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It’s been a while since this correspondent has visited Oldham Street’s iconic Night and Day Café, but Manchester indie institution Friends of Mine’s takeover of the venue tonight ensured that a return was a must. Former recipients of HV’s New Noise spotlight, Crooked Rooks, are an enticing enough proposition on their own, but the booking of an intriguing new act from down the M62 made this a gig that I did not want to miss.
The Tea Street Band, having formed as a dancier offshoot of Liverpool rockers The Maybes, are an otherwise unknown property, being just one gig old. That said, the five-piece have already released their first single, ‘Push the Feeling On’ (no relation to the 90s hit by Nightcrawlers), and are on the bill of next month’s Creamfields. They obviously don’t plan to stay under the radar for long, then.
Fuller in sound than their MySpace output suggests, the band power along, bolstered by the constant throbbing of a Korg synth, propulsive basslines and live drums. Timo Tierney’s falsetto weaves easefully between the echoing guitar lines, adding a subtle melancholia to the grooves, but it’s the instrumental Fiesta that impresses most, a glacial slab of guitar-led house that flies us to an Ibizan terrace for cocktails with The Whitest Boy Alive and Aeroplane. It’s really quite beautiful, evoking winter and summer both at once, and should make Creamfields a breeze.
With The Tea Street Band pushing the mercury higher in the already warm Night and Day, you could forgive the acoustic-driven Crooked Rooks for feeling the heat a little. Fortunately, the recent addition of a full drumkit to their makeup – plus the relentless slog that has been invested into their time together thus far – means they needn’t break sweat. Nevertheless, they take no chances and raise their game tonight, guitarist Pranam Mavahalli in particular throwing everything he has into an energetic performance.
If The Tea Street Band get points for starting the evening’s dancing early, then Crooked Rooks deserve at least as many for the outbreak of barn-dancing that accompanies signature tune Carrion Crow. Yes, in 2010, people are barn-dancing, and it’s all thanks to Crooked Rooks, people. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though: their music does hit familiar reference points, but never stays in one place for long. Songs like The Valley of the Broken lure us towards the looking glass with instantly memorable melodies and rolling rhythms, then suck us in, leading us hurriedly through labyrinthine reggae midsections and bursts of radio interference.
As they bring another set of rum-soaked, Tarantino-esque boogie to an end, Mavahalli climbs on to the monitors and raises his guitar aloft, a gesture that says ‘stadium’ more so than ‘bar-room’. It’s another seemingly incongruous twist, but these would appear to be Crooked Rooks’ speciality. And perhaps he’s just getting in practice: with every gig they do, this band are becoming a powerful live act that may not stay one of Manchester’s best kept secrets for long.
TAGS: Crooked Rooks, The Tea Street Band Words by: Neil Condron Links:
Crooked Rooks - Myspace
The Tea Street Band - Myspace
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