‘Urban Cowboy’ presents The Trailer Trash Orchestra & The Shivers @ Hitchin Club 85, Sun 24th April 2005
“Nu-country” or “alt-country” is the genre of choice for urban sophisticate journalistes, conveying a homespun charm with none of the Nashville clichés. Out in the sticks at the music capital of Hertfordshire, the “new country” on offer is less regimented. While the PA begins with the kind of rhinestone crap that gives rise to line-dancers and gives the good ol’ sex’n’death balladeers a bad name, it goes on to feature the Zutons, who are about as much cowboys as Joss Stone is urban, but who are – crucially – good. The performers, meanwhile, are conscious of country tradition but happy to mix things up a bit more.
From Cambridge, The Shivers are a young four-piece whose line-up includes the obligatory acoustic guitar, banjo and occasional slide-guitar beloved of every front-porch hick. But the customary harmony vocals aren’t entirely serious when they tackle the vagaries of being a postman, or sum up the measure of a man’s desire (“155 centimetres of love” is the height of their wuh-man). These boys and girl sometimes appear too resolutely tongue-in-cheek to be worthwhile, a Blues Hammer-style pastiche of authentic modes and manners. Fake accents always grate with me. Can’t they do their comedy rock with more feeling? Occasionally, they’re also very out of time, but this clattery thump sort of adds to their, uh, homespun charm. I’m finally won over by a countrified cover of none other than Van Halen’s ‘Jump’. While thinking of musical authenticity, I remember that a country parody could never sound bad when sung by such a musical magpie as Beck; he got away with stealing all, through being so damn cool. Anything is up for grabs, and if the Shivers don’t take themselves too seriously, why should their audience approach them in the same way? You better jump…
If the Shivers would rattle the spine of a musical purist, the next act would send an authentic critic running for the hills. The Trailer Trash Orchestra whizz, in a country-punk style, through songs from the Ramones, Gram Parsons, and even the new wave heroes Magazine (‘A Song from Under the Floorboards’). Their performance has a power seen only on rare occasion, least of all on acoustic-type nights: making up the orchestra is electric mandolin, fiddle, double bass and, ohh yeah, guitar and drums. The players appear in various local bands, and singer Grae J Wall himself also fronts rock ‘n’ roll wild bunch The Sindys and stripped-down collective Los Chicos Muertos. Stage experience, then, is to be had in spades, and evidenced by the exhibitionist movement of their set. They’re all over the place! With a cowboy hat and a rotten snarl, Grae J dedicates one track to former Eurovision shot Gina G: ‘Corporate Cock-Sucking Arse Licking Junkie’*. Another of their own tracks – or is it a track by the Sindys? - is as much a singalong as any of their covers. The sort-of-romantic chorus of ‘Ecstasy’ goes asking “be my Viagra, be my Paracetamol...” and is excellent.
Grae J also comments on how good it is for once to share a bill with a similar band, rather than some bunch trying to be Oasis. But the real similarity is in the enjoyment of non-pigeonholed diversity. Country-punk? Urban Cowboy? Just call it all good rock ‘n’ roll fun.
*(Gina G has, apparently, been booked to play the Kaleidoscope festival in Welwyn Garden City. This is an event which, at least last year, took place to “celebrate the ethnic diversity of Welwyn and Hatfield.” All kinds of stalls, circus skills, and sets by local talent - such as the Otters, Redmaxx and Billy from the Subways - made a splendid day out in 2004, complete with down-to-earth, local flavour. Quite how a has-been pop muppet from Australia could fit into this event is beyond me.)
