Reviews
Artist: Jesse Aycock / Dust Poets
Venue: 12 Bar
Town: London
Date: 01 Sep 09
Website: www.myspace.com/jesseaycock /
www.dustpoets.com
Jesse Aycock should look, feel and sound out of place. This is his first solo gig in about a year (he normally has a full band behind him) is a very long way from Tulsa, OK and had travelled in from The Netherlands where he had been recording just for this gig. In fact he looked as comfortable on the 12 Bar stage as any of the London groups who view it as their second home.
Opening track "Sunset" set the tone for half an hour of his own beautifully crafted songs with a Buddy and Julie Miller cover "All My Tears" added for good measure. Aycock has a high, clear voice and on tracks like "Long Distance Love" and "Life's a Ladder" the influence of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris is obvious. This made me want to see Aycock with his band but, unless I get over to Tulsa, the chances of that are regrettably slim.
Canadian 5 piece ensemble Dust Poets were playing after their success at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival. I had not heard a bad word about them so the sparseness of the crowd was something of a shock. Maybe I fall in love too easily; it only took the opening bars of "Walk Away" a song about "the urban sprawl that is happening in Canada" to get me. Murray D Evans' harmonica and acoustic guitar was immediate and forthright; the bass of Gord Mowat and the percussion of Sean McManus were relentless; the accordion of Karla Ferguson and guitar of Corey Ticknor were cutting.
The real beauty of the Dust Poets lays in their ability to change instruments or singers to suit any given song; McManus sang and Ticknor played mandolin on the "Faux Grass" number "Won't Sit Down", on "Change it All" Ferguson sang and McManus played clarinet. If Ticknor was a footballer he would be the ultimate utility player as, as well as guitar and mandolin, he took over percussion when McManus was blowing his clarinet and, on "Hold on For Love" he played pedal steel (although not on stage - there was not enough room). This allowed for a larger, more complex sound to be produced than would seem to be possible with just five band members as their set felt complete rather than just a series of individual tracks.
They finished their set with an Elvis cover; Costello's "Veronica" showing that not only can they write great songs, they can also interpret them. Everything I heard about the Dust Poets at Shrewsbury was right, it's a shame that there were not more people to witness it in the 12 Bar.
The Jacket
Pics:Sebastian J Shaw