Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra. The Party’s Over. Tea Pad Recordings

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After the relatively inward looking Soul Of My City, an album which found these retro rockers adding some social commentary regarding their home town of Newcastle amidst their usual old time carousing, The Party’s Over might be considered as a coming of age album. The opening and closing songs (Go Home (The Party’s Over) and The Doctor Told Me) both deal with the perils of over indulgence and the inevitable reckoning while several other cuts are sung in the wake of break ups. However, anyone fearing a sober and sombre listen need not fear as the band inject the songs with their usual infectious joy.

They open with the hybrid jug band blues of Go Home (The Party’s Over) which romps along with Tom Cronin’s harmonica getting a starring part (reminding one of Jimmie Fadden of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) and they bookend the album in a similar style (with more of a tongue in cheek attitude) on The Doctor Told Me although here the song eventually blows up into a grand New Orleans like bluster. In between, and as on previous albums, they sashay from style to style with some aplomb.

There’s the sax blown exotic sway of She Hypnotised Me which rivals the work of Leiber & Stoller’s songs for the Coasters, the zydeco strut of Snip Snap Snout and, quite wonderfully, a trip to the American south west on the Morricone influenced The Horse That You Rode In, a total hoot of a song with Heron tackling every cliché he can find (lyrically and musically) and doing so quite brilliantly, whip lash and all.  That song is followed by what might be the best one on the album which is the glorious rock’n’roll rumble of Dilly Dally Sally, a song which finds the band on fire with twanged guitar and urgent organ stabs pushing Heron’s frenzied vocals.

While there’s always been a great deal of fun to be had with Rob Heron’s previous albums, it’s very  tempting to say that The Party’s Over is his and The Tea pad Orchestra’s best yet. You can check for yourself as the band are currently on tour, all dates here.

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Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra. Soul Of My City

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final5We’ve always been partial to Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra’s jived-up take on old timey music, a grand blend of western swing, country blues and ragtime. They’ve reminded us at times of Pokey LaFarge (with whom they have toured) and it has to be said they do put on a grand live show. On Soul Of My City they continue to evolve with some elements of rockabilly and early sixties beat pop creeping in, but at heart they are still supreme evangelists for pre sixties music albeit that Heron has at times allied this innocent sounding music with current commentary on state of our nation and his home town of Newcastle.

Such is the case here with the title song ramming in with a stirring martial beat before Heron and the band slouch into a louche late night vamp as he rails against the so called “gentrification” of a bohemian Newcastle quarter, an excuse really for a moneyed land grab. There’s more social commentary on the lighter Lonely Boy In The Dole Queue which finds Heron solo and yodelling away in his best Jimmie Rodgers style. Meanwhile the syncopated swing and twang of There’s A Hole (Where My Pocket Used To Be) is a grand nod to hard luck songs of the past with its excellent and flamboyant delivery similar to that of local neon lit sonic gangsters, The Strange Blue Dreams.

The band roam across various styles in a grand fashion. Life Is A Drag is a cross dressing song given a stirring western swing outing, Une Bouteille De Beaujolais has a not unexpected Gallic touch while Holy Moly (I’m In Love Again) comes across like as if Hank Williams was being accompanied by an extremely dexterous bunch of Acadian musicians. They do vamp wonderfully on Fool Talking Man and One Letter Away From Lonely is a total swoon of a bobbysoxer song. There’s a bit more muscle in the rockin’ rumble of Let’s Go Back In Time, a big boned salute to old time music as Heron lists his favourites while singing, “That 21st century music man, it’s so watered down.” Like A Cuckoo teeters dangerously close to his cut off point as the band give us a finely attuned horn fuelled bop which could have featured on the soundtrack of the original John Waters’ Hairspray. Signing off with what is probably the first postmodern take on old time music’s occasional interest in sex, stymied at the time by obscenity laws and therefore couched in various terms, there’s Double Meaning, Double Entendre. It’s cool, it’s funny, and best of all, it rocks.

Rob Heron & The Teapad Orchestra are touring the UK in February and March including shows in Glasgow and Edinburgh. All dates here.

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Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra. Talk About The Weather.

