Yes, more bloody surf music. We won’t stop while there’s still wind. Er, anyway, picking out gig gems obviously gets harder the nearer you get to Christmas, but here’s one that revolves around a great Bristol band that don’t play out as much as they should. Mustard Allegro are light touch weirdos, spewing out minute-long surf tunes that have a nicely off centre pep to them, something that’s a little disconcerting in their Blighty perkiness. Their gig in Cardiff earlier this year was a quiet triumph; their album ‘Dwarf Shortage’ a gentle treat. Support your local goofball.
★ MUSTARD ALLEGRO ★
http://www.myspace.com/mustardallegro
Hyper, 50’s twanging, Rock-a-billy and surf band.
“Mustard Allegro are not from California. Perhaps, then, the office blocks, docks and cranes of their native Bristol explain the angular portwards list of their peculiar brand of Surf music. The sense of humour is certainly British: named after an iconically awful 1970s car, and sporting track titles like ‘At the Mount of the Chocolate Fountain, At the Fount of the Chocolate Mountain (Hyperdrive!)’, the Mustards inhabit a world in which King Crimson write energetic two-minute micro-epics with Joe Meek at the controls, then dash down to the beach, boards in arms, only to find half a mile of mud between them and the Severn Estuary.”
★ FIRE ISLAND PINES ★
Away from Cornwall’s glittering coastline lies a desolate, blasted, poverty stricken wasteland. What a surprise then to find singer-songwriter and all-round isolationist Anton Rothschild forging links with a troupe of likeminded, seasoned indie hipsters somehow clinging to the life-raft of credibility in this remote and culturally starved landscape. The resulting outfit, Fire Island Pines, combines Rothchild’s signature melancholy with melodic, easy-going indie-pop-rock characterised by rich and sparkling arrangements augmented by trumpets, vocal harmonies and an unholy tri-guitar wall-of-jangle. Those who appreciate the laconic twee of Camera Obscura and Bella and Sebastian, the drama and richness of Interpol and Arcade Fire might just find something to like here…
★ TRAILER PARK ★
Hip-Rock Folk-Funk at it’s finest
A Bristol based 5-piece band that have been drinking together for a lot longer than they have been playing together.
Starting out playing downbeat songs acoustically at open mic nights the band slowly grew from 1 to 2 and then on to
it’s full complement of 5 members. After another few months of practising in dark rooms they were the talk of the
local open mic scene, mostly because they were a lot louder than your average acoustic guitar. With its rise in
personnel the sound has grown from simple finger-picked folk tweeness to embrace dance and rock music, whilst dipping into jazz, mo-town and any other genre it can pilfer from for inspiration. The result is a song-driven live act with a pumping rhythm section and rich melodies that is more likely to have you dancing around your handbag than crying into your beer.
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