The Demon Barbers & Inflatable Buddha

The first clear night in what seemed like ages: the sky was starry and full of moonlight. Cold, too. After waiting, shivering, outside, we were told that one of the bands was still doing sound check, and that doors had been pushed back. We popped round the corner for a pint.
When the doors actually opened at eight, I was immediately struck by the sheer number of instruments on stage: harp, mandola, sitar, hurdy gurdy, tabla, banjo, accordion, double bass, and more. It was like they’d broken into a music shop on the way there, and, in an excited rush, grabbed everything they could carry. Cowley Road hippies that they are, the Buddha make their special blend of world-punk-folk-acid-cabaret sound like a musical sit-in, a tightly-played jam session of songs. Their musical influences are no doubt many, but what seemed clear was that these guys practice late into the night, while black and white horror films play silently on the television and someone passes around joint after joint.
Though consistently technically good and satisfyingly weird, it took front-man Steve Larkin nearly the whole set to warm up and relax, and the crowd felt it, standing back from the stage with the air of someone listening to a joke they haven’t got yet. We all melted to Susanna Starling’s powerful and addictive voice though, and when Larkin broke through his layer of self-consciousness I was sold. IB seem set to become an Oxford institution, and well they should: if the Pitt Rivers Museum were a band it would sound a lot like this.
I’d heard a lot about the Demon Barbers, and had mistakenly brought my expectations with me. Predictably, dashed. As soon as they started playing it became obvious that this was the band that had taken so long sound-checking. The Demon Barbers are perfectionists. They were a technically flawless mix of traditional folk underscored with a heavy bass line and punctuated with the percussion of the drums, and, occasionally, the sound of clogging.
The Demon Barbers are serious about their stuff. They get into the music, passionately, painfully. Liking my music with a good dose of irony or at least of post-irony, I wasn’t sure what to think. I didn’t have to. It was obvious that the crowd loved this band. It wasn’t long before everyone was dancing: real dancing. The kind that takes up space and you throw your whole body into. Though classified as folk rock, what the Demon Barbers really make is dancing music. Dancing music and drinking music. I wished I’d taken a hip flask of whiskey.
Coming home in the crisp and kebab-scented air along Cowely road after, my head was fuller of images than of music: this show was a cinematic double feature.
Port Mayhem! returns to the Port Mahon on the first Thursday of April. The Demon Barbers play tonight at the Milkmaid Music Club in Bury St Edmunds and tomorrow at the Arc Theatre in Trowbridge.

Skye Hohmann (Unverified), 02/03/07

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