If it’s autumn, it must be time to wax lyrical on the latest release from cultured songwriter and storyteller Vinny Peculiar, on this occasion celebrating The Curse of You Know Who.
No way was I early to this particular party, but there’s a joy in discovering an artist part-way into their creative journey, and these last seven years have seen Vinny, real name Alan Wilkes, on a perpetual, creative high, one it seems he’s in no great hurry to come back down to earth from.
As long as there are proper characters and high-profile madmen in the wings to write about and life-affirming culture and nostalgia to wonder at, there’s subject matter to intrigue our Vee, necessitating regular returns to his creative storyboard and sounding board. And I’m all for that, his latest offering – his 16th album – as good as any I’ve immersed myself in since 2019’s While You Still Can initially saw me invested, heading back and forth from there through an impressive catalogue of songs deserving of more acclaim… but one I’m happy to see remain fairly well kept secrets, letting in just enough new fans now and again to discover him for themselves.
It’s been 15 months since my last confession about Vinny, and even then we conceded these were Things Too Long Left Unsaid (follow that link and you’ll find previous VP-rated content too). If we’ve learned anything along the way, it’s that there’s often an underlying theme, this latest record no exception, as illustrated by its striking cover image featuring one of the iconic Denge sound mirrors, deepest Dungeness’ redundant early warning system offering a neat analogy of where we’re headed as we look at memory and misremembering, science and fantasy, trust and mistrust. And this time our wheatfield-haired, guitar-wielding dreamer – ‘the missing link between Jarvis Cocker and Roger McGough,’ as the Irish Times put it – tackles a few of those dreaded conspiracy theories, the thin line between science and fiction, and fickle celebrity trends among his chosen subjects. However, as he puts it himself on the opening song, title track The Curse’,
‘In a spider’s web of secrets before the dawn of time,
A progressive rock lyricist calls you up, says you’ll be fine.’
He certainly sets his stall out here, this his ‘playful testimony to fuzzy truths, iffy memories and contemporary misinformation,’ on a song that could have stepped off a long player by this scribe’s old faves The Thrills. And yet we are the sum of our own influences, and here and elsewhere en route we get flourishes of classic Seventies-flavoured rock, our guide sometimes confrontational, often questioning, but always accessible and clever enough to weave it all together with subtlety and plenty of breathing and pondering space between the riffs and thought-provoking verse.
On that opener, I kind of assumed he’d added another regular VP motif, having misheard a mention of The Grateful Dead… only to be schooled, as the Americans would say, into learning he’s cited (and credited) a belting Bukowski two-liner to set the scene. Either way, he opens our mind to a lyricism that carries us along to a somewhat Kinks in the Seventies feel, as if we’d stuck our thumb out on Highway 61 and he’d pulled up to let us in on his trip.
‘I met Julie Christie at the CND rally, and she said she really liked my band.’
Speaking of The Kinks, the second track could also be a lost Ray Davies cut from that era, but signposting an earlier literary and film classic, ‘Billy Liar’ a respectful nod to ‘the king of making stuff up,’ this joyous tribute embedded with VP’s trademark wordplay and fully worthy of the subject matter. Mind you, that shouldn’t surprise those who’ve followed Vinny’s progress, his records brought to us by Shadrack & Duxbury Records, his label imprint arguably undertaking liberties with our sensibilities ever since.
‘Katy doesn’t have a role…no, she doesn’t have a clue.
She’s only there for the ride, she’s admiring the view.’
I hear David Essex and Jim Bob Morrison as much as Cocker and Cohen in ‘Katy Perry’s in Space’, his case study of 2020s celebrity culture, a thing of beauty, musically and lyrically. It feels somewhat familiar on first hearing, somehow already etched onto our souls, Vinny’s typically detailed character note-taking giving us a glimpse into an alternative but all too real reality where tax-dodging billionaires send mega-household names on ultimate holidays and allowing them their own social media plugging of vacuous wares in orbit. In lesser hands, it could appear preachy, but it’s subtly done, its message all the more powerful for that.
‘She’s been getting to know my search history and she knew what really got me,
Suggested we go on a date, I said that’s technically cheating (but we went anyway).’
