This show was a Dog Fish Trombone night in an upstairs room at Milford's Pub, just off the Strand almost opposite St Clement Danes RAF Church in one of the few buildings on that bit of the Strand not due for demolition in the near future.
I got in just after HUNGRY DOG had started his set. Some of you who listen to www.resonancefm.com will be familiar with the Hungry Dog Brand from the regular appearences they made on several shows over the last few years.
Tonight Martin from the Hungry Dog Brand is solo on an acoustic guitar and the first song I hear all of is From A Point of Ignorance. Like everything else, Martin plays it has some very smart and funny lyrics over some nifty guitar work. Party Time which is next tells the story of going to a party at someones' house where you know almost no one and find yourself trapped with a bunch of people you never want to spend 2 minutes with, never mind an evening. Very funny and he had a good exit.
The Past Came Back To Haunt Me is a theme we can all relate to and this is the sort of tale that just leads you into some nice painful situations that don't get alleviated by the Red Scarf of the next song no matter how much you might want it to. Idiot Son isn't as I thought it would be (about GW Bush) but is a rather poignant song about having a developmentally challenged child. Martin finished off with the very true and quite funny You Don't Have To Be Stupid To Work Here which has the sort of lyrics you'd expect from him with a title like that.
Second on was THERESA DISKAN who spent much of the time when she was meant to be tuning up in the toilets actually writing a song in the toilets: a fact she proudly told her friends who were sitting on the same table as me. She opened by telling us she was a songwriter and not much of a guitarist and that the first song is her re-working of WB Yeats' I Will Arise And Go Now. Not surprisingly, it had the best lyrics of any of her songs and some OK guitar playing. She has a pleasant voice and it was filled with emotion for much of Venus De Milo no not the Television song but her own one about the statue coming to life.
She went a bit like a gothic Heather Nova for Ravens - well she would have if she hadn't started corpsing halfway through the first verse and it wasn't helped when Wob tried to come back into the room with a fresh pint and promptly dropped it. As the glass shattered on the ground just behind me, Theresa dissolved into laughter and Wob apologised before she picked up and finished off the tune. Favourite Director seemed to be about just that but gave away nothing about who said director is. Probably her best song was Fumble and Regret about a situation most of us have no doubt been in at some point regretting the fumbling around we've been involved in.
She closed with Camelot: apparently an attempt at a Lindisfarne/Richard Thompson style histrorical british folk song and it almost worked. I'm sure that if it was played with a full band and properly arranged it could be quite bewitching.
Next on was WOB, a spiky haired young bloke who was playing totally acoustic without the microphone or plugging in as he has a really loud voice. It worked because he actually sounded like he had been trained to project and did a good job throughout. Perhaps the One Last Glass For The Road he was singing about was the one he'd just smashed, though he sounded like Billie Joe Armstrong's biggest fan even as the first song slipped into a verse of Auld Lang Syne at the end. Even this quiet bit still seemed a bit Green Day-ish to me. Change Your Point Of View sounded very familiar in the way that many Green Day songs do, but this guy moved around and twitched as he sang at top volume and held notes for a long time. If this doesn't work, he could esily hold down a job fronting a Green Day Tribute act.
Ordinary Man kept to the formula and I expected him to start bouncing almost before he did. His best song was Krupa Would Play which was a good tribute to Gene's drumming. He then slowed it down a bit for 2 Stroke Motorcyle, about the pain and sorrow of riding a 2 stroke and how often it breaks down. He stayed subdued for Spitfire Bridge that led into his rousing boucy ending of Singing To the Sun before he departed hopefully to form his Green day tribute act or is that just wishful thinking?
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Then finally it was time for RICHARD WARREN, who some of you may know from his previous bands the Hybirds and/ or Echoboy or his stint in Spiritualized on the Amazing Grace tour and Songs in A & E. He is now touring to promote his second solo album The Wayfarer (available in two versions: the full band version on tv records www.tenorvossa.co.uk or the stipped back version that is the covermount cd on Bucketfull of Brains #78/79 www.bucketfulofbrains.com). Got that? Yes he is good enough to deserve the accolade of being on the cover of BOB as this set soon proved.
He opened on a big and quite bassy acoustic guitar with The Lonesome Singer In The Apocalypse Band: a very dark song about the pits of cocaine addiction and the love of that line. He then went into the title song of the new album The Wayfarer and seemed to be in a trance as he almost spat the lyrics at us about coming down here and dancing with the union band. This is a song I need to listen to a good few times to totally figure out but it sounded great live. Johnny Johnny xxx was next and almost sounds like a love song for the damned as Richard mumbled about how Johnny always looked so good. The next song was all about how his arms were ragged and broken and sounded like he had been through some awful experience to end up writing a song like this.
Richard then switched to a smaller Acoustic Guitar for Through The Fire, wherein he is asking to have his body put through the fire once he dies. Who would deny him his cremation after hearing this song as he tells us to send out for the whiskey and gin to send him off with. He certainly sent me off as I had my eyes shut listening intently to what he was singing and playing.
He kept things nice and dark as he sang about how it was too little too late in the Wasteland: a good dark twisted tale of the consequences of over indulgence.
Switching to a Fender Electric guitar for the very evocative instrumental Rivington Street that did sound a lot like the one in Hoxton sort of looks and feels like, a place of both desolation and nowadays rebirth as the centre of the cool boho hang out it's become. Then he was singing about going Down This Old Road and you kind of know it led to ruin but quite what kind I'm not sure. He closed the set with a song I have down as Franklyn County but is probably called something else. It was a good stirring dark song to close with regardless.
He was soon back for an encore that I think was The Willow that had just about the right amount of darkness for early January. His second encore and the song that closed the show was all about how No One knows the Trouble and well after hearing this set it's clear that Richard Warren has lived a life. His songs need to be heard by a far larger audience than the 30 or so people packed into this small bar, so I look forward to seeing Richard perform again later in the year.
Don't dare miss him if he plays near you.
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