REVIEWS AND STUFF LIKE THAT

transpont.blogspot.com Monday, November 24, 2008 

Music at Cafe Crema

Some good Saturday night music sessions happening at Cafe Crema in New Cross Road. Last weekend, Tragic Roundabout from Brighton played. Kind of folk-ska-ragtime stomp with accordion, banjo, clarinet, guitar, bass and drums. It all got so lively that the tables got pushed aside for some serious dancing. Highlights included versions of 'Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue', the great Sheffield folk song 'Don't you want me baby' and 'Una Paloma Blanca' - revised with the lyrics 'you are a Northern wanker' - which I guess covers most of the country for a Brighton-based band. There was a 'win-a-CD-dancing-competition' won by a girl with an elephant puppet on her hand - personally I thought using props was cheating, but hey...

Tragic Roundabout - Bedlam Fair-June 2002

Those itinerant musical vagabonds that are the Tragicks seem always to thrive on a mixed audience in an outdoor setting,and Bedlam Fair inthe Parade Gardens on Sunday 2nd June was no exception.They look almost as if they had just climbed out of a wheelie bin that by chance had contained a vat of cider,and play an irresistable collection of music and songs,gleaned from and written out of their intrepid journeys across Europe and beyond. Accordianist Jo Contraires charismatic bellows provide a distinctly European flavour and strong rhythmic push,augmented by the frenetic swinging of Richard III banjo.Rattling Matt Gloss plays a marching drum kit in situations like these,and out of all the Tragick line ups I have encountered over the years,their present one is stronger and more comprehensive than ever.Desmondo Rez swaps between acoustic and bass guitars,then unveils that sweet sweet mexican trumpet to fire up the fiesta....guitarist Charlie Tango similarly proves to be multi-talented as he swells the brass on the trombone.Add to all that the snaking,shaking climax making tones of Miss Kirsty Cakehole's clarinet and you are in for some serious knees up my dear old Muvver Brown...they make you think theyve just arrived via some Dickensian street party,and you try getting them to stop!All singing,all dancing,if this world were just,the Tragicks would be household names by now,but then again maybe its just us 'tossers' on the street that really get where theyre coming from. For those unfortunate enough never to have encountered their unique style of Vaudeville stomps and soaring Klezmer,my advice would be to catch them in a bar or on a street somewhere in the world soon........BY JONAH FLATFOOT

Brighton Argus

For pure upliftment,check out Tragic Roundabout.Renowned for their festie performances these seven guys from Brighton are one of the friendliest and original street and stage bands around.Over 13 years together the band has produced five albums including 'PEGGY COOPER','LIVE AT THE LYNX LANE LOUNGE',GONE DANCIN'' and the ever popular'HERE COMES THE LINO MAN'.They play klezmer,traditional jewish wedding music,passing it through a filter of punk,ska,ragtime and trad jazz.The result is eastern European meets surreal lyrics and footstomping refrains. by MELINDA SAUNDERS

The Rising Sun Institute-Reading

We searched four continents for a band fit to play our birthday party,before stumbling upon the calling card of a certain Joseph Mottingham,self styled purveyor of finest linoleum.His band Tragic Roundabout are eastern European style busker hooligans with an appetite for alcohol and mad dancing and play acoustic ragtime punk blended with an unsubtle hint of the mystic east.Featuring clarinet,banjo,accordian,trombone,trumpet,guitar,bass and drums,you will not find another band quite like them.

Bath Fringe

More triffic than tragic...ajoyus heartlifting glorious noise that you can be sure they'll still be making long after you've dropped. 

Ambient Green Picnic

Mad as hatters and muchos fun....one of Britains best acoustic acts.

Latest mag.

More George Forman than Formby...Cajun Porch band with hobnail holiday vocals.

Latest7 magazine (Horatio's Bar, Brighton Pier 31/08/07)

What goes better than Tragic Roundabout and the Palace Pier, two long-standing Brighton institutions/landmarks, whose decaying and old school flavours continue to find favour among locals and tourists alike. TR are so effortlessly good it sometimes takes a while to fully appreciate their unique brew of Eastern European rhythms,ska, punk, folk, klezmer and bar room sing songs. But once you do, the music gripsyou in it's relentless vice, and before you know it, you end up dancing like a goon on hot coals.

