Marmaduke Dando Hutchings/The Murder Barn live at the Village Underground 21/10/11

I must say I’ve heard the name a few times but didn’t know anything about the man and his music. I was pleasantly surprised when this smart, clipped but slightly strange individual took to the stage, walking around like Vivian Stanshall doing Bryan Ferry, stepping lightly around the stage like a cat.

His songs and his persona shower you with references. Within minutes my head was full of names – Stuart Staples/Tindersticks, Divine Comedy, Jacques Brel, Scott Walker, Bryan Ferry, Nick Cave, Baby Bird etc

But by the second song I was thinking only of one man. The man himself. Looking like a Victorian/Edwardian man of means, he has a unique approach to his songs. He doesn’t just sing them – he acts them, like mini vignettes – slices of a life slightly askance, almost imagined. Marmaduke Dando Hutchings is a creation, a force of nature, a sideshow freak, a dandy aesthete, with one pointed shoe in this world and the rest in some nether world of Victorian ephemera, and between the wars music hall. He reminds me of the Glass Eaters books of G.W Dahlquist – both real and ridiculously far-fetched, ludicrous yet compelling.

There is much clever wordplay in the lyrics, yearning for a better time. There is sickness and darkness, humour and desire. There is subtlety and beauty in the delicate tunes, and there is artifice and fantasy and a will to hold up a mask to the world and show you a Punch and Judy show of idealised life. A life that seems somehow more monochrome and dull than that which is pictured. It is darker yet more beautiful, richer, though more evil than this one. An exaggeration and a distortion of life, presented as art – it touches but is not touched. It exists in it’s own time and space and is not affected by the real life that surrounds it – like a museum.

Welcome to the world of Marmaduke Dando Hutchings – a looking glass world of objet d’art, scientific journals and monocles, old manuscripts and half drunk bottles of gin, all carefully placed for greatest effect by a mind who wants you to believe that it’s all real. Or is it?

I had the great fortune once to witness a concert by a band called Persecution Complex – a mixture of art school freaks playing complex glam riffs over almost prog chops. Two young sisters led the band on guitar and voice respectively. Chesca providing alto range vocals – beautiful and glamorous and powerful, and Becca with her 2-tone hair and a scary dedication to inspirational riffage. I manages to acquire a 3 track demo tape which I played over and over, and still to this day it remains in my mp3 player and always gives me a thrill when it comes up on random.

Well let me tell you that the sisters have done some growing up and now front The Murder Barn. Their influences have spread like tentacles to include the organic depths of Nick Cave/P.J. Harvey/Tom Waits.

To listen to the Murder Barn is like taking a journey by sea to an unknown shore in the company of strangers with a leery glint in the eye. You might not feel safe, your drink might have been spiked, and your wallet may be gone in the morning, but you will feel somehow the better for the experience, and your life will be forever enriched.

I have to say that in Chesca Dolecka we have a female singer quite unsurpassed in the current music scene. She is both beautiful and powerful, a mixture of Joan Baez and Grace Slick, a voodoo queen, a Waterhouse heroine, a Rousseau dream. In her demeanour there are elements of the folk dreams of Albion with it’s pagan magic rituals, and Thomas Hardy style village heroines. But there is also gypsy fire and Haitian devils and New Orleans mondo trash.

The music has the voodoo vibe of tex mex, and the European Transylvanian gypsy dances. To see the Murder Barn is to witness a ritual, with all it’s catholic pomp and guilt catharsis, as well as its Sufi dervish and African trance. It is power, dark and terrifying, yet spiritually uplifting.

The band look great (despite every male member sporting beards!) – all red and black and dark burlesque. The musicianship is cohesive and supportive, with heavy riffs and sea shanty rhythms, distorted organ stabs, Duane Eddy style twangs and rolling accordion washes.

If you are a fan of the glorious Technicolor of the Hammer films, along with the sinister paganism of the Wicker Man. If you occasionally dress up as a pirate and enjoy the feeling of being a rebel on the rolling seas, or if you dream of bodice ripping heroines and Daphne Du Maurier Cornish Inns. Or if you prefer your music blood red and appreciate the art of Lorca and Frida, or if you’ve ever loved the Spanish toreador and the surrealism of Picasso/Dali. If you want music that is powerful and moves you like an ocean wave and you like female singers whose prose and vibrato can rip out your heart and caress it’s curves…then listen to the Murder Barn.

Dole Scum

Dole Scum

I first “signed on” after leaving school in June 1979. Obviously one was obliged to wait several weeks before receiving it and I ended up with a cheque for the princely sum of @£70. Being a naïve 16-year-old hippie I went out and bought an acoustic guitar and a Neil Young album (Harvest), with the intention of never looking back, and, apart from some brief spells at college and being in a signed band for a year, that’s the way it’s been since.

