Chris Russell's Chicken Walk
Sunday 4 August 2013
Northcote Social Club, Northcote
chrisrussellschickenwalk.bandcamp.com
Chris Russell launched his new album ‘Shakedown’ (listen below) over 2 shows at the Northcote Social Club, and it was the Sunday afternoon one that I managed to get along to. The lineup is simple (guitar, vocals and drums) but the sound is full and surprisingly big for a two piece. For this show Chris was joined by new drummer ‘Diamond Dave’. I was surprised to hear Chris say he’d only been playing with Dave for a month because they were very tight, and seemed to be working together intuitively.
They started the show with album opener Somebody Call the Po’Po’. My favourite on the album, this track is full of urgency and thumping drums. The breaks of silence during the song brought out Chris’ mischievousness as he toyed with the crowd in terms of when to bring the guitar back in, and this helped set the tone for the gig. You could see he was having fun right from the start.
Next up was Pretty Little Girl, a slower track with a dirty blues groove to it accompanied by lyrics including “pretty little girl y’know she was all class, she’s got a shape just like an hourglass, she make a dead man’s heart beat so fast, she had long dark curls all the way to her ass, hey!”.
Chris has spent plenty of time in the Mississippi Delta soaking up the music and playing with local musicians, and his lyrics are peppered with references to cotton fields, black eyed peas and New Orleans. His onstage persona is all raised eyebrows and suggestive looks - luckily he has the swagger (and the sideburns) to pull it off. This persona is mixed in with a typical Australian ‘realness’ which gives this very American music a local slant. He calls it Chrississippian Music and says it “sounds a lot like the North Mississippi Hill Country Party Ass Blues” - seems to me a pretty apt description.
The crowd was attentive and either totally absorbed (like the small group of very enthusiastic dancers down the front) or seemingly whole-heartedly enjoying the show but ever so slightly restrained in their response to it. Maybe the atmosphere felt slightly muted because I was aware that with the band playing so well, there was the potential for the crowd to seriously let loose. I think if it had been a night show and more alcohol had been consumed, that may very well have transpired.
During Mississippi River Chris got off the stage and played guitar from the crowd, working his way through the people dancing and clearly enjoying getting amongst it.
Later on they played Bad Motherfucker, which opened quietly with “well, well, I’m gonna hunt you, like a beast hunts his prey”. It slowly built until he was spelling it out “I’m a B-A-D-M-O-T-H-E-R-F-U-C-K-E-R” over restrained guitar before the drums came in and they dropped into a groove over which Chris repeatedly howled “well I’m a bad motherfucker”. When the song wound down again in the middle section, he put down his guitar, and again jumped into the audience, singing over minimalist drums. As he started to prowl and move through the crowd, you could see people stiffen as he sidled up to them and relax as he moved past them, like they were about to be dragged into some kind of saucy audience participation. The crowd having to avoid getting tangled in his mic lead as he made his way toward the back half of the room just added to the fun and the sense of a shared experience.
Towards the end of the set we were treated to Skinny Girl (first single from their debut album) and Chris gave the women in the audience a pep talk of sorts, noting that fashion models are paid because they’re flawless, yet when they’re photographed the pictures are photo-shopped. He concluded “That’s how fucked up shit is. Ladies, that is unattainable,” before encouraging the women in the room to be their ‘own badass selves’. I guess this is the great contradiction of an enlightened Australian who has embraced an American style of music with its roots firmly in the past. Whilst Chris is sharing this sentiment with the crowd, he’s doing it in the middle of a song which has the lyrics “skinny girl, skinny girl, I just want to take you home”, because not only has he absorbed the style of music of the Mississippi blues, he’s embraced the sentiments too. Rather than putting off the women in the audience though, this just serves to deliver an authenticity to the style of music he plays as well as a point of difference to most of the other sounds coming out of Melbourne at the moment. And with all that swagger and roguish charm, there’s no doubt he gets away with it.
Lex Cran
They started the show with album opener Somebody Call the Po’Po’. My favourite on the album, this track is full of urgency and thumping drums. The breaks of silence during the song brought out Chris’ mischievousness as he toyed with the crowd in terms of when to bring the guitar back in, and this helped set the tone for the gig. You could see he was having fun right from the start.
Next up was Pretty Little Girl, a slower track with a dirty blues groove to it accompanied by lyrics including “pretty little girl y’know she was all class, she’s got a shape just like an hourglass, she make a dead man’s heart beat so fast, she had long dark curls all the way to her ass, hey!”.
Chris has spent plenty of time in the Mississippi Delta soaking up the music and playing with local musicians, and his lyrics are peppered with references to cotton fields, black eyed peas and New Orleans. His onstage persona is all raised eyebrows and suggestive looks - luckily he has the swagger (and the sideburns) to pull it off. This persona is mixed in with a typical Australian ‘realness’ which gives this very American music a local slant. He calls it Chrississippian Music and says it “sounds a lot like the North Mississippi Hill Country Party Ass Blues” - seems to me a pretty apt description.
The crowd was attentive and either totally absorbed (like the small group of very enthusiastic dancers down the front) or seemingly whole-heartedly enjoying the show but ever so slightly restrained in their response to it. Maybe the atmosphere felt slightly muted because I was aware that with the band playing so well, there was the potential for the crowd to seriously let loose. I think if it had been a night show and more alcohol had been consumed, that may very well have transpired.
During Mississippi River Chris got off the stage and played guitar from the crowd, working his way through the people dancing and clearly enjoying getting amongst it.
Later on they played Bad Motherfucker, which opened quietly with “well, well, I’m gonna hunt you, like a beast hunts his prey”. It slowly built until he was spelling it out “I’m a B-A-D-M-O-T-H-E-R-F-U-C-K-E-R” over restrained guitar before the drums came in and they dropped into a groove over which Chris repeatedly howled “well I’m a bad motherfucker”. When the song wound down again in the middle section, he put down his guitar, and again jumped into the audience, singing over minimalist drums. As he started to prowl and move through the crowd, you could see people stiffen as he sidled up to them and relax as he moved past them, like they were about to be dragged into some kind of saucy audience participation. The crowd having to avoid getting tangled in his mic lead as he made his way toward the back half of the room just added to the fun and the sense of a shared experience.
Towards the end of the set we were treated to Skinny Girl (first single from their debut album) and Chris gave the women in the audience a pep talk of sorts, noting that fashion models are paid because they’re flawless, yet when they’re photographed the pictures are photo-shopped. He concluded “That’s how fucked up shit is. Ladies, that is unattainable,” before encouraging the women in the room to be their ‘own badass selves’. I guess this is the great contradiction of an enlightened Australian who has embraced an American style of music with its roots firmly in the past. Whilst Chris is sharing this sentiment with the crowd, he’s doing it in the middle of a song which has the lyrics “skinny girl, skinny girl, I just want to take you home”, because not only has he absorbed the style of music of the Mississippi blues, he’s embraced the sentiments too. Rather than putting off the women in the audience though, this just serves to deliver an authenticity to the style of music he plays as well as a point of difference to most of the other sounds coming out of Melbourne at the moment. And with all that swagger and roguish charm, there’s no doubt he gets away with it.
Lex Cran