BURCH/BATES

(The Bladdered Balladeers)

Unplugged Cockney-Brechtian folk-punk cabaret from Nigel Burch, the banjo-bashing troubadour of urban angst accompanied by Dylan Bates, fiddler extroadinaire.

Manic minstrel Burch delivers his dark and gritty bittersweet ditties with wit and a vitriolic fervour.

Violinist Bates adds an entertaining jazz-tinged playful poignancy.

Spit-and-sawdust vaudeville...

NIGEL BURCH began his career writing and performing in the
seventies and eighties with a number of new-wave/punk outfits such as
The Outpatients and Figures of Fun. During this period they shared the
bill with bands such as The Damned, Sham 69, The Members and Crass. In
the mid-eighties - solo and armed only with a ukulele and a scary pair
of tonsils (billed as "The Troubadour Of Urban Angst") he stormed the stages of the pub/club/cabaret scene like some demented neo-George Formby.

In 1997, with an expanded sound that included such instruments as the violin, double bass, cello and drums, NIGEL BURCH AND THE FLEA-PIT ORCHESTRA
played their first performance. The banjulele bashing bard and his
musical misfits play twisted skiffle and bar-room ballads -
Cockney-Weimar cabaret style. Gritty inner-city ditties you can drink
and dance to - punkdiddley Brechtian hoedown, spit-and sawdust
vaudeville: The Existential Knees-Up. Humorous and horrible, poignant
and debauched.

The Guardian newspaper in England called Nigel Burch's music "a
cross between the music of Ian Dury, Brecht and Weill, an Irish pub
band and a 1950's skiffle group. Songs of urban-alienation with plenty
of fierce spontaneous playing."

Nigel Burch is also an acclaimed graphic illustrator and poet. Charles Bukowski described his writing as "the best cure for a hangover I ever lucked across."