Tonight I saw Lloyd United, without his band. I liked him. He's a rabble rouser. He plays Irish music. He's not Irish though, and this added an interesting and refreshing twist to the performance.
I bought a lovely handmade t-shirt -- here, I'm holding it up in front of the web cam -- that Lloyd signed for me.
I snuck away before the next band came on. Lloyd's a tough act to follow.
Lloyd Gold sings like he's just finished running ten miles. His voice is raspy, cigarette-choked; when it descends to a whisper, you can almost hear the smoke slipping through the wire mesh of the microphone. Backing vocals are glib, oblivious, in tuneful contrast to Gold's bemused croak. There's a moment on "Ukulele Boy Band" when he breaks into a Morrissey impression. It's totally gratuitous, but it always makes me laugh.
[The sound is] Sixties-inspired. The bass parts are wobbly, elastic, hyperactive in places; guitars have a Byrdsy feel to them, and the drum parts come straight from classic soul records. Even the rockabilly-manque "Dreamy Cosmic Doll" is at root a soul song. MPZ effects a calculated chintziness in many places, but when they want to, they can generate a pretty potent sound -- check out the guitar outro on "Starfish", for instance. Whenever it shows up, the ukulele sounds great.
[The] arrangements [have a] judicious use of bizarre samples, a winning playfulness, a sense of humor that pervaded the set without overwhelming it with shtick. The ukulele helps, too -- but so do the copious shakers, bells, and Radio Shack synths.