ALBUM REVIEWS
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ALBUM REVIEWS |
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The Jolly Boys
GREAT EXPECTATION WALL OF SOUND 13.9.10 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk
Just in case you are unfamiliar with Jamaican music trends of the 1930s and 40s, Mento is a folk music that sounds like an ancestor of ska. And that’s what The Jolly Boys do. Relative new-comers, they formed in 1955 and have managed to lurk in relative obscurity since then, with that obscurity likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Fancying themselves as the Jamaican Buena Vista Social Club (or more likely a producer setting himself up for a quick buck – shame on you, Jon Baker and Mark Jones), The Jolly Boys croak and groan their way painfully through a dozen covers, struggling with the words and their breath. It reminds me of albums like “Reggae Salutes The Grateful Dead”, where session musicians are corralled into a studio for a couple of days with a vamping chart and turn out a few bucks for themselves and the producer. There are times when the album becomes hilarious but on third listen it gets wearing. The only reason to put it on the fourth time is to amuse / horrify your friends. Covering Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Amy Winehouse, Blondie, Steely Dan, The Doors, the Stranglers, The Clash, Johnny cash, New Order and The Rolling Stones, The Jolly Boys manage to corrupt your memory of nearly every song. Rehab is hilarious, Nightclubbing sounds like a man trying to climb out of a gutter at 5am after a small slip on his way home. It teeters close to Vic Reeves singing it “in a club style” on Shooting Stars. Hanging On The Telephone skanks along pleasantly but suggests a patient gent sitting by the receiver, rather than a furious harpy ripping the box off the wall. The previously menacing Riders On The Storm becomes a peculiar and wandering groan down a winding road. Golden Brown manages to sound like it is about our last Prime Minister, the grey man of Fife. I Fought The Law is actually quite passable, clunking along on thump and banjo, displaying an actual swing, missing from the rest of the covers. Ring Of Fire might be about haemorrhoids and by the time it reaches the second chorus my heart goes out to the singer and his painful ring. Blue Monday is the stand-out of the album. Hardly anyone has had the chutzpah to cover this track that lives by its amazing production and construction. The Jolly Boys ignore all that, riding roughshod over concepts like melody, enunciation and rhythmic propulsion. Get on Youtube or Myspace or something and hear this track now. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry but you will never erase the memory, no matter how you try. I’m at a loss as to who this album might appeal to. The aforementioned Cuban ancients had swing and musical chops to celebrate, whereas The Jolly Boys sound like a bar band covering pop hits of the eighties and nineties. If you wandered past them playing in a bar you might go in for a laugh or you might find it too painful. Either way, you wouldn’t buy their album. www.jollyboysmusic.com |
