D.D Dumbo Live At St Pancras Old Church - November 9th 2014

Churches make for odd gig venues. They're always atmospheric and interesting, not to mention acoustically superior to most buildings but they create a sense of reverence amongst an audience that, when paired with the wrong artist can detract a little from the show. Luckily for me and the other 60 or so people at D.D. Dumbo's show at the haunting, cracked and wonderful St Pancras Old Church in King's Cross, that wasn't the case here.
 
Having first heard of D.D Dumbo via NPR's brilliant field recording's series, I was intrigued to hear more of his rhythmic, guitar driven music and to see for myself just how his approach to live performance works.

Judging by his sparse between-song-chatter D.D Dumbo (Oliver Perry off stage) is a fairly unassuming guy. Soft spoken, polite and funny. The songs themselves though are complex, clever, and driven by almost irresistible grooves and rhythms. A lone figure on stage, Perry creates these layered and vibrant tunes from scratch using 2 drums, a modified Danelectro 12 string guitar, a loop pedal and a microphone.

Johnny And Dee Dee - The Eastern Dark

Australian music often gets a bad rap. In most people's minds, mine included, music in Australia started with Men At Work, ended with Silverchair and was filled out by a few soap stars turning to mainstream pop. Over the last couple of years though, I've seen more and more evidence of a great indie rock scene that was prevalent in australia during the late 80's and early 90's that seems to correspond with the scene in the states. Indie rock in America (and the UK) is covered in such detail that a lot of smaller, more distant scenes get lost somewhat in the process. For example, Evan Dando and the Lemonheads are lauded by the press and the fans and quite rightly too. But much less attention is paid to Smudge, the Aussie band who were a big influence on Dando during the 90's and whose front man, Tom Morgan, was Evan's Writing partner for a while. Have a listen to their song Divan and see how similar it is to the Lemonheads' 90's albums.