Live music listings: April 2007

Doors 7.45
£6 via WeGotTickets
£8 door

Irishman Andy White has worked with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Tim Finn, been the A of ALT, won awards and critical acclaim for his albums, and toured the world with his acoustic guitar.

His new album 'Garageband' was recorded in Andy’s new home of Melbourne Australia and Real World Studios by John Leckie, producer of 'The Bends', My Morning Jacket, Muse and Roy Harper.

Andy is launching the album in London this April with his very own Garageband - Beat Pachlatko on bass and Marc Krebs on drums.

The new album is panoramic, live and loud. A mix of world, rock and Irish music - all shot through with Andy's trademark lyrics.

A Belfast boy, he is a rock’n’roll star in his own land. He has merged pop sensibility with lyrical excellence, social commentary and acoustic guitars ever since his debut single ‘Religious Persuasion’ and first album ‘Rave On Andy White’ in 1986.

Since ‘Rave On' he's released 8 solo albums, two compilations and a live album. He has written classics such as ‘James Joyce’s Grave’ and ‘Street Scenes From My Heart’, won Ireland’s top songwriting award, lived in Ireland, Europe and currently Australia, and toured the world many times over.

They called him Belfast’s Bob Dylan when he started, but this album sounds more like U2 playing Velvet Underground songs at WOMAD.

Main support is Pete Molinari, a folk blues singer/songwriter of Egyptian / Maltese parentage, raised in from Chatham, England, where he was discovered by Billy Childish.

During an 18 month stint in America, he honed his unique vocal style playing the bars and cafes of New Yorks Greenwich Village like the Bitter End, the Gaslight, Cafe Wah, Café De LArtists places where Jack Kerouac and his beat poets read and also the likes of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Ramblin Jack Elliot and Dylan all played.

"I think he can go on to follow in the footsteps of greats like Dylan, Guthrie and where few others rarely go." [NME]

On his travels, Pete got to play with some of the best players that were part of Dylan/ Phil Ochs scene like Justin Devereaux and Eric Fransen who was later invited by Dylan to join his Rolling Thunder Revue. Pete says: "They thought it was real strange that a kid of my age from England could play this kind of music in a more authentic way than any of the Americans they normally see in the Village."

Before Pete we've Paul Simmonds, songwriter and guitarist with The Men They Couldn't Hang, stepping out on his own to perform classic selections from a 23 year repertoire plus a batch of brand new songs destined for the forthcoming TMTCH album and his debut country style album scheduled for later this year. Backing vocals come courtesy of Orbital vocalist Naomi Bedford.

First on is Cracktown, a two headed mythological Anti-Folk-Blues Beast that currently ply there trade in the bar rooms, brothels and boozers of old Kingston upon Hull. Worshipped in the Northern provinces and envied in the South, they have shared stages and broken bread with the likes of The Paddingtons, Kimya Dawson, MJ Hibbert, Ed Tudor Pole, Wreckless Eric, Attila the Stockbroker, Carter USM, Pog, Wob and Curtis Eller.

With their wicked mixture of sardonic songs and scandalous social commentary they have justifiably earned themselves the reputation of being one of the best live acts currently roaming the British Isles. Fronted by the Victorian dandy harmonica supremo The Silver Fox and ably backed by the luscious licks of the regal King Rat, a man who is for guitar sex gods what Barry Bethal was for Slim Fast. CrackTown are the new musical Sheriffs in town and they have the badges to prove it so lock up your daughters, prick up your ears and prepare yourself for a brutal neck snapping feast of gallows entertainment.

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