Reviews

Manchester Music – 31st March 2012
By Jon Ashley

For those who may be too young to know, Manchester’s music scene at the turn of the noughties was a battle ground between post-Madchester / Oasis apathy and despondency and a pioneering new wave /punk rock scene that pre-dated any efforts from both London and New York. Long abandoned by the NME et al, Manchester decided to cut its own furrow and from maybe around 20 or so bands, the new frontier was forged – and amongst its legion was Loafer, headed by one Julian Gaskell.

Having left Manchester sometime after, his subsequent albums and role as a musical director and composer have been delivered to great acclaim. On his latest solo album “Kind Words From Home”, there is something of a return to his roots. The punk influenced mixture of The Clash and The Specials does battle with the more complex pretenders to the Gyspy punk throne, such as Gogol Bordello and The Penny Black Remedy. In truth Gaskell has been there first (by a long chalk) and has refined his art over a decade. So on tracks like “Galitsian Trash” the guitar is furiously carving out a complicated riff alongside violins and accordions, with both a dizzying and frenetic tempo. I’ve always preferred to compare Gaskell to The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, at least in terms of energy and commitment – there’s always a political or social comment worth memorising and holding on for posterity. Throughout this rather wonderful album, folk ballads (the clambering “We Had A Ball”), Country (the wild west bar room “Up Country Waltz”) sea shanties and wild fusions of the new wave abound, from one of Britain’s more genuine and credible exponents of the genre.

MMMM ½

March 2012 – the bright young folk review
Kind Words From Home is a boisterous set of tunes from the eclectic multi-instrumentalist Julian Gaskell. It is incredible to look at the album artwork and information and see so few musicians listed because there is enough noise in here for triple the amount of people, as well as containing one of the most seductive accordion melodies ever on Same Old World.
The album has strong strains of punk-folk, gypsy Balkan traditional, sea-shanties, Franco-dirty tangos, ragtime piano, and slow laments. Which all somehow get together to create an anarchic vaudevillian mix which is packed full of energy. Something Julian does seem to be very much aware of as he charismatically hollers “everything I saw comes out as a growl, or a crude dirty howl.” There is a seamless movement between the offbeat, jaunty, discordant tracks which rise and fall with dramatic precision, helping to create a theatrical atmosphere.
Even in its slower moments there is a sense that his energy is still lurking beneath the surface. The final track, At the Edge of the World works as a nice reflective conclusion to the album as it accurately invokes a feeling reminiscent of a Saturday morning after a heavy Friday night.
The tracks carry a universal appeal, as they go sailing through the experiences of; the pain of lost love, the importance of freedom of spirit, violent lust, the emptiness of Capitalism, retrospective reflection, awareness of your own futility, purposeful drinking, the feeling that you’re not quite enough for someone, the importance of dreams, remorse for the end of an era, and the fresh expectations of new love.
This rambunctious album encapsulates a diverse range of genres, and whatever Gaskell’s voice lacks in tunefulness he makes up for in intense enthusiasm. Your imagination has to provide the gypsy dancing girls, the rum, and the candlelight but Gaskell does the rest.
Rosamund Woodruffe

March 2012 West Briton
GOD bless Julian Gaskell and all who sail in him, whether they be a Kernewek Tom Waits, a berserk klezmer band, Joe Strummer gone Weimar jazz or Kurt Weill punching The Pogues He’s multifaceted is Falmouth-based Julian. Just listen to his superb new album Kind Words From Home. Singer and songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and one-man garage orchestra Julian howls and hollers his way through a global cacophony; with his weak r’s and Estuary English he sounds not unlike John Otway if Otway wrote politicised drinking songs, piano torch ballads or manic Balkan stompfests.

March 2012 Folkworld.DE
Julian Gaskell “Kind Words from Home” (2012). Step into a tumbledown world of gypsy-punk accordion, surf klezmer, speak-easy ragtime, intellectual drinking and protest songs, romantic piano torch ballads, sweet musette waltzes, weeping country laments, violent tangos and stomping balkan skiffle beats… Singer-songwriter and one-man-orchestra Julian Gaskell howls and hollers as if Tom Waits came from a Roma family and punk had its origins in cabaret and circus.

February 2012 Western Morning News
Julian Gaskell looks and sounds like he’s been plucked in wild full flow from an eastern European gypsy encampment in another century. His is a magical, tumbledown world where raggle-taggle punk accordion meets surf klezmer, speakeasy ragtime, where torch ballads snuggle with sweet waltzes, and protest and drinking songs nestle alongside weeping country laments, violent tangos and Balkan skiffle grooves.

All these elements combine in the repertoire and demeanour of a man whose creative juices flow both at home on a Falmouth housing estate and out on the road as current musician in residence with Cornwall-based Rogue Theatre Company’s Devil and the Dancer production.

Some may also know mustachioed, bespectacled, multi-instrumentalist and singer Julian from his days with his band, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Now he’s about to unleash a new, homegrown solo album which observes and comments on the stuff and nonsense of contemporary society.

Its title Kind Words From Home, reflects his nomadic existence over the past two years, touring the world with both Rogue, and Bash Street Theatre, for whom he wrote and performed critically acclaimed silent movie piano scores and cabaret-style show tunes.

The LP is a moreish, richly narrative and evocative concoction. As well as playing everything from accordion, piano, mandolin and drums through to cello, violin, mandolin, balalaika, washboard, tambourine, tea chest and glockenspiel, Julian howls and hollers his way through sharp, tender and often humorous lyrics. One minute he’ll be drawling cowboy-style, the next murmuring almost inaudibly, the next shouting punk-style. There’s suspense, drama, love and merry-making aplenty, embellished by contributions from former Ragged bandmates Thomas Sharpe and Kester Jones.

Reviews of Rogue theatre’s “Dancer & the Devil” 2011/2012 with music and lyrics written and performed by Julian Gaskell

The West Briton
The star of the show, apart from Tehidy [Woods] itself, is musical director Julian Gaskell, who will be well known to music lovers in the county. A cross between Tom Waits, Joe Strummer and Rachmaninov, his repertoire of songs (helped by singer/musician Lauren Vandike) brought the show to life.

