She`s a little bit country and he`s a little bit rock n roll as a song from my childhood goes and while this doesn`t quite fit this duo, it does give a flavour of their backgrounds. Nicole`s influences include 1950s crooner music, sixties psychedelia, soul music, and the Brill Building style of writing and she has a number of albums under her belt. Jim is a drummer, multi-instrumentalist musician, record producer, and writer. He has been part of bands such as Teenage Jesus & The Jerks and had stints with Sonic Youth and The Cramps. Jim has also been a key member of the Bad Seeds for nearly twenty years and a founding member of the Bad Seeds offshoot Grinderman.
The duo arrive at the tail end of an eleven-date tour of the UK along with Davey Horne on keyboards. a singer-songwriter from Fife, whose self-titled debut album was released in 2020. The duo have an album due out next month if all goes to plan.
Tonight`s performance is split into two sets with the first half comprising a number of tracks from Nicole`s solo albums. The show opens with `Neptune City` a delightfully introspective number about where she grew up in Neptune City, New Jersey. `War Torn` allows this singer to showcase her powerful, versatile vocal range before sharing a more soulful outing with `AM Gold` from her last release `Italian Ice`
`Brokedown Luck` is a bluesy belter after which we have an impression of Ozzy, who the singer shares is her celebrity doppelganger before `Captain` a retro tinged slice of Americana is offered. Nicole is a natural born storyteller and talks about school friend Chris Isaak before sharing `A Little Crazy` a heart-breaking number that she wrote with him about a former boyfriend.
Nicole and Jim duet on `Stuck` and `Walkin“ with `Take Aim & Shoot` written about noisy neighbours before closing this part with the reflective `Memories Come and Go` which was dedicated to Nicole`s mother.
The trio return to the stage with `Goodnight Rhonda Lee`, the delightfully dreamy `Domino` and `Mind Eraser` before Jim joins in on `Feign` and recent single the dark `A Man Like Me`. I think it was `A Night of Serious Drinking` that followed before `Maybe Tonight` ended the show. The nonsense of leaving the stage to return for an encore is dispensed with and instead Jim leaves his drumkit to stand alongside his musical partner and finish with a cover of the Tom Waits song `Strange Weather` during which the pair, amusingly try their best to intimidate a member of the audience seated in the front row.
There seems to be a mutual respect and natural camaraderie between both singers tonight and the intimate setting of The Kitchen Garden Café was the perfect venue for them to allow us all a foretaste of their forthcoming release. The numbers shared tonight were a real appetiser for what`s to come, hopefully next month.
