On the up: Jess Gardham
We all need to start getting out more – and no, I don’t mean staggering into Toffs after a pitt-stop at Nags head, only to emerge still lurching to “time of my liiiife”. I mean absconding from the banal predictability of Tuesday/Wednesday night forays and becoming a little more imaginative, more explorative with our free-time ventures.
Easy to say, a little more difficult to do; I half-managed it last Tuesday, when on my way to Toffs, my housemate enforced a detour via The Living Room, to watch Jess Gardham’s live set. Apart from what we’ve seen and heard on Campus, the majority of us are about as knowledgeable about York’s music scene as Ostriches are about defense strategies. So it’s time to start dragging our heads out of the mud and having a little gander.
The vital mix of folk, soul and Tracy Chapman-esque vocals, is fresh but still retains a comforting familiarity. When the current slew of avant-garde music can render listening a arduous and demanding process, sometimes you just need a bit of unfussed acoustic melody to kick back with.
Gardham’s set exemplifies easy-listening in the best sense; it is wonderfully spare, unexpectedly poignant and not devoid of a little tongue-n-cheek – her rendition of The Black Eyed Peas, “Where is the Love” is actually quite moving, unlike the grating moralizing of the original. Although, predominately playing intimate venues like The Black Swan and the Living Room in York, Gardham is no trivial local musical token, she’s already shared the stage with KT Tunstall and last year played at Glastonbury.
So, next time you’re stumped for a nightly activity, try and think out of the Toffs/Ziggys box, exercise a little musical snooping and you may just be pleasantly surprised. I know it’s difficult to envisage, but there are somethings’ which merit a somewhat higher accolade than “soon playing on a Toffs dancefloor near you….”
Gardham’s debut ‘Beyond Belief’ is out February 2007.
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