North Devon Journal
… Mesmerising, continental-style live music from the obscenely talented Julian Gaskell. (My only regret is they weren’t selling CDs of the show’s soundtrack).

The Cornishman
One man whirlwind Julian Gaskell’s stunning musicianship and evocative soundtrack is unbelievably brilliant. Setting the mood and tone, playing accordion and piano as the audience arrives, his Kroke-esque percussive violin, haunting cello music and powerful expository songs, are worthy of a show in their own right

St Austell Bay radio
Music continues to be an integral part of Rogue’s theatrical experience and Musical Director Julian Gaskell’s musicianship is a tour de force throughout; working alongside Lauren Vandike to add something very special to the mix.

The Public Reviews
Live music throughout, provided by Musical Director Julian Gaskell and Lauren Vandike, includes a fresh and seemingly improvised background score and a handful of Tiger Lily-esque songs about people and love affairs coming to a bad end in which Gaskell’s delivery is dour and full of bleak humour.

Other reviews from the archives…

Efestivals.co.uk 06/2010
First up on the Friday, on the main Indoor Stage, are Julian Gaskell & The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists whose brand of gypsy-punk-folk is a riotous start to a festival. Coming across like the Levellers on speed crashing headlong into Gogol Bordello, the sheer energy on stage from Julian is enough to get even the mildest mannered attendee in the mood for a cracking fest.

agigsagig.wordpress 06/2010
We went into the hall for our first taste of the weekend’s music, Julian Gaskell and the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a splendid name for a band specialising in a sort of Balkan-klezmer-tinged silliness with a radical Cornish twist. Julian himself is quite an engaging ranter and a very good accordionist. There’s something punky and attractively Beefheartian about the band, but much of the drollery is a bit too rich for my tastes.

http://www.folkworld.de 03/2010
I love it when I’m about to fall asleep after listening to a few standard (not to say little bit boring) albums and a band wakes me up again with bloody good music. This is the second album by Julian Caskell and his Trousered Philanthropists and is called Here the brute harpies make their nest. The band comes from Cornwall and they make some energetic, raw, mixture of folk, rock, punk, progressive, underground style folk with influences from almost everywhere and everything, Ska rhythms, a far-east melody, French muzette and some (more or less) traditional English influences. I love the accordion led up tempo songs, the sound of the Hammond organ starting its own life in a song, the unexpected melodic interruptions and a singer who sings his brains out of his nose. If you think this is a messy review, don’t buy the album as the music is even ten times as messy and I love it. Eelco Schilder

fRoots, Ian Anderson, Nov/Dec 2009
What’s there not to like about this great little quintet? Scurrying out of Falmouth in Cornwall, their bustling, belting, lopsided accordeon-led sound branches somewhere off the same musical family tree that gave us top Belgian faves Jaune Toujours and the long-lost La Cucina, with the rural literary flair of Blyth Power, XTC and Dancing Did chucked in the mix. Bits of hyper-Balkanisation bloody their noses on some crunchy Roma-jazz, and waves of sppedy punkfolk ska crash in the mix on cheesy surf organ and the ghost of Cap’n Beefheart. And a whole exhausting (in a good way) lot more. Exhilarating playing, fab lyrics, energy to spare: if I was running The Modern Day Festival – deservedly excoriated in the song of the same name – I’d be straight on the phone to book these guys for next year. If they’re this exciting on record then the live experience is going to be truly extraordinary. Go get, from …

Everett True Recommends, 09/2009
They’re a little bit Singing Loins. They’re a little bit Tiger Lillies (except I really didn’t like their act when I caught them at the Spiegeltent last year in Brisbane). They’re a little bit… what’s that band… Gogol Bordello. Very smart, very droll lyrics. Very theatrical. Very philanthropic. Lots of accordion and background shouting and roustabout rhythms. Bit of klezmer. Bit of that banjo-playing toad off Bagpuss. Bit of a lark.

24-7 Magazine October 2009
They don’t do demos, JULIAN GASKELL & HIS RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS. They do fully realised works of prole art that eschews the idea of clambering up the music industry ladder only to land on a snake and end up in a heap of disappointment. True to form, ‘Here The Brute Harpies Make Their Nests’ finds Gaskell and Co stepping up a gear and self-releasing an album that oozes confidence, irreverence, independence and brilliance; cementing their reputation as Tom Waits and Gogol Bordello’s defiantly Cornish bastard offspring. Taking us into a tumbledown world of squeezeboxes, fiddles, percussive waywardness and intellectual drinking, these 14 songs will make you swell with underclass pride even if you’re a bourgeois bum, with a lyric booklet that is worth the admission fee alone. Magnificent.

Manchester Music
Julian Gaskell once more, assembles his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (also featuring long time associate Kester Jones). Recorded down in Falmouth and St Keverne and then mastered in the New Forest, Julian is firmly at the helm on this album, which seems driven by the sound of drunken sailors, irate country folk and some occasional outright punk rock. Lyrically, this constitutes an imposing and enjoyable collection of words. ‘I never trust a man who says he don’t like Elvis..’ he firmly declares on “Gastro Pubs”.

Musically, there’s the continued measure of protest song and European gypsy bohemia stirred in with Hispanic and Latino influences, captured within the urgent soul of the political new wave movement as espoused by the Clash (check out the up tempo punk / folk / ska attack of “Pushing Up The Weeds” and “Kolomeyke”, both of which almost make a Specials re-union pointless). Moments appear like the extended drum and percussion solo on “Bottle of Luck”, which must be a definite riot live.

