The title of Jo Church and Jim Tipler’s new album, Bungaroosh, comes from a building trade term referring to the slapdash way in which walls that were put up cheaply and quickly in the Regency period, mainly in the Brighton and Hove area, filled with a variety of materials including flint, chalk, pebbles and sand held together with a lime mortar then rendered to give a smooth finish. As such, it also serves as a metaphor for people and places in this world that hide their true nature behind a classy façade, whited sepulchres in other words, the track itself taking a steady drum-led march beat rhythm with rock style electric guitar and clarinet as Tipler sings “With ermine robes and golden crown/This king is naught without his clown/And the finest house within this town/Its fine facade will soon crash down/There’s something there that’s iron hard/There’s something here as soft as lard/And you’ll never hammer home that nail/Whatever fixes here will fail”.
The album actually kicks off with a lolloping jig rhythm build on mandolin, cajon and hand-clappy percussion with Church on vocals for ‘Simon’s Nick’, telling of the Lake District legend of how the fairies showed Simon where to mine for copper on the Old Man of Coniston up in Furness Fells, on the proviso he never told about them (“He swore an oath then tiny hands/Guided him that night/To the richest seam of copper/He hollared with delight/Simon’s luck had turned around”), though, inevitably, too much drink led him to spill the beans and “Now Simon’s Nick is just a scar/Upon the old man’s face/The fairies took the treasure back/Leaving not a trace”.
There’s a strong playfulness to the album, first evidenced in ‘Festival of Freaks’, a 50s fingerpicked ragtime blues styled number written at Purbeck Valley Folk Festival that celebrates waving your own freak flag (“Proudly show off all your scars/Tattoos and piercings/Wear Y-fronts and a tutu/Top it off with fairy wings/Dance your socks off honey/In your bulging lycra suit/Spin your wheels or kick your heels/Blow your trumpet or your flute”) because “When you don’t fit in the place you’re in/The problem’s with the place”. Church again on lead, the duo coming together on harmonies, it’s also to be heard on ‘Places To Go, People To See’, an upbeat, 70s pop style semi-biographical song, which featuring banjo, guitars and cajon tells of putting an end to a going nowhere relationship (“I feel kinda bad walking off without saying goodbye/But I ain’t gonna spend my life living a lie…Gonna take pictures gonna take my time/We got memories to make, stories to hear/Don’t you carry nothing ‘cept what you wear/You can be you, forget about me/We got places to go… people to see”) and of it all turning out for the best (“He wept over her letter/Wiped tears from his cheeks/He thought he’d let her/Find the life that she seeks” and “now he’s found a heart to call his own again” and “She’s got two great kids/And she lives in the USA”.
On the other hand, there’s more serious fare too, ‘Judge, Jury And Executioner’s full band rocker with Tipler on vocals about mainstream media’s habit of presenting everything in black and white and getting us all to judge others (“I won’t let facts get in my way/And all the evidence is clear/You click your mouse and it’s right here…Demanding justice is my game/But Vengeance is my middle name/And I am always in the right”) , amusingly taking a pop at some of the prime culprits (“Rip up your Mail just for fun/Don’t look directly at the Sun/‘Cos you will never see the light/Avoid that Fox with poison bite”).
That’s followed by the migrant-themed ‘Small Boats’ (“Take a chance, pay that fair/Better lives without care”), originally written in waltz time for the Hastings-set musical ‘The America Ground’ (detailing the history of an area of shingle beach settled in the late 18th and 19th Century with its residents paying no rent as the land apparently had no owners, serving as an allegory for the housing crisis), but here, sharing verses, reverting to the original anthemic piano arrangement.
On an equally sober note, featuring 6 and 12-string guitars, the swaying, strummed acoustic ‘Quicksand Calling’ originated as an audience prompt to write about the beauty and danger of Morecambe Bay and developed into a commentary on modern slavery, inspired by the tragic deaths of the Chinese cockle pickers in 2004.
On a gentler note, fingerpicked with fretless bass, ‘Goldfinch’ is a simple, rippling rhythm ode to the titular frequent visitor to English gardens and has vague echoes of The Beatles’ avian homage Blackbird. Likewise, another simple, stripped back number, ‘The Wonder is about stepping back from the quick fix world of the internet with “Answers at our fingertips” to just “Take the time to enjoy/The wonder”.
Likewise, sung by Church, ‘Hayreed Lane’ is simple picked slow swaying clarinet-soloing ballad about leaving home and the memories it holds (“Shed a tear for the past now/And I’m proposing a toast/Here’s to our friends/The ones we have loved/And those we love most/Photographs fade/Mementos get lost/The life that you’ve made/It comes at a cost/It’s something you’ve earned/The proof is the pain”).
A true tale, featuring Tipler on banjo, Fred Gregory on double bass and Church on vocals, ‘Old Tom’s Story’ is an Appalachian bluegrass-tinged account of Tom Hendrix who, over 35 years, built a 1.25 mile-long, dry stone unmortared wall ranging from three to six feet in height, in Florence, Alabama, to commemorate his great great grandmother, Te-la-nay, who, a teenage Yuchi Native American, was, under President Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, forced to walk from her home alongside the ‘Singing River’ in Alabama to Oklahoma on the infamous Trail of Tears but, after journeying alone for some five years, eventually found her way home.
Bungaroosh heads into the final stretch with ‘Voodoo Queen’, a number written by Tipler for his previous band, The Pistol Shrimps and, sung by Church, another playful outing, a 60s/70s northern soul style fantasy horror song (“Here come the voodoo queen/They say she’s crazy and they say she’s mean/She’s your worst nightmare or your very best dream/Oh man she’ll make you love or die/She gonna give you that evil eye”) with a very definite nod to Al Wilson’s ‘The Snake’.
It ends with the big political flourish and big instrumentation of the loping, rock-veined ‘Spoil The Game’ which calls out the current voting system in the UK (“If you feel you’ve got no choice/You’ve got no say, you’ve got no voice/Ain’t it time we took control/Dig ourselves out of this hole …Make a mark, express your views/Time for you to change the rules …use your wits, use your head/We can fight with pencil lead/When it’s time to have your say… No wasted slip/No wasted vote/When they count we’ll rock their boat/In our hands the perfect tool/Use it right to change those rules”).
There is, however, a hidden CD only bonus track that, Church on vocals, finds them digging back into the traditional folk roots for an Appalachian-textured voice and banjo rendition of ‘Maid In Bedlam’ that sets the seal on a fine album that has more depths to it than may initially appear.
Mike Davies
Artists’ website: www.miltonhide.com
‘Simon’s Nick’ – official video:
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