Thomas' Box of Tricks

Gig review by Dawn / Photos by Rich and Dawn

You can always spot the first time visitors to Thomas Truax gigs. They’re the ones with their mouths and eyes wide open and utterly baffled looks upon their faces. It’s the same here today at the food and craft fair outside the Mima gallery. But then it’s not every day you see a musician with not only an intriguing array of kooky songs, but a suitcase full of kooky homemade instruments to match.

For want of a better description, let’s use a well-worn cliché and call Thomas the Tim Burton of music. His weird and wonderful instruments include the Hornicator (a gramophone horn with attachments of various strings and microphones, linked to a loop station), the Stringaling (as its name suggests, it uses string... and a whistle and a chattering skeleton head) and the now infamous Sister Spinster (a spinning metal wheel who provides percussion accompaniment courtesy of her attached drums and cymbal). His songs, meanwhile, have been described as everything from ‘anti-folk’ to ‘campfire singalongs’.

Today Thomas takes to the stage with Hornicator in tow and a fabulously weird pair of goggles which make coloured lasers spin in front of his eyes. A song about beehive hearts is followed by the eponymous track from his latest album, Why Dogs Howl At The Moon where the Hornicator is accompanied by his trademark howling, looped voice and seemingly off the cuff lyrics delivered in a Paul Simon style.

For Escape From The Orphanage, however, he sacrifices his homemade instruments in favour of a guitar which, he explains, he won’t attempt to alter: “I could probably only derange it and there’s enough derangement going on as it is”. Sister Spinster then takes centre stage once more, much to the bewilderment of the new spectators who’ve wandered in from the cinema tent next door.

In Barcelonely has a loud beginning but soon turns into Truax’s mellowest song so far, complete with whistling. A complete contrast, the lyrics of If We’re Gonna Go Crazy (‘let’s go together’) really see his twisted sense of humour come into play as he leaps about the confined space, from side to side and up and down.

The Stringaling is introduced for You Whistle While You Sleep, Truax plucking it having fastened it to the table leg where pizza is being cooked at the other end of the tent, then lying on the floor mumbling lyrics akin to sleeptalking. The guitar makes a return for The Butterfly and the Entomologist, but Truax uses a fan for a plectrum to create the eerie sound of the butterfly flapping.

Finally, Truax obliges following a shouted request for Full Moon Over Wowtown and proceeds to give his most amusing and energetic performance of the afternoon. Unplugging his guitar, he climbs atop a chair, then leaves the tent entirely to run around it whilst still singing, much to the bemusement of the people eating at tables outside. Upon his return he climbs upon another chair then heads up towards the pizza end of the tent and amends his lyrics accordingly (“The pizza’s in the oven... I suggest the one with ricotta”) before receiving a standing ovation accompanied by laughter at the end of the song.