There are also journeys into realms of relative strangeness – “The Old Cow Died” is a traditional piece that was a fairly robust and basic chant to begin with, but with a heavy clatter it all ends up with a fizz of feedback and what could quite possibly be actual fighting, before “Dustbins Amongst Men” delivers an instrumental interlude, constructed from rumbles and in general, the sound of the earth turning. If one thing can help demonstrate what Julian Gaskell is up to (and has previously done in the past), it’s the track “No Housing Benefit Smokers Or Pets” – a brash, word heavy social text, accompanied by the energetic clatter of an electric guitar’s hurried rattles and twangs. A Bulgarian traditional tune “Gankino Horo”, is excitedly hacked and brushed up into a fragmented wig-out, in what can only can be described as some kind of gypsy punk prog rock melee, but it’s not before long that there’s a return to their best topic via “Weep In Your Beer”. The album concludes with “The People’s Piano”, the breakneck sound of the band barrelling down a hill, pausing for a drink on the way down, before providing one last energetic cartwheel down the final furlong. Great stuff indeed. MMMM ½

July 2009 – Small world festival
despite the Hag that thought it was her gig, the drunken old boy pouring his drink all over the front of the stage, the bassist getting smacked in the face & yer drummer almost getting raped, you did a good show ( do you often attract an audience like that?) what a great bunch of musicians, we look forward to seeing you again.
247 Magazine April 2009
I’ve reviewed Cornwall-based JULIAN GASKELL before, and what a treat it was: all Tom Waits growl and blues-folk madness. Now he’s back with THE RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS, playing the kind of gnarly, radical folk-punk championed by Gogol Bordello and Devotchka (or ‘new wave skiffle’ as the band cutely tag themselves). Foot-stomping, accordion led show tunes with a great line in poetic socialism is the order of the day, never more so than on ‘Yuppie Flats’ and ‘The Great Money Trick’: songs that keep the class war alive and kicking. Although you feel that the Ukrainian-folk of ‘Cingilingibom’ is more righteous celebration than indignation. Awesome.

Western Morning News 11th April 2009
TAKE an accordion, a banjo, an acoustic guitar and a washboard and you have the essential tools for a rousing encounter with Cornwall’s unique gypsy punk troubadours, Julian Gaskill and his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. The elaborately named ensemble are as eccentric in looks as they are in sound, not least the mustachioed, bespectacled Julian, who regularly leads his merry men on musical jaunts around the Westcountry and beyond. This month they are warming up for a couple of major dates in uncharted locales – the Acorn Theatre in Penzance and the Voodoo Lounge at Exeter’s Phoenix Arts Centre – as their bid for world domination dances along. Their music can be fast-paced but their journey is, in fact, a very gentle one, punctuated by frequent stops to kick up a punk-style shindig that is heavily influenced by the traditional folk music of Eastern Europe. “We are walking uphill slowly rather than catching the cable car,” quips Julian who, at 37, has been playing guitar since he was 13 and spent several years on the cusp of major breaks in the business while living in Manchester.

“After all those years of being a struggling musician I am trying to make a sustainable living out of what we are doing. With the music we do we can play almost anywhere, as opposed to being a full-on punk band,” he says. It was a trip to Sziget, the annual summer musical festival in Budapest, five years ago that fuelled Julian’s fascination with traditional Jewish klezmer music, which has been enjoying a revival in recent times. At its core is the accordion, which dominates around 50 per cent of the Philanthropists’ sound. Having grown up playing piano, Julian had the essential knowledge to master the squeezebox, although the first six months were a hard slog. “It’s like playing piano one-handed with your eyes shut while your left hand is pumping up a bicycle tyre,” he explains. “Once you get over those difficulties, you can make music.” Julian was playing solo for some time and the band has built up around him. He writes the bulk of the lyrics, often commenting on modern British society and habits, sometimes just nonsense, and his very English shouty punk voice defines them.

So, you’ll get songs about yuppies, pubs, romantic novels, or sung in an unfathomable Eastern European language – a balance between funny and heavy. Julian can be heard on vocals, accordion, violin, balalaika, cello, banjo, washboard, piano, drums, harmonicas, concertina, guitars, Tom on upright bass, vocals, tuba, banjo, cello, Dan on guitars, vocals, ukulele, kazoo and Rory on drums and percussion. The band have released one album and are in the process of recording another in the Westcountry.

And the name? English literature or social history scholars will recognise The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as the title of a political working class novel by Robert Tressell, published in 1914.

BLOG Hangin’ Wiv the Gypsies… Balkan-mania in the City
They promised us an exciting night of Balkan Boogie and Gypsies, and since I needed to schlep into the city to collect my Staind (avec Seether) ticket for their gig at the Astoria in January (yeah, I’m going to see them AGAIN), it seemed like a good idea to make a night of it. My friend made the drop (with the ticket) on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and off we went to what is apparently an Italian restaurant by day, and a Romanian restaurant by night. (Those cossetted city boys probably can’t handle anything more exotic than a plate of spag bol for lunch anyway.)

Our authentic Romanian meal (very good, I might add) was served by a rather cute and authentic Romanian waiter with a tiny silver spear through his left eyebrow (I thought the Romanians only put these things through the hearts of vampires? I guess times have changed…). I couldn’t help noticing that he always made certain some part of him was in contact with some part of me whenever he came to serve us. Now before you go getting all excited here, bear in mind that this was a respectable establishment in a respectable part of town – with St. Paul’s Cathedral within spitting distance, I might add!

While waiting for the live music to kick off, we were treated to an endless stream of pre-MTV black-and-white music videos (circa 1950s-60s) of Romanian singers and dancers – obviously an attempt to entertain us as we scarfed down our stuffed cabbage. It was amusing… for about five minutes, after which the natives became restless (or at least I did) and clamoured for the real thing. And at last we got it… though it wasn’t quite what I expected when I signed up for a night of Balkan music and Gypsies. The food and the waiter (and music videos) might have been authentic, but the band sure as hell wasn’t. Not unless Cornwall has suddenly been chopped off from Southwest England and moved to the Danube-Sava-Kupa line.

“Now Mitzi, will you please tell me what in heck Cornwall has to do with the Balkans?” I can hear you asking. Well, you’d best direct that query to the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – a “Balkan” band from – you guessed it – CORNWALL. Indeed, their pedigree becomes ever more dubious when you discover that their lead singer has a heavy-duty Cockney accent coming from beneath his waxed handlebar tache. I have to admit I really enjoyed them, despite the song they did about cockroaches and despite the argument I had with my friend about the age of their drummer – a lad I placed at about 12 years old and he placed at about 21. We did agree on one thing – that someone either spiked the sour beef soup we had for a starter or our vision was much worse than we thought, because we both swore that the band’s name was misspelled on their bass drum, reading Philantropist, not Philanthropist. Photographic evidence has proved us both wrong, however. From now on, I think I’m going to start hanging out with people who can see better than I do. (Anyone have Stevie Wonder’s phone number?)

