick so well. I loved his version of Lets Get Lost that both Chet and Alex covered so reverently. By the time he got to I'll Go Crazy those of us left were more than ready for the first and only sax playing of the set. Terry managed it breathtakingly, playing the guitar for most of the songs and then slipping in the sax solos. A neat and none too easy trick.
This was a nice and very unusual Terry Edwards set and it was good to see his Alex Chilton tribute show about a mile and a half from where I first Saw Alex play at the old Mean Fiddler in
Harlesden back in 1986. About the same time I first saw Terry playing in Terry & Gerry if memory serves. Oh and the album is well worth checking out as well, glad I bought my copy off Terry at the end of the gig.
You can get yours from:
Sartorial Records online
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author: simonovitch
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