From the desk of Quintana “Quinto” Haberno (pt 1 – The Agony)
Pre-ramble.
Sometimes people think that we, the editors, have a whale of time bossing around. Sure, it’s fun to yell at our useless twerps (but brilliant writers), but with great powertripping comes great responsibility, i.e. our chances to write are sometimes low (there’s a lot going behind the scenes in Sloucher, it’ll be a blast, promise).
Anyhoo, I went to see Cats for Peru and the Dawn Chorus more than a month ago and while this review isn’t recent, fuck it, I’m co-editor and it’ll be a sunny and dry day in Sheffield before I don’t write for a blog I co-edit.
The gig.
I ran into dear ol’ Sam (the Spam) at this gig (he was reviewing it for his Uni newspaper) at the Harley (love the gin). Fair dos, the more press this gig gets, the better.
Cats for Peru, led by a guy with a genuinely trendy beard, were the opening band. I previously heard them during that fateful night (Oxjam – don’t mention that word to me again EVER) which ended badly for some of the staff of this place (me included).
But enough past shit, this is the new shit and it’s ruddy spectacular. I didn’t acquire a setlist for your reading pleasure but I’ll do the best to describe their set: poppy songs that increase in intensity (with some synth used for extra love), bordering into raucous waves of sound.
And, lo and behold, the lead guy (Adam Follet – damn, I want a beard half a cool as that!) is doing some insane palm mutes on a ukulele. Somebody start a pogo circle pronto, chingao!
A song that seemed to catch my attention was ‘Evolution’*, starting like a Minus the Bear piece, but then going into a detour that descended in the chant of “evolution!” a few times. Charlie Darwin would be proud. And so should these girls and guys for a great set.
Then it was the Dawn Chorus. Fuck me sideways with a Pritt stick, these bastards know their away around the multi-ensemble malarkey and put out a good show, eh?
After a sample that sounded like a carnival show gone wrong (surely in honour of their album The Carnival leaves town?), the concert went for “rock mode” with ‘The guilt’. “There must be something else” is something that got stuck in my head and maybe it will haunt me later.
Still, the jam-happy music of The Dawn Chorus distracted me from my bogus brooding. There are a few songs that make me think of Jeff Tweedy and his cohorts(I think it was ‘Heartbeat in 5/4’) and it’s nice to see the band show off their multi instrumentalist perversions, as ‘The happiest home in these hills’ brought The Harley down with the help of two floor drums and some deft musical prowess.
Not really a fan of the song ‘Carnivalesque’, but it’s a good choice for a lead single. Much more palatable than ‘Schumman’, the one song that had the best back story. It’s based on one of my favourite classical musical composers and I’m obviously biased for it. The song sort of (I emphasise on sort of) has a Waltz rhythm and lets it flow and grow organically. Lovely.
After the splendid gig was done, I bought the albums of both bands and sneaked out (long story short: the Harley’s bouncers hate me), walking home to give my ears a second chance to listen to both bands.
-Sam (under some shit-awful pseudonym, those were the days)
*I later found it’s called ‘I love you more than evolution’. Apologies. There’s some pics after the links, so stay around.
Wanna listen to more from these bands? Stop by and say hi to them, you nesh procrastinators!
Cats for Peru
The Dawn Chorus
Here’s the photos. Like ‘em?
About the author: Quinto has had a potty mouth since his ma smacked ‘im in the head for saying naughty words. There is a lesson of Biblical proportions there.
Sloucher.org 
Cheers for using the pics, kidda.
My bit about Cats for Peru was snipped from the newspaper due to space constraints. Fwiw, I really dug ’em and I think I saw the singer dude at the Big White Tenth last Friday. He seems to be a funny dude!