And this month’s weighed-up stab in the musical dark is… Anton Barbeau sounds great: a fried-brained casualty of California, soaked in the psychedelic waters of artists like XTC and Julian Cope, collaborator with the Bevis Frond and the Seconds… I like those eggs. Also look out for Bristolians Schnauser shaking out gently proggy pastoral indie – promising tykes and no mistake.
29 July 2010
20:30 – 23:00
Mother’s Ruin
7-9 St Nicholas Street
Bristol Bristol BS1 1UE
Free entry!
“Anton Barbeau represents the Sacramento chapter of that nameless coterie of enduringly reliable, acid-tinged singer-songwriters that includes XTC’s Andy Partridge, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and the Bevis Frond’s Nick Saloman. His new album bathes beautifully constructed, thoughtfully arranged songs in a fading psychedelic sunshine, and it would be many casual consumers’ album of the year if only they got to hear it. Four stars.”
—Sunday Times
“Prolific, pretentious, precocious, intelligent, quirky, nasal, amusing, annoying to some, pop genius to others, and never ever boring—this, my friends, is the cumulative description of northern California’s musical auteur Anton Barbeau.”
—PopMatters
“The man in question is Anton Barbeau, cult hero and left-field maverick from Sacramento, California. Mind you, calling him a ‘singer/songwriter’ is a bit like calling Jimi Hendrix a ‘strummer.’ His songs are fervid, swarming, tangential and often humorous, but possessed of a compelling inner logic.”
—Dorset Echo
“Oh my God, it’s you… I finally get to meet you!”
—Andy Partridge
With but a few years remaining until 2012, Anton Barbeau has been busier than ever, spreading his “pre-apocalyptic psychedelic pop” far and wide. California-born, but currently residing in Cambridge, England, Barbeau has toured the UK from tip to tail, and has confused and amused audiences from Istanbul to Berlin. His backing bands have included Stornoway, the Bevis Frond, former Soft Boys/Egyptians Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor, Hamburg’s Xrfarflight and Alaska, and many more. He’s supported a crazy range of other artists, from Martin Carthy to Mono, Robyn Hitchcock to Robin Williamson, and is as awkwardly comfy in a smoke-and-feedback drenched village farmhouse as he is in an Paris piano bar.
As a songwriter/recording artist, Barbeau is remarkably prolific. His 2009 release, Plastic Guitar, is his 6th since 2006, and features a variety of styles, from 60s-vibed classic pop to laptop bleep-bop and electro-kraut grooves. While Barbeau’s previous album, The Automatic Door, took the dark themes of global warming, fundamentalism and romantic breakdown and painted them in bright colours with sunny harmonies and folky pop backing, many of the songs on Plastic Guitar match dark for dark. The title track uses screeching, clangourous guitars to speak the artist’s frustration, and “Doctor Take Care” is murky with dull, thudding drums and hypnotic bass as the author begs his surgeon not to blow it. Still, “Quorn Fingers” is probably the cheeriest thing you’ve heard in years, and we dare you not to sing along with crowd-fave “Banana Song.” The album is rich with guest appearances, with Kimberley Rew of the Soft Boys, Gabe and Greg from Cake, Woodstock legend Barry “the Fish” Melton and the lads from Stornoway all contributing to the mix.
Previously, Barbeau has collaborated with the Bevis Frond on his album King of Missouri and with the Loud Family on What If It Works? Sharron Kraus, Oxford’s queen of dark-folk, appears on Anton’s psychedelic masterwork, In The Village Of The Apple Sun, an album Harp magazine called “Barbeau’s Sgt. Pepper,” and which ended up on USA Today‘s “Best of 2007” list. In the Sunday Times, Stewart Lee gave Drug Free four stars, offering “(Barbeau’s) new album bathes beautifully constructed, thoughtfully arranged songs in a fading psychedelic sunshine, and it would be many casual consumers’ album of the year if only they got to hear it.”
Bringing it all back home, in Sacramento, a 23-hour Anton-a-thon was held in his honor with over 20 performers covering Anton songs, and the sleep-deprived star performing sets with members of his various backing bands. An unusual career situation—but perhaps not for a man whose two first gigs were as a magician and as Jesus in the school play.
Barbeau returned to Northern California at the end of 2009 to promote Bag Of Kittens, the debut disk he wrote and produced for Sacramento gal Allyson Seconds. Back to England in early 2010, he finished up The Psychedelic Mynde Of Moses, another wilfully weird collection of pop songs. Paul Tipler (Julian Cope/Stereolab/Atomic Kitten!) helped with the mixing. The album is set for release later in the year. In his own words, “making records is the only thing that I KNOW I know how to do,” and with that, he’s already well into his next (next) album, with basic tracks to be recorded with Morris Windsor in Berlin. Meanwhile, Barbeau continues gigging and relentlessly touring tea shops and stone circles in the UK, his mind-bending stage show and auto-neurotic humour packed between clean socks and cds. Oh, and yes, Adrienne Barbeau IS his cousin!
