The Brian Wilson vocals announce the Twigs are about to twig their way onto the stage, and take the Academy 2 on a strange hour and a half of time-travelling, genre-bending, jangly retro Americana. Plus some Merseybeat. It’s 60s… at times it’s 70s… it’s a little discombobulating, which would be a problem were it not all so… well, nice. Even the rather odd between-song banter between the band makes you feel like you’re back home on Long Island, in the childhood bedroom of the D’Addario brothers, where the wall has disappeared and allowed us all access to their childhood bedroom, to their youthful teasing and dreaming.
In the course of music research I have been lucky enough to visit Hitsville, USA – the home of Motown in Detroit. You know where the D’Addario brothers grew up? Hicksville. Yep, Hicksville, USA. And it’s as though American pop culture runs through them, their bedtime reading formed soley of the American Songbook. From their opener ‘My Golden Years’ from the latest album – this year’s A Dream Is All We Know – we’re off on a magic carpet ride through genres and time periods. The touch points are almost too numerous to list – the strained vocals of latter Brian Wilson, the harmonising of Lennon and McCartney. The band themselves jokingly refer to their sound as ‘Mersey Beach’… formed of those two cornerstones of melodic 60’s pop music. But then at other moments, there’s CSN&Y, and 70s’ MOR like Bread and Chicago. My own entry drug to pop music were the Bay City Rollers socks someone bought me in the 70s. And there’s even a bit of that in there.
The Twigs also look the part – all loose hair, denim and tight Ts – like a house band from the movie Dazed and Confused. Imagine the Ramones had stuck to grass rather than anything harder, and lived quietly in upstate New York rather than the ungodly gutters of the Bowery. Heads nod like early-day Beatles; vocals are at times Lennon-esque nasally; bassist Danny Ayala even plays a McCartney style Hofner bass, adding to the 60s’ authenticity. Reza Matin’s hair is as wild as his drumming, but then, rather neatly, the band switch instruments, … one of the D’Addario brothers – let’s call him Dee Dee D’Addario, switching guitar to take up drums, Matin moving to guitar. Their playing is pretty flawless, their harmonies as mellifluous as you might expect from familial voices intertwining. Tracks tumble relentlessly through the first hours – ‘Live in Favor of Tomorrow’ from 2020’s Songs for the General Public; ‘A Dream Is All I Know’, from the album of the same name, the brothers taking turns to sing the songs they themselves penned. It’s all delightful, for sure, but just a little twee… while their music fattens from the live experience it remains steadfastly a twig rather than a trunk.
Academy 2 is busy from stage to bar, even though this gig on their tour is not listed as sold out. It’s a functional space, like an old school hall or, indeed, the university’s Main Debating Hall, that it was originally intended to be. I’ve been coming here since 1989, when I arrived at university and this room was the Academy, before the main venue was built (yes kids, I remember when “all that was fields”). And I recall being told the headliner at that year’s Fresher’s Ball would no longer be Then Jericho – who I had heard of – because the singer had been beaten up. (Again). Stepping in was a band I had never heard of called – bizarrely, to my mind – The Inspiral Carpets. That experience learned this Londoner up good, and set me on a love affair with Manchester and modern music. So whether we need these sonic shoots of long-buried sounds reappearing now, like musical weeds in the cracks of the cultural pavement…or whether the last century should perhaps stay where it is… are philosophical questions for another time, perhaps.
Meanwhile the Twigs tear through their own songbook for pretty much bang on an hour, take a brief breather, and then Brian D’Addario returns to sing a few songs solo. His rendition of their track ‘Corner of My Eye’ is genuinely beautiful. They end on an upbeat, with covers of Gerry & The Pacemaker’s ‘How Do You Do It?’ and The Beatles’ ‘Any Time At All’ because… well, because of course they do. This is essentially Americana but with a real strain of British Invasion running through it, as though the Mersey passed right through Laurel Canyon. Certainly, this blend of jangly 60s guitars and gentle harmonies is perfectly lovely. But, at the end of the day, do we need a little more than lovely?
Live photo credit: Simon A. Morrison
Simon is a writer, broadcaster and countercultural investigator. Over the last 15 years he has written for everyone from The Guardian to Loaded magazine, presented television for Rapture TV and hosted radio programs for the likes of Galaxy. He has also found time to earn a Masters Degree in Novel Writing and write three books (a collection of journalism, a guidebook to Ibiza and one on financial planning for young people – the most varied publishing career it’s possible to have) and establish and run a PR company, Pad Communications, looking after a range of leisure and lifestyle clients.He currently splits his time between researching his PhD at Leeds University, looking into various countercultural movements; consulting freelance for PR clients; writing for the likes of Marie Claire in Australia, The Big Issue and the Manchester Evening News, where he reviews concerts, theatre and is their Pub & Bar Editor. He is also broadcaster, appearing regularly on Tony Livesey’s late night 5Live show for the BBC, and also for BBC Radio Manchester Gourmet Night food and drink show.Simon’s main focus has been music and travel. His career has included editing Ministry of Sound’s magazine in Ibiza for two summers and also writing two long-running columns for DJmagazine – ”Around The World in 80 Clubs” (which took him everywhere from Beijing to Brazil, Moscow to Marrakech) and “Dispatches From The Wrong Side”. A collection of the latter was published in the UK and US as the book Discombobulated, including tales as varied as gatecrashing Kylie Minogue’s birthday party, getting deported from Russia, having a gun held to his head by celebrity gangster Dave Courtney and going raving in Ibiza with Judith Chalmers. He has recently written for the likes of Red magazine, Hotline, Clash, Tilllate, Shortlist and the Manchester Evening News. Pad Communications has recently consulted for clients as varied as Manchester nightclubs and New Zealand toy companies.On a personal note, Simon is a Londoner who left the capital at the age of 18 and never looked back. He sees himself as a citizen of the global dancefloor having lived in Sydney, Los Angeles, Ibiza and Amsterdam. However his life is now rather more sedentary. After all his adventures he bumped into and subsequently married his highschool sweetheart from their North London Grammar. They now live in Stockport with their four children and four chickens, trying to live the good life. Simon recently turned 40 and is steadfastly refusing to have a midlife crisis – as in, growing a ponytail and buying a shiny red sports car.OK, maybe he’ll buy the sports car…
