Last Friday saw New York’s Ed Hammell hit Cork. We loaded up on a little buckfast and headed down in time to catch the support act, one Jinx Lennon. As we came into the ‘Half Moon’ our senses were assaulted by this Cork madman lepping and yelping and roaring at a hundred miles an hour and playing his guitar really badly, really loudly, I said to no one in particular
“In a couple of minutes I’m going to have to murder that crazy bastard”
For the bit of peace, like. However, Jinx had a funny way of growing on you, like a fungus or the abscess on Zumbar’s neck, so that in a couple of minutes I was saying
“Crazy bastards of the world unite.”
Purpose yet to be determined. So we’re getting some drinks in and ol’ Jinx is “singing” about someone son being nothing but a cunt and we’re chatting to this lovely young one and her annoyingly sound boyfriend when Hammell comes on and rattles the shit of his guitar and says he’s going to tone down the bestiality jokes cos he’s just had a kid. Fucking kids, ruin everything.

And so Hammell flaked into a few songs about, surprisingly, how God would rather we didn’t kill each other and nice stuff like that. That and songs about crack whores and the like. The songs though seem incidental. What Hammell is selling is his Noo York schikt, his charisma, his story telling ability. At the back they are selling a music album and a spoken word album and I’d say the latter’s the better bet. Still, it’s amazing the amount of noise he gets out of his seventy year old acoustic guitar, his wit is excellent and he gives the crowd a good hour and a half’s worth of the Hammell experience.