Tim Wheeler/Emmy The Great/The Crookes/Ma Mentor/And So I Watch You From Afar sing the songs of the Pixies
XOYO, London
24/03/2011

As well as offering the perfect opportunity to woo punters with free Jack Daniels, the JD Set has been known to throw up the odd interesting musical collaboration. This year the bourbon behemoth has put together all manner of improbable artistic pairings, with a diverse array of acts coming together in three cities to sing the songs of classic artists from yesteryear. Glasgow sees Kate Nash and, erm, Sharleen Spiteri of Texas bravely paying homage to Bowie, while Manchester suffers the unappealing prospect of Mani from The Stone Roses and The Enemy‘s Tom Clarke attempting to murder The Smiths‘ already dead corpse.

Us Londoners, meanwhile, are treated to Ash‘s Tim Wheeler guiding a motley crew including much-loved nu-folker Emmy The Great and Sheffield indie-poppers The Crookes through the back catalogue of Boston alt-heroes the Pixies. The Crookes are first up, admirably crooning their way through an unsettlingly slow version of  ‘The Holiday Song’, before “man of the hour” Wheeler joins them to competently bash out a few more classics. After one of several all-too-frequent breaks, Wheeler lives his deepest Frank Black fantasies with  fellow Ulstermen Ma Mentor, before he and Younghusband‘s Euan Hinshelwood’s faithfully scuzzy guitars drown out Emma-Lee ‘Emmy The Great‘ Moss’s hushed vocals on stripped-back versions of ‘Gigantic’ and ‘Velouria’. Wheeler and Moss then produce one of the least successful covers of the night in ‘I’ve Been Tired’ – the coquetting, perverse undertones of the lyrics sounding just plain weird coming from the mouths of two such clearly lovely people.

Later, Belfast post-rockers And So I Watch You From Afar‘s storming versions of ‘Cecilia Ann’ and ‘Isla de Encanta’ cause a previously disinterested crowd to stand up and take notice. Wheeler then produces his closing salvo by bringing out his Ash bandmates to cover ‘Surfer Rosa’‘s ‘Cactus’, before doing what most of the crowd seem to have been hoping for all night and singing a couple of Ash hits to round off the evening. The frequent breaks between acts make tonight’s show feel extremely disjointed but, despite being inevitably hit and miss, it does provide an interesting take on one of the most universally revered back catalogues in alt-rock history.

Francis Whittaker