Philanthropist, Shilanthropist, it was all good fun. The band’s music had a very Russian flavour to it, with that manic speeding-up tempo that makes you want to abandon your chair, drop to the floor and start kicking your legs up into the air. In fact, I kept expecting the Russians at the table behind me to suddenly break into one of these Cossack breakdance routines that would’ve put my back out for sure if I dared to attempt it. Sadly, I had to content myself with banging the flat of my hand onto the table in time with the music. I still can’t move my fingers.

Now no self-respecting faux-Balkan band would have been complete without faux-Romany Gypsy girls dancing and jumping about and making that nasty little trilling noise with their tongues (I kept wondering if I’d somehow ended up at a Middle-Eastern wedding). And yup, we had ‘em aplenty. In fact, more and more kept turning up throughout the evening, one of whom looked like a reject from Camden Town with her multicoloured dreadlocks and tattoos, another I’m sure had to be named either Sharmila or Preethi and was about as Romany Gypsy as Dame Edna Everage. I had to feel sorry for the poor Romanian waitress who kept dodging them with plates of food – she didn’t look at all happy. Frankly, I’m surprised one of the Gypsy girls didn’t end up with a stuffed cabbage stuffed up her -

On that note…

BBC Radio Cornwall Website

The band combine rattling off-kilter vocals and lyrics with flamboyant accordion playing, twisted spikes of telecaster, balalaika and violin, smooth manouche acoustic, surreally disturbing electric upright bass, operatics and junglist jazz ska drums. A band rootless, wandering and skint but with a keen ear for whatever interesting tune might come their way, and an eye on the nearest charity shop or flea market for an instrument to play it on….Unfamiliar forms of music played with gusto by under rehearsed enthusiasts, this is the genuine ‘skiffle’ of the modern age.

Time Out Magazine, 2008
Bourbon-soaked vaudeville gypsy hoedown punk

Clash Music, September 2008
Lively folkster Julian Gaskell and his band hit the stage with an epic set of jig-led gypsy music to which the entire crowd dances. With banjo, fiddle, ukulele, accordion, double bass, the band is fuelled with acoustic energy. Set in a marquee covered in hay to soak up the rain, there’s no better setting for a ferocious folk session.

Fowey Fringe Festival Website
I have heard nothing but rave reviews from the people who were lucky enough to witness the highlight of our festival. I can’t remember a band performing with such energy, the audience reaction was fantastic! They had the whole place dancing, jumping around and begging for more.

West Briton – 2007

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs/Julian Gaskell and his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Next up were the utmost finest band to appear in Cornwall for a long time – Julian Gaskell and his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, whose frontman’s ‘tache made Luke Toms’ look like a bit of bumfluff! Their insane genius, mixing accordion, fiddle, guitar, ukulele, bass and mouth organ was reminiscent of the soul of a rabid Captain Beefheart, if he’d had Eastern European roots and grown up in the deep south of America. They took a Borat-style parodic march through pseudo-slovakia, recreating a sound loved by many from the Beirut album. Whilst it’s hardly a hotly contested title, they definitely led the way for a Baltic(sic) revival in Cornwall.

www.bugbearbookings.co.uk (Dublin Castle)
Shit kicking Apalachian country wigouts only with a lispy Doherty meets Childish vocal, he looks like Lord Billy too. From Falmouth, where men are men and women are grateful. Seriously though they are very different to the prevailing climate these boyos, and good at it also.

Plough a similar furrow to Gogol Bordello with some Hot Club Django type shit chucked in…far more so than the backwoods American stuff actually. Breath takeingly entertaining.

manchestermusic.co.uk – review of first album (2007)
Superbly packaged, Julian Gaskell’s latest album absorbs elements of his last demo and also calls up an old classic, each and all played in his now familiar style – A long time resident of Manchester , now relocated back home on the south Coast, Gaskell has his own particular brand of gypsy punk – a craft he was honing in 1999/2000 in places like Night & Day, Jabez Clegg, Big Hands and The Roadhouse. As a singer who’s always had a touch of Joe Strummer about him, the vocals have a slight growl, and sneer along with his trademark political and social commentaries. As he hits “I.D On My Gravestone” Gaskell is in full flight, but at this point the music has slowed to a wonderfully energetic crawl. At times the style is pushed well out of even his own boundaries, as the swing time and even more carefree style of “It’ll Never Turn Out Nice Again” sounds like John Lydon and Robert Wyatt tearing out a couple of numbers from “Bednobs and Broomsticks”, as though it was a still beating, bloody heart. Over eighteen tracks it’s a delightful, well constructed journey which also resurrects “Billy Slag” from an earlier era in the Gaskell career – it all seems to fit together so perfectly. A pioneer of new wave skiffle and the use of acoustic instruments as weapons of new punk, Julian Gaskell is one of Britain’s few, truly original folk masters.

MMMM

manchestermusic.co.uk – demo review (2007)
Mr Julian Gaskell for those who may be unaware, was a bit of a pioneer of the folk / punk / nu-gypsy sound in Manchester. Either solo, or with Loafer and later The Icons Of Poundland, Julian and his merry band fused the attitude of Joe Strummer with a folkish, post punk outlook. Better still when delivering acoustic sets, their finesse and often gentle soundtracks, provided a compelling mix of angst and beauty. Now retired (in his 20’s !) back darn sarf (!) Mr Gaskell is still writing, recording and producing and after a guest slot at aA’s ITC shindig, slipped this into our pocket like an Oliver Twist in reverse.

“An Infestation Ye Cannot Clear” effectively proves that his material has been literally light years ahead of Gogol Bordello and that he was already a purveyor of new British twisted folk. “Problems In A Plastic” bag sounds like a heady mix of Abba’s “Money Money” and Adam Ant’s “Young Parisians” animated by the jostle of strings and accordions. By comparison “The Money Trick” is a back street cat fight in an unknown southern European city.

Gaskell’s brand of cosmopolitan bohemia is covered in British rock hallmarks – the subtle hint of a Ska skip and vocals that twist on their observational spikes with a guilty pleasure. The final take on Fun Boy Three’s “Lunatics..” is an opportunity well and truly exploited – whilst retaining the creeping, malevolent undertone, the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists have avoided copying the more obvious aspects of Terry Hall’s hit.

