New Roots, New Rhymes: Twins, The Mother Folkers and Pistola Kicks (as Los Pepe Sessions).
The good people at New Roots organised a night at St. Mark’s Church for Assist, a charity based in Sheffield helping asylum seekers.
Besides selling some feel-good food, they managed to get Twins, The Mother Folkers and Pistola Kicks (in acoustic mode) to play acoustic sets in St. Mark’s Church.
Although I missed Twins (still gutted about this), managed to catch the last half of The Mother Folkers’ set (Stella! yay!) and then it was time to see Pistola Kicks in an acoustic environment.
It’s always a good challenge for a band that mostly deals with loud palettes to change their whole armament and go for a different setting. The reworked songs worked pretty well, with the Spanish guitar flavour of ‘Boquerones’ getting an extra kick.
Two strange things happened during their set. One was an outfield cover of a certain song by The Human League (you know the one) which sounded strange out of its synthey environment. The second was that it’s probably the second time I see somebody smashed up in vodka inside hallowed ground*.
‘Friday nights’ works quite well in an acoustic form, possibly much more than the original version, but as I mentioned, I like it when a band pushes themselves out of a comfort zone. ‘Head in the sand’, on the other hand, sounds pretty good in acoustic or electric forms.
After the musicians finished their respective sets, there was a lot of funky music to dance to. It was a strange atmosphere. Not a bad one, though, but it’s a different sight to see vegan food treats and an almost non-existance of alcohol, but then again, it’s hallowed ground and it was the day that the Rapture was supposed to happen. Imagine if it had happened, it would’ve been like getting caught by your parents nicking their hidden cigarettes and their 12 year old single malt peaty-aftertaste Glenmorangie**.
So, good acoustic music, no rapture and a lot of christians, vegans and vegetarians dancing to the funky music from the 70s. Wait, something did happen then. A catholic surrounded by christians and surviving to write (badly, I might add) about it? Uh oh.
But seriously, it was a good night and if you want to find out more about Assist, please check their website. It’s a noble cause.
Words: —Sam
Links
The Mother Folkers Myspace. Soundcloud. Facebook.
Pistola Kicks Myspace. Facebook. Twitter. Last.fm. Spotify. Soundcloud.
*It was grammar school. Deal with it.
**Glenmorangie is not peaty. I’m lying. Lagavulin or Ardbeg do. Try ’em.
Sloucher.org 