Unkle Bob – King Tut’s preview
It started, so they say, with a holiday in Cambodia. ‘I played an improv gig at Uncle Bob’s Beach Place in Cambodia,’ claims singer/songwriter Rick, ‘and when i got back, i thought I’d name a band in his honour’. Uncle Bob is also the bands pet name for illegal herbs, according to keyboardist Geoff.
Either way, Unkle Bob are worth treasuring, a drummerless mist of sad-eyed acoustica reminiscent of Turin Brakes and sad-sacks such as Nick Drake, with perhaps a dash of Sting but we’ll let that ride. Like the supposedly weird kid at school with the meagre social skills, UB are almost painfully sensitive, so should appeal to the weird kid with meagre social skills in us all (well, some of us). Which means, of course, that they barely fit in with their noisier contemporaries; compatible bills are hard to come by and audience reactions often uncomprehending. Tablas? Banjos? Send these loons back to crazyland!
‘We played the Tron recently and it was excellent,’ Rick recalls, ‘Everyone was really into it.’ Unfortunately Rick also complains that most venues tend to ‘turn us up to 11, even though we want to be at six, so we end up rocking out- in an acoustic way’
Undoubtedly one of the best bands to emerge from the Glasgow rock pool in a while, UB can be savoured at your volume of choice on their debut album.
Paul Whitelaw
