Piney Gir & The Age of Reason (and the Reasonettes), The Monroe Transfer, Cartridge

In the last couple of years, the Macbeth pub in Hoxton has become synonymous with the Amy Winehouse/Blake Civil-Fielding's saga, for it was its previous landlord that Civil-Fielding arranged to have beaten up. These days, though, the Macbeth is a cool little pub hosting some great gigs, and tonight is a perfect example.

This rainy Tuesday night the ever excellent Piney Gir and The Age of Reason (and The Reasonettes) headline with support from Cartridge and The Monroe Transfer.
Cartridge are first on, with their synth, cute pop and seven piece instrumental band from London, The Monroe Transfer, really kick start the night with their blend of shoegazy modern classical music with Eastern European influences (if you can imagine such a thing). The band, helped by a viola, violin, double bass, samples, guitars (at one point played with a bow), cello and drums, play an emotional maelstrom of a set. Don't expect to sing along, but do expect to be swept away.

But it's our headliners, Piney Gir and The Age Of Reason (and the Reasonettes) that really steal the show. Dressed in a nautical themed blue dress accessorized with a bespoke pillbox sailor's hat, Kansas born Piney takes the stage accompanied by four male musicians and The Reasonettes, three fabulously dressed and pitch perfect backing vocalists.
Their set tonight looks back in time with songs inspired by great sounds from the past: from the 1940s opener, Hello Halo (a poppy song about a friend’s cat called Halo), to Doo Wop, jazz, 60s pop (the faux naïve and cute Bumblebee also know as Abehla, bumblebee in Portuguese) and even mediaeval influences in the poignantly gorgeous Weeping Machine.

The theme of most of the songs is love and heartbreak, and it sounds like the delicious Piney Gir has had her fair share of chagrin, but this is not a woman who locks herself at home watching crap TV;  this is a woman who first and foremost is a musician and all her woes are channelled into composing perfectly crafted tunes with the right balance of sorrow and irony.

 Where Lucky Me (written with members of Oxford band Goldrush) and The Great Divide are up tempo numbers one can dance to, Miss Havisham is an intensely touching tune about breaking up and what an ordinary act that is, but also how extraordinarily painful it can be.
Piney is not crying over spilt milk, but asking her ex lover how he could turn something like what they had into such a cheap and ordinary split. And then she asks Miss Havisham ( the jilted bride from  Dickens’ Great Expectations in case you didn’t know) what she would do in her situation.

But it's Weeping Machine that grabs my heart with its violent sugar coated claws. Piney's emotions are so palpable that she doesn't even need to have words in the poignant chorus, which is instead filled just with a howl of  "oohs", like a distressed animal, so effective that it almost makes me writhe and cry.

It’s soon back to the dancefloor and the sing-a-long, because Piney has a gifted song-writing hand and a song about divorce (Greetings, Salutations, Goodbye from her first album, Peakahokahoo) delivered country style, is all about fighting back. The music is so upbeat it makes you want to go line dancing (and possibly get a divorce).
Ms Gir is also lucky enough to have a stunning, malleable, pitch perfect voice. She can sound like a little girl one minute and a filthy seductress the next. Singing her songs she goes through every emotion contained in them. She has the audience wrapped around her little finger, thanks to the playful rapport she has with them. She interacts, she gets them involved and she tells funny jokes.

Being such a prolific songwriter, Piney has a country project too, Piney Gir Country Roadshow, another excellent outfit playing country music with a modern urban edge.
With so much talent and hard work one has to wonder why Piney Gir isn't an international star yet. Her new single Of All The Wonderful Things featuring Eamon Hamilton of Brakes, and My Imaginary Baby featuring The Piney Gir Country Roadshow, is out May 4th on Purr Records, go buy it and give this girl the success she deserves. We truly can't let such a star fall through the net.

www.pineygir.com
Single My Imaginary Baby out on May the 4th on Purr Records available on www.purr.org.uk or on Itunes
The Macbeth, 60 Carlton Mansions, 70 Hoxton Street,
Hoxton, London, N1 6LP, 0871 971 3890
 
Live dates:
13th March :Piney Gir unplugged with The Age Of Reason And The Reasonettes at The London Transport Museum
28th March:The Piney Gir Country Roadshow at the Jericho Tavern, Oxford
4th April : The Piney Gir Country Roadshow play the Clerkenwell West Fest at The Betsy Trotwood, London
16th April: Piney And The Bluegrass Two at The Library in Islington, London
2nd May : Piney & The Age Of Reason with The Reasonettes Underwater Adventure, Cube Cinema, Bristol