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80%City Shanty Band will unveil their new E.P. and even newer music video! Eleven men, eleven voices on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. 2011.
City Shanty Band began singing old sailor songs, drunk in the backroom of a Hackney pub. A year or so later it’s a group of 11 friends singing on some surprisingly big stages –playing at Royal Festival Hall, Union Chapel, Latitude Festival, Secret Garden Party and headlining the emerging talent stage at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2011. They have unwittingly grown into a unique, unruly and in-demand live act.
‘I can’t imagine anyone not liking you’ – The bassist form The Darkness
Since being thrust into the London folk scene, they have delighted and dismayed the traditionalists in equal measure. With 11 members, all influenced by different music, City Shanty Band have a healthy disrespect for the tradition they work within. They try to stay true to best aspects of folk music (getting together, getting pissed and singing songs) while avoiding the ersatz earnestness that sometimes accompanies it.
‘The new tradition’ – Joe Buirski, Co-founder of Magpie’s Nest – BBC folk club 2010
CSB relish in robbing old sea shanties: The old song ‘When Johnny Goes Down To Hilo’ becomes the rather more debauched ‘When Johnny Goes Spearmint Rhino’. But it’s the songwriting of ‘The Captain’, Ben Walker that shines through on this EP. With a rare gift for writing melodies that seem like they have always existed, Walker’s songs push the shanty form forward while staying true to it’s core.
“Did I see you on Jools Holland?” – Noel Fielding
“No, that was Fisherman’s Friends.” – City Shanty Band
The 4 songs on this EP, hark back to ancient work songs sung on ships, but these are also modern hymns: Anorexia, strip clubs, stabbings and heart-ache all feature as subject matter, played out to a nostalgic clatter of the claps, stomps, accordian and drums.
Come and join in the free party – get there early as we are promised it will be a full vessel!
