Gindrinker

When I was young, I used to listen to music with my dad. My dad’s a fan of Tom Waits, though evidently he was blissfully unaware just how terrifying “What’s He Building” might be to a young boy. Fifteen-odd years later, and I can just about listen to Mule Variations the whole way through without crying. To me, Gindrinker’s “Bob Grainger: Sexual Pervert” is Waits’ follow up.

Opening with deep, heavy breathing which is then accompanied by birdsong, the track taken from the Cardiff band’s split release with Joy of Sex (out on I Blame The Parents Records in Septeber) is a fitting example of the weird and wonderful world of both Gindrinker and the Cardiff music scene as a whole. Witty, amusing, yet still seriously dark and disconcerting, it’s a brilliant track of semi-spoken-word vocals, riffing blues-y guitar lines, and drum machine.

It’s a familiar formula (one that leads to results not too dissimilar to The Fall on occasion, for some added lazy journalism there) for the two men – Graf (also of Threatmantics) and Gates (also of Brandyman) – who make up Gindrinker, and it’s an effective one, although they do sometimes like to mix things up a little by adding some trumpet, would you have guessed?

Gindrinker are certainly no new band, but when you’re new to a city (which I was 3 years ago) it’s fairly easy to be up to date with all of the great new stuff being released, yet completely unaware and unappreciative of some of the greatness that has been around for a number of years. I’m slowly making amends, and Gindrinker are another band I can add to the “Cardiff bands I really enjoy” list.

You can find “Bob Grainger: Sexual Pervert”, as well as the great “Y Chromosome”, on the band’s joint release Split Definitives, available from Rough Trade here. You can also download “Gorsedd” for free here, or stream lots more on their MySpace.

Gindrinker - Y Chromosome

Gindrinker - Gorsedd