Devil’s Kiosk: One of the best acts to which you could legitimately apply the label “Blues Band” – Firstly, this is a very tight band of independently superb musicians – including the harp which is played with gusto and sensitivity by vocalist Jamie Symons … how many times do we hear the mouth iron just wailing like it’s being played by your grandma without her teeth in? … Symons knows how to play his instrument like a lover – he must be one of the finest players in Australia. On guitar is the talented Chris Harvey whose blue Stratocaster (with a rather faded headstock) sings, wails, screams and cries through the song list with an ease that hides the skill of the artist, dressed in sartorially elegant business suit and Converse bumpers. A master of blues boogies and the 12 bar format, Harvey builds easily on the structures to colour the music into stomping, dancing rhythms. Although these guys are busy several nights a week, the music remains fresh and the band still looks like they enjoy every show for what it is. This sound and beat to use a much maligned word is unmistakably “blues” in nature and derivation – just like the band’s name, although the liquid repertoire was more obviously suggestive of the music of latter day bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and Howling Wolf thanremains fresh and the band still looks like they enjoy every show for what it is. This sound and beat to use a much maligned word is unmistakably “blues” in nature and derivation – just like the band’s name, although the liquid repertoire was more obviously suggestive of the music of latter day bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and Howling Wolf than delta swampers and slavies or Jefferson, Crudup, Broonzy, Billie Holliday or Johnson. I am not one of the blues mafia – I don’t consider Devil’s Kiosk to be betraying the original blues men or the traditions of Strange Fruit … on the contrary, I like the modern blues band to have added their own flavours to the foundations – and use modern sound equipment and technology with their own skills and guts to deliver their own brand, an entertaining, creative and exciting result. The Kiosk score right up there on all counts. John Snelson GET SHOT MAGAZINE
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 14:00:47 +0000
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