Day: July 25, 2009

Where: Night and Day Café Manchester

When: 5th May 2009

I suppose when you go to see a group called Rev Peyton’s Big Damn Band, you don’t go expecting an evening of introspective loveliness, and there was most certainly none of that. Nothing deep. There was though plenty of strut, plenty of gumption, a song about tomatoes and a portly woman playing the washboard.

Just like I doubt Seasick Steve is a queasy mariner, I doubt the Rev Peyton is an ordained minister, him dishing out the sacrament in some church built to the blues, would however be a scene to behold. The Seasick Steve comparison is apt though, they are both in the same line of grizzled blues, with the true dust-bowl misery of their forefathers squeezed out of their work for the benefit of people who shop at Tesco.

In fact really their songs are a hodgepodge of country and blues, the Reverend’s voice is not as damaged or pitted as many of the traditional blues singers though he looks considerably older than his 27 years but sometimes his voice is more country crooner than Robert Johnson. More Gram Parsons then latter day Dylan.

The washboard player is called apparently “Washboard Breezy“, and is the Revs real wife, just as the drummer Jayme Peyton is the Revs real brother. I would certainly not describe her as breezy though, she had a face like thunder and a very un-ladylike like gait. I guess they used to share a trailer on the outskirts of Nashville watching Jerry Springer (90’s reference dear dear, showing my age) and frying green tomatoes. Not anymore though, now they’ve hit the big time, singing about, well frying green tomatoes. Talking of 90’s TV shows, one of the songs “Your Cousin’s On Cops” was inspired by one of Breezy’s relatives appearing on American reality dross show Cops. You know the one, some guy is arrested for loitering with intent or drunk driving, there’s always a chase, there’s always some nut sounding off. TV made for the kind of people who just sit in a dark room and swat flies. Take a breath. Anyway, there’s a song about that and I kid you not a song about how to make a potato machine gun out of some PVC nd a hairspray canister. You don’t learn that kind of thing at a Coldplay gig do you. Although I would frankly enjoy turning a potato machine gun on dear old Chris Martin. Pompous sod.

Like Robert Johnson, who famously sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for guitar playing prowess, the Rev is an outstanding acoustic guitar player. As he said at one point during the gig to his gathered congregation in a wonderful southern American drawl: “I don’t need a bass player, I can play bass fine on my own”, as he struck the bass strings of his acoustic geetar in a masterful manner. A stunning riposte to the humble bass player though I suppose, which he apparently delivers at each gig, he’s obviously got something against them and I think its got something to do with Breezy, envy, sex and tomatoes.

The music is the epitome of toe tapping, I wouldn’t want to be locked in a room with it for a long period of time, but that’s just me, I wouldn’t want to be locked in a room for a long period of time with Mick Jagger either, but I respect his talent, and the music of the Reverend provides a good hour of entertainment, brash character and humour. Another obvious musical comparison would be to recent Tom Waits. The “assembled in the back garden” sound of the music is very similar, just as Waits creates instruments from back yard junk, the Rev rehabilitates washboards and battered guitars. The sound is antique, in many ways, passed down through the ages and electrified today. There is even the odd wistful Waitsesque song, that laments the passing of time.

Their set was a little to short though I felt, this is obviously due to their lack of repertoire at the moment and this is understandable as they are a new group. What would be interesting is if the Rev dived into the bottomless archive of old American classics created by his heroes such as Charlie Patton, Mississippi John Hurt, Leadbelly and Furry Lewis and offered his take, Breezy’s washboard and all. However I do recommend that next time they grace our shores, you spend an hour with this big damn band with a big damn sound, a gorgeous washboard player and bags full of personality, who keep it all very much in the family.

Good art it seems is often born out of pain and such is the case with Malcom Croft’s work, a Stockport based artist who was forced to give up a successful career as a press photographer after an accident left him seriously injured.

As a photojournalist for the Press Association and the Manchester Evening News, Malcom had the great knack of being in the right place at the right time. He was on hand to capture the iconic image of Margaret Thatcher being battered with daffodils by a woman in Stockport in 1992. He snapped the scene in a sun swept Spanish square during Euro 1994, as English football fans ran riot and a bride and groom arrived in the middle of the mêlée, expecting wedding photographs by the fountain. He also won a slew of awards, including Photographer of the Year, for his coverage of the IRA bomb that exploded in Manchester city centre in 1996.

Both images featured in newspaper pages around the globe, but his career would ultimately be cut short. In 1994 he was hit by a car while cycling in Derbyshire . As the pain became chronic over time, he was forced to take early retirement and he hung up his camera in favour of a pallet and paint brush. He has though turned this misfortune to his advantage, without an art lesson in his life, his work is now winning rave reviews, and hangs in galleries next to works worth thousands.

His pictures of the countryside and domestic scenes are awash with bright swathes of colour and most have a warm, friendly feel. In the same vein as David Hockney, Malcolm’s work revels in the simple things in life, meal times, cooking, the countryside, little things that mean little in a busy work fuelled life, but mean so much when that life becomes restricted.

