Live music: July 2007

3 August 2007: Last Monday night, in the small (and sparsely attended, on this occasion) back room at the Portland Arms we went to see Lach, normally described as some kind of "pioneer" of "anti-folk", which we take to mean something along the lines of "interesting and slightly wacky acoustic(ish) singers". Admirably unperturbed by the small turn-out, Lach entertained with a spontaneous, often improvisational set - getting members of the audience to give him topics for made-up songs, and select tracks at random from his CDs. As you'd expect, this did lead to quite a variation in terms of quality, and there was quite a range emotionally too - from the touching and life-affirming Ambition Burns to the only sporadically amusing "comedy" songs like Smoking Again and Drinking Beers with Mom. An entertaining evening from a performer somewhere in the no-mans land where Regina Spektor (if male and much less pretty) meets Jonathan Richman.