Music Review: Saint Andrew and the Rare Wee Helps

Published on Thursday 11 December 2008 19:00

SAINT ANDREW AND THE RARE WEE HELPS **** THE VILLAGE, EDINBURGH

IT'S probably just as well that Leith Folk Club's wintertime audience doesn't include many tourists, as this week's shows by the enigmatic cult hero known as Saint Andrew would have left them utterly mystified.

Two packed houses, though, indicate plenty of Scots with fond memories of his 1970s heyday fronting the notorious Dundee outfit Saint Andrew and the Woollen Mill, whose musical philosophy was once likened to "napalming the White Heather Club".

The key word here is "Dundee", for Saint Andrew's specialism – other than a vocal style akin to a surreally deranged Tom Jones – is writing songs in that city's distinctively inflected patois.

Take, for instance, one of the most popular numbers in his set, Ananinginaneana, which may look like misspelled Gaelic but is actually a rendering of the customary addendum when ordering "pehs" (pies) in the "chipper", translating (of course) as "and an onion one as well".

Another typical ditty was This World is Phuul O' a Number O' Things, a hilariously extended non sequitur comprising seemingly random lists of foodstuffs, buildings, modes of transport etc, sewn together with a gift for rhyme which elsewhere, cherishably, paired "jannie" with "Modigliani".

The Rare Wee Helps were fellow Dundee icon Michael Marra and Kevin Murray, on piano and guitar, ably providing a musical framework that referenced jazz, blues, country and rap, while the main man's unique genius united his audience in agreement with another Saint Andrew classic: It's Rare T' Be Alehv.