"Boxer, bassman, brother, bandit? Bluesman? Born under a bad sign of the hammer and sickle, in a beautiful damned Siberian town. Tearing through the underside of London. Prisons, planes, hotel rooms, an everlasitng lie. A little blood now and then, a little pepper in your vodka to keep things interesting. Look out ladies, watch out boys, I'm back and I'm in black and I am going to make some noise."
Bleak (andblue) is fronted by Anton Shelupanov and backed up by Yvonne Okoduwa, both formerly of Misnomer, at one time the biggest underground band in the UK, with the classically trained multi-istrumentalist Rach Woodworth on bass and Geoff Courts of the mighty prog punk outfit Djevara on guitar. Together they play the sort of alt.blues that can melt through bank vaults. Heavy, brutal, primal, direct, and yet sublimely beautiful, it drags you by your throat from the plantations of the 1860s Deep South via the jails and chain gangs of the Great Depression and throws you face down among burning remains and charred corpses of the Rhythm Night Club, Natchez Mississippi. They tried to sell their souls to the devil at the crossroads, but he couldn’t afford them, so they are going to give you a piece for free instead.
Back to Bleak Tour 2008
Thursday 13 March: Wilmington Arms, London, UK
Saturday 15 March: The Joiners, Southampton, UK
Sunday 6 April: Humble Pie, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Monday 7 April: MO's, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Friday 11 April: Don Hill's Club, New York, USA
Friday 9 May: ABC Treehut, The Hague, NETHERLANDS
Thursday 15 May: Wilmington Arms, London, UK
