ALBUM REVIEWS

T. Duggins
UNDONE
THICK RECORDS 6.2.06
@www.vanguard-online.co.uk


T. Duggins fronts the admirably named The Tossers, who would appear to be Chicago’s answer to The Pogues but punked up. According to the press release he starts each Tossers show with a solo spot – acapella or accompanied on his mandolin. Doesn’t sound very punk but it is. The rawness of some stripped down folk can come pretty close to the 3 chords and a bad attitude of classic punk rock. And there is an honourable history of rebellion and protest in folk that can get hidden behind the turgid schmaltz that stumbles to public attention once in a while. Occasionally someone drags it out and reminds us that there is a great history of galvanising or recording protest in song. Chumbawumba celebrated it with their Rebel Songs album, modern day (and all too obscure) singers continue the line – check out Roy Bailey, Si Khan, Leon Rosselson, Robb Johnson.

T (that surely can’t be his full first name) has taken a bundle of traditional songs, a few of his own and some established classics and presented them in a stripped down, raw and emotional package. By emotional, that’s not to say that T’s voice inflects feeling, in fact it rarely does, but that emotion cries through in the way the lyrics are allowed to speak for themselves. Duggins adopts the slightly nasal, blank voice of folk tradition – one designed to cut through the noisy fugged air of a crowded pub.

It’s not a total triumph, Duggins’ originals being the least successful but the angry focus of the covers is very strong. Ewan MacColl gets two songs covered; the vigorously socialist The Ballad Of Accounting and the working song Shoals Of herring. Ewan used to demand the folk was kept local and only songs of the area should be sung by locals so he’d object ot this. But then, he was from Salford but fancied himself a singer of Scots songs so what did he know? Ewan’s voice was not a very pleasant instrument, either, so it’s good to hear him covered (this is the man responsible for a the horror that is Elvis’ cover of First Time Ever I Saw Your Face….). Goodnight Irene getsa a proper seeing to. Dylan’s Boots Of Spanish Leather is done justice and, again, it’s good to hear a slightly, er, better, voice one duty than Bob’s. The rarely heard but great Jimmy Wilson is heard here and Shane MacGowan gets covered too. There is a lengthy, almost interminable sing through of Duggins’ Children’s Potential. Ten points for effort but the song deserves to be a poem or diatribe in a zine not something to be preserved in song.

Nice to get a record that stands out from the crowd.

Ross McGibbon

www.thickrecords.com