“Shut up you c**t!”
A false start, resulting from a detuned guitar, and DAWN HENDRY has given strong Mancunian voice to her frustration. To be fair she’s aimed her ire at someone she knows in the crowd, but her nervousness is palpable and it lasts for most of her set. It’s only on her last song that she finally reveals some form. With her slight build Dawn looks a bit like ‘Blue’ era Joni Mitchell, but she belts out her five acoustic songs like Kristen Hersh. She’s got the voice, the power and the talent but she’s some way off from fulfilling all that raw potential; her delivery is at times OTT and the lyrics lack bite. She sings: “I don’t sleep too well these days / ‘cos my mind and will are in disarray.” More time and live experience will help her to harness her obvious gifts and to find some balance in her performance.
While Dawn is evidently just starting out, ROCKY VOTOLATO has been doing this thing for a while. From Seattle and signed to the same UK label as Clayhill, this is his first tour of our shores. Rocky – yep, that is his birth name - is an engaging chap and there are a couple of ladies near us who’ve taken rather a shine to him. His style sits in the classic American troubadour role, wracked with intense emotion and passion. The voice is cracked and throaty like James Dean Bradfield but - tonight Matthew - we’ve called him “Ryan Adams Without A Towel”.
Rocky’s lyrics detail intimately the darker side of relationships and their impact on his soul and psyche. At times his honesty is so stark that you feel the decent thing to do would be to turn your head away and give him some privacy. His set is near faultless and he particularly impresses with his ability to give so much without it ever being too much. Best song tonight is ‘Mix Tapes/Cellmates’ on which he memorably sings ‘Now I’m serving time / ‘till I’ve earned the right / to go back to the place where we started from.’ His album ‘Suicide Medicine’ is out soon on Sore Point Records.
You look at the members of Clayhill on stage and ask yourself “How did these guys ever get together?” It’s not on a par with the bizarre coupling of Bowie crooning with Bing on ‘Little Drummer Boy’ or Marc Almond with Gene Pitney but I think you catch my drift. Thank whoever your God may be that fate did bring them together because on tonight’s form they are a divine gift to the ears.
With just double bass, acoustic guitar and voice, Clayhill create an unbelievably vibrant and rich sound, packed with emotion, subtlety and nuance. There is such depth and variation in the execution that you feel there must be other musicians hidden off stage, fleshing out the arrangements. It’s only when they play unreleased track ‘Funny How’ that I realise their secret: they are just three damn fine musicians who collectively put the music first and their individual virtuosity second. No one is trying to out play the other or to steal the limelight.
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I was concerned that having only bought the ‘Cuban Green’ EP earlier this year I’d miss out on not being familiar with the songs off the album ‘Small Circle’. I needn’t have worried: Clayhill’s other secret is an uncanny knack of writing songs that instantly imprint themselves on your brain. I’m almost p***ed off that they devote one song to a cover of ‘Please, Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want’. It’s still lovely.
There’s a bit of a demob vibe tonight within the group as this is the last gig of the current tour. The banter and inter band ribbing is infectious and on its own could win over any crowd, despite admissions of support for Chelsea by Ali, a love of Rush by Ted and a comparison of Gavin to something out of Lord of The Rings. Their currency has risen significantly during the tour on the back of good reviews for the album, a timely piece in The Sunday Time two weeks ago and their association with the forthcoming Shane Meadows film ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’. They play ‘After Light’ from the soundtrack and it is still with me as I write this review: haunting doesn’t even begin to describe it. Last track tonight is ‘Northern Soul’ a song that manages to be a big soaring tune but retain an eloquence sadly lacking in 99% of pop these days.
Because let’s not fool ourselves: Clayhill make ‘pop’ music, the type of music you know goes straight in the top ten in some alternative universe where such gems are valued. The fact that this music is built on the kind of folk John Martyn pioneered and the kind of skewered rock that Radiohead used to make doesn’t stop it from being ‘pop’. These guys couldn’t hide a good tune if they tried.
I'm sorry, did I not say? I’m a bit of a fan.
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