TWISTED WHEEL were the 20 year old feral rock’n’rollers who tore open the last Oasis shows in 2009 while playing many sell-out headline shows for two years straight. Retreating to lick their wounds and terrorise the neighbours, the band now return a decade later with their irreverent disregard for commercial domestication, rolling out a relentless 40-date Snakes and Ladders tour to announce their arrival.
Crowds, starved of the rigour of real rock-n-roll meat ‘n’ bones, have been storming the shows, all but four selling out. As an appetiser for the new album later this year, Twisted Wheel are bringing out an E.P. ‘Jonny Guitar’ on……
The three songs have already been included in some sets. ‘The eponymous elegy ‘Jonny Guitar’ details lead singer Jonny Brown’s final last breath as an addict, pawning his guitars and hearing the shouldawouldacouldas declare his reputation. The other tracks, ‘Rebel’, ‘Keep It Up Boy’ and ‘The Convoy Man’ (a one minute tribute to a cooing pigeon) all demonstrate TW’s uncanny talent to maximise the elusive eternity in the ordinary and Brown’s ability to create anthems and palaces from the trash of life. What Bowie would sound like in a bin bag with a unicorn wearing a football shirt. No autotune in sight; these are songs you feel, see and live.
Jonny reformed the band in January 2018, pulling back Adam Clarke from the original line up, Richard Allsopp and Shadow Palace’s Harry Levin. Since then, they have been rehearsing, recording and relentlessly touring. The EP is both a thank you for the fans that have welcomed them back, stayed faithful over the past decade and a teaser for the monster incipient wasp of an album appearing later this year.
Summer 2018 finds them supporting Liam Gallagher at Finsbury Park and Manchester’s Old Trafford Cricket Ground and The Libertines at Trinity Park, Ipswich along with many festival dates. In addition, the band are about to announce a headline ‘Jonny Guitar ‘tour across Oct – Dec 2018.
Twisted Wheel may have been thrown to the wolves but they just came back leading the pack…
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/twistedwheel/
THE EP JONNY GUITAR
The eponymous track is the big brother of ‘Smash It Up’. Jonny Guitar is full of dry postapocalyptic wisdom, the final death rattle of addiction. There is everything furiously spectacular about such a defined end – with none of the wistful languor of rock’s other efforts to beautify its shame. Here, the beauty is in the honesty. Raging guitars and Brown’s stark dark funny lyrics – as seen in ‘Strife’ and ‘Who Stole the Sun?’ make this the lead track.
‘Keep It up Boy’ rocks and rolls on a memorable groove where guitars and the toms carry the conversation of an irrepressible hope. No autotune here, just a wall and chorus of guitar barrage so textured and full, it’s an assault.
‘Rebel’ is the sing-along wistful one with the bittersweet bridge, the reverb, call and echo of a loneliness, the La’s with a riff and a backbone in a fierce, feral chorus. The fade-out is full of the psychadelic tones reminiscent of Elephant Stone.
And then the one minute tribute to the cooing pigeon. Nothing epitomises the random familiarity of TW as an entire song dedicated to the pigeon and the discarded members of society. A beautiful haunting song harmonising around the cooing melody of a pigeon and ghostlike fairground piano.
twistedwheel.tmstor.es
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/twistedwheel/
Twitter https://twitter.com/twisted_wheel
https://www.instagram.com/twistedwheelofficial/
