But then you pitch up at a pub on a back street behind Piccadilly Station on a wet Thursday night. You stand on stage and look out at possibly the bleakest looking venue in the city and an audience of (if you take away the support band, their mates and the sound man's girlfriend) about 25 people. Pity the poor Deadstring Brothers. The band, fronted by singer Kurt Marschke, is part of the second wave of Americana acts to cast up on these shores. On the evidence of the turnout, the wave is fast losing power, which is a pity, because this is a superb band. A sticker on their well-reviewed debut album says they sound like "Gram Parsons and Hank Williams going round to Nick Caves house for a drink". Must have been a bloody good night. Thankfully, there was more to the Deadstrings than the dreary melancholia that infects too many of these Americana acts. Dull they weren't. There's a hard edge, an urgency and intensity about the playing. It's a thick rich sound, surges of Aric Karpinski's Hammond organ overlapping Pete Ballard's pedal steel. But it's the rhythm section that are the real stars. The bass player looks like Bobby Gillespie and the drummer like he's walked straight out of the Flying Burrito Brothers, but on the night they were rhythm twins who understood the golden rule - what you don't play is as important than what you do play. The band got a great reception from the sparsely-populated floor but they seemed well brassed off. The lead singer seemed to want to take it out on the audience which seemed a bit of a shame - after all we were the ones who turned up. But they're back in August. Well worth a look. A footnote to the night must be the support act. A singer-songwriter Ian Curtis soundalike, he didn't say a word through his entire act and at the end, obviously aiming for Most Self-Deprecating Singer Ever Award said (and I quote word for word)
"You'll be glad to know that's it from me. I've got some crappy demo CDs that I'll sell for about £1.50. So if anyone wants to hear me in all my horrible horribleness, I might be around at the back or something." A career in sales beckons. | 
