Review: Strange Behaviours presents... Adam Stafford / PAWS acoustic / Death Bed
Strange Behaviours at the Tolbooth is a monthly platform for bands, acts and songwriters around Scotland situated loosely on the ‘indie’ side of things – both in style and in DIY spirit.
For the purpose of full disclosure, I book the shows, so strap yourselves in for a review so stacked with superlatives that you’ll roll your eyes so hard you’ll lose your irises forever.
August’s SB night was a personal treat – 3 of the finest songwriters going, renowned in very different fields but somehow connected in ethos.
Death Bed is the gradually cemented moniker of local stalwart musician Innes Nolan. With a distinctive spidery guitar style and cavernous thirst for discord and jangle, his sound is his own. His voice is an easily distinguished blend of howl and murk, his song structures are obliquely compelling, and he seems to grasp great handfuls of 80s post-punk influences tonally – less touched touchstones including Television, Gang of Four, Polvo. Full band, Death Bed is a whole other thrillingly opened wide, full-grinning affair; solo like tonight it becomes muted, gnarled and soulful, with a whole new understanding of the ornate guitar and complex lyrics.
Chosen as a special guest by his ol’ pal (tonight’s headliner), Phillip Taylor of garage/grunge/punk outfit PAWS is about as fine a main support as you’re likely to land. He’s played Strange Behaviours shows a few times, and there was an occasion in 2015 I think, where I’d managed to coax him through to Stirling a few weeks prior to playing to appear on the local Uni radio show. Playing a few favourites acoustic and chattering away, he finished on a version of a new song entitled ‘No Grace’, to appear later on the 2016 album of the same name, and it felt like a real landmark moment. One of those moments people like to hark on about where they got to see something new and special just as it became apparent that it was new and special. Tonight’s set felt similar for me, playing almost all new songs from the forthcoming new PAWS album, barebones acoustic and vocal. Stylistically, the songs seemed so much more singer-songwriter-y than previous work, and not just because of the acoustic delivery, checked shirt and tidy hair. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong when they appear in full electric form next year, but songs like ‘Joanna’, ‘Like Some Injured Dawn’ and ‘The Watering Hole’ had that classic mournful heart sorta thing, at their core an exposed-wires and dried-cheeks sort of songwriter’s tale. It was cool to hear.
Adam is what people would call the ‘consummate’ performer. I’ve never looked up the word ‘consummate’ because I hate how it sounds and feels, so I’m not 100% on it, but I’d say he’s definitely the whole deal – what he accomplishes live with minimal fuss (and maximum sweat) is astonishing. Sometimes he’s an orchestra. Sometimes he’s a soul singer. Sometimes he’s a minimalist composter and sometimes he’s scoring silent films in his mind. Actually one time I saw him score a silent film in real life, and you can bet your stupid face it was an excellent experience.
Tonight’s set was largely comprised of material from new album ‘Fire Behind The Curtain’. You can look up stuff all about what the record is based on and things, but whenever I hear those songs they have this whole different feeling and atmosphere around them. It’s kinda eerie, sorrowful and malevolent, violent but not in that appealing/exciting way, in the sorta way that causes the human inside you to look the other way, sorta wince. What he’s done with the whole thing is what he so often seems to do – present a body of work that reminds you of why making music can be supernatural, other-worldly, almost alchemic in what it can achieve. So much more than the sum of its parts and in fact containing parts you don’t know where on earth to find.
He didn’t disappoint either, making sure he treated us to some of his trademark boogying on the floor, spinning a “golden oldie” (‘Cold Seas’) and kicking fuck out of his pedals a bit. It was great.
OUR BRAND NEW ALBUM 'NO GRACE' IS OUT NOW WORLDWIDE! PRODUCED BY MARK HOPPUS (BLINK 182) LP: https://www.fat-cat.co.uk/release/no-grace iTUNES: http://apple.co/24OwI64 BANDCAMP: https://wehavepaws.bandcamp.com/album/no-grace TOUR TICKETS: http://wehavepaws.com/tour
