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As the calypso carnival of Larrikin Love rolls its way triumphantly back to it’s London roots, their rabid fans and the offbeat ball of oddities that is the band themselves jubilantly celebrate. They comprise Edward Larrikin (vocals), Michael Larkin (guitar), Alfie Ambrose (bassist and owner of possibly the best and most urchin-tastic name ever) and Coz Kerrigan (drums), and they’re here to infuse Camden’s-most-indie, Buddhist temples or wherever they please with their joyful musical blend of eccentricities: even if they do encourage frenzied dancing to songs about, well, tragic rape…
In the swanky maroon marijuana fogged confines of KOKO’s backstage den, Larrikin Love tell Gigwise of Larrikin Loves (“Most Haunted, Derek Ancorah and ‘Matt Smoke’”, prompting an ejector-seat reaction in a frenzied search for whatever the hell this is); Larrikin Hates (Alfie’s “expensive service stations”); and most importantly, we lament the fact that finances simply won’t stretch to ‘Larrikin Love-Hearts’. Apparently, these saccharine nuggets would proffer such wisdoms as “have you left the gas on”, Alfie’s thoughtful “don’t mix whites and colours” and “is your wife happy” as a sugary warning to you all.
Just don’t mention Celebrity Big Brother’s Chantelle, and don’t you dare pigeon hole them. They have a point though, music journalists get through more labels and tags than a WHSmiths warehouse sees in years, and the emergence of cavalcade-kid West London oddballs has seen them flying. With a further raid of the stationary cupboard, someone has pilfered the superglue and the ‘Thamesbeat’ tag has firmly stuck. “Well that was Alfie, he said it once to a journalist and then they blew it up. He meant to say Thames bop, but he said Thamesbeat. Someone’s already bought the domain name, thamesbeat.co.uk. Basically we’re just friends, like Mystery Jets, us, Jamie T and Airhammer, and we all happened to be based in that area round the Thames and they just jumped on that”, explains Edward.
To be honest though, you can try and shove them kicking and screaming into any bird-flu ridden pigeon hole you want, but they’ll cut their way out with razor sharp wit, gypsy-Irish charm and buzzingly infectious energy. They jerk from rants (“Heat magazine” UCL journalists), to extol-ations, (“Lily Rose is absolutely incredible, she’s got amazing lyrics, like a female version of Jamie T but with calypso beats and really poppy”) to giggles with the flick of an asymmetrical haircut as they eclectically bound between styles and beats with a hop, skip and a jig. It’s not really a surprise, with influences raging from a jokey “Chantelle, Pete Doherty” to “The Pogues, Shane McGowan, African music and some funk. We’ve got the Irish contingent of the band and so a lot of Irish music, a lot of soul, and Motown .We’ve all been listening to all kinds of things, so we all get together and create some kind of big burst of hybrid shit.” This Irishness wears itself not only proudly on the musical sleeve, but also brazenly adorned on Edwards’ St Patrick’s Day “he’s got the badges” (pointed out by a rather green-eyed Alfie) tracksuit top.
With an album already in the murky Thames water pipeline, “we’re about three quarters of the way through it, should be out end of august” and festival plans “but we don’t know which ones yet”, it all seems pretty luvly jubbly in the weird world of Larrikin. Failed attempts at diva-ish rider requests aside: “soft cheeses and crackers, sherry and port, olives, smoked salmon, but we just get Carling and maybe some crisps” as the band scorn, sweet poetic idealism and sweeter loyalty to their roots shine through in their aims: Edward’s “a really nice album which everyone cherishes and has on their shelves for years”, or Alfie’s endearing endeavour to “buy my mum a caravan.”
They sparkle with energy, their music sparkles with joy and sweat that only their “hybrid shit” can create: a literate afterglow of poetry, earnestly genuine pleasure in touring and gaining “new recruits” and wide-eyed recollections of sweat induced microphone electrocutions. This particularly memorable gig incident at a very sweaty Pushbar resulted in Edward’s new-found terror of the modern demon that is electricity: “I’m really freaked out by it.” They met through a fairy-dust whirlwind of tragic rollerblading Auntie’s and general neighbourliness in Edward’s sage nod to “one big ball of weird”. That pretty much sums up their scuffed musical gems, and their boisterously erratic bouncing from the positive and upbeat to the sweaty or the sincere. Besides, they’re more than capable of leaving behind their Thames nest and swimming flamboyantly upstream on warm jets of “rinky dinky”.
With infectious grins and an equally infectious Aladdin’s-cave of beats and tunes, you’d be hard pushed to escape their charms and endearing eccentricities: We’d say one big ball of happy as Larry. Rinky dinky indeed.