As well as Hockney, he is also influenced by Frida Kahlo, an iconic figure in Mexican art, who began her own painting career after suffering serious injuries in a bus crash, that left her immobilized at home and in constant pain.

Malcolm’s enforced domesticity has fired his imagination, he has been a full time dad to his two young sons, a position many fathers would envy and he has seen an angle of domestic life that realistically few men get to experience. Meal times, feature heavily, it is the time when as he says: “the family comes together” and a day of cooking, see it’s fitting conclusion at the dinner table. His still life images of home depict coffee pots and tomatoes, lemons and beer, empty plates, used cutlery and even a Pot Noodle.

He is also inspired by the beauty of the Cheshire countryside, were he used to enjoy fell walking with his father before the accident. They are simpler takes on Cheshire’s lush landscape, large vistas slimmed down to fit a canvas. He captures the grand arches of the Stockport Viaduct in a sharp red tone, and Alderley Edge in a painting that is made up of large blocks of colour, which makes the canvas almost resemble a church stained glass window. His work switches from urban to country scenes, with one depicting the Manchester ringroad in poetic fashion, urban malaise removed and traffic jams ironicly air brushed away.

It usually takes Malcom a couple of weeks to finish a picture,: “the ones that are completed quickly are usually the best,” he says, the ones completed in the spare of the moment, engendered by the photographer in him, who eyes up a perfect scene.

As his pain has worsened in recent years, he has split his time between Cheshire and the south of France were the sunshine acts as therapy. In a house he rents from friends; he has set up his own studio and has painted many French landscapes to add to his collection.

Malcom now says that: “painting has become him” in words that directly echo Frida Kahlo and like her, his work in the face of adversity is winning him great acclaim.

Who ever heard of a Wolverhampton troubadour? It’s not really a place you would expect to breed troubadours, but obviously Scott Matthews slipped through the net. You don’t often take a stroll around the Bullring and bump into a Woody Guthrie like character carrying around a battered guitar marked “This Machine Kills Fascists”. Although, honestly I’ve never been to the Bullring, it could be full of Woody Guthries for all I know. However the blurb on the front of Matthew’s new album ‘Elsewhere’ claims that he is and who am I to disagree.

His last album 2006’s ‘Passing Stranger’ was great and Ivor Novello award winning. For those not up on their 1920’s music hall songs, Ivor Novello wrote such 1920’s barnstormers as “Keep The Home Fires Burning”(Wikipedia-1 Robert-0) and was known to love temperamental, thoughtful Wolverhamptonite’s. Right at the bottom of the list of accolades and laurels for his last album, is the fact that I liked it. In fact I really liked his last record. His attempt at (to use a tired old cliché) “the tricky second album” though is very pared down, acoustic filled and ever so disappointing.

“Underlying Lies” is a great bombastic opener, and is an example of Matthew’s heavily orchestrated old sound. I like strings and lushly orchestrated tracks ala Scott Walker and Bill Fay, but sometimes when it goes to far, over-orchestrated tracks can sound like a bad Roger Moore era Bond theme. Not advisable. Especially if it involves Sheena Easton But Matthews handily avoids such comparisons here and on his last effort. Just as an aside, I dislike every Bond film except the ones with Roger Moore in. Admitting Roger Moore is my favourite Bond has lost me friends, associates, pets and clergymen and I think I need to join a self help group.

After the pastoral opener the album takes a much folkier acoustic turn, in fact sometimes his phrasing reminds me of folk legend Nick Drake and Richard Thompson. The acoustic sound is backed up with a sprinkling of violin and cello, with a female backing vocal. On the track “Suddenly You Figure Out”, the albums highlight, Matthew’s is backed by what sounds like a ragged old colliery band, complete with flat caps and ashen faces.

Many tracks have a kind of Simon and Garfunkel, Scarborough Fairesque use of vocal harmony, but while the music is lovely most of the lyrics are just so dull and empty that listening to them is the equivalent of sitting watching a rabbit turn grey. For example the song “Fracture”: “What is it you want/you decide/and I’ll leave you alone/but not on your own/fractured heart/dented your start/on the plans that you made/but your plans blew away.” Mind blowing stuff as you can see. Ivor Novello is spinning in his grave.

Robert Plant also makes an appearance on the song 12 Harps. Great. Like my love for Roger Moore my hate of Led Zeppelin also raises eyebrows sometimes. Actually never. Which culturally aware people ever talk about Led Zeppelin? Urgh. But again even with “star power” (and I use the term loosely), the song is totally undistinguishable from the seven other acoustic dirges that feature.

“Into the Firing Line” and “Up on the Hill” are good upbeat tracks, which offer an awfully welcome break from the poorly written gloom.

So while a few song’s here have some fire behind them, the acoustic tracks consistently fall flat, they lack the sense of palpable misery and heartbreak that propels many of the great acoustic compositions. In some cases his songs here are misery by numbers that spout over used platitudes.

If you dig John Martyn, Nick Drake or Tim/Jeff Buckley, you will like this album, but unlike their piece de resistance’s (butcher a French phrase there) your unlikely to listen again and again.