TOM HICKOX + Tom McKean & The Emperors + Buzzard Lope + James Apollo

Thu 3rd Jun 2010

Pull Up The Roots presents
TOM HICKOX
+ Tom McKean & The Emperors
+ Buzzard Lope
+ James Apollo


7.30 doors
7.45 James Apollo solo (25)
8:15 Buzzard Lope (30)
9:00 Tom McKean & The Emperors (30)
9:45 Tom Hickox
 
£5 at WeGotTickets, SeeTickets and TicketWeb
£6 door 

Tom Hickox is a chronicler of our times, and of the conflicts and choices that characterise them. Blending the macabre narrative and vocal performance of such songwriting heavyweights as Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Scott Walker, with melodies that permeate and resonate, Hickox's music is unique on the British music scene. At once complicated and simple, quirky and passionate; these songs reveal a great voice and song.
 
As a child he rejected music completely, associating it with the erratic and dislocated lives of his parents: an outstanding timpanist & world class conductor. But at 17, during a long and difficult recuperation from serious illness, he discovered and then immersed himself in songwriting. Utterly inspired by this new love, he began to spend all his free time glued to a piano, frantically scribbling down lyrical ideas as songs began to emerge. This nascent obsession was heavily influenced by his other, already established passion: literature, and as much as his work is evocative of such songwriting giants as Cave, Cohen and Walker, it is the influence of literary greats such as Pinter, Eliot and Joyce that perhaps sets him apart.
 
"The son of Richard Hickox, the late opera conductor, this Londoner arrives on the music scene almost as if from another planet, and certainly from a different age. Lush arrangements, a sense of gothic melodrama and quasi-classical structure and modulation characterise Hickox's songs, which he delivers in a plummy drawl whose lugubriousness recalls other exponents of archness, wistfulness and melancholy such as Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman and Neil Hannon... at once droll and searingly poignant." - Sunday Times 
 
"My pick of the day. Stands out as starkly, boldly individual. Young, blonde, handsome and cut glass English posh, he sits in a dapper suit at an electric piano, and performs complex, lyrically involving songs of dark subject matter (from a serial killer's love song to the hopeful ballad of a doomed immigrant sex slave) in a rich, quavering, almost operatic baritone. It is just mesmerising. Hickox counts on the rich depth of his material and the quiet intensity of his presentation to draw listeners in. An original.' - Daily Telegraph  
 
Back from Texas where they recorded their debut album with Grammy-nominated producer John Congleton (Bill Callaghan, Modest Mouse, Explosions in the Sky, Antony and the Johnsons), Radcliffe and Maconie favourites Tom McKean and the Emperors are looking like a breakthrough band for 2010.  Quality songwriting, gruff vocals and glorious arrangements aside, the band's fantastic live shows are notable for a sense of showmanship that frames their atmospheric and often darkly humorous songs perfectly.  Like Nick Cave jamming with Tom Waits playing in a Jazz Bar during a Tarantino movie.
 
"... there are several reasons why Tom McKean & The Emperors rule. There's the charismatic leadership of Glaswegian McKean; his brooding vocals initially recall Nick Cave or Lou Reed but he boasts his own confessional delivery. They amass material taking in garage blues and jazz... Live, they're capable of making audiences weak at the knees..." - Metro (One to Watch)
 
"Tom McKean is in possession of a deep, rich voice and dark, moody songs. Fantastic" - Time Out
 
Single This is the Year is "…a rather beautiful record" Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2
 
"Really, really gorgeous" – Stuart Maconie, BBC Radio 2
 
"The mixture of McKean's growl and the excellent lyrics evoke a sound reminiscent of Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits... quality songwriting" - Record of the Day 
 
The band formerly known as Show Without Punch reappear, fully intact, with some added momentum, as Buzzard Lope. Two parts British and one part Brazilian, Buzzard Lope remain in essence a piano-led trio, ploughing a rich furrow of Tom Waits and Regina Spektor's writing, Elliott Smith's melancholy, and Springsteen's hummability and ranging from bitter tongue-in-cheek perfect pop-ballads through to funk, skiffle and even a little drum'n'bass. Roger Illingworth provides gruff vocals over percussive piano lines, backed by Adam Jarvis on upright and electric bass, and Raph Saib on drums.

"James Apollo's songs are Americana in the truest sense: drenched in Civil War ghosts, 'Steinbeckian landscapes' and the kind of loneliness known only to someone who grew up in Libertyville, Arkansas." - Sunday Times

James Apollo opens and "his songs hint at a (young) life well-lived and the experience of the troubadour is hewn deep in the fabric of his lyrics and music, symbiotically and seamlessly woven. A multitude of genres are there... his is a classic western sound with tinges of jazz, latin, rockabilly and gospel - all topped off nicely with a solid vocal (think Calexico's Joey Burns crossed with a parched-Tom Waits) and moody pop sensibility. Obvious single 'I Got It Easy' resonates in the eardrums for days after the gig, catchy and classy to boot." - Whisperin & Hollerin
 
Follow this Tom Hickox show at The Luminaire on Songkick

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