Songdog at the Roundhouse

Songdog at the Roundhouse

21 July, 2008
by: Sween

Walking into the sparsely populated FREEDM studios in Camden's Roundhouse tonight is like walking into a daytime sound check. Hey, I could've sworn I saw the moon outside…

I came on the promise of a guerilla bookshop, and an affiliation with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I came on the suggestion that, well, what else would I do on a Thursday night? I came with enthusiasm for roots, blues and folk music, but mixed feelings about what these guys might do to these genre tags - spurning SongDog's MySpace for fear of impressionism - I had ventured in to this large, claustrophobically empty space unprepared. Would they turn cracked woods and rusted metal into sugar-sweet trash? Or would the double bass be smashed by tinpot rhythms and grit howls from the Delta?

The first thing that strikes is how intimate this feels, without being in an intimate setting. It's damned uncomfortable - a bit like one of your mates playing a gig at his birthday, where the applause feels unwarranted and everyone says "That new song's well good, seriously". As for the Nick Cave comparisons…*sigh* So you've read books. Bar Katie Price and blind kids, that sets you apart from no-one. And apparently, it is entirely unrelated to impassioned delivery, wild songwriting; musical spirit; or (surprisingly) sharp oral repartee (actually that last one is related; but Songdog were dull in that respect too). Quite frankly, the band seems to be under a spell; enchanted into thinking they are much more illustrious and potent than they are. I was, resolutely, not.

In fact, twenty minutes of this horrid performance was enough for my usually benign patience to be exhausted by a bad Elvis Costello impression (sans real desperation), a self-aggrandising attitude, performance ineptitude, lazy, floundering, friend-and-family-attended, inward-looking, hyper sensationally over-wrought and creatively pusillanimous set of songs.

Your buzzwords for this one are unimpressive, faux-roots, and yawn. Sorry to sound like a hip-young-upstart. But this made me feel like Hoxton is where it’s at, which makes me very sad indeed.

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Click here to see all things to do in Camden.

Sween