After saying last week that the Garden Festival album launch was the best night at the Glad Cafe ever, period, the 6th birthday party ran it pretty close. There were balloons, and is it really six years since it opened, goodness me time does fly… This Glasgow Southside venue/cafe/restaurant is a gem, with good food and drink plus a great gig space with a decent PA, they tick all the boxes for a superb wee venue.
The venue was fairly packed when first act Howie Reeve started. BM has had no previous with this guy but his playing and lyrical subjects made this a pretty unique thing. There were shades of Robert Wyatt in the singing and of god knows what else (maybe a bit of RM Hubbert) – typical of his songs was ‘Fork in the Road’ which juxtaposed trips to Superdrug with comments about his audiences. “Half the people in this cafe are mad” (how did he know?) “All the people in this room are quite good” – his use of the guitar is stunning, sometimes an instrument of anger, sometime of subtlety – his facial expressions and mid-set banter also mark his out as an singular artist with a lot to say – shades also of Ivor Cutler’s parallel universe. The audience loved it and he seemed a bit surprised, but there was a palpable buzz in the room and also much love and appreciation, so Mr Reeve, BM salutes you….
Next up were Painted X-ray, formerly Ilk, and they played an absolute stormer. BM reviewed their set at George Square a couple of weeks ago but this was far more intense, focused and wild. With twin taiko drummers (Georgie and Alison) and the guitar and bass (Jer and Ali) whipping up a miasma of brooding sound, the dynamics went from quiet to very loud and back again, like Mogwai vs the Burundi Drummers of Africa or maybe FSOL, and BM does not do Mogwai references too much… The fiddle (Rafe) was also a key sound in the bridge of the quiet and loud, masterful. After a very subtle vocal introduction, the drums were brandished and the audience were enthusiastic in their reaction, from downright getting down to rapturous applause. These guys have it – and the crunching guitar and bass riffs towards the end were quite astonishing – no tracks out on social channels that BM can see, but it is only a matter of time – everyone was talking about this….
Last up, and no thanks to visa issues (even earlier this week it looked a bit unlikely he would get a UK visa), all the way from the north borderlands of Ghana, we got King Ayisoba. He played a traditional Ghanian stringed guitar-like instrument and his other band member played a percussive instrument, basically a ball filled with dry rice or some other material, which could provide beats, rolls and other effects. The effect was quite mesmeric, the repetitive riffs (you can see for example how this kind of music influenced modern rock, from Talking Heads’ ‘Remain in Light’ to countless Brit bands of the last 10 or so years) was an earthy groove which caused outbreaks of freaky dancing in the audience. Charismatic and both stripped to the waist (you know it must be hot if even the Ghanians go taps aff…) the two of them went through a storming set of material drawn from several albums.
BM would struggle to name individual tracks but would just say that this guy knows how to work an audience and it was a real treat. The high-pitched singing provoked some call and response moments with the audience. Primal but also very sophisticated, King Ayisoba rocked the house and provoked thunderous applause between numbers and at the end.