If there is a band that epitomizes the term “grassroots music” better than the wonderfully named Two-Man Travelling Medicine Show then I want them shot, stuffed, and mounted on the wall of my office as a memento of what music is, or at least should be, about. Music as a calling, not a paycheck. Music on a budget. Music that speaks to the man in the street, because it comes from the man in the street. Music made for all the right reasons.
This folk-country-punk outfit, whose headcount ebbs and flows but averages out around eight people, has been firing off brilliant sonic salvos for a long time now, and their latest brace, when taken together, sums up the band’s sonic scope brilliantly.
Understanding that you can capture people’s attention through deft, understated song work as easily as from a big sonic suckerpunch, “I Am Invisible” arrives riding on a lilting violin line, a little else, gentle, engaging…beautiful. Chords cascade quietly, strings are plucked, beats are used sparingly, and the lyrics enter into a call and response with the finessed fiddle. And even as the banjo bubbles away and the sonic footprint grows, we are reminded that freedom is within our grasp should we want it. No storming of barricades, no call to arms, no wailing and gnashing of teeth, just an invisible, non-conformity is required.
Its sonic traveling partner, “Ordinary Bloke,” puts these ideas of not following the pack into a slightly more specific context. Over the band’s more usual raggedy folk frenzy, singer Mark despairs at the fury and intolerance, entrenched attitudes, and populist rhetoric of the people in the pub around him. This, of course, is both an actual observation and a metaphor for the world at large. And it is a song that becomes ever more poignant with each spin as the dark clouds gather and global politics shifts further to the right.
This is a band that muses rather than sermonizes. It is a band that wants to get us dancing rather than trying to change the world, but only because they understand the futility of trying to get your voice in the wilderness heard above the clamor of the modern age. This band accepts its lot, perhaps grudgingly, but only because they understand how things work. You turn to this band at the end of the working week to let off steam. And what could be a better reason for a band to exist than that?
I Am Invisible/Ordinary Bloke will be available on all platforms on 18th April