I have had to learn how to live on a pittance that has stopped growing in line with the cost of living (thanks to New Labour), and with the prejudice that has been developed by political and media campaigns over the years.

When I first signed on there was very little stigma attached to it. In general people still believed in the welfare state and it’s inherent kindness to those less fortunate. We are after all; all in this together, and there but for the grace of favour go the lot of us. But there was a new attitude amongst the upper echelons which was seeping it’s way through the rich gentrified landowners, and through their elected representatives, the Conservative party, they sought to turn man against man, not to mention woman against woman. By spurious rumour not based on fact the public would be drip fed lies – about scroungers, about unions, about hooligans, travellers, hippies, punks, socialists, the working class. The haves started to become extremely prejudiced against the have-nots, regarding them as dangerous (this feeling is based purely on fear, because, with a slight shift in circumstance, you could become one of them). (For cultural reference points here watch “Cathy Come Home” and “Boys From The Black Stuff”).

In the 80’s we had to put up with the middle class looking down on us like shit on a shoe. Now everyone regards us not just as scum but also as criminals, when really we should be given a fucking medal for the shit that we have to deal with, from snotty nosed jobs-worth’s, to threats from bailiffs representing council tax/housing/landlords etc. Leave us alone – it’s not a crime to be poor.

We are not taking your hard earned pay and pissing up your backs with it. We appreciate your decency, and your kind-heartedness. We might not have your skill and your intelligence, but please don’t penalise us for it. If anyone is taking the piss it is your representatives – your councillors and your MP’s, who have cost the taxpayer billions in illegal claims and second home and travel expenses, and paid holidays and restaurant bills. We are just trying to survive and have a decent standard of living.

I still believe in the welfare state and I welcome the ideals put in place by William Beveridge during the Attlee government of the 50’s. I believe we should help those less fortunate attain a standard of living comparable to modern civilisation’s needs, and that people have a right to a modern health care and shelter and food to live on, and enough to help them to realise their potential, with financial encouragement and training in whatever they desire, and free education for all, not just those with rich parents – and I don’t think it’s too much to ask to use your taxes to pay for these things. What I do object to is the people who squeeze your hard earned cash into their own pockets and then scapegoat the poorest members of society, by trying to make you believe that these people are scum of the earth dole scroungers who don’t have any worth or value, and denying them a voice or access to the things that can help them to rise above the ranks and become “decent” members of society.

Fat is a festering issue

This week I have been thinking mostly about fat. It’s not just a feminist issue. It occurred to me that most people in this world believe there is a direct co-relation between eating and weight – the more you eat, the bigger you get, and so fat is a greed issue. You only have to listen to the snide little comments comedians like Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais infer to get this point. They truly believe this is the case. If it were, wouldn’t life be so simple? The fact is that scientists don’t know what causes one person to have weight issues and another not to. I grew up with an older brother and sister. My brother was thin and we weren’t. Neither my Mother or Father had issues with weight, and of all of us, my brother was probably the greediest. His weight has never fluctuated, no matter what activities he was performing or what he was eating, and I could say the same for myself – no matter how much I ate in a particular time period, or how much exercise I took, despite minimal fluctuation, I remained pretty much the same. The depression brought on by the knowledge that no matter what you do to lose weight it never shifts can cause some people to comfort eat, which can add even more pounds, but the fact is that weight is not a greed issue, and scientists are still baffled. But how much research is being done in this field? After all most people, including scientists, still believe that’s it’s just based on the amount you eat, and therefore probably don’t see the point – just eat less you fat bastards! I believe the likes of Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais have this same problem and resent fatties, because there but for the grace of expensive weight loss treatments go I! Chubbies pick on fatties because it takes the attention away from their own flabby backsides!

Obesity is a growing problem and needs to be tackled and more should be spent on scientific research into its causes, and why it doesn’t affect all of us. Perhaps we could isolate genes or DNA mapping and find a way to combat it. This is a very skinny biased society and there is an awful lot of prejudice against fatties (I should know) so pull out your bony fingers and get to work people. I’ll happily be your guinea pig.

On a slightly separate issue there is also a problem with sizing. The point at which someone is referred to as obese is too low. I believe the average size for a female is 14 to 16 (there’s no male alternative size but shall we say 12-15 stone). Above size 16 isn’t obese, it’s just overweight. Obese should not come into play until well over size 20. Size 12 is underweight, size 10 is skinny and anything under is morbidly skinny – freaks! (Obviously these figures are dependent on height and age, but lets talk averages). Doctors tend to point the finger too much by using the word morbidly – you can be overweight and healthy, just as you can be underweight and unhealthy.

So come on people – stop judging and get with the programme. Stop pointing and laughing at us fatties and turn your attention to the skinny fucks, who also can’t help the way they are!