In another modern example of life being stranger than fiction, ‘AI Girlfriend’ is almost a 2020s’ take on Roxy Music’s ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache’, albeit with Peter Perrett or Graham Coxon piloting a Ferry replacement service driven by a chugging Wire beat. The latest of many colourful VP story songs, we eagerly follow the story from line to line and verse to verse. Forget Ann Droid, here comes Elaine… and in the words of The Undertones’ ‘Wednesday Week’, ‘I’ll get no sleep tonight’.
‘Did you ever read the writing on the wall?
Take a giant leap of faith, people, jump into the lake – welcome to the wormhole.’
Closing side one, ’Wormhole’ is somewhat swirling delivered, its echoes of Mott the Hoople meets Tom Petty stadium filler worthy of fist-pumping audience reaction. In fact, I might just nip up the corner shop and buy myself a disposable lighter so I can wave along when the band head my way. I could also see the early Long Ryders cover this. There’s certainly room for ‘I Had a Dream’-like guitar solo, but on this occasion our host holds back on that possibility.
‘A faithful misfit overjoyed says, ‘Goodbye Dawkins, goodbye Freud!’
Holding hands the straights ‘n’ freaks wait patiently, and nobody speaks.’
We turn over for the Eighties new wave feel of ‘Flat Earth’, Vinny’s canvas this time populated by caricatures of leading TV scientists up against the tin-hat brigade and knuckle-dragging armchair warriors. And the good will out… at least we can but hope.
‘Osmonds on the radio, Mr Rigsby on TV
She left the pub at 11 o’clock and she disappeared into history.’
‘Runcorn Abductions’ transports the listener to suburban new town Merseyside in ‘73, Vinny’s tale of the unexpected and unexplained carrying so much evocative attention to detail that we kind of assume he’s revisiting a forgotten real life story, one that aged those personally affected. I’m also reminded of Neil Arthur’s latter-day Blancmange and ‘We Are the Chemicals’, a similarly layered story set along Cheshire’s M62 corridor of despair. And in this case I certainly see Arthur C Clarke blowing dust from the circumstantial evidence and contemporary witness statements, trying to make sense of it all for a TV documentary revisit.
‘Come stay for the weekend and I’ll disable your device
We can go for a walk – I know a place untouched by satellites
I’ll send you the details on an Ordnance Survey map
In a plain brown envelope with a Trump cartoon on the back.’
From potential Seventies UFO shenanigans we’re brought back with a metallic shudder to the present on ‘New Dark Ages’, where ’the old rules no longer reply’, the dystopian madness of the modern apparent for all to see and hear. And it wouldn’t be a VP album of recent years without at least one heavy rock workout, this being that animal, another I could see Dave Davies lose himself in.
‘f you want to get your freak head on you’re gonna need to grow your hair
Robert Plant, the singer, used to live just over there. I’m not kidding.’
But that jolt is but temporary, and we’re soon caught up in a tangerine-flavoured dream, ‘The Velvets’ taking us to a social club setting with a Barclay James Harvest and Yes soundtrack, our man rolling a ‘summer of love cigarette’ to ensure we know where he’s coming from. Actually, it could as easily be called ’The Floyd’, its dark side nod a fitting way to lead us to the LP finale, this a wistful call to times past, soaked in nostalgia and patchouli oil.
‘Schoolteachers in disguise reduced to tears in the classroom
Patrick Moore’s ghost haunts the staffroom, the Great Bear’s on the rise.’
And then we’re back to school for an other-worldly finish, ‘Moon Landing’ seeing us wedged behind a child’s desk to experience Armstrong and Aldrin stepping out for the first time. I can almost smell that classroom too – further kudos for the artist whom The Independent reckons is ‘one of those few songwriters that can wring genuine smiles and pathos out of ordinary memories.’ In no way is this particular memory ordinary though, Vinny again with the know-how to uncork that bottle and let us breathe it all back in before it’s time to move on.
The Curse of You Know Who is out now on CD and vinyl and download via Shadrack and Duxbrty Records, and there’s still a chance to catch Vinny Peculiar live (with apologies for the late notice) at one more live date, on Saturday 17 October at Worcester’s St Swithun’s Church. For more details head to www.vinnypeculiar.com
With extra thanks to Gel Gee for permission to kindly allow me to use wonderful live images of the Vinny Peculiar Band (completed by Paul Tsanos on drums, Rob Steadman on keyboards, and Jim Gilbanks on bass) at the Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room
