Crooked Fiddle Band
Crooked Fiddle Band
Crooked Fiddle Band
Crooked Fiddle Band

The Crooked Fiddle Band are one of those groups that seem to effortlessly blend all genres together to come up with something new and completely organic.

A reasonably sized Monday night audience were in attendance for the first night of the group’s two night stat at the Garrick. The four piece of Jess Randall on violin and vocals, Gordon Wallace – on guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, vocals Bass player Mark Stevens and Joe Gould on drum kit, percussion and vocals play acoustic instruments, but have a sound that is a focused as Frank Zappa, and as laid back as Little Feet. There long form instrumentals tell stories matched by their imaginative titles.

Their aural vignettes have tell tales signs of gypsy, klezmer, and punk rock, the glacial majesty of Norwegian music, soaring violins and distorted acoustic guitars, lively drumming and bass playing that does more than drive the music along.

In an action packed hour they played most of their newest album, with highlights being the banshee like violin wailing of Countess Bathory’s Finishing School for Girls, The Ruination of Junkyard Joe and the sinister Clockwork Bride. Lighter relief was found in the spooked hoe down of All These Pitchforks Make Me Nervous and the rhapsodic Over Hill and Under Hill.

An encore of What the Thunder Said was a fitting way to finish the concert.