I first came across James Petralli after hearing his White Denim song ‘Shake Shake Shake’. This put me onto his amazing debut album Workout Holiday (2008) which has earned them fans around the world. After releasing six albums, James released his first solo album as Bop English, Constant Bop, with the help of members of Shearwater (Kevin Schneider) and White Denim (Josh Block, Austin Jenkins and Steve Terebecki) which has been getting great reviews. Unlike the White Denin sound which is an energetic punky garage rock, Bop English takes influence from everything from “60s-jazz, sampled 80-kicks and country numbers” all wrapped up in a pleasant, diverse but familiar pop rock package.
 
Going into the dungeon that is downstairs at Sticky Mikes Frog Bar, I was met by a wall of bodies nodding to the raw riffs coming from Spit Shake Sisters. The band of three, who did an outrageous set at our Alternative Great Escape show, were now a quartet with Early Ghost’s frontman Mike O’Malley guesting on Hammond organ whilst they support Bop English on his UK tour. This complimented the bands Gothic Rock immensely. For those who don’t already know The Spit Shake Sisters sound; imagine a psychedelic Black Sabbath with tinges of Tame Impala and Hookworms, but on a stormy night. It was a typically raucous live show, with charismatic frontman Harrison energetically singing his provocative lyrics and Zal holding a strong aggressive drum beat. The band were joined on stage by James Petralli who did and amazing guitar solo for their final song, which must have been a dream come true for the band as they credit his former band White Denim as a big influence. After getting to hear some of Spit Shake Sisters new material in this performance, notably a song called ‘Satans Sippy Cup’, the Brighton band continue to impress.
 
Bop English stepped onstage and went into the first song on their album, ‘Dani’s Blues’, generating an almighty roar from the sold out crowd. Its catchy tune which had a psychedelic feel with sweeping guitar EQs, had the audience wanting to dance but because of the lack of space meant there was only room for an enthusiastic bop. Playing Constant Bop in full, we were treated to the range of influences which Bop English delve into; rock’n’roll, country, R&B, psychedelia, blues, pop, and prog – it was almost as if they had made a list of genres to include. This made for a show that lacked any staple sound, and it was more of the same as the band played new unreleased songs, which all had a great beginning but soon became very ordinary and would get lost in the amount of average songs out there in the music world. A strange encore followed after continuous cheers from the audience for more, where the bassist and keyboardist took to the mic to sing covers of Steppenwold’s ‘Born To Be Wild’ and The Creation’s ‘Making Time’ which were both only slightly better than Friday night at the karaoke bar. For the finale they invited Harrison onstage to perform ‘Shake Shake Shake’ which got the best reaction of the night, ending the show on a high note.
James’s unique soul sounding voice did prevail, and the band were faultless throughout, as well as some highlights in the super cool sound of ‘Trying’ and the perfect pop of ‘Sentimental Wilderness’ – but for the most part I was disappointed, especially after Spit Shake Sisters great performance and the live pedigree that White Denim have.
 
I came to the gig knowing that Bop English would put on a pleasant show which showcased his obvious musical talent, but pleasant is all it was, lacking any sort of edge to push them into an area that [was] past the ordinary. However, the sound is so middle of the road and mundane that it did pleased the majority of the audience, leaving them all smiling and elated as they left the venue.
Iain Lauder