Mr Gaskell – it’s good to have you back, if even only for a day..

www.manchestermusic.co.uk TECHNOLOGY WILL MAKE US BETTER :: Julian Gaskell :: 22 May 2006 / Promo / CD Album By Lauren Strain
Creak. Rattle. waaaaaiiinnnngongongogogogong. Welcome to the whispery, hoarsely-hollered world of Julian Gaskell, who pronounces all his rounded vowels as though he’s got a throat chock full of bitter molasses mixed with Marmite and is attempting not to gip. Pulsing, thrusting, scratchy guitars and scrapes of slithering mandolin ebb and surge dramatically – hungrily – throughout seventeen tracks, whilst squelches of saliva and leering consonants scuttle about above. From the creepy wink of ‘Learn From Your Mistakes’, in which ghostly black spiders scramble at cracks in the walls and floorboards moan, where the innards and guts of ancient clocks spill out onto the floor, to ‘The Sweet, Sweet Smell of Decay’, where yellowing crumbs of plaster peel, of their own accord, from the bricks of a deserted old room locked away at the back of a derelict country mansion, you slowly begin to build a picture of Gaskell as a murky nomad, hunched over a withering book, gruffly reading to an ominous melody. Somewhere, by the dripping moonlight seeping in through fogged-up, muck-coated grey windows, blasted by the moors, his face furry with isolated weeks of stubble and his voice aching yet warm like a willowing candle, he crouches, spirit-like, on a moth-eaten, garish, ruined old sofa – some thrown-out throwback from a bygone era – plagued with rubbed patches of faded, threadbare material and pitted with holes chewed through by generations of rats. A bit spooky, yes? Yes. But in the best of archaic, somehow-comforting ways. All shaky corridors and drunken harmonicas, ‘Technology Will Make Us Better’ was recorded in Falmouth, solely with the natural aids of charity shop bits and pieces from across the world. Surrounded by squalor and the sea, the album groans with spray from the shores, soaring gulls and murky, thoughtful pools of deepest, darkest blue-black algae. At once burrowed in the silted-up, folky myths of a land time forgot, then buried alongside barndances at midnight, his sound varies from the brooding (nearly all tracks) to the twinkly and carefree, the likes of which ‘It’s Been Said’ is an example, with its lighter, prettier, flowing tones and dusky, dusty underlays of quiet organ. Speckled with drone-based instrumentals and gasping breaths of piano, Gaskell’s solo project is a humbly beautiful collection of gnarled wobblings and picturesque, pastoral warblings. Lovely. MMM ½

247 Magazine, April 2006
He’s shot away, he drawls like a cockney cowboy junky, he picks and slides on his acoustic guitar like he’s straddling Satan’s stretch rack, his name is JULIAN GASKELL and his 17-song album ‘Technology Will Make Us Better’ is what happens when Tom Waits falls into a Cornish tin mine, collides with Nick Drake on the way down and bangs his head in the wrong – or perhaps, right – place. It’s brilliant, original, full of character, full of sin and nothing whatsoever like the usual insipid acoustic-based guff you often hear in South West bars. I’m just sorry that we’ve only recently received the CD as it’s been out since October, released through Top Of The Hill Recordings in Hayle.Great stuff.

City Life (Manchester) 30th November 2005
Julian Gaskell – Technology Will Make Us Better

First impression: a nutter in the tradition of John Otway or our own Edward Barton, and nothing wrong with that. On second hearing, you get a deeper impression of Gaskell’s troubled personality, one that is in a constant state of agitation and anxiety. The songs have echoes of bluegrass, blues, world music and good old punk attitude. He plays most of the instruments himself and hence sounds like a one-man garage orchestra. ‘The Sweet, Sweet Smell of Decay’ is the ranting of a mind at the end of its tether and is utterly compelling. Not only does Technology… purposely exclude itself from the Mercury Award Shortlist, it seems designed for the oblivion so lovingly invoked on ‘We Never Said’. (MB) Rating: 8/10 Standout track: ‘If You Can’t Be Pleasant To Me’ Influenced by: Lambchop, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy Related artists: Skip Spence, Richey Edwards

www.diskant.net – August 2005
Julian Gaskell is part of the Icons of Poundland collective that wreaked musical havoc in the north-west with their home-baked folk/skiffle/punk mischief. He now resides in the more sedate climes of Falmouth and writes spooky, upbeat songs that sound like Tom Waits strung-out on fresh-air! The four tracks that make up ‘Demonstration Recordings’ aren’t a million miles from Mr Waits’ often-potent light jazz/dirty blues cocktail, and rattle between whacked-out, lowdown gritty stompers like ‘Learn From Your Mistakes’ and the gothic, gypsy-blues of ‘Gather! While Ye May’. His voice is full of bedraggled, smoky mystery and he plays guitar, harmonica, balalaika, banjo and zither. For anyone who doesn’t know what at least one of those instruments sounds like, the answer is: pretty special. This CD bubbles along like a particularly bucolic avant-folk experiment. If you like your avant-folk experiments bucolic then you’ve come to the right place.

www.moles.co.uk – 25 January 2005
I’m compelled to review tonight’s gig for two reasons; one – it’s good, and two – there’s nigh on no bugger here to hear it first hand. With audience levels peaking at nine or ten, it feels more like winning one of those ‘private gig in your living room’ things. With a quite commanding, eccentric stage presence, Julian Gaskell fills the support slot. An accomplished studio producer and engineer, Julian’s live set is full of reality and endearing humour. Blunt lyrical genius such as “House doubles make me wanna puke” compliments his adventurously technical guitar work. With a very conversational approach, he has those who are present hooked, which is especially impressive with so many sparse sections bringing it down to a whisper, before pelting off on one again. He drops hints of gypsy-folkisms, and gives the rather unique overall effect of a folky, bluesy Damon Albarn playing a barmitsfah. Chris Chislett

Reviews of Rogue theatre’s “Dancer & the Devil” 2011

The West Briton

The star of the show, apart from Tehidy itself, is musical director Julian Gaskell, who will be well known to music lovers in the county. A cross between Tom Waits, Joe Strummer and Rachmaninov, his repertoire of songs (helped by singer/musician Lauren Vandike) brought the show to life.

