Review of Stanley Odd supported by Team Kapowski at Mad Hatters,27 October 2011
Solareye reported in his blog that “Inverness on Thursday was bananas” Frank Finlayson casts his eyes, and ears, on proceedings:
Thursday was hip hop night. Really, it was, and I wasn’t in Watts or Compton, but in downtown Inverness, Mad Hatters to be precise. With the venue decked out in Hallowe’en decorations and cobwebs (one wag suggested that the cobwebs were more natural and not part of the ornamentation!).
A decent crowd pulled together for the first act, Inverness’s Team Kapowski, with Blair on the mic loving the limelight!. Three words describe a Team Kapowski performance, fun, fun, fun! Their take on hip hop has a perky, electro pop feel with a rap overlay. Their humorous dinosaur laced approach belies a much deeper and more complex sound. Summing up Team Kapowski, well every home should have one, even if they stole the odd towel of a photographer. Triceratops!!!
Stanley Odd are well kent faces in these parts with performances at Mad Hatters, the Insider Festival and Jocktoberfest to name but three in the last couple of years. The date at Hoots was a week after the EP Launch party of the second EP ‘The Day I Went Deaf’ which promised a darker, more direct musical shift.
Tonight was most unusually a night where their genre was well represented. Early doors Solareye lays down the law and brings it to those assembled, with the influence of Veronika subtly being brought in throughout the set. Veronika, who it must be added isn’t, and has never been a prostitute, (a fact which Solareye made crystal clear when giving background on the song Sundance). Veronika without doubt is the perfect foil for Solareye’s banter not just at pop culture but his pops at culture itself.
Within a ‘Winter of Discontent’ he sums up a mood of a nation whether crossing political boundaries or not, sees the viewpoint of the man on the street. Visionary but within their own compacted, and perfectly formed space, Stanley Odd harness the climate of those truly wanting to listen. We really don’t get enough of this is Scotland, deep feeling from those in the deep.
The Skinny Magazine observed: ‘In a sane world, Stanley Odd would be way more popular than Snow Patrol.’ we can’t help but agree.
Overall, two acts, who are both not just a humorous antidote to the hard-core but a reminder to the world, and country, that we live in!
‘The Day I Went Deaf’ is now available at www.stanleyodd.bandcamp.com
Reviewed by Frank Finlayson
Thanks to Alex at New Found Sound
