Underskog

THE URBAN VOODOO MACHINE…

..a refreshing blend of fiddle, bullfiddle, haphazard percussion and rockin’ blues guitar coming to your nearest bordello, bullfight or barroom brawl real soon….. -GUITAR ….they sound like Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, Nick Cave and Johnny Cash squatting somewhere damp for the night trying to light a fire. -CRUDMUSIC Lock up your liquors, hide the knives, it’s… THE URBAN VOODOO MACHINE The stars were aligning in the skies the night Paul-Ronney Angel was begged by a promoter to be the filling in a triple bill sandwich. Never one to turn down a knees-up, P-R realised he had 48 hours to put a band together. No problem. Trawling the dives and doss houses of London, he called in some favours, cracked some whips, and so it was that The Urban Voodoo Machine was cranked into life. That was April 2003. Ever since then, this shadowy collective of ne’er-do-wells has been bringing the spirit of the carnie to London, sleazing around the capitols’ seediest joints, as well as hosting the now legendary parties attended by strippers, fire jugglers and degenerates. Igniting a spark in the dark underbelly of the city, the fire quickly spread so that by 2005 appearances were confirmed at Glastonbury Festival, Lost Vagueness, Edinburgh Festival and Irelands Electric Picnic Festival. To give their audience something more than a black eye and an empty bottle to take home they recorded and released their 5-track debut EP “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Urban Voodoo Machine”. Their ways as infectious as their voodoo is dark, the desperate thirst for their wrong ways continued into 2006. Latitude Festival and the Spitz Blues Festival snapped the band up whilst The Electric Picnic made them the only band to ever be booked 2 years in a row. This year also saw them perform to their biggest London audience yet at the Lost Vagueness Halloween Ball playing to over 1700 people. Legendary parties turned into legendary club nights and in October 2006, ‘Gypsy Hotel’ was born to coincide with the release of their 2nd EP ’With love from the Urban Voodoo Machine’. Once a month, the band headline and sell out an excitingly eclectic rock n roll cabaret. Such is the demand, it has become a weekend event unable to accommodate all those desperate to attend. Their dark, delightful and twisted world continues to threaten the masses and 2007 sees them return to the sleepy west country and release more demons into the Lost Vagueness field at Glastonbury. With the lurching sea shanties, debauched murder ballads and whiskey-soaked gypsy stomps, some reckon they’re from the stable of stallions such as Tom Waits and Nick Cave; others point out the ‘last gang in town’ swagger of The Clash and the hellhound blues that JL Hooker first dragged out of the swamp. But comparisons aside, as Paul-Ronney says himself – “we play Bourbon Soaked Gypsy Blues Bop’n’Stroll and we do it mighty well!” THE URBAN VOODOO MACHINE -purveyors of the finest Bourbon Soaked Gypsy Blues Bop’n’Stroll since 2003 www.theurbanvoodoomachine.com www.myspace.com/theurbanvoodoomachine