 | | Kid Voodoo |
Stained with easy comparisons (yes, yes, The Cramps, ok), tonight’s perfectly complimentary bill gets off in Sambuca-soused style with local unheralded heroes Kid Voodoo. Furnaces of ferocious rhythms and fantastical four centrefold stroking guitar finery funnel songs that are from border-towns of their own sublime and sensuous invention, as narrated by a Chris Isaac slipped into a chrome and chastity corrupting casino of carnality. From 3D Jesus to Weird Scene Addict, by way of Creeping Jane, this baroque-a-billy splendour hits with the force of tumbleweeds like Redwood trees in the eye of a hurricane, hewing a new heaven from hazardous horizons.  | | Dan Sartain (pic: Max) |
With tough, leather-backed rockers I Wanted It So and Gun vs. Knife gargling elixirs The Gories and Jon Spencer would grimace at mingling at an eternal closing time, Mr Sartain has more than enough fire to further his cause beyond chicken-wire clichés. Taking a dip two-thirds of the way through doesn’t stop the crowd lapping up everything from his almost hideously vein-heavy right-arm, which he appears to have borrowed off an older relative along with his guitar. Teasing and tearing eloquent melodies of mordant melodrama together with his bar-room brawler song persona gives a conflict with his inarticulate lost boy-scout look between songs. Also that askance Cash glint in his drifting eyes suggests this trash troubadour Sartain should be sorted for love and travel for a good time yet. Two acts not to miss, one right here on our own doorstep. | 
