Jackie Leven / Michael Weston King @ New Roscoe
By Annalee Call"I took a train out of Leeds in the pouring rain..." Jackie Leven
From the onset this was going to be pretty intense; The Black Heart Procession rolls out of the PA and, with nowhere to go, laps around my ankles. So, by the time Jackie Leven, Michael Weston King and accompanist Allen Clarke do take to the stage, I can feel my pulse - of course I'd rather be feeling yours. You don't come here though do you?
This is an old school gig, with a workshop feel, and an enormous air of mutual respect between the two artistes, who are playing a few such shows over the coming months whilst touring extensively in their own rights. Jackie (huge bear-man, tweed jacket, nice looking brown brogues) calls for a light and then launches into a story. He does this a lot. Michael WK (slighter, red scarf), with Allen Clarke behind him (hidden in the black light, underplaying his steel with tact), sings 'lost' - a song, unsurprisingly, about loosing everything. Jackie sings an erotic dirge called 'The light below' ("Scarlet was the dream she wore, I searched in tears through the bloody shards") Michael paints a picture of a lonely hotel room in Oslo. Jackie comes back with 'revenge of memory' ("it's a thing that happens at the end of the show, can anyone really say why lovers come and go?"). Swounds, if it wasn't for the performers warmth, and the tale of Chesty Morgan, we'd all be reaching for the Fluoxetine and Xanax. Instead the songs are washed down with good strong ale and it gets me thinking.
There's a girl with her head on her boyfriends shoulder. There's a couple holding hands. And this is music for lovers. The shear amount, and high-grade quality, of the abject misery, regrets, tears (and were talking big grown-up tears here), and lost chances and regrets, all of it, is, just - almost - overcome by the soul of Leven; whose big, resonant voice commands that the heart be not still and that days must indeed be seized, and with both arms (and the occasional foot). Even if it is only to ask for the promise of a dance next Saturday night. So now you know. Call me.
Which is not to say that MWK is any less a performer; his fingers up at his less romantic cohorts is admirable. 'Always the bridesmaid and never the bride', a song from the 'Absent Friends LP' and the awesome 'The girl that got away' definitely leave some aural residue on my eardrums. This is not a competition, but Leven's bittersweet voice of experience would win, for me, were it.
Because Leven is a brave songwriter, ("It took me fifty odd years to realise, I might be angry, don't mean that I'm right") and it's little wonder that he has a CD available of a gig recorded in a men's prison in Norway. His recent collaboration with fellow Scot Ian Rankin, an LP of story and song entitled 'Jackie Leven Said", will be available in the Spring. Let's listen to it at least once. Leven will no doubt appear at the Roscoe again soon. Go See.
When both men do sing together on 'Exit Wound', narrowly avoiding harmony play but instead adopting a dual vocal strategy, the experience is uplifting. They don't come together as one, but retain distinct individuality. Allan Clarke's mandolin playing is, again, precise and colourful. We end with a version of Van Morrison's 'Madame George' and I suddenly wish that I wasn't here.
We should be in your bed, making love...
