This show was one of the Fired Up club nights at one of Camden's newest music venues. The thing is, now that all the cool and trendy folks have moved to the East London Hipsterville ghetto, a new Niche had to be discovered for Camden, so (of course) why not have a venue mixing classical music and Jazz in a cocktail/wine bar-cum-supper club-jazz-style setting so that the room has had plenty of time spent getting the acoustics right and has a Steinway Grand Piano on the stage. Right?
By the time I arrived, the only empty table was right in front of the stage and having bought a glass of wine, I sat down to be entertained. They did whip out a couple more tables for diners later on. Anyway, first on was French Torch singer ORIANNA CURLS who was accompanied by an acoustic guitarist while she sang and played the violin from time to time. She also played with Hitchcok's The Birds showing as a backdrop.
She opened with Lose Myself In You, a rather delicate love song that worked very well in this setting, with her voice wrapping itself around us in an almost comfort blanket. She then did a very smokey version of Black Hole Sun that owed more to the Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme version than Soundgarden's original. It's All About You was about a selfish lover she was happy to be losing just in time to be replaced by the new lover in Oh Mon Amour which had elements of a Stefan Grapelli/Django Reinhardt Hot Club De Paris type thing, except that her guitarist isn't really in that league.
While I'm On The Phone Line was yet more yearning for what's not working in her love life before she finished with a couple of rather obvious cover versions courtesy of La Vie En Rose and Cry Me A River: both brilliantly sung but rather too familiar and she could have been a bit more daring in her choice of an Edith Piaf song to sing. I'd like to hear her fronting a larger band as she has plenty of potential.
Next on where RASP THORNE & THE BRIARS who were playing as a stripped down trio with Rancho Notorious as the backdrop for the rest of the evening: a film so good they played it twice!
Rasp started his set solo sitting at the Steinway which did sound fantastic and he introduced the first song as being about a Crooked Eyed Man and then apologized for having a sore throat. He sounded fine regardless, even when he was Hanging Around the Scaffold: the dark tribulations in the lyrics working well. He was then joined by his guitarist who was introduced as W.H. Jones and they played an instrumental before he switched to lap Steel for a song about Brother Sharon. It was dark and twisted and had enough of a cabaret edge to work in this sort of venue.
For Pornstar Shotgun, Claire Rabbitt sauntered onto the stage in a floor-length gown to add some bewitching backing vocals and they then did a very cool version of Gun Barrel Pupils. Then, like Orianna Curls, they finished with a couple of cover versions although these were far less obvious choices. First they did a very dark and twisted version of the Rolling Stones' Dead Flowers very much in the style of Townes Van Zandt's version of it, but with some very evocative piano lines.
Rasp then made a bit of a faux pas when he introduced the last song of the set as being from New Orleans, as I believe the St James Infirmary Blues is actually older than New Orleans and is of course an old English folk song written in Nottingham over two hundred years ago. Not to worry; Rasp was certainly playing an arrangement not too dissimilar to Louis Armstrong or Roosevelt Sykes' version of it: a very cool end to a cool set. I certainly want to see Rasp play a set with a full complement of Briars soon.
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Next up were TEMPER TEMPER: a four piece who had somehow managed to persuade Alison Phillips to allow the band's drummer to use her brand new Ludwig drum kit. The singer is a dark broody goth temptress in a long dress and high heels with long fingernails ready to scratch your back. They also had a guitarist who was playing a 7-string guitar as 6 weren't enough. Of course they didn't introduce anything and the songs were rather dark as she sang of a love that made her heart start beating again and how she hit.
She also had tears in her heart possibly from some sort of S & M play but the pianist was getting demented on the Steinway and it worked quite well whatever. They closed with When I Was A Girl which came over like crossing Dagmar Krause with Siouxie Sioux and was quite bewitching.
Finally it was time for TAURUS TRAKKER playing tonight as a trio with substitute bass player Wigsy on loan from the Steve Dior Band. Wigsy had been taught the songs about an hour before going on sitting in a room above a pub in Camden that Martin purloined for the purpose.
They opened with a Building Ten that sounds as mysterious and foreboding as ever and even if they were a little bit too rocking for this venue it still worked. We then got the first new song of the set, The Dream Inspectors, that will be on the third TT album due out later this year. It has Martin's normal way with a lyric, telling us a story of our dystopian future present.
The second new song was The King Of Chicken Wing, at least I think that's what was introduced. What a title! It was a little rough around the edges as Wigsy was spending plenty of time looking at Alison and Martin for cues but I'm sure it will be up to speed soon. Wild Woman In A Small Town was the highlight of the set - a great song and the lyrics were really punchy. The fact that the wild woman in a small town might be dreaming of coming to the big city to go to bars like this and drink fancy cocktails only helped it along. It has to be said that Alison's new drum kit both sounded and looked great.
Tudor Rose was another new song. It sounded OK but love and life has gone wrong as it has to in any good Taurus Trakker song. They finish with a great version of Bag For Life where in fact life does go wrong but the music goes right. I love this song and it was a very cool version, loose and a little jarring in places, but it brought a short and sweet set to its conclusion and finished off a good night's music in a very enjoyable seting.
I want to go back to the Forge & Foundry but might have to make equally well-considered choices with the bills in future.
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