Tonight Matthew, I’m going to play…
Okay, looking and sounding a little like Beck’s mad half-cousin, Mayor McCa is an odd-ball, but a very talented odd-ball at that; you see, the London singer/songwriter plays all of the instruments on his songs - nothing so amazing about that, you might think - until I tell you that he plays them all at the same time! If you check him out on YouTube, or on the link on his MySpace page you will see him live playing this very single, ‘Hair Farmer’. He sings, plays acoustic guitar, bass drum with one leg and bass guitar (via peddles) with his other foot. It is very impressive stuff, folks!
So, ‘Hair Farmer’ is a cross between ‘70’s Country Rock and contemporary Indie Beck, with a catchy deep riff and a high screeching chorus of, “Hair Farmer! // Hair Farmer!” Then the shortly title song, ‘You’ is an acoustic gentle up tempo plod along with added hand claps and on which the Mayor’s vocals are slightly more chilled and Simon & Garfunkel-esque. This leads us nicely to the final song on this single, which is, ‘One Of These Days’ and although it sounds like a bit of a ‘70’s ballad, it is brilliant. With piano keys as the beat and melody it leaves Mayor McCa’s smooth vocals to glide along with the piano hand in hand like a courting couple.
So whilst ‘Hair Farmer’ is the main song here, and indeed very catchy, the others show the talents in Mayor McCa as both musician and song-writer expertly. A very pleasant find on a pleasant Sunday afternoon!