Gig review: Joe Gideon & the Shark, King Tut’s, Glasgow

JOE Gideon & the Shark are an amped-up brother-and-sister guitar-and-drums duo from London.

Joe Gideon & the Shark

King Tut’s, Glasgow

Star rating: * * *

Joe Gideon plays distorted guitar and delivers semi-spoken narratives and primal whoops. The Shark, aka little sister Viva, pounds the drums with abandon. They know what you are thinking, but this is not exactly some White Stripes deal.

In addition to her game skin-bashing, Viva simultaneously mans a small keyboard, provides vocal loops and, with her third arm, plays the occasional run on the xylophone. You don’t see Meg White multi-tasking like that. They are more punk than blues. And unless someone cares to produce evidence to the contrary, this pair are natural born siblings. What is questionable is the authenticity of Gideon’s shaggy dog stories. “This one’s about a boy I used to know,” he announced from the cosy corner of the bar where they were set up. “Lately, I’ve been admitting that the boy is me….we were never friends.”

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There were further possibly autobiographical urban adventures detailed during some of their other enjoyably serpentine tales and also the potted history of an ill-fated backing singer called Kathy Ray. Some of the storytelling subtleties were lost in the lo-fi clamour, but there was an immediacy, no doubt enhanced by the intimacy of the venue, to their primitive mix of grungey riffs, fuzzy keyboards and propulsive rhythms and a certain strut to the low-slung but hi-octane rock’n’roll rattle of their finale number, Higher Power/Where Have All The Good Times Gone.

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