This show was the launch party for Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive's new album Welcome To Inferno Valley (out on Bucketfull of Brais)and, as you may have gathered, really isn't a companion piece to Kyuss' Welcome to Sky Valley.
It's been far too long since I've been to the Betsey Trotwood: a great old pub down on the banks of the River Fleet or is that actually over the River Fleet? It's difficult to say as the river is buried beneath both the road and the railway tracks that once saw the Roman invaders sailing up it to battle against Boudicca making it a nigh on perfect place for this Italian invader to launch his album.
Going down into the basement of the Betsey for this set puts us at about the level of the riverbank. It's a very small, packed cellar and the stage certainly struggles with 6 (or is it 7) musicians up there including (on mandolin) Jason Collins who I used to see play regularly with The Seers back when he was a wilder musician than tonight.
Trent opens in his deep dark style with Take Me Home With You Tonight, although the title I wrote down is probably wrong. That's what I've called anyway and it's a nice dark tale that could almost have come from Leonard Cohen or Bob Frank: a point that second song of the set (Come Down To Murder Love) only reinforces. This is all about songs from the dark side of life and trying to go places and see life in all of it's ugliness. In contrast, Trent's tales are set to some astonishingly beautiful folk rock that makes its' emotional connection through Jason Collins' mandolin playing, Trent's guitar and Shojie Eng's elegant violin. It's all underpinned by some very restrained drumming from Anders Dal. Trent may be singing about a Nowhere Road while the one he is standing by just leads North and the crowd (who feature many faces familiar to me) are certainly loving it.
Bones Of Milk off Trent's first album Cerberus (Hangman Records) is next up and wouldn't be out of place on a Chris Cacavas solo record. It had me thinking I ought to be drinking hard liquor rather than the pint of Thatchers Gold I have in my hand trying to drown out the memories of what's already been and gone and can't be repeated and if it's really the right time to walk out on a relationship as Trent sings that "everything is rotten here."
Fear Of Flying is introduced with thanks to everyone who went to the recent show at the 12 Bar celebrating the birthdays of Gene Clark and Bob Dylan and Trent telling us that he prefers Gene by far. A very nice version of Fear Of Flying it was too although it doesn't look like Trent fears much at all.
The title track of the new album, Welcome to Inferno Valley got the band really going about as much as a dark and brooding country folk band is likely to before they check into the Last Chance Motel which could almost be where they met to plot out this music while listening to Sonny Terry records and drinking red wine. Trying to decipher my notes as to what came next I'm guessing it was the Ballad of Gospel Oak. I hope it was as that's about my favourite song on the album.
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They closed the show with an encore of Dark River, the lead off track off of the first album and seeing how close Trent was standing to an underground river less than 10 yards away at most it couldn't have been a more apposite ending. Very nice and brooding, leaving us all wanting more.
Later in the evening once most of us had been in the main bar drinking for a good while there was an almost open mic session opened by the Umbrella Birds which is another of Jason Collins bands. This time it was made up of parents he met at the school gates while waiting for the kids to come out. They played 4 songs of nice singalong folk during which it was hard to tell who was or wasn't in the band as they were spread all over the place. It was nice but needed to be listened to rather than chatted over.
To my chagrin I don't recall the name of the very talented blonde singer songwriter who played three songs (all of which were covers) but he was followed by Benjamin Folke Thomas: another blonde folk singer who sounded great and I want to check out some more. He lived up to the hype that is starting to surround him - a great sounding player no matter how out of it he may have been.
He was followed by a couple whose only claim to being on stage was knowing Trent. It wasn't enough, still they were quickly followed by a guy I've now been introduced to twice and still don't remember his name but he is a very good young guitarist who then got Trent back up and they finished the night along with Benjamin Folke Thomas jamming on another 4 songs that included a reprisal of Inferno Valley. By this point, the Thatchers had worked it's magic and I was well away and thankfully this all ended with just enough time for me to catch the last tube home.
Trent Miller online
Bucketfull of Brains Record label website
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