Other reviews from the archives…

Efestivals.co.uk 06/2010

First up on the Friday, on the main Indoor Stage, are Julian Gaskell & The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists whose brand of gypsy-punk-folk is a riotous start to a festival. Coming across like the Levellers on speed crashing headlong into Gogol Bordello, the sheer energy on stage from Julian is enough to get even the mildest mannered attendee in the mood for a cracking fest.

agigsagig.wordpress 06/2010

We went into the hall for our first taste of the weekend’s music, Julian Gaskell and the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a splendid name for a band specialising in a sort of Balkan-klezmer-tinged silliness with a radical Cornish twist. Julian himself is quite an engaging ranter and a very good accordionist. There’s something punky and attractively Beefheartian about the band, but much of the drollery is a bit too rich for my tastes.

http://www.folkworld.de 03/2010

I love it when I’m about to fall asleep after listening to a few standard (not to say little bit boring) albums and a band wakes me up again with bloody good music. This is the second album by Julian Caskell and his Trousered Philanthropists and is called Here the brute harpies make their nest. The band comes from Cornwall and they make some energetic, raw, mixture of folk, rock, punk, progressive, underground style folk with influences from almost everywhere and everything, Ska rhythms, a far-east melody, French muzette and some (more or less) traditional English influences. I love the accordion led up tempo songs, the sound of the Hammond organ starting its own life in a song, the unexpected melodic interruptions and a singer who sings his brains out of his nose. If you think this is a messy review, don’t buy the album as the music is even ten times as messy and I love it. Eelco Schilder

fRoots, Ian Anderson, Nov/Dec 2009

What’s there not to like about this great little quintet? Scurrying out of Falmouth in Cornwall, their bustling, belting, lopsided accordeon-led sound branches somewhere off the same musical family tree that gave us top Belgian faves Jaune Toujours and the long-lost La Cucina, with the rural literary flair of Blyth Power, XTC and Dancing Did chucked in the mix. Bits of hyper-Balkanisation bloody their noses on some crunchy Roma-jazz, and waves of sppedy punkfolk ska crash in the mix on cheesy surf organ and the ghost of Cap’n Beefheart. And a whole exhausting (in a good way) lot more. Exhilarating playing, fab lyrics, energy to spare: if I was running The Modern Day Festival – deservedly excoriated in the song of the same name – I’d be straight on the phone to book these guys for next year. If they’re this exciting on record then the live experience is going to be truly extraordinary. Go get, from …

Everett True Recommends, 09/2009

They’re a little bit Singing Loins. They’re a little bit Tiger Lillies (except I really didn’t like their act when I caught them at the Spiegeltent last year in Brisbane). They’re a little bit… what’s that band… Gogol Bordello. Very smart, very droll lyrics. Very theatrical. Very philanthropic. Lots of accordion and background shouting and roustabout rhythms. Bit of klezmer. Bit of that banjo-playing toad off Bagpuss. Bit of a lark.

24-7 Magazine October 2009

They don’t do demos, JULIAN GASKELL & HIS RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS. They do fully realised works of prole art that eschews the idea of clambering up the music industry ladder only to land on a snake and end up in a heap of disappointment. True to form, ‘Here The Brute Harpies Make Their Nests’ finds Gaskell and Co stepping up a gear and self-releasing an album that oozes confidence, irreverence, independence and brilliance; cementing their reputation as Tom Waits and Gogol Bordello’s defiantly Cornish bastard offspring. Taking us into a tumbledown world of squeezeboxes, fiddles, percussive waywardness and intellectual drinking, these 14 songs will make you swell with underclass pride even if you’re a bourgeois bum, with a lyric booklet that is worth the admission fee alone. Magnificent.

Manchester Music

Julian Gaskell once more, assembles his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (also featuring long time associate Kester Jones). Recorded down in Falmouth and St Keverne and then mastered in the New Forest, Julian is firmly at the helm on this album, which seems driven by the sound of drunken sailors, irate country folk and some occasional outright punk rock. Lyrically, this constitutes an imposing and enjoyable collection of words. ‘I never trust a man who says he don’t like Elvis..’ he firmly declares on “Gastro Pubs”.

July 2009 – Small world festival

despite the Hag that thought it was her gig, the drunken old boy pouring his drink all over the front of the stage, the bassist getting smacked in the face & yer drummer almost getting raped, you did a good show ( do you often attract an audience like that?) what a great bunch of musicians, we look forward to seeing you again.
247 Magazine April 2009
I’ve reviewed Cornwall-based JULIAN GASKELL before, and what a treat it was: all Tom Waits growl and blues-folk madness. Now he’s back with THE RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS, playing the kind of gnarly, radical folk-punk championed by Gogol Bordello and Devotchka (or ‘new wave skiffle’ as the band cutely tag themselves). Foot-stomping, accordion led show tunes with a great line in poetic socialism is the order of the day, never more so than on ‘Yuppie Flats’ and ‘The Great Money Trick’: songs that keep the class war alive and kicking. Although you feel that the Ukrainian-folk of ‘Cingilingibom’ is more righteous celebration than indignation. Awesome.

Western Morning News 11th April 2009

TAKE an accordion, a banjo, an acoustic guitar and a washboard and you have the essential tools for a rousing encounter with Cornwall’s unique gypsy punk troubadours, Julian Gaskill and his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. The elaborately named ensemble are as eccentric in looks as they are in sound, not least the mustachioed, bespectacled Julian, who regularly leads his merry men on musical jaunts around the Westcountry and beyond. This month they are warming up for a couple of major dates in uncharted locales – the Acorn Theatre in Penzance and the Voodoo Lounge at Exeter’s Phoenix Arts Centre – as their bid for world domination dances along. Their music can be fast-paced but their journey is, in fact, a very gentle one, punctuated by frequent stops to kick up a punk-style shindig that is heavily influenced by the traditional folk music of Eastern Europe. “We are walking uphill slowly rather than catching the cable car,” quips Julian who, at 37, has been playing guitar since he was 13 and spent several years on the cusp of major breaks in the business while living in Manchester.

And the name? English literature or social history scholars will recognise The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as the title of a political working class novel by Robert Tressell, published in 1914.

