As we stood in the queue at Southend airport, waiting to offload our luggage, I got chance to find out more. “We’re playing a few shows“, said one of the band members. “We’re in Francobollo and play later this week but tonight we’re being L.A. Salami’s band”. I nodded with faint recollection and made a vague promise to catch the show.
I checked the useful app.
“Londoner L.A. Salami produces an energetic tumble of ideas and influences, mixing beat poetry, chain-gang blues, hip-hop and pithy one-liners. His debut album, Dancing With Bad Grammar, came out in August 2016″, I was told. It sounded promising and I cursed myself that there’s so much new music around it’s simply impossible to hear it all.
It so happened that I found myself walking past the News Cafe just as L.A. Salami was due to take to the stage. I nipped downstairs to take a look. Putting aside the somewhat overpowering stench of month-old lingering vomit and bad guts that pervaded across the room, I stood and watched. It was an impressive and confident show.
There’s lots going on here; a Bolanesque shimmer gives way to a Dylan-like phrase if seen through a Ray Davies lens; a funkadelic yelp passes into a song of protest in which the anguish is heartfelt. It’s captivating stuff – London blues through a folk blender – and I resolve to properly listen to Lookman Adekunle Salami’s album when I get home.
I might have found a new favourite.
sonicbreakfast 