OCCII-Amsterdam

The Tragic sound is totally infectious and sucks you into their bizzarr world of lino salesmen,camel herders,obscure places and cakes leaving you dazed,happy and feeling a little bit ridiculous.

J.Rocket-Prisoner

Tragic Roundabout are completely outstanding and an instant antidote to anything serious.HOORAY!

Squall mag

...red faced nutters and consummate musicians,they play like there's no tomorrow,so making tomorrow a far more cheerful place.Book this band,send us an invite and all previous appointments will be cancelled.

Real Music Club

This month we're back at the Polar Central, now renamed the Hope after being extensively sound-proofed. As usual we have a three band event, headlined by Tragic Roundabout (alledgedly the best festival dance band ever). If you've seen them already you know what I mean. If not, you are in for a unique toe-tapping, hip-wiggling, leaping experience.

Don't Feed the Poets 2004

A packed venue filled out St Mary with a cross section of Hastings and St Leonards glued to the performances of Attila the Stockbroker and Jon Otway and a poetry performance set of unforgettable madness, followed by the antics and music of Tragic Roundabout, who continued to play even when we switched the mikes off, walking across the tables. A great end to a fab festival.

Tunbridge Wells Winter Street Festival 2000

The other band I caught was Tragic Roundabout, I couldn't possibly describe their genre of music but it was real toe tapping stuff. It was their little dog that stole the show. Closer scrutiny afterwards showed that the dog's tail wagged perfectly in time with the band too, that must've taken some training.

Paul Chi (Healthy Concerts)

"They are phenomenal, without a doubt. These musicians make it look like effortless bliss. You imagine that they could continue to play perfectly well in their sleep! The wind players make the production of sweet graceful music seem as easy as er.... farting! The talent is that natural."

Latest 7 Magazine, Brighton

Seemingly as much a part of the Brighton landscape as the Pier and the Pavilion, you can always rely on Tragic Roundabout to be there when you need them. From Birdlip to Cowfold via Warninglid is their umpteenth album, and once again it's an effortlessly classy whirlwind of Eastern European rhythms with healthy dollops of ska, punk, folk, klezmer, pub singalong vibes and even a little bit of Chas'n'Dave style pop! It's all pleasantly irreverent and jolly good fun. Embrace our heritage before it sinks underneath a pile of loft apartments, delis and parking restrictions. Available at their gigs and via myspace.com/missiontomottingham

Sunrise Festival

Not really a sunrise moment, but Tragic Roundabout played in a cosy little tent somewhere behind the ID Spiral area and they were great! For a while that night (forget exactly what night that was....) this wee tent was THE place to be. Tragic Roundabout had the place rammed. I turned up when they were playing the theme to 'world of sport' (you really had to be there...) and there wasn't a dry eye in the place. Totally random and brilliant.

