David Migden / James Harries / Eva Katzler

Café Rocks, which showcases new music, is held every Friday night at the prestigious Café de Paris, near Piccadilly Circus in London. Tonight is an opportunity for Dekkor Records to showcase three of their artists.

I’m not sure that the world needs another Katie Melua but the first act, Eva Katzler, has been compared to Ms Melua and she does indeed look and sound very similar. She has the long dark hair, pretty voice and gentle songs. Eva is backed by acoustic guitar, double bass and soft drums. The songs are perhaps a little too slow and mellow as the attention of the audience wanders during the set, but there are some strong songs – the sad, reflective ‘No More’ which Eva plays solo at the keyboard and sounds very much like Carole King, followed by the chirpy and poppy ‘Don’t Quit Me’ about being in love, and ‘So Sailor’ which wouldn’t be out of place in a romantic Lloyd-Webber musical.



Her last song ‘Star’ seems to be a highly personal one about loss and would be very moving but for the distracting crowd noise which makes the soft, fragile vocals difficult to hear. She releases her new single ‘Angel’ on 5th November followed by her debut album ‘Corners’ in January.

I feel for the next artist, James Harries, as the audience conversations have become more animated and practically drown him out. This is a travesty as, from what I can hear, he has a decent band with him and a bunch of eclectic and exciting songs. HeÂ’s been likened to Jeff Buckley and there are similarities in the soaring vocals and outstanding guitar playing but the emotional wobble in his voice reminds me more of James Walsh of Starsailor, and, judging by HarriesÂ’ t-shirt, they obviously share an admiration for the Flying Burrito Brothers.

James Harries has apparently become very successful in the Czech Republic since he relocated to Prague from the UK and he’s popular across the rest of Europe. So far recognition in his homeland has eluded him but there are promising signs as his album ‘Days Like These’, released six months ago, has received some excellent reviews in the UK press.

Highlights of his set are the spaghetti-western feel of ‘Ghost Town’, ‘Goodbye’ which is simply outstanding (I like the sentiment “when I told you that I loved you, well I was telling you a lie, what I really meant to say was it’s over, goodbye”), and the last song ‘Best Intent’ which he tells us he’s cut short for tonight and lasts 10 minutes instead of the usual 25. I’ll hopefully catch him again with a more receptive audience.

The last act, David Migden and The Dirty Words manage to command a bit more attention, maybe by sheer volume and the fact that the music’s very danceable – the band includes trombone, drums and guitars, and David Migden plays keyboard as well as trumpet. His vocals are smooth and low, and the music is an energetic, happy concoction of bluesy guitar, Cuban brass akin to Calexico, boogie-woogie keys and salsa rhythms.


David plays songs from his forthcoming album ‘Second Hand Tattoo’ including the title track and a song called ‘Planets’ which is about the planet earth falling in love with a comet and the only track sung in a falsetto voice. The rest of the set is up tempo and infectious. The audience have had enough drinks now to start moving and it’s certainly difficult to resist. Other highlights are ‘One By One’, the encore ‘Just Like Gold’ and ‘Edge of the World’ – which comes across as a sinister sea shanty perhaps because he mentions pirates before this.

The venue and the showcase concept are excellent but the clientèle appear to be here for a social club with some background music and I’m quite sure tonight’s acts wanted and deserved a bit more attention than they received.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.