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Carrying coals to Newcastle is a common expression denoting a somewhat pointless enterprise and one might reasonably ask why should youlisten to a jumpin’ jive old time blues and ragtime crew from “the Toon” given that the “genuine” article is not too hard to find. Not too hard perhaps but for the most part ragtime et al has been polished to a sheen and presented as preserved in aspic typically by the likes of The Pasadena Roof Orchestra. While Robert Crumb has valiantly championed old time music over the years credit must be given to Pokey LaFarge who has reclaimed the vibrancy and occasional loucheness of the genre. Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra follow the LaFarge route with their loose limbed (although tightly played) blasts from the past with their sights set firmly on the most important aspect of this vintage music, namely that it swings. No stiff suited formality here as Heron and the band stroll insouciantly through an album that incorporates western swing, scattting, Hot Club de Paris jive, zoot suit hipsterism and even some rockabilly.

Aside from their threads which portray the band as descendants of Richard Attenborough’s portrayal of Pinkie in Brighton Rock there’s a sense of dedication here as they delve into a monochrome and foggy world of slot machines and end of pier escapades. There’s a significant gear change from their debut with the band as synchronised as a well oiled machine while Heron’s writing has moved on apace. The opening Drinking Coffee Rag zips along with a fine sense of glee and finely honed guitar while the rhythm section and horns vamp wonderfully. Soleil is a bass driven and accordion laced weather report that struts magnificently while Junk On the Radio incorporates a clip clop western intro before Heron laments on the soullessness of modern media and a deranged keyboard approximates the fiddling about with wavelengths. There’s a hint of Slim Gaillard on Mr. Landlord along with some very sweet and fat pedal steel while Small Time Blues harks back to Hank Williams with some fine fiddle playing and Heron’s yodelling. It’s apparent by now that Heron and the band are well tuned into their lodestone but Killed By Love towers above its predecessors as the band vamp excellently and Heron dredges up biblical allusions on what amounts to an aural equivalent to a penny cinema show. Great stuff here. High Speed Train updates Lonnie Donegan with regard to the proposed high speed trainline to the north while I’m Feeling Blue will touch anyone who’s turned to the bottle after a setback. They finish off with the clattering blues of Penny Drop Mambo as if they were zoot suited on Brighton Pier and transported via Canvey Island to Rio De Janeiro while the Spike Jones type romp that is Don’t kick That Oven Door again zips along with some splendid percussive breaks that are just this side of zany.

Overall this is a great slice of old time music that beefs up its influences and points to a great time ahead. They’re slick, syncopated and swing. And in the end that’s what counts.

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Pokey Lafarge and the South City Three. Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra

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Seems like every time we mention Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three here they’ve added another feather to their cap. Pokey recently had a song featured on the American TV series Empire Boardwalk, a rendition of Lovesick Blues (and there’s a great story behind this involving Jiminy Cricket, see here). In addition the band have been supporting jack White to huge audiences in the states including the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Radio City Music Hall. It’s great to see that they are gracing our shores again over the next few weeks and even better to hear their latest release Live In Holland that captures their rip roaring act perfectly.
Recorded at the Paradiso in Amsterdam the 14 cuts will be familiar to anyone who’s seen the band recently. Culled from the band’s two albums and singles and Pokey’s solo releases Marmalade and Beat Move and Shake along with a cracking version of Bob Wills’ Devil ain’t Lazy the live setting allows the band to cut loose and Pokey to holler and play the audience, wisecracking and adlibbing. It all adds up to a rollickingly good listen with the band seemingly enjoying themselves as much as the audience. It’s almost impossible to pick out highlights as throughout the album Ryan Koenig blitzes the crowd with his harmonica wizardry while Adam Hoskins’ guitar zips and slides splendidly. Joey Glynn on bass gets his moments to shine also especially on the raucous In The Graveyard. While Pokey, the ringmaster, ushers in the solos and is in fine booming voice the band deliver great harmonies and vocal asides that add to the vaudevillian element they create. Almost a perfect document of one of the most exciting bands around right now if this doesn’t move you then you should call a doctor

