MOJO Rising Star Offers Audio Valentines -

MOJO Rising Star Offers Audio Valentines

8:00 AM GMT 23/01/2008

A SELF-EFFACING COVE, Paul Curreri writes his music by walking around his Charlottesville, Virginia home, just playing guitar and singing. His latest album, The Velvet Rut, has a similarly direct feel, created as it was without an engineer or, indeed, any other musicians to get in the way.

It’s an arch creation, simultaneously sinister and funny: “Someone said they thought it was the saddest but the funniest record that I’ve made, and I appreciated that,” Curreri told MOJO’s Sophie Harris, who detects John Fahey, Waylon Jennings and John Steinbeck in amongst his inspirational hobo’s bindle. “It’s like, let me show you how funky my sad dance is.”

But don’t take his word for it. Next month he’s traipsing up and down Britain in a performance clinch with her-not-so-much-indoors, Canuck roots talent Devon Sproule, a constant presence (but not in a soupy way) in Curreri’s lyrics.

Here are the dates...

Saturday, Feb 2 / Oran Mor, Glasgow
Sunday, Feb 3 / Cafe Royal Bar, Edinburgh
Wednesday, Feb 6 / Crawdaddy, Dublin
Thursday, Feb 7 / No Alibis, Belfast
Friday, Feb 8 / Academy 3, Manchester
Saturday, Feb 9 / Midlands Arts Center, Birmingham
Sunday, Feb 10 / The Cluny, Newcastle
Tuesday, Feb 12 / Pacific Road Arts Center, Birkenhead
Wednesday, Feb 13 / The Boardwalk, Sheffield
Thursday, Feb 14 / Taylor John's House, Coventry
Friday, Feb 15 / The Point, Cardiff
Saturday, Feb 16 / Reading Arts, Reading
Sunday, Feb 17 / The Hanbury Ballroom, Brighton
Monday, Feb 18 / Pavilion Lounge Buxton
Thursday, Mar 6 / The Roundhouse, London

Meanwhile, check out some songs from the fifth Paul Curreri album, The Velvet Rut, out now on the Tin Angel label.

The Velvet Rut

A Fahey influenced, vortex-like instrumental that gathers speed and gives a few blasts on its whistle before fading into the eerie night.

Mantra

A wry narrative that touches on losing one’s guitar and fearing surveillance, possibly as a result of drinking, delivered in a Lee Hazlewood timbre to grimy country rock accompaniment.

The Ugly Angel

More fine backwoods-meets-jazz picking about the unidentified subject emerging from the bathtub “cropped like an album sleeve” and “squashed in a girdle”. Sounds like a complicated domestic situation.

And finally, with Valentine’s Day approaching, why not impress the one you love with a free download of one of Paul and Devon’s heart-melting Valentines Duets compilations, with the creative couple playing footsie with I’m On Fire, You Can Leave Your Hat On, and more. Altogether now, “Aaaaaaah!”

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 8:00 AM GMT 23/01/2008