BLOG Hangin’ Wiv the Gypsies… Balkan-mania in the City

They promised us an exciting night of Balkan Boogie and Gypsies, and since I needed to schlep into the city to collect my Staind (avec Seether) ticket for their gig at the Astoria in January (yeah, I’m going to see them AGAIN), it seemed like a good idea to make a night of it. My friend made the drop (with the ticket) on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and off we went to what is apparently an Italian restaurant by day, and a Romanian restaurant by night. (Those cossetted city boys probably can’t handle anything more exotic than a plate of spag bol for lunch anyway.)

On that note…

BBC Radio Cornwall Website

Time Out Magazine, 2008

Bourbon-soaked vaudeville gypsy hoedown punk

Clash Music, September 2008

Lively folkster Julian Gaskell and his band hit the stage with an epic set of jig-led gypsy music to which the entire crowd dances. With banjo, fiddle, ukulele, accordion, double bass, the band is fuelled with acoustic energy. Set in a marquee covered in hay to soak up the rain, there’s no better setting for a ferocious folk session.

Fowey Fringe Festival Website

I have heard nothing but rave reviews from the people who were lucky enough to witness the highlight of our festival. I can’t remember a band performing with such energy, the audience reaction was fantastic! They had the whole place dancing, jumping around and begging for more.

West Briton – 2007

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs/Julian Gaskell and his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

Next up were the utmost finest band to appear in Cornwall for a long time – Julian Gaskell and his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, whose frontman’s ‘tache made Luke Toms’ look like a bit of bumfluff! Their insane genius, mixing accordion, fiddle, guitar, ukulele, bass and mouth organ was reminiscent of the soul of a rabid Captain Beefheart, if he’d had Eastern European roots and grown up in the deep south of America. They took a Borat-style parodic march through pseudo-slovakia, recreating a sound loved by many from the Beirut album. Whilst it’s hardly a hotly contested title, they definitely led the way for a Baltic(sic) revival in Cornwall.

www.bugbearbookings.co.uk (Dublin Castle)

Shit kicking Apalachian country wigouts only with a lispy Doherty meets Childish vocal, he looks like Lord Billy too. From Falmouth, where men are men and women are grateful. Seriously though they are very different to the prevailing climate these boyos, and good at it also.
Plough a similar furrow to Gogol Bordello with some Hot Club Django type shit chucked in…far more so than the backwoods American stuff actually. Breath takeingly entertaining.

manchestermusic.co.uk – review of first album (2007)

Superbly packaged, Julian Gaskell’s latest album absorbs elements of his last demo and also calls up an old classic, each and all played in his now familiar style – A long time resident of Manchester , now relocated back home on the south Coast, Gaskell has his own particular brand of gypsy punk – a craft he was honing in 1999/2000 in places like Night & Day, Jabez Clegg, Big Hands and The Roadhouse. As a singer who’s always had a touch of Joe Strummer about him, the vocals have a slight growl, and sneer along with his trademark political and social commentaries. As he hits “I.D On My Gravestone” Gaskell is in full flight, but at this point the music has slowed to a wonderfully energetic crawl. At times the style is pushed well out of even his own boundaries, as the swing time and even more carefree style of “It’ll Never Turn Out Nice Again” sounds like John Lydon and Robert Wyatt tearing out a couple of numbers from “Bednobs and Broomsticks”, as though it was a still beating, bloody heart. Over eighteen tracks it’s a delightful, well constructed journey which also resurrects “Billy Slag” from an earlier era in the Gaskell career – it all seems to fit together so perfectly. A pioneer of new wave skiffle and the use of acoustic instruments as weapons of new punk, Julian Gaskell is one of Britain’s few, truly original folk masters.

MMMM

manchestermusic.co.uk – demo review (2007)

Mr Julian Gaskell for those who may be unaware, was a bit of a pioneer of the folk / punk / nu-gypsy sound in Manchester. Either solo, or with Loafer and later The Icons Of Poundland, Julian and his merry band fused the attitude of Joe Strummer with a folkish, post punk outlook. Better still when delivering acoustic sets, their finesse and often gentle soundtracks, provided a compelling mix of angst and beauty. Now retired (in his 20’s !) back darn sarf (!) Mr Gaskell is still writing, recording and producing and after a guest slot at aA’s ITC shindig, slipped this into our pocket like an Oliver Twist in reverse.

Mr Gaskell – it’s good to have you back, if even only for a day..

www.manchestermusic.co.uk TECHNOLOGY WILL MAKE US BETTER :: Julian Gaskell :: 22 May 2006 / Promo / CD Album By Lauren Strain

Creak. Rattle. waaaaaiiinnnngongongogogogong. Welcome to the whispery, hoarsely-hollered world of Julian Gaskell, who pronounces all his rounded vowels as though he’s got a throat chock full of bitter molasses mixed with Marmite and is attempting not to gip. Pulsing, thrusting, scratchy guitars and scrapes of slithering mandolin ebb and surge dramatically – hungrily – throughout seventeen tracks, whilst squelches of saliva and leering consonants scuttle about above. From the creepy wink of ‘Learn From Your Mistakes’, in which ghostly black spiders scramble at cracks in the walls and floorboards moan, where the innards and guts of ancient clocks spill out onto the floor, to ‘The Sweet, Sweet Smell of Decay’, where yellowing crumbs of plaster peel, of their own accord, from the bricks of a deserted old room locked away at the back of a derelict country mansion, you slowly begin to build a picture of Gaskell as a murky nomad, hunched over a withering book, gruffly reading to an ominous melody. Somewhere, by the dripping moonlight seeping in through fogged-up, muck-coated grey windows, blasted by the moors, his face furry with isolated weeks of stubble and his voice aching yet warm like a willowing candle, he crouches, spirit-like, on a moth-eaten, garish, ruined old sofa – some thrown-out throwback from a bygone era – plagued with rubbed patches of faded, threadbare material and pitted with holes chewed through by generations of rats. A bit spooky, yes? Yes. But in the best of archaic, somehow-comforting ways. All shaky corridors and drunken harmonicas, ‘Technology Will Make Us Better’ was recorded in Falmouth, solely with the natural aids of charity shop bits and pieces from across the world. Surrounded by squalor and the sea, the album groans with spray from the shores, soaring gulls and murky, thoughtful pools of deepest, darkest blue-black algae. At once burrowed in the silted-up, folky myths of a land time forgot, then buried alongside barndances at midnight, his sound varies from the brooding (nearly all tracks) to the twinkly and carefree, the likes of which ‘It’s Been Said’ is an example, with its lighter, prettier, flowing tones and dusky, dusty underlays of quiet organ. Speckled with drone-based instrumentals and gasping breaths of piano, Gaskell’s solo project is a humbly beautiful collection of gnarled wobblings and picturesque, pastoral warblings. Lovely. MMM ½

