Black Cat Bone, and Logan's Close - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 5 April 2019

I’ve seen Black Cat Bone live before, but it’s still a punch to the gut when they kick off their set. Opener ‘Lost’ is an ample reminder of a sound that’s darker’n a moonless midnight in an abandoned graveyard.  It’s a sound that’s big and heavy, as the following ‘Love My Baby’ confirms – heavy like a big artic rumbling down the motorway, with lashings of slide guitar from Luis Del Castillo, and howling harp and broken-glass gargling vocals from Ross Craig.  Yes, it’s a sound that invites you to conjure up exotic similes.

Black Cat Bone - "How-how-howlin', baby"

The pretext for this latest live show is the launch of their latest single ‘Coming For You’, which they knock out early on, with Craig strapping on a Strat to add some extra guitar chords, and bassist Ewan McKenna chucking in some high harmonies when he’s not too busy stirring up the bottom end.

You’d be hard pushed to say that Black Cat Bone swing, but the rolling thunder of their rhythm section, with lots of floor tom from drummer Kai Wallace, makes them curiously danceable considering their tough-as-teak approach.  This phenomenon reaches its peak with ‘Hip Shake’, their rabble-rousing take on Slim Harpo’s ‘Shake Your Hips’, which even has a passing waitress dancing and grinning on her way to the Voodoo Rooms kitchen.  ‘Freak Machine’ is mellow by comparison – well, a bit – but with a frantic guitar conclusion in the wake of a rather corny singalong.

The stomping rhythm of ‘Move On’ segues into ‘Morning Light’, from their Get Your Kicks Sessions EP.  Another highlight of their show, that floor tom boom underpins a juggernaut riff, and the anthemic “How-how-howlin’, baby” chorus.

New song ‘Wash Away’ is more upbeat, until its fierce, discordant ending, while ‘Punks And Pushers’ manages to meld old fashioned R’n’B style harp tootling from Craig with a Beck-like hip-hop rhythm to the vocals.

They wrap up with ‘Get Your Kicks’, with bowed bass from McKenna setting the tone for a doomy opening, and indeed it’s pretty doomy throughout until a turbocharged finish. It wouldn’t be my choice for a set closer to be honest, but hey, the crowd were happy enough.

Their pals Logan’s Close provide support, and are an entirely different proposition.  Where BCB are all about a big dirty groove, Logan’s Close have their roots the Swinging Sixties, when R’n’B made for hit 45s (remember them?) in Britain.  But if the opening ‘Can’t Let You

Logan's Close get more-than-nifty

Go’ is very Mop Top, with clever harmonies, tonight they take the opportunity to try out a few new songs that explore some slightly different pop territories, and also to introduce a new keyboard player called, apparently, Sean Keys.

An as yet untitled effort, noted on their set list as ‘James Bond Yin’, does indeed have jagged vibe of a Sixties film theme song, while ‘Paralysed’ gets into ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’-type Arabic stylings.  ‘The Vandal’ is a hard riffing thing that sounds like power pop of a punkier vintage, while ‘Never Bloom’ harks back to a more shagadelic Sixties phase, with crazed guitar from Carl Marah.

They do have a perfect ear for that Beat Boom sound though, as old favourites like ‘Work No More’ demonstrate, its British rock’n’roll vibe evoking simpler times.  ‘Girl’ provides an opportunity for a Keys keys wig-out, as it were, while ‘In The Morning’ features twin lead vocals from Marah and his reliably daft co-front man Scott Rough.  And ‘Listen To Your Mother’, with which they close, still stands out as a more-than-nifty bit of jangle-pop songwriting. 

The Logan’s Close boys may capture the spirit of some different power pop vibes in the future, but hopefully they’ll retain the appealing, knowing sense of fun they’ve shown to date – and get some smart threads on again, for god’s sake.

Elles Bailey - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 20 October 2017

I like her.  I like her voice, I like her songs and I like the arrangements. I like her guitarist, and I like her amiable chat between songs. Less keen on her hat though.

