Gig review: James Apollo

Published on Sunday 16 November 2008 18:31

JAMES APOLLO **** TCHAI OVNA, GLASGOW

THE Tchai Ovna tearoom is a hidden West End gem, tucked down a lane, overlooking an unruly wild garden. Inside, it is a cosy cross between a Czech chai parlour and an Arabian enclave of hippie bohemia – there is something of the tumbledown shack about the exterior of the building. A blackboard at the door hailed the night's musical guests "from across the sea" – an appropriately vague introduction, as US troubadour James Apollo and his band would probably agree they are of no fixed abode.

Apollo set off on his great American adventure when he was a teenager and has just about survived on his wits and music ever since. Forays into Europe are becoming more frequent, but he remains, for now, a best-kept secret, ideally sampled in such an unusual, intimate setting. Though it is an overused description, Apollo's set really did evoke the beautiful yet slightly unsettling feel of a David Lynch film. Apollo even has a touch of the shock-haired style of Jack Nance in Eraserhead.

He has also studied Tom Waits for his playful yarn-spinning delivery, though the music, as delivered on slide guitar, upright bass and drums, was immaculately soothing, plangent, transporting jazzy blues without any of Waits's ragged edges.

The entire concoction was the perfect mellow backdrop for tea-supping by the fire, though his set was never treated as background music by the assembled beguiled patrons, who were eventually called into service as backing vocalists on the closing "creepy-ass lullaby". Apollo rose to his feet, stomping along to the communal singalong, in a taste of the junkyard racket he might unleash in a less low-key venue, before the whole old school experience was completed by passing the hat round.