Monday 27th March 06 - Raw-UK Launch at The Welly (2/4) By Joe Hakim Photos by Darren Rogers

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4).

Photograph Gallery   Gallery 1,   Gallery 2,   Gallery 3,   Gallery 4,   Gallery 5.

In return you get full colour photos, and thanks to the magic of the internet, a review that will be online until the end of time. Or until America decides to blow us all up, whichever comes first. Much better than half a paragraph in the Hull Daily Fail, I think you'll agree. Personally, all I need is a couple of bottles of wine and ten cigs and I'll come around to your house and write a four-thousand word critique of the décor in your front room. I'm a literary slag, what can I say?

Paparazzi Whore are the first of the bands to take to the stage. They look the part - dyed hair and eye-liner, ripped clothes and attractive female band members - and their music is a blend of early eighties synth-pop and punk posturing, but it's just not my cup of tea I'm afraid. I'm not going to slag them off, because it's obvious they're good at what they do, but it doesn't butter this boy's muffin. Thanks to shit like The Bravery, I've developed a real aversion to this stuff. All it takes now is the sound of an Adam and the Ants drumbeat underpinned by a Banshees style bassline to set me off screaming like I've caught my cock in my zip.

Next up is Jon Gomm, who takes to the stage all on his lonesome, wearing nothing but his acoustic guitar. And clothes. And a beard...Anyway, he gets up, and I turn into another one of my alter-egos - the Amazing Mr Cynical. Just another acoustic singer-songwriter, I'm thinking and then he starts playing...and he totally blows me away. It's the way he plays his guitar for a start. He batters and slaps it like it was a percussive instrument, and when he finally touches the strings, it's in this weird two-handed fret tapping style - and we're not talking Van Halen widdly-widdly fret wank either. It's more like...fuck knows, I can't really describe it; I've never seen shit like this before.

If that wasn't enough, he tops off his songs with a melted chocolate voice that oozes down the sides of the tunes and into the heads of the people in the front row. I really can't emphasise just how unique this guy's sound is. Head over to his website, www.jongomm.com, and get hold of some of his tunes by all means, but if you want the full experience, you've really got to check this guy out live. If I really had to put some sort of label on him, I'd go for the bastard offspring of Bobby McFerrin and Ravi Shankar but even then it doesn't quite cover exactly what this guy is about. Just check him out as soon as you can.

Continued .... Next Page (3/4)

Photographs courtesy and Copyright ©  Darren Rogers 2006

Photograph Gallery   Gallery 1,   Gallery 2,   Gallery 3,   Gallery 4,   Gallery 5.

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