I downloaded a copy of Elles Bailey’s album Wildfire a week or so back, and was pleasantly surprised.  Previously I’d only clocked a video of the title track, but as I listened to the album I kept saying “Good song” to myself about one track after another.  And after this gig I’m well impressed with what she and her band can do live as well.

Let’s start with her voice, shall we?  Ever so slightly husky, Elles Bailey isn’t just spot on with

Elles Bailey - good songs, good singer, good band

her musicality, she catches the tone of individual songs convincingly and conveys bluesiness, soulfulness and rootsiness as required.  And it has to be said that she’s a confident performer too, moving around the stage easily and selling songs well.

This set emphasises that her material isn’t just good, it’s varied too.  The quality threshold is consistently high, whether it’s the swinging soul of ‘Shackles Of Love’, with it’s doo-doo-doo interjections in the chorus, or the contemplative ballad ‘What If I’ that grows in intensity to underline its positive message; whether it’s the vaguely folky, vaguely Celtic feel of the acoustic ‘Waiting Game’, with its skipping drums, or the stomper that is ‘Let Me Hear You Scream’.  Pick a style, and Bailey and her band carry it off with polish.

No disrespect to the rest of the band, who are tight but relaxed and show good rapport, but guitarist Joe Wilkins is key to the whole affair.  He serves up a wonderfully gritty slide intro on the opening ‘Wildfire’, and follows it up with a strong solo, then another one on the following ‘Same Flame’. He makes marvellously spooky use of his whammy bar on the brief ‘Barrel Of Your Gun’, then there’s well-worked interplay with Bailey when she takes to the piano for ‘Believed In You’.  She looks like she’s having fun on ‘You Asked To Know’ with its

Joe Wilkins - decorator extraordinaire

Bo Diddley beat and riff, but it’s Wilkins who decorates the song perfectly.  The guy is no prima donna, he just makes really good choices on how to serve songs, then executes those choices with style.

And I still haven’t got to the real highlights.  ‘Time’s A Healer’ is an acoustic ballad with a catchy melody and a nice lyric. ‘The Big Idea’ is a sassy blues that’s musically witty and well punctuated, with an up-tempo jazzy closing section. And the set closer ‘Girl Who Owned The Blues’, a memorial to Janis Joplin, is a great tune that manages to blend tinges of country with the kind of white soul you might find in some stuff by Deacon Blue or early Texas.

I’m going to praise with faint damns and say that the encores are the only time the standard slips a little.  A reading of John Prine’s ‘Angel Of Montgomery’ is tidy, but tidy isn’t enough when you’ve heard the sensitivity Bonnie Raitt brings to it.  And while ‘Howlin’ Wolf’, her tribute to Chess records artists, has evidently been a mainstay of her set for ages, it’s feels

Logan's Close - truly, madly, deeply fun

a bit hackneyed, rescued only by a barnstorming instrumental round-up with an eyeballs-out solo from Wilkins.

Elles Bailey isn’t the finished article yet.  But she’s young and she’s got bags of potential.  Get the album. Go see her.

It’s credit to Bailey and her band that they stand up to the challenge of following Logans Close, who are as much fun as ever.  Carl Marah and Scott Rough could probably form a comic double act based on their between songs patter, but let’s focus on the music.  The jangly sound of ‘I Wonder Why’ is irresistible as a starter. ‘Funk’ is Kinks-like, with good harmonies even without the usual contribution from drummer Mike Reilly, and a great arrangement all round.  ‘Ticket Man’ is a highlight as usual with its rumbling bass riff, and Marah setting aside his guitar in favour of harp.  “Sorry I swore,” says Rough at the end of it.  “I forgot it was a seated gig.”  Which I imagine roughly translates as “hope I didn’t offend all you oldies”.

Their cover of ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ remains manic, with a brilliant guitar and drums crescendo between Marah and Reilly.  But I still love the crisp rock’n’roll of ‘C’mon Pretty Lady’, with its bop-shoo-wop chorus, and ‘She’s Mine’ is a wild finish worthy of ‘Twist And Shout’.  This set feels a little ragged at times, but Logans Close are still fresh, danceable – and bonkers.

