Crooked Rooks ready to spread their wings
FOR their inaugural CityLife photoshoot, Manchester band Crooked Rooks have opted to connect with the wonders of nature.
Posing for photographs in the middle of Whitworth Park on a windswept September afternoon, the skiffle-folk quartet are bravely battling against a mass greenery onslaught.
While singer Aaron Walker and guitarist Prenam Prabhakar wrestle with some thick shrubbery, bassist Dean Preston and drummer Oliver Hughes are fending off an assortment of wayward branches and greenflies.
But, rather than their own physical welfare, the Manc outfit are more concerned with doing damage to their musical image.
Cutesy folk stuff
“I hope this photoshoot doesn’t make us look too twee or cute,” says mild-mannered guitarist Prenam.
“There’s nothing I hate more than photoshoots with really twee folk artists. All that cutesy folk stuff and getting in touch with nature is all a bit grating. We’re nothing like that.”
They need not worry: Crooked Rooks could clearly NEVER be mistaken for a twee folk band.
Operating at the more visceral end of the folk spectrum, the South Manchester four-piece are the exact point when the folk explosion properly detonates with truly eardrum-melting results.
Sea-shanty maelstrom
Formed just six months ago, Crooked Rooks conjure up a skiffle-folk-sea-shanty maelstrom which owes much to the primal rock’n’roll of Hamburg-era Beatles, the mordent wordplay of Leonard Cohen and the sweeping arrangements of Ennio Morricone.
Or, to put it more succinctly, Crooked Rooks specialise in what they themselves describe as folk rave.
“We do call it folk rave,” says Pranam, now seated in an Oxford Road boozer and relaxing after the rigours of the earlier photoshoot. “A lot of folk music has associations of being all gentle and twee.
''But we’ve got a much more upbeat approach. It’s very up-tempo music, which gets people dancing and stomping their feet – but done in an old-school, organic way.”
Old school, rustic approach
Yet, for a band with such an old-school, rustic approach, Crooked Rooks have technology right at their core.
All four members met via various ‘musicians wanted’ adverts placed on the internet, a protracted process which Pranam describes uncomfortably as “Like going on a blind date. I’d often sit there alone in the Cornerhouse waiting for these random drummers who I’d only spoken to on the internet. I got stood up a few times, which was really humiliating.”
Nevertheless, once that line-up became complete, back in March, Crooked Rooks have spread their musical wings and soared to giddy heights.
Indeed, for a band who’ve been together for only six short months, it’s quite incredible how fully realised Crooked Rooks actually are.
Fantasy and dressing-up
Their live shows are barnstorming, exuberant affairs, which occasional indulge the band’s love of fantasy and dressing up (“We once played a show at Tiger Lounge dressed as sailors, and we built our very own mini pirate ship. We have a bit of a sea shanty obsession,” says Aaron).
Yet any hint of novelty is banished by the band’s excellent songwriting output. They may have written only 10 songs, but all the ones CityLife has heard so far – from the feral blues of Scarecrow to the gypsy-psyche-pop of Memento Mori – already sound like instant classics.
Pop critics and bloggers have been lining up to call the band Manchester’s answer to The Coral, but there’s something much darker lurking beneath the Crooked Rooks’ songwriting nest than mere cheery skiffle-pop.
Their lyrics dwell on themes of mortality and existentialism, while their musical palette is inspired by such unlikely sources as the films of Federico Fellini and the poetry of Ted Hughes.
Really dark material
“I think that’s the greatest contradiction within this band,” Aaron considers.
“We can play shows where everyone is dancing on their feet and having a great time, being all merry. But there’s a lot of really dark material in these songs.
''There’s a lot of vulgar, uncomfortable things, which most people couldn’t talk about in everyday conversation. From death to existentialism, it’s definitely not easy listening.”
Identikit electro-pop
Not that Crooked Rooks have anything to apologise for. In a Manchester band climate currently swamped by blokey indie-rock and identikit electro-pop, Crooked Rooks stand apart.
Theyhave the bold imaginations to match their classy songcraft and peerless live reputation, a band to keep you on your feet; both literally, and in the intellectual stakes.
With a bumper schedule of live dates planned, which climaxes with some high-profile shows at In The City next month, Crooked Rooks are taking flight and (pardon the pun) they thoroughly intend to ruffle a few feathers along the way.
Boring love song
Pranam concludes with a flourish. “When we started this band, the main objective was not to do anything mundane. Any band can write a boring love song.
“I’d like to think British music is finally getting over this boring phase of musicians like Kate Nash, who just write about the mundanities of their day-to-day life. Who wants to hear that? I think it’s about time imagination and intelligence came back into music.”
Crooked Rooks play Dry Bar on Friday, September 18. For more info visit link right ...
Published: Thu, 17 September, 2009
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