Josh T Pearson - Rough Trade Christmas Bonus

Christmas Cracker

I’ve always been a sucker for Christmas songs - from carols, to classic 50s/60s crooner crafting, to pop hits, to the glut of annual artists/bands who join the festive treadmill with their latest commercial interpretations. I love it, to the disdain of my family.

I have my principles and disciplines though. I won’t listen until December, and usually a few weeks in. However, this year I have adjusted that tradition – though adhered to its key principle – as today is the 1^st December and I could not wait any longer to listen to Josh T Pearson’s Rough Trade Christmas Bonus release, out since 21^st November. This is an extra recording Pearson did as a thank you to Rough Trade for announcing his Last of the Country Gentlemen as their album of the year.

It’s superb. Simple arrangements with Pearson’s signature acoustic playing and intense, empathising vocal. Indeed, the live to tape recording retains studio chat and the overall effect is to sustain a sense of genuine feeling for the music and words. Pearson’s fundamental Christian beliefs add a sense of attachment to this traditional material other artists’ commercial endeavours on the same lack, not that the precepts themselves engage me – it is Pearson’s commitment that does, as on O Holy Night.

There are five songs: Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard on High, the resonant solo vocal of Away in a Manger, O Holy Night, and the sweet O Little Town of Bethlehem.

Two Cannibals, a Goat and a Duck

Josh T Pearson, Phoenix Theatre, Exeter, 25th November

Two cannibals are sitting down eating a dead clown. One turns to the other and says 'Can you taste something funny?'

This is one of many jokes Josh T Pearson told throughout his solo performance last night, others mainly about musicians, drummers, ducks and fucking goats. I was surprised - unaware that this is the norm for his live performances - and the jokes were often pretty crude and puerile stuff [a friend said Jethro told 'jokes' like this, which was interesting]. But when your individual and lengthy songs are as deep and despairing as Pearson's, and sung in a trance-like state that seems to remove him completely from audience and place, it is understandable that they will be punctuated by light relief in order to keep from disappearing into the dark.

It was a mesmerising performance. On record, you actually hear the lyrics more clearly, and the occasional string accompaniment on his album Last of the Country Gentlemen adds sombre depth, but seeing and hearing Josh perform live is a singular and significant experience. His vocal range, especially in volume, is a key instrument along with the amped acoustic guitar where songs are played across simple chords but finger plucked and then flamingo strummed - again ranging across the full volume spectrum from inaudible to orchestral. The songs seem to end when they have to: when the emotion is exhausted. It is a memorable experience to see him like this.

There was good crowd banter with Josh last night. One key moment was when someone shouted 'Do you like women?'. Pearson pondered on this and then it became somewhat of a focus with his recurring expression of incredulity about being asked if he liked women, supported by expressions of loving blow jobs and so on to follow. The man who shouted the question said his girlfriend had asked. More incredulity. I just thought that it was, in the circumstances, quite a deep and understandable question because Pearson's lyrics do so often portray the violence, threatened or real, of a man against a woman. I imagine this to be the voice of a persona, not Pearson, but you can understand the question being asked.

Pearson does tell a great joke about cunnilingus and Willie Nelson, but you'll have to see him yourself for a chance to hear this one. For a very good review and interview, check this out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/16/josh-t-pearson-country-gentlemen

Josh T Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen

Gentlemen prefer bombs

This is explosive stuff in its angst and anger, love explored in all its darkest manifestations with the pain and regret and recriminations and hatred and spiritual ennui of living this romantic nihilism.

I'm not sure if this can accurately embrace such a complex album but it gives you a gist of the songs' candid and confessional narratives, either from Pearson's real experiences [a relationship disaster and a ten year break from his last major musical endeavour, one part of the unique Lift To Experience countrypunk trio] or those of assumed personas, even then informed by Pearson's dark personal thoughts.

The songs are long and seemingly stream-of-consciousness diatribes, weaving along unknown roads where the occasional hidden landmines are triggered and the softly picked acoustic guitar is blown into a flurry of strumming. The lyrics mirror this dynamic paradox. In Woman, When I've Raised Hell.... the pleading 'Honestly, why can't you just let me be and let me quietly drink myself to sleep' is sung slowly and, although obnoxious, suggests an inner defeat, but this rises to an ominously defiant 'because honestly you are my queen but you had better leave or I will be forced to be king ...' and the once soothing strings also climax into a momentary anger. And it is absolutely beautiful.

In Honeymoon's Great - Wish You Were Here Pearson sings of loving a woman who 'simply ain't my wife'. This is the script for Country, but here there are no twee platitudes and homespun rhymes - in another even longer outpouring of candour at 13 minutes, the song tells and retells the simple but insuperable agony of loving another woman for whom he will not leave his wife [such gentlemanly behaviour in a world where this wouldn't normally matter]. The harsh honesty is contained in lines like 'And it'd be kinda funny if it weren't so damn true. I'd gouge my eyes out if I thought it would help me not to see her when I look at you'.

In the battle between melody and melancholy the latter wins but that is what will ultimately make this album outlast pretty and catchy music because it demands such concentration and tolerance when listening - and then the desire to return to empathise in the cathartic unravelling of each song. You won't be whistling these tunes, but you might end up whittling away at your own doubt and despair.