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Newcastle band, Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra are supporting Pokey and his gang on the upcoming UK tour just in time to promote their debut album Money isn’t Everything. While Newcastle isn’t St. Louis musically the tea pads inhabit much the same territory as the south city three, old time blues, ragtime and jazz with some Cajun riffs thrown in. While Heron tends to croon and scat rather than holler the syncopated rhythms and jazzy vamps are all there and executed with finesse, Ben Fitzgerald on guitar in particular plays some scintillating Django type runs. With three songs rerecorded from their EP including the mini epic Great Fire of Byker (about a huge conflagration on Tyneside) there’s a dramatic improvement in the sound and they come across as much more confidant and assured. Heron writes most of the songs although it’s hard to believe that they’ve not been dredged up from some archive of old time Americana. A version of Bob Miller’s Bank Failures from the 1930s nestles comfortably with Heron’s songs particularly the title track, in fact the album could have been called Songs For the New Depression and one wouldn’t have been surprised to find Buddy Can You Spare a Dime here, maybe they’ll do it live. With songs of escapism (the sousaphone led thump of Rich man Blues), booze (Hangover Blues) and exotica (the south American styled Biarro Alto) there’s a definite retro feel here that harks back to the dichotomy of the jazz age when the bright young things partied and the working class worked. A great debut and on the strength of this a great double bill on the forthcoming tour.

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Ernest Troost, Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra.

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Ernest Troost. Live At McCabe’s. Travellin’ Shoes Records.

For a man who’s main job is writing (and winning Emmys for) film and television scores Troost is a surprisingly good acoustic folk and blues performer. I reviewed his 2005 album All the Boats Are Gonna Rise favourably but missed out on the follow up Resurrection Blues. Here he delivers a fine set of songs old and new, solo and accompanied that proves to be an excellent companion to his studio releases. Kicking off with Resurrection Blues and the magnificent Travelin’ Shoes I was afraid that it would be downhill from there but Troost delivers several pieces that can match these. With tales of ne’er do wells and desperadoes balanced by some delicate love songs and dust blown ballads it’s not surprising to see that his songwriting has been compared to the likes of Dave Alvin and Richard Thompson. Switchblade Heart which earned Troost a songwriting award at the Kerrville Festival is the outstanding example but the black humour of Disturbin’’Blues combines his writing with his live appeal. A lively ““Piedmont” blues styled song Disturbin’ Blues features Mark “Pocket” Goldberg on bass, Dave Fraser, harmonica, Debra Dobkin, drums and Nicole Gordon on harmony vocals. They appear elsewhere throughout the album and Gordon in particular is excellent and is given the opportunity to sing lead on two of the songs. In all this is a great live album that captures the artist in fine style and is well recommended for anyone looking for an updated Woody Guthrie or a less cynical Loudon Wainwright.

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Switchblade Heart

Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra. Teepy Eepy. Independent.

We caught the tail end of this band’s set when they supported Pokey LaFarge on his recent Glasgow gig. A nice fit indeed as they draw from the same musical well as Mr. LaFarge with old time country blues and swing featuring large. They looked good and sounded swell from what I saw and heard and copies of this, their five-song debut were being snapped up at the end of the gig. Coming from Newcastle (with one Glaswegian in the line up) they offer a nod to Northumberland tradition by having an accordion player in the line up. Listening to this However one would imagine they were born and raised in some Southern US state despite the references to their hometown in The Great Fire of Byker based on a massive scrapyard fire which happened in Newcastle last year. They set off comfortably enough with Quaich Keeper’s Blues, a fine shuffle about the demon whisky while alcohol features again on the graveyard vamp that is Tonic Wine. Here they exhibit a sly humour with the song starting off sounding like a New Orleans shuffle before Heron extols the delights of what appears to be Buckfast and his character heads off for a night on the town ending up at a reggae party. At this point the band switch from New Orleans to Jamaica with some dub effects thrown in, sounds odd on paper but it’s great to listen to. Whisky features again in Killed by Love while the last song She Don’t Like The Fish has some great Django type guitar runs on a rousing song that has a great sense of dynamics and a wonderful scat filled chorus. Given their Northumbrian origin one wonders if this is not a modern (although swingtime influenced) riposte to that well-known diitty, When the Boat Comes In. Overall this young band has some fine players and a promising songwriter in the shape of Mr. Heron and we look forward to watching their progress.
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She Don’t Like The Fish