Spotlight: His Merry Men

I don’t usually like funk or that popular swing type jazz stuff. For instance, I find The Cat Empire are vomit-inducing. However, local group His Merry Men seem an enticing prospect.

I randomly stumbled into Rics on Friday evening, drunk, and ill suited for music appreciation (I blame my Irish cousin for my state of mind). His Merry Men started to play, and by gosh, they were a lot of fun.

Composed of percussion, bass, guitar, keys, and not one but THREE sax players. Vocalist Megan Crocombe has that sultry voice that’s well suited to the funk aesthetic and I really enjoyed the little jigs that sax players would bust out, the enjoyment heightened by my level of inebriation.

A few songs were particularly well done, such as ‘Bobby Got’ and ‘Been Around’, both which you can hear on Myspace and TripleJ Unearthered. Though their recordings do sound a bit generic (in the sense that I find many jazz/funk numbers to all sound very similar, but my knowledge of this genre is fairly limited), but as a live band, I think they’re great.

His Merry Men play the Joynt on December 3 and Ric’s on December 12

This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 11:11 am. It is filed under Darragh Murray and tagged with His Merry Men, Triple J Unearthed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Brad says:

September 30, 2011 at 12:28 am

Perhaps the reason you find ‘swing type jazz music’ vomit inducing is due to your well documented tendency to review music in a state of inebriation? It certainly hasn’t helped your sentence structure. I’ve yet to check out the band, although they were recommended to me – I’m not sure this review is doing them any favours. You’ve clearly outlined your ignorance towards the style (not least by describing the Cat Empire as a swing type jazz band) then gone and pointed out the vocalist’s apparent suitability to said style (perhaps some sort of funky popular swing-jazz with saxophones?). Your evaluation of the band’s ‘generic’ recordings is immediately weakened by your reassertion that your ‘knowledge of this genre is fairly limited’. Also, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to mention that one enjoys the band more due to one’s drunken state. It was a lovely story about your night out on the town though.

Darragh says:

September 30, 2011 at 4:16 pm

This is a bit random considering it appeared nearly a year ago and I had intended for it to speak positively of the band, but yes, I suppose some legitimate grievances here, considering that I now agree that it’s poorly put together. This actually was never meant for Collapse Board, but somehow found its way here (Everett!).

“Also, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to mention that one enjoys the band more due to one’s drunken state.” I don’t think it matters really. Drunk or not, this band would be fun to watch regardless. As for the appropriateness of the statement, well, ~I was drunk~.

September 30, 2011 at 4:18 pm

Also, if the Cat Empire are not a jazz band, what are they specifically?

COLLAPSE BOARD