The members of the City Farmers have nothing left to prove.
Theyve been around. Theyve been in bands before. Theyve played The Ritz in New York and the pub on the corner. Theyve hung out with hookers and hustlers, and with David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker and the Pixies. Theyve had teams of roadies to coil their leads, and theyve stood in the snow at 2am trying to start the van.
They dont play music to meet girls, make money or annoy their parents. They play music because they love it, because when the bass and the drums are just there, when the guitars are riding the groove, when the slides talking to the singer, and when the crowds drinking and dancing and whooping, its the best feeling there is.
And the music they play is the music they love, the music that meant something to them when they started, and still does. Theres a whole lot of rock nroll in there, some country, some folk and some blues. Theres punk attitude, rockabilly fervour and pop suss. Theres Vince Taylor and Joe Strummer; Nick Drake and Johnny Cash.
But all of this would amount to little more than a superior bar band if it wasnt for the songs. Former Godfathers guitarist Mike Gibson put the City Farmers together in 2004 because he needed a band to promote his first solo album, City Farm. The album pulled together a collection of Mikes material from the past few years, mature meditations on the shapes modern life forces people into, the need to resist those pressures, and the possibilities for escape.
Everyone who heard those early City Farmers gigs knew there was something special going on, a chemistry that took Mikes songs to unexpected places. And the band knew it too. Theyve carried on working together, gigging, growing into their sound. And you can hear the results for yourself via the downloads available at http://www.cityfarmers.co.uk and myspace.com/cityfarmers, taken from the bands recent show at St Marys Church in North London.