The