2004
The Weary Band Documentary by Will Sansom 2004
2007
The Weary Band - Create a little war
A drunken gig at the Hatchet, Bristol in 2007. This song is usually only 3 minutes long...
2010
Y Niwl/The Weary Band/Sweet Baboo/Houdie and the Sea 12 Dec 2010 Venue review.
The Scout Hut,
Bristol (Sun 12 Dec) • Houdie of Houdie and the Sea has orchestrated
affairs this afternoon, so it’s only fair she’s squeezed herself onto the foot
of the bill. Things get off to a great start with a lulling, oceanic ballad –
anyone who’s heard Laura Veirs will have the right idea – but a few false
starts and mistakes seems to knock their confidence.
Sweet Baboo, on the
other hand, are clearly tour-honed – even if late-night revelry is, by their
own admission, catching up with them. All the same, the delivery is faultless,
and with songs as good as these – offbeat, domestic, dipped in a syrup of
romanticism – they really are a gem of an act.
The Weary Band make
a little go a long way, and the bubbling warmth of their tunes has the crowd
visibly leaning forward in their chairs as if they’re trying to take the edge
off the chill. The cue is taken from Crosby, Stills and Nash’s troubadour folk,
but what makes the Weary Band special is how every melody and phrase fits
together with an elegant logic, as if the songs fell together of their own
volition.
And so it falls to
Y Niwl to close the afternoon, and it’s a lively close. Y Niwl are such a perfect,
accomplished and inventive purveyor of Dick Dale-inspired spring
reverb-drenched totally bodacious surf rock, it doesn’t matter that they’re not
really taking any great risks with the style. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,
and the Y Niwl campervan is running like a dream all the way to the coast. (Ben
Welch; pics Ellen Doherty)
2011
| The Weary Band |
‘Office Doodles’ (LP, self-released) At last! We’ve waited almost a decade – and a couple of tracks date back as far – but one of Bristol’s true gems have finally released an album. A daydream of a concept album, in fact, taking in everything office-related from pitiable colleagues (‘Salesman Keith’, painted with Ray Davies-like waspishness) to would-be romance (“Stationery girl, keep your hand in mine, if we make it through today then we might find another life outside”). They’re sweet as ever on the CSN-inspired harmony, glowingly West Coast autumnal in the arrangements, and – bored temps take note – Tim Calleja’s voice can carry that sleepywarmwaking feeling with you all day. With an underlying theme of beauteous escape from immediate mundanity, it plays like urban pastoralism. Clockwatching time never passed more sweetly. (Julian Owen)
Copyright Julian Owen 2011
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