Gerard Starkie & Ray Chan: Storyboard EP – EP review

EP review

Gerard Starkie and Ray Chan –   Storyboard   EP (Bandcamp)

DL 

Released today, 2 December 2022

Former members of the Wigan band Witness (1997 -2004) release archive recordings from 2003 before starting on new material.  Ged Babey liked Gerards solo album, so reviews without prejudice, or any real knowledge of Witness’s work. 

I guess they got overshadowed by the bland success of Coldplay, Snow Patrol and the like but on this evidence Witness were an extremely good ‘stadium-band’ playing soulful rock – they could’ve carved out a niche as a kind of English Neil Young & Crazy Horse equivalent if luck had been on their side.

A ‘little brother band to The Verve’ – seeing as they were mates from Wigan, in retrospect, they didn’t have the same vibe at all, due to the fact that frontmen Richard Ashcroft and Gerard Starkie were complete opposites, character-wise. Starkie was more reserved, an introvert hippy poet with a soulful tremble of a voice and everyman appeal.

In an early publicity photo he  reminds me a bit of Richard Beckinsale, and from the video footage of the band there were no gimmicks or posturing, just total immersion in the songs and the music.

Despite big-label backing, touring, an appearance on Jools Holland, well-received and critically acclaimed albums – Before The Calm (1999) and Under A Sun (2001) on Island Records – Witness never had the success of their contemporaries.

Recorded in 2003, tracks 1,2,4,5 and 6 were originally going to be part of the third Witness album but the band ended up calling it a day before completion. Track 3 was recorded a few months later, after we’d split but with the same line up , intended as a solo release.

Ray moved to Hong Kong shortly after the split, but he’s back over here now and we’ve started doing some gigs together again. The cover photo’s from a couple of weeks ago in Stockholm.

We’re going to be recording some new material next year, but when we listened back to these tracks for the first time in years, we decided they shouldn’t be gathering dust, hence the Storyboard EP . It’ll be available to download from Bandcamp on Friday 2nd December.

Six songs, each different to the last, they go from autumnal acoustic ‘E’vrybody’s Talking’ style to full-on Hendrixy rock.

Inbetween you get a vague echo of the Waterboys and the Dream Syndicate.  Soulful Celtic rock to soul-searching Americana.  Songs about ‘stumbing thru life’, getting ‘tired of going out at night / tired of stayin’ in’ and needing a spiritual ‘Hideout’.

Starkie has a nice singing voice which, the more you hear it, the more it sounds distinctive. His lyrics are more a narrative than a litany of woes and have glimmers of optimism amongst the tales of recovery and being ‘falsely accused of the crime’.

Ray Chan, on the evidence of the playing on this EP is an absolute guitar hero in the traditional mould. That midway between Hendrix and Mick Ronson type sound and style but with his own fills and thrills.

The Storyboard EP is gonna be excitedly received by loyal Witness followers but is actually a great introduction to a talented pair of muso-songwriters.  These songs are ‘growers’ that take a little while to embed themselves in your brain. But once they are there… it’s like they are old friends.

Buy from Bandcamp

Forthcoming gigs

We’re supporting Ben Ottewell at Le Pub in Newport this Saturday (3 Dec 2022), that’s all we’ve got booked at the moment. You mean ‘ The EP Launch extravaganza is as very special guests of Ben Ottewell (Gomez) at …” Gotcha.

All words Ged Babey

Source: louderthanwar.com