Several years ago, following an admittedly confusing conversation regarding the name of the musical act a chum had cajoled me into seeing, I found myself standing in the compact and bijou confines of The Cellars (RIP) watching a behatted Canadian make melody and rhythm via a collection of microphones, harmonicas and pedals (to jaw-dropping effect).
The cat in the hat was Benjamin Darvill, one-time harp & mandolin player for the Crash Test Dummies, who performs beat-box powered Blues under the moniker Son of Dave (the name causing my initial confusion that I was being dragged along to an Andrew Ridgeley covers band). So good was Son of Dave that night I plundered the Merch Desk for a CD, delighting at the collaboration with Martina Topley-Bird that featured upon it.
Son of Dave has been ploughing his Blues furrow for a while now, becoming a near staple at Bestival in the process, but he's finally done what all good artists do at this time of year; he's made a Christmas song. Send Them Something Nice For Christmas is a beautifully melancholic tale, sprinkled with brass and sounding not unlike something Randy Newman might serve up (which is no bad thing at all). It's dour yet heart-warming, a last slow dance at the office Xmas party, a sad card to family far away, and sends apologies for missing another Turkey dinner but wants to be remembered for next year's festivities.
It's nicely unexpected and really rather lovely.
Now, where did I put the Baileys?
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