Who's Your Dandy? - Word Power Books, Edinburgh, 12 Nov

Hold onto your over-priced flat, indie culture's happening here!

Article by Hamish MacDonald | 07 Dec 2007

Who's Your Dandy? is the kind of event that reminds you what's great about living in a city. Going on a rainy Monday night to a free performance of queer poetic experiments and deeply funky music — this is the anti-Into the Wild. Hold onto your over-priced flat, indie culture's happening here! The performers' voices are confident, incisive, and, best of all, playful. This isn't "My Coming Out Poem of Pain": it's host Sandra Alland's brilliant Beckett cut-ups and Andra Simons' poem cycle about the life and death of his imaginary Siamese twin. The images come so fast you sometimes feel like a Slinky falling down the stairs, yet the emotion and intention are clear, moving, and often funny. The evening's music is provided by Contrabajo: Emma Smith thumping and plucking double-bass notes that resonate through your chest, while Y. Josephine plays guitar, somehow gets a whole drum kit out of a Peruvian fruit box, and sings in a sweet, smoky, untouchably cool voice. Word Power Books have opened their new expanded space to the community, so let's hope for more events like this.


http://www.myspace.com/contrabajoband