Salty Pirates
Brixton Windmill, June 8 2006
Now, I’m not a mathematician. I find it best to clear these things
up at the start of a review. So I can’t work out the formula for
an amazing live band who manage to be both melancholy and feel good,
who can explore the sometimes painful, dark(ish) side of life with humour
and humanity whilst having a plain old good time.
But I do know that the answer would be Swedish five piece Salty Pirates.
And working back from there I know some of the factors I’d need
to include: add together boy singers, girl singers, jangly but angular
guitars, rock solid bass lines, blasting trumpets, tambourines, handclaps
and baa baa baas.Then multiply by the power of warm, funny, touching,
ramshackle but perfectly formed off kilter pop songs full of life and
energy that made me smile and dance and think on themes of black minds,
white lies, alien invasions, conflict on buses, walking through forests,
missed opportunities, fucking up, trying and failing to grow a beard
to fit in with the arty set and, last but not least, the double edged
sword of losing your virginity to the sound of Roxette’s own Per
Gessle (a fellow musical alumni of their town in Sweden, although the
sound in that instance was presumably pre-recorded). Throw in some peculiar
charm such as peppering the between song banter with quintessentially
English phrases (“This is a post punk song. Don’t know if
that’s your cup of tea.”) and screaming the lyrics of ‘Summer
of 69’ over the end of set wig-out and you might be somewhere
close to a workable equation for ‘The Salty Principle’,
or you’d at least get marks for showing your workings.
Whilst they didn’t sound like anyone else in particular they made
me want to go home and spread my record collection out on the floor
and listen all the best tunes I’ve ever forgotten about by Pavement
and Belle & Sebastian and The Buzzcocks and The Beach Boys and Otis
Reading and The Flaming Lips and The Pixies and Joy Division and Roxy
Music and Solomon Burke and everyone else. In short they made me excited
about music. Of course ideally I would have liked to have gone home
and listened to The Salty Pirates but their EP had sold out 30 seconds
after their set finished, so it looks like my excitement was shared.
Tim Evans
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