Elles Bailey is touring Britain and Ireland until 10 December.  Details here.

   

Logan's Close

Lights down, and Logan’s Close stroll on stage to the strains of Ennio Morricone’s theme for A Fist Full Of Dollars.  It may only be the Voodoo Rooms with the tickets costing a fiver, but the boys from Dunbar believe in putting on a show.  A rumble of jungle drums from Mike Reilly, and they’re off.  If you don’t like rock’n’roll, it’s too late now folks.

Logan’s Close specialise in recreating the spirit of Beat Boom rhythm’n’blues, and they do it with style – check out the haircuts, skinny ties and winklepickers – a devil may care attitude,

Carl Marah of Logan's Close - stubbed toe, perhaps?

and a determination that all present are going to have fun, fun, fun.

When I say they’re out to recreate the spirit of the Beat Boom, I don’t mean that they slavishly churn out covers.  Sure, they do turn out versions of ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go’ and Ray Charles’ ‘What’d I Say’, but they do it with a shed-load of brio, stimulating a psychotic reaction from the young folk down the front.  Yep, you read that right - youngsters going nuts over ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go’.  I wonder if they know how old it is?

What’s even more impressive though, is that their own songs fit in so well beside those classics that you can scarcely see the join.  On ‘Work’ (as in ‘don’t wanna work no more’) they capture right away that scratchy 60s sound, with bonkers rock’n’roll guitar fills from Carl Marah and clever vocal harmonies.  ‘Vision Of Beauty’ is funkier, but still expertly arranged, with a terrific middle 8, and they even essay a latin vibe on ‘Dance In The Dark’.

In the midst of all this Marah combines well with Scott Rough on front man duties, the latter conveying a laid back, tongue in cheek charisma in addition to his rhythm guitar and spot on lead vocals.  Meanwhile Reilly’s drumming is sharp as well as energetic – and his eight bars of silent drum solo is typically knowing - while 18-year old Ollie Turbitt on bass now seems much more confident than when I last saw them.

The constant stream of songs pitched right at the bullseye gets everyone’s feet moving.  ‘Ticket Man’ celebrates the fare-dodging habits of Dunbar youngsters visiting Edinburgh, with Marah weighing in with some wild harp.  ‘Come On Pretty Lady’ is summed up by its bop-shoo-wop vocal interjections, and Marah snapping a string because, as Rough says, “he rocked too bloody hard!”  The launch of the single ‘Listen To Your Mother’ - watch the video, it's a hoot! - is the pretext for this bash, and it lives up to the moment, and they make a damn good danceable job of ‘Every Day I Have The Blues’ as a first encore to boot.

Scott Rough - how come I'm in black and white?

In support, Ayrshire band Soldier On are well summed up by the lady I met in the queue at the bar, who reckoned they were like Sweet meets Oasis.  She’d rather enjoyed them – but admitted to having been a Bay City Rollers fan in her youth.  Lead singer Jordan Bastock is a character – if you can imagine an amalgam of Rod the Mod, Jagger, and Alex Harvey getting a bit carried away and impersonating Chandler Bing on the dance floor.  Their material had some good moments, from the opening ‘No Man’s Land’, to the lascivious ‘Eggs For Breakfast’ and closing ‘Shake It Up’.  But the fact that a raucous rendering of ‘Roadhouse Blues’ overshadowed everything that went before tells a story.

In an opening acoustic spot William Douglas from Miracle Glass Company came across as a confident and assertive performer.  His voice may have wandered now and then, but his guitar playing was solid, and if some of the songs sounded like exercises in different styles, he was still witty along the way.

But ultimately the night belonged to Logan’s Close.  Fun fun fun.  Bop-shoo-wop.  And for that matter plenty of a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boo.

'Listen To Your Mother' and 'Ticket Man' are available now on iTunes and other digital platforms.

Blues For Rowan Alba - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 11 December 2016

“At Christmas we buy a £10 present for our service users.  It may be the only present they get, and it may just be £10 for the electricity” - Helen Carlin, CEO of Scottish homelessness charity Rowan Alba.

