Charles Du Cane - Swinging the Axe
Charles Du Cane’s music is a twisted mix between the smart witty lyrics of They Might Be Giants and the husky earthiness of Tom Waites. For those of us who like their lyrics funny he is a lyrical genius. He also manages to play nearly everything on his about to be released album Tomahawk.
So what musical influences make up the pastie that is Charles Du Cane? “Anything and everything. My favourite songwriter at the moment is Francisco Slinger, The Mighty Sparrow. My favourite singer? Probably Bud Flanagan. It all gets mixed and mashed together so much in my mind that I have a lot of trouble doing anything with complete deliberation."
The song titles certainly seem deliberately humourous, such as, ‘Don’t sit the woofer near yr Wham tapes, sweetheart.’ So does Wham hold a special place in his heart I wonder? To whit Charles responds with his wry humour, “No, not at all— I was just trying to write a song about magnetism and it was the only band that made sense. That said, even a cynic has to know that George Michael is king of something or other..."
Charles’ granddaddy wasn’t a king but was in fact a lay preacher. Any connection to ‘I’m on the battlefield for my Lord’? “That song's the only cover on this album, took it from Harry Smith's anthology. Some guy was just telling me what a cutting, incisive piece of political satire it is. I'm completely up front with the thing though— religion aside, it's a song about being committed to yourself, your own thing. And yeah, my grandfather's certainly a presence. I still have his bible around somewhere...”
In ‘We’ll all be together’ one of the lyrics is “Here comes crayfish legs.” I’ve never seen Charles’ legs so trying to figure out if they are really orange I ask what he was teased about at school? “The crayfish legs thing came from my grandmother, who was telling me a story about how the army brass band used to tease her about her spindly little legs whenever she'd walk down the street. At the age of 13, I was the spitting image of the Milky Bar Kid, so that probably came up.”
‘The phoenix and the pussycat’ is a truly inspired, boppy electro tune featuring a cordless telephone and prayer flags. The madness of the track makes it my favourite track even if Charles’ doesn’t agree, “A mate gave me this CD full of old Sega theme music, and a large chunk of that one - mostly the "turn the page" sounds at the end of each verse - came from Level 3 of an old Japanese version of Space Invaders. Once I had that working as an arrangement, it made sense that the phoenix and the pussycat had to read like some twisted kid's picture book. I think ‘Sunday Reed’ is as close to perfection as I've got so far, but ‘Dead Man Running’ feels like that precocious little shit of a kid you can't help loving.”
As an artist he’s been described as “both comedian and tragedian.” Is that accurate offstage as well? “Yeah, definitely... I've been told I can be a mad, manic bastard.”
Onstage he describes himself as “Animated. Spontaneous. Drunk.” No wonder considering his favourite thing to do before performing is have a double Scotch and a glass and a half of full-cream milk.
What about the dreamy offstage Charles? Hypothetically if he had to go on a reality TV show he confesses it would be Dancing with the Stars. “I've been wanting to learn the square dance, the tango and the robot dance for a while, and I think a quality programme like that would be just the avenue for me to hone my skills.” Milky Bar Kid are you pulling my chain? His dream Duet is with Tiny Tim and he says his first speed date question would be “Dream duet?”. Hang on Milky bar kid, isn’t that my line?
After our interview we exchange a few texts in which I tell Charles he is hill-hairy-arse (hilarious) which he seems to dig. So in a daring moment I outrageously suggest watching whales together on a headland, the most off the wall thing I could think of, just to see his reaction. It is no surprise that he replied that would be great proving he is as left of centre as his album suggests. Charles Du Cane is certainly on the way up but it’s definitely not to my headland. Regardless I’ll be waiting there with my glass and a half!
