Watercolor

16th February 2012, Treehouse Cafe / JB Priestley Library / 1-in-12 Club

We start this night of library-bound storytelling downstairs at the Treehouse Cafe with Garfunkel and Simon, the stage name of singer-songwriter Patrick Dowson. He charms attendees with sweet and ramshackle songs about Peter Crouch, personal insecurities and Question Time, and ends his too-short set with “Born In The BRI”, an ode to viewing Bradford in the same way that American songwriters view their own homeland – as a inspiring place, whether wonderful or awful. The décor at the Treehouse puts me somewhat in mind of a nursery, though as we find out, not all the acts on tonight are suitable for children. Like Garfunkel and Simon, Captain Hotknives isn’t afraid to steal a popular tune, whether originally by Bob Marley or The Village People. His songs are full of confrontation and controversy, nevertheless he is (almost) always ultimately good-hearted and even moral in his way, and of course very funny in places. The highlight of his set is “I Hate Babies”. Then we are led to to the university and the JB Priestley Library. It is lamentably rather distracting to have a steady stream of uninterested students amble their way in and out of the wipe-clean library foyer during the otherwise excellent set by Stephanie Hladowski and Kirtsie Penman. I find myself noticing someone’s strange gait, or attractive jacket, and all of a sudden I’ve lost my place in the narrative. Stephanie and Kirtsie alternate songs for one long set, and both focus on traditional ballads and sea-shanties. There are many moments of real beauty from both, and the fact that they complete a set, a cappella and in such an alien environment for traditional music, in nothing short of heroic in itself. After many tales of love, suffering and mortality we have managed to convert a few of the students and librarians, and Stephanie leaves us with a Bulgarian wedding / fertility song. Then to the top floor of the 1-in-12 Club, and The Housekeeping Society. A three-piece with a lot of song-craft skill and an agreeably earnest dedication to storytelling, unfortunately on first listen they strike me as a little bit too safe, too contented perhaps, to really transcend. A little bit too Crowded House, or even post-comeback Take That. But I’m willing to believe that listeners with less of a craving for chaos would find a lot to commend and enjoy in their songs, including the admittedly pretty good “Seaside Mystery Man”. Certainly my cravings for chaos are more than satisfied by the final act of the night, Vialka. A wild and charismatic boy / girl duo, mixing art-song and nursery rhyme, beautifully brutish and shambolic. Fans of Faun Fables, Dresden Dolls, Agent Ribbons might have a lick of a sliver of a clue what they were like, I guess, though they were freer and less showy than the above. They even had the punchline of the night, in “Potatoes!”, though I guess you would have to have been there.

Michael Metcalfe

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