Many believe that the number of love songs in the world far outstrip the number of things with which one can fall in love. That is why Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six are doing their very best to readdress the balance, penning twisted dirt-swing about lust and loathing, served up on an exuberant gobbet of malicious delight. Stories about grieving lovers, thieving lovers and deceiving lovers seep from their songbook like a putrescent parade of painful parables. It’s strangely beautiful - but not very. Expect to hear growly narratives spat out over dissonant riffs coaxed from beat-up trombones, banjos, trumpets, saxophones, mandolins, cellos, violins, lap-steels, accordions, pianos and spoons.
Heavy, hairy and (mostly) in harmony.
The Bedlam Six are without peer on the British live music scene in terms of onstage energy, musical subtlety and lyrical gymnastics. Formed in late 2006 by street performer Louis Barabbas (originally under the name The Black Velvet Band), the group have in under three years racked up an incredible list of achievements: they have played with such disparate acts as Supergrass, Motorhead, Chaz ‘n’ Dave, Sun Ra’s Arkestra, Bob Log III and Eliza Carthy (such is their range); were given a rent free residency at the famous Hill Street Theatre for the duration of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; were commissioned to arrange works by John Cooper Clarke; were the youngest band (by at least a decade) to play the mainstage at the legendary Bulldog Bash; and are the only band in the history of the award-winning Solfest weekend to play two separate mainstage sets on the same day.
They recently won financial support from The Northern Residency Fund to release their first album “Found Drowned” (and have already written albums two and three), have been offered tours of Spain, Mexico and the USA and enjoy enthusiastic endorsement from a host of the BBC’s best known DJs (including Tom Robinson, Marc Riley, Andy Crane, Chris Hawkins, Sam Walker and Christopher Holliday). They are also the in-house band for Manchester’s revolutionary independent label Debt Records
