What's up, Tiger Lillies?

Sarah Stead • Published 18 Mar 2010 09:00 0 Comments

WE'RE trying to do something a bit different from playing the electric guitar," says Martyn Jacques. He's not kidding.

The falsetto Tiger Lillies frontman describes their show as "a cabaret version of a Tim Burton film" - from gypsy music to opera and songs played on knives, it's certainly out of the ordinary.

"There's lots of things going on," says Martyn, who cites Bertolt Brecht as a big influence for the act.

"There's gypsy music and opera music, and the subject matter is quite dark and strange. It's peculiar.

"There's a song about falling in love with a sheep and lots of physical comedy too. There's lots of laughter - some of it voluntary and some involuntary! But in among that there's these quite sad ballads.

"I've been doing this 20 years now and the different places we've played have affected our act," Martyn added.

"When we started the songs were all very sad and melancholy. People used to cry. We'd have an audience of 60 and 30 of them would be crying.

"Then we moved into these crazy bar atmospheres and went from melancholy to mad and manic and a lot more aggressive.

"Then we moved to theatre environments and the black comedy and clowning started to evolve."

The themes that flavour everything they do are German, Eastern and Russian. Even down to the instruments: "We use a theremin which was developed by a Russian man in the 1920s," says Martyn.

"If you think of sci-fi films from the 50s it's that eery 'oooooo' noise.

"We've got a musical saw, you play it with a bow. There's accordian and ukelele. The drummer plays funny things like hammers and in one song he plays on knives. It's all in the spirit of experimentation"

At Reading Concert Hall tomorrow (Friday). 8pm, call 0118 960 6060.

At Arlington Arts Centre, Newbury, on Saturday. 8pm, call 01635 244246.

At The Anvil, Basingstoke, on Wednesday. 8pm, call 01256 844244.

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This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 18 Mar 10

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