The Hairy Holler you say - well how to unravel these revellers? Well thems a loose affiliation of strings and growls, of beats and rolls, thems a family federation, an official branch of the Order of Outlawed Raw Ravens.
Thems midnight rooftop howlers, strolling electric blues thieves, Sharpe as Edward and twice as Magnetic, the blossom of bad seeds buried in a nick cave, thems a gogol of bordello bards in board shorts, a Lemony Sniketty Bucket orchestra, they are the boho felines of Disney’s Aristocats if Dickens had a co-write.
Thems a stream of canny pickpocketing punks in a rickety rockety caravan hijacking the middle of the mean main street for their steampunk shenanigans, their poetic ponderings, their brass musings, their sonic sonnetting. Need I go on.
See them hear them, when their fly foppery parade wines skinfully to King where they perform in all their hairy hollering personas at the Shwa’s Music Hall Aug 26 the night when the Conor turns Mayweather to fall weather in this scribbler's opinion.
As the gentlemen of the puglistic arts take to the ring the Mad hatted Hollers will beat out among others Dustbowl Woody’s class act, yes “Fascists” the saints that they are - its a celebration of sanity, a righteous party on the graves of those bound to be losers. The cover is a track from the Double H’s new record “For Madmen Only” just released and the birth of which shall be announced in song on stage and street.
Beyond the Music Hall vaudevillian antics the inn roving maniacs will then be seen to be marching on over the Kingdom to their perch inside the Motor City’s Moustache where once more they will. . .
They? Who is the they? The they are community, knitted and kin, kitted out in streamers and ribbons, bangles and braces. They are Myke Pulito, Mandy May, Jason Ducey, Seann Battams, Seamus Spring, Jon Sloan, Cab, and guest Bruce Mackinnon - and tunes are spun on washboards, djembe, fiddle, congas, sax, trumpet, clarinet and the tickle worthy ivories.
And that sax oh that sax wanders this album like a Paul Bowles character keening in the darkness of Marrakesh alleys. From the get-go of the titular track with its Middle Eastern airs wrapped like silk around a snarl, it continues through “Overwell” heavy with the swell of kush and what would you make of other tracks with forest wandering titles and swampy hooks - “Dragons”, “Voodoo”, “God Lived As A Devil Dog”, yes make that of them.
These Hollers are tipsy tavern poets in suede chaps and long coats, robbing, hoodwinking. They are merry pranksters but it only works when the sounds are pied piper sublime and they are - follow them at your peril.
edited Fri Aug 25.