Cellar Door @ The Perseverance, London
January 14th, 2008 - by Francesco
Tucked away in the back streets of London’s Marylebone area is a little hidden gem that’s home toome of the most interesting new singer-songwriters the city has to offer. The Perseverance Pub is a pretty unsuspecting place. Your standard English pub; grubby carpets and brown wall paper all included in the free entry.
Tonight (late November) the downstairs area is reserved for an old folks Xmas party and they seem to be enjoying all the free sherry & cucumber sandwiches they can. The upstairs’ venue would feel ram-packed with all of about 15 people in it. I’m one of about half that number tonight but it feels homely & inviting. Noise from the old folks downstairs aside, I’m ready for some introverted singer-songwriters to strut!
Cellar Door goes on stage, quite unassumingly; scratching away at guitar leads and whispering to each other which songs they should do first. When she’s asked how she’d best describe her music, by a slightly out of place looking compare, singer Aimee Grinter hushes “we like to let the music do the talking”. Tell it like it is.
It’s difficult to get sucked into acoustic music at times because it’s a hard listen and it requires all of your attention. Cellar Door don’t have that problem at all. Not for me at least. Beautiful vocal melodies and clever witty lyrics.
I’m happy to say this isn’t the usual “oh it hurts so bad” singer-songwriter rhetoric, the lyrics themselves are not what you might expect to hear over the technical guitar playing of Mike Brown. They’re very matter of fact, very English in all the best ways. Scenes about drinking in a car park with your friends when you’re too young to get into the pub are crossed with a sticking “you don’t need me like I need you.”
And it’s this crossing of styles that happens throughout their set that makes this duo work so well. Vocally, I’m reminded a little of Joni Mitchell & maybe also Gillian Welch. The guitar playing goes from ambient to a harsh blues in a stroke so I’m a little lost for comparisons in that sense. Anyway, don’t get stuck on these feeble comparisons. Go and listen to this group for yourself. They deserve your attention immediately.
I can’t help but wonder how outstanding this would sound with a band & some strings behind them. Although if they did that at the Perseverance Pub there wouldn’t be much space left in the pace for the audience!
Cellar Door - Comets