Edinburgh Blues Club supports Rowan Alba throughout the year, but tonight a gig featuring five local bands provides the opportunity to do a little bit more.  Offering some support for the homeless can still be a fun experience though, right?

Logan's Close do that thing they do

It certainly can, when a band like Logan’s Close are on stage.  At first blush, with their sharp suits, retro guitars and boyish looks, “Beatles tribute band” springs to mind.  Wrong.  This lot aren’t into lazy imitation.  They get gleefully wired into this stuff like they’ve time travelled back to the early Sixties and felt the excitement British kids had for the R’n’B and rock’n’roll sounds coming out of the States.

So right off the bat they come up with an engaging, jagged reading of Ray Charles’ ‘What’d I Say’, and later they come up with a stonking version of ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’, before slipping in a cover of something by Lee Dorsey that’s new to me but will have me researching his repertoire pretty damn soon.

This stuff is interspersed with originals that fit like a glove.  ‘Dance In The Dark’ is set to a stomping Latino beat, and brings to mind the knowing affection for the Sixties and joie de vivre of the Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do. It’s the same with the harp’n’harmonies

The smoky and sophisticated Laurence Murray

fun of ‘Ticket Man’, the Fab Four-meets-Chuck of ‘C’mon Pretty Lady’, and the jungle rhythm of ‘Mine All Mine’.  I know it’s only rock’n’roll, but this ain’t half bad.

Closing proceedings the Laurence Murray Project offer a complete contrast with a laid back but precise sound that suggests – oh, Steely Dan maybe?  Right from the off they’ve got a good sound all round, playing with a nicely smoky feel, and a wonderfully clear tone to Laurence Murray’s guitar.  A song that they liken to an Eagles B-side offers some good riffs and neat shifts in tempo, and the more straight-ahead blues of ‘Things That I Used To Do’ emphasises their polish, as well as the fact that Murray’s voice also has a smoky quality.  His voice works well on a cover of Bill Withers’ ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ too, without them putting much of a personal stamp on it.  So when a new tune towards the end of the set offers a bit more attack it’s more than welcome – a bit more of that oomph to match their technical proficiency wouldn’t go amiss.

Earlier, Dead Broke And Dirty open up with a take on Alabama 3’s Sopranos theme, ‘Woke Up This Morning’, delivered in a spooky boogie mode.  It’s a prelude to some country folk style stomp on ‘Break Free’, directed at Donald Trump - a seam they mine further on ‘Rattlesnake Roll’, which feels a bit like cowgirl punk a la Lone Justice.  In between, a cover of ‘I Put A Spell On You’ fits the same endearingly ramshackle sound - which you could call rough as a badger’s arse, but in a good way.  And hey, I’ve always got time for a band that are moved to play ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’.

Becky Pilcher gets Celtic

The Becky Pilcher Blues Band deliver some guitar led blues across a range of covers.  Ms P captures a nicely Celtic feel with her fingerpicking on Rory Gallagher’s ‘A Million Miles Away’, to which she adds some effective weeping effects on her solo.  Her rhythm section impress consistently, and compadre Calum Stevenson gets on board to offer some suitably Hendrixy guitar sounds on ‘Voodoo Chile’ to which the two of them add some good vocal harmonies.

Opening the evening, Nobody’s Business take a more vocal orientated approach to some blues classics, covering all the bases from Dr Feelgood to BB King, SRV, Albert King and even the Allman Brothers, on a version of ‘Whipping Post’ that shows off some slinky bass playing as well as characterful vocals.

Ultimately this was a night on which some local bands got the chance to strut their stuff.  But more than that, they managed to pull in a crowd that raised £1130 for a good cause.  Being able to contribute to that, as artist or audience, is a good thing, and we’re lucky to be able to do it.  As Helen Carlin noted, in the course of expressing her appreciation, “it’s massively unlikely you’ll ever need our services”. Sadly though, plenty people do.

For more details of the work done for the homeless by Rowan Alba, visit their website: www.rowanalba.org