I feel as though Whisperin’ and Hollerin’ should take a moment to congratulate itself and afford itself a moment smugness, for giving coverage to one of Mark Wynn’s early EPs. Granted, it was only a middling review, but without wishing to blow my own trumpet too hard, I’ve been championing the fella for a good few years now. And finally, Tom Robinson’s given him a thumbs up and a session, and he’s beginning to get some wider attention. In fact, Robinson has even gone so far as to align Wynn with living leg-ends Mark E Smith and John Cooper Clarke, commenting, “Like the early John Cooper Clarke or Mark E Smith, Mark Wynn has the potential for national treasure status 20 years down the line.”
And he’s right, and those comparisons are entirely appropriate given Wynn’s propensity for skewed urban poetry. Ultimately, though, the credit must go to Mark and Mark alone, because he’s worked his arse off, gigging up and down the country in every venue, pub and toilet that will have him and often playing multiple shows on the same day / night.
When I ran into him recently at The Yawns’ gig in York, I jokingly asked what he thought he was doing by having a night off. It was probably his first in several months, and as it happens, he’d just come from mixing his latest batch of songs – being the ones on this album. With all the touring, it’s remarkable (pardon the pun) that he finds the time to write or record new material. But Mark’s one of those guys who’s just foaming with ideas, and he’s happy to chuck ‘em all out there and see what shape they take.
Following hot on the heels of ‘“James Dean makes me insecure, why does he have to be so shexy” the album’ (October 2012) and ‘“It Hasn’t Got A Title Yet But When I Think of it I’ll Let You Know” - the album’ (August 2012), ‘Eggs, Kes and that bike I never bought you even though that I would like to’ not only continues Mark’s run of snappily-titled releases, but also of quickfire, off-the-cuff musical sketches that draw on his day to day experiences (both real and imagined) and overheard conversations (also real or imagined).
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This time around, we find Mark chuntering about busses on New Year’s Day (‘Busses on New Year’s Day’), going to the shop for some groceries (‘Eggs and Juice’) and reminiscing over childhood experiences (as on the breezy Pavement-like ‘Holiday’).
‘Radio Song’ features a rambling anti-narrative over a scratchy guitar and sits somewhere between the Fall songs ‘New Face in Hell’ and ‘An Older Lover, Etc’, while ‘Bhs Things’ has a skiffly rockabilly sound, and from the overall feel of the album, I’d wager self-professed Fall fan Wynn has been listening to ‘Grotesque’ and ‘Slates’ a fair bit recently. I can’t help but wonder if the carrier bag that’s becoming an album cover trademark isn’t a Fall reference too.
It’s cool, in that it doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t, and Wynn is by turns pithy, wry, irritated and plain daft. We wouldn’t want him be be any other way.
Mark Wynn Online
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