City Life (Manchester) 30th November 2005

Julian Gaskell – Technology Will Make Us Better
First impression: a nutter in the tradition of John Otway or our own Edward Barton, and nothing wrong with that. On second hearing, you get a deeper impression of Gaskell’s troubled personality, one that is in a constant state of agitation and anxiety. The songs have echoes of bluegrass, blues, world music and good old punk attitude. He plays most of the instruments himself and hence sounds like a one-man garage orchestra. ‘The Sweet, Sweet Smell of Decay’ is the ranting of a mind at the end of its tether and is utterly compelling. Not only does Technology… purposely exclude itself from the Mercury Award Shortlist, it seems designed for the oblivion so lovingly invoked on ‘We Never Said’. (MB) Rating: 8/10 Standout track: ‘If You Can’t Be Pleasant To Me’ Influenced by: Lambchop, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy Related artists: Skip Spence, Richey Edwards

This is not TV – 2003

[albums]

What I do is something of a disgrace. For me to presume to judge a persons best efforts, and frequently damn them, suggests a certain vile nature and insecurity. It is certainly to mark oneself out as an arrogant, self-important dampener of dreams. The fact that I do this for absolutely no financial gain (most of our PR freebies are given away as competition prizes) makes an ugly practice even more disfigured and pungent. However it is also part and parcel of my self appointed position as pompous raspberry blower to fawn, yawp excitedly and sprinkle sweet smelling waters upon those who’s work I consider exemplary. Whenever this happens I will holler my approval from every orifice in order to redress the balance of my caustic condemnations. Rarely do I ever have such an excuse to purge the sins of my critical cruelty than when a Julian Gaskell creation comes my way.

For the uninitiated, and sadly they are many, Julian was the driving force behind one of Manchester’s most cruelly overlooked bands, Loafer. Loafer always seemed to me the missing link between Ian Dury and the Blockheads and a ferociously prolapsing larynx and perhaps as a result didn’t slide in too neatly beside the proliferation of pointless punks, limp wristed balladeers and interminable baggy bands that make up the majority of the city’s otherwise thriving unsigned scene. The strain of apathy took its toll and the band crumbled briefly, losing an incredible drummer in Ben Emissah, to re-emerge with ubiquitous Manchester stickstress Kate Themen in tow as Icons of Poundland. The sound of Loafer having an electric fire dropped into its bath was born. Now here, following Icon’s debut home studio-tastic double B-side single “Nothing But Love And Good Vibes/House Doubles”, comes their eponymous debut album with more fire in its angry little belly than I could have possibly hoped.

“Nothing But Love And Good Vibes”, fattened by a full band sound since its solo noisenik incarnation on their debut, jerks and spits like The Clash sodomising “Lust For Life”. “Stole My Smile” is the sound of bones being broken with a Soda Stream whilst “An Infestation You Can’t Clear” is Tom Waits tossing “Fiddler on the Roof” albums into a cement mixer, and that is just your first three tracks.

In the majority “Icons…” is an album designed to scream and unburden its spite for your listening pleasure but it is not without its more tender, palette cleansing moments. The emotionally wrenching likes of “Pissing All Over My Dreams” and “Safe and Warm” hit home with an emotional impact born of discordance and vulnerable cacophony, both barely uttered murmurs of eloquent discontent, whilst the sinister crumbling lounge howl of “Icon Of The Cool” slinks, gradually, under your skin and settles in.

This record is in no way an easy ride, on top of the challenging onslaught of the music itself the whole album is drenched in a production technique that fizzes and burbles with all the

lo-fi glory of a teenager compiling a C90 mix tape, though for £1 you were hardly going to get perfection. A nation still gripped by the wonder of seemingly production free New Yoik punk, however, shouldn’t have a great deal of trouble pulling the gems from this white noise, should the band get their well deserved chance at mainstream acceptance.

These songs don’t come across as having been written, they seem instead to have been ripped from some ferocious source and battered into ragged form, Julian especially coming on like a conduit for this source. At times the band seem to be controlling this sound rather than crafting it, the vocals torn, glancing against the melody, the guitars bullish and fiery, kicking and fighting. There is an energy and urgency on display here that you are rarely likely to stumble upon in a lifetime’s worth of music loving and if you are lucky enough to come across this band, this music, these songs then you will be a richer person for it. I certainly am, not least because it has brought me some small relief from my usual snide role of pious, opinionated twat!

This is not TV – 2002

I long for the day when Manchester’s [via Brighton] Julian Gaskell graduates to his rightful place as Official Thorn In The Side of British guitar music, usurping the sour faced Luke Haines. His spiteful observational humour normally graces the releases of the criminally unnoticed Loafer and have now found a new forum in the discordant electronic wheeze of his solo Icons of Poundland project. I say electronic but those of you hopeless enough to be looking for a new electroclash idol will be sorely disappointed as the two tracks here [a double b-side no less] are more akin to listening to The Clash in the bleed from someone else’s walkman than the laughable synth burp of Fischerspooner.

“Nothing but Love and Good Vibes” is an itchy, lo-fi cousin of something that fell out of the back of “Lust for Life” and was picked up by a drunken Damon Albarn. If its skipping rhythm and infectious melody don’t ring in your head for two days straight after you hear it then I swear you are beyond help. “House Doubles” on the other hand is a casio rock snarl that is so eloquent in its slurring momentum that you could almost be tricked into thinking Carter USM were a great idea.

In short if you want to hear the sound of a man squeezing great songs into sonic vitriol over a wall of guitars and digital squall whilst fending off a swarm of aggressive seizures then Icons of Poundland are the one man band for you and your sick and immensely tasteful mind.

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