Spiralcat

I saw Tragic Roundabout live. It was in the UK seaside resort of Brighton in the summer of 1999. The music venue where I saw Tragic Roundabout no longer exists but before it was replaced with an anonymous shopping development it was a place with character. Well to be more precise it was a shabby deserted hall with a sticky floor and cold unheated air where the acoustics squeezed the music into a funnel of hard noise. We saw a poster in a venue window and went in to see the group without ever having heard of them before, let alone listened to their music, the decision to have a couple of beers and see them was based purely on the name. The band name Tragic Roundabout is a bit of fun with the children's show called the Magic Roundabout, the Magic Roundabout children's show was a show on the BBC. Based on the name I was expecting some kind of synthesiser based tongue in cheek euro electro-pop music in the vein of the French music duo Air or a quirky British soundscape like the desolate but cheesy music pieces of Goldfrapp. The shenanigans that actually unfolded on stage were worlds away from my expectations. First let's talk about the look. It was the summer of 1999 so I was used to the fashion stylings of Britpop bands like Blur and Pulp, a knowing uncool involving tracksuits, velvet jackets and national health specs but at the same time obviously middle class and well groomed. Tragic Roundabout would be better characterised as the great unwashed. Giant Aran jumpers with cigarette burn holes in them, trousers that had once been shapeless but which had gone beyond this relatively benign state to take on the hint of dread shapes from the collective unconscious due to the unholy forces within, all manner of fashion crimes perpetrated by all with the gay abandon of musical artists who have realised that they transcended such rules long ago. I have to say that the musicianship on display was of an equally unkempt nature. I was watching the gig with a few friends from the Jazz course my girlfriend was attending and the looks on their faces reinforced my impression that the band had a non traditional view of music making. The vocals were rough as a badger's rear end and the instruments were all resolutely out of time, register, mood, tempo, style, octave, spatial relativity.... All was jumble, nothing matched and all was in yer face, but in a good way, at least I hoped so. I hoped they were on our side because although they gave the impression of amateurs who met at a hippie festival and came together for a single unrehearsed performance there was also something about them that seemed unstoppable. I was deeply impressed by the nobility and outsider nature of the music. It was very Brighton and even now coming up on ten years since the first and last time I heard that strange music I still joke about it with my friends. Just a couple of days ago I was making such a joke, I compared the The Arcade Fire to a younger version of the Tragic Roundabout but with a stylist (which is cruel because Arcade Fire are accomplished musicians), while I was working at the computer and it suddenly occurred to me that Tragic Roundabout might still exist and might even still be making their music so I googled them and .. drum roll... I found a MySpace sight, and one look confirmed that it could only be them, from the band shot down to the fly walking over the surface of the screen, but how would the music sound compared to the music in my memory. Had they practiced and got good, had they sold out and gone boy band. I braced myself and hit play on the music widget thing. Well, they have got better.

Brighton Argus

Busking and beyond

By Warren Pegg » “When we first got together there were 15 of us,” says Tragic Roundabout clarinettist Pat Popov. “We went over to a busking competition in Ireland, near Cork. That was where it started from. “We got put on a traffic roundabout right on the outskirts of the city, because we’d been billed as, if I recall correctly, 15 harmonicas and a banjo. They thought we were going to make a racket, so they put us by a main road on the edge of town. “We thought b***** that and got ourselves disqualified by leaving the pitch and going up into town busking in all the pubs. We ended up making more than the prize money was anyway. It was a bit anarchic in those days. It still can be, actually.” Tragic Roundabout had found their name, but were to undergo numerous personnel changes before settling on their current line-up of “five musicians and a drummer”. In addition to Popov’s clarinet, the band now consists of banjo, accordion, drums, bass, guitar and occasional brass parts. They play raucous gypsy punk of the kind made famous by Gogol Bordello, although Tragic Roundabout predate Eugene H¸tz’s group. “We’ve been together for close to 20 years in different guises. It started off as a really rough, loose busking collective,” Popov explains. “We were just doing what the hell we wanted to really. We’d turn up at festivals without tickets and play on the gate until they let us in, that sort of thing. “In the 1990s it gelled together as the outfit it is today. It’s sort of an Eastern European punky flavour with a bit of klezmer in there.” The band’s debut release, Here Comes The Lino Man, came out in 1994 and they hope to record their sixth album in the near future. They’ve taken their uplifting, freewheeling live show across Europe many times and remain festival mainstays, having already appeared at Glastonbury and Hawkwind’s Hawkfest this year. Popov is looking forward to seeing tonight’s co-headliners, Gadjo, play live for the first time. Their concerts have the same flamboyant energy of street entertainment and employ a dizzyingly broad array of instrumentation, including double bass, melodica and tuba. The Barcelona-based group’s lyrics are written in French, Spanish and English and touch upon such unorthodox subjects as infatuated accordions, gold teeth and illegal living. The title of their most recent album, Para Yayas Y Gamberros, translates as “for grannies and hooligans”. “They do a similar sort of thing,” says Popov. “Balkan rhythms and a gypsy vibe.”