James Orr Complex played humble fine picked folky acoustic guitar numbers with lazy drawled vocals. He's recently been picked up by Mogwai for Rock Action. A couple of songs reminded me of Nick Drake, but I liked them better than Drake who's always seemed too drippy. Ray from Vinyl Exchange said he thought the vocals seemed almost an afterthought, but added that he liked that a lot.
Then Chris Brokaw plugged his guitar into the same amp and sat down to play a set taking in everything from Pullman to Come to his entrancing 'Red Cities' album. This guy from Cambridge, Massachussets is responsible for making some of the greatest rock albums ever recorded. Now that Come is over, he's very busy with so many musical activities its hard for some to remember them all. However, despite what you may read in gig listings in Manchester newspapers, he has never played with Richard Thompson, Tom Verlaine or John Fahey. And he certainly never will play with John Fahey unless genetic engineers perfect resurrection techniques soon. Chris pulled an unexpected opener out of the hat with Pullman's "Sagamore Bridge." Whilst he plays guitar he keeps also taps out unpredictable inventive foot percussion. For much of the gig his eyes seemed closed in rapt concentration. Initially some silly drunks were talking really loud at a table right next to the stage and distracting everyone, and finally they got annoying enough that they were asked to leave. "Where have they gone?" joked Chris, "I can't play without them talking in the background!" This was cool because it meant I could go sit at their table right opposite Chris's ultrafine looking vintage amp where the sound was much clearer. It turned out that the amp had actually been borrowed. Chris was travelling light by train with only guitar, quality music CDs to sell and bare essentials. Amongst the CDs were a couple of CD-Rs from the Empty House Co-Operative, which you probably won't find for sale anywhere but gigs. I expected to hear mostly tracks from his excellent instrumental album 'Red Cities' but he played as many vocal songs if not more. These included a new song called "Cranberries" which was a highlight of the set, a great Townes Van Zandt cover "Nothin'" and three old Come songs. He'd never played "Sad Eyes" live since Come, and dedicated it to me which was a nice thing to do. That one jerked a few tears, as did the encore "Shoot Me First." Before he played that Chris asked if anyone had any questions, and Nick the promoter quietly muttered to me, "What's your favourite colour?" which made me laugh a lot. "Shoot Me First" in which Chris sings of pulling the hair of a lover he's pining for from a comb, revealed that the answer to that question was probably BLACK. "Well, I knew that," said Nick.
