The Curse of You Know Who by Vinny Peculiar
You must have heard of Vinny Peculiar by now, right? The songwriter with the eye for everyday detail, the ear for a swaggering guitar riff, and the wit to blend these together into effervescent songs that sound epic and life affirming.
On his latest album, “The Curse of You Know Who” Vinny has plugged in, in a big way. Previously, he sometimes dropped some beautiful finger picked acoustic guitar songs with a confessional, folky influence. However, this time round it feels as though he’s fallen in love with the electric guitar all over again and traded in the acoustics for a new bunch of shiny, sexy electrics – they are everywhere on this album! Fortunately he remembered to hang up the signs in the studio saying: “No Shredding Allowed!” These are fantastically tuneful lead guitar lines, with the wooziness of glam but the sweet melodic sensibility of Brian May. Unashamedly big, melodic lead guitars are everywhere, superbly recorded and mixed – they sound fantastic!
The 1970s are always sat on Vinny’s shoulder as he tries to make sense of the world. whether that’s through the glam rock sound he sometimes evokes in his music, or the subject matter and cultural references that he sprinkles through his lyrics, or the events he occasionally reminisces about. As a Bromsgrove lad who started the 70s as the son of a church organist, became obsessed with T-Rex and Glam Rock, at school was taught English and given songwriting tips by Clifford T Ward (England’s finest singer-songwriter who never quite became a household name – check him out), then experienced firsthand the late 70s Punk Cultural Revolution, and ended the decade as a devotee of Talking Heads, well… that’s quite a musical journey to make, and it’s no wonder the 1970s are always present in Vinny’s creativity one way or another.
This album announces its arrival with the bright, positive upbeat chords of “The Curse”, with a clean, hard, guitar sound, against which Vinny gives his trademarked languid vocal delivery – it’s a compelling contrast. The song ends with two electric guitars trading phrases against each other, like early 70s Stones if they’d had modern recording techniques.
Second song “Billy Liar” has the driving arpeggios of The Smiths energetically pushing the song forward, as the lyrics sketch out an impressionistic blend of scenes and dialogues from the eponymous 1963 movie, based on Keith Waterhouse’s novel of the same name. The movie obviously had a big impact on Vinny’s cultural development, as it inspired the name for the record label he uses for his releases: “Shadrack and Duxbury Records”; the names of 2 undertakers that appear in the “Billy Liar” story. The song concludes by describing the movie’s final scene: Billy at the station realising that he doesn’t have the nerve to take the train to London and risk the possibility of starting a new life. “It’s a scene that destroys me every time” confides Vinny. It obviously made a strong impression on a young musician growing up in Bromsgrove, wondering if there was anything more exciting happening, anywhere else.
That all got a bit heavy, so let’s lighten the mood with “Katy Perry in Space”. Shimmering astral sounds usher in the song, and through the gently rotating chords we orbit around the Katy’s moment of cosmic tourism, as the lyrics seem to offer reportage about the event. However, a subtly wry and knowing tone emerges, through lines like “The galaxy and stars above / She sings ‘Wonderful World’ and they all light up / coming in to land / nosecone in the sand / cameras everywhere” which leaves us feeling that perhaps Katy’s excursion was a trifle indulgent.
I’ve got to mention “AI Girlfriend”, a song that had to be written – have you seen the news headlines lately? This buzzes along on a fantastic fuzzy, chugging guitar riff with huge sounding lead guitars again. The spirit of The Fall stalks this track, through the half-spoken vocal delivery, the extension of the lyrical phrase over the end of one bar and into the next one, and the jarring keyboard lines that punctuate the song. After installing the relevant app on his phone, the song details how the protagonist gradually and insidiously gets pulled deeper into a relationship with female AI that he names Elaine. I’m sure you’re all dying to know, is the relationship… consummated? I’m afraid you’ll need to listen to the song yourself to find out…
This is the first in a group of songs that all seem to deal with sci-fi or tech paranoia in some way: “Wormhole” seems to discuss interdimensional travel (I think), over Pulp like guitars and a stylophone solo: “Flat Earth” spins a conspiracy theory lyric as spry trebly guitars replicate the feel of a computerised Kraftwerk keyboard loop in a wonderful musical sleight of hand; “Runcorn Abductions” imagines what it would be like if UFO abductions had taken place in the Merseyside town in ’73 and been hushed up by the government; and “The New Dark Ages” is a Modern Glam Stomper™ with a fantastic hard guitar line stalking the melody throughout the song. Vinny invites us over for some time off grid: “Come for the weekend and I’ll disable your device / we can go for a walk, I know a place untouched by satellites / I’ll send you the details, an ordinance survey map / in a plain brown envelope, with a Trump cartoon on the back”. I’m tempted – meet you there?
Futureshock paranoia finally gives way to a woozy slow ballad called “The Velvets”. An evocation of the early 70s with a dreamlike chiming guitar and lush backing vocals, which draws us into the time when the hippy dream darkened, before an appropriately premature ending.
Well, we need something to cap this all off, and Vinny obliges with an epic closer, “Moon Landing”. Chiming electrics and a strident acoustic frame an appropriately spacey vocal that sounds like the singer is standing on the far side of a valley. He reminisces about watching the moon landings: “Astronauts were dancing / Giant steps were taken / Stanley Kubrick watched from Hollywood”. These memories are gradually weaved together with conspiracy theories amid washes of feedback in reverb and a slow fade out, with Vinny gently repeating “It’s time to move on”.
“The Curse of You Know Who” is made by a real guitar lover. Numerous times it reminds me of Pulp’s “This Is Hardcore” with organs providing a bed for epic sounding drums and guitars, but Vinny’s guitars are flint hard and dripping in Glam Rock in a way never done by Cocker and Co. The lead guitars are unashamedly all over this album, bringing big melodic lines that intertwine with the sung vocals. “The Curse of You Know Who” manages to blend lyrics of paranoid futureshock with epic scale indie glam and a wry wit, that makes you laugh, makes you think, and makes you contemplate flushing your mobile phone down the loo.
By: Eastside Jimmy
The Curse of You Know is available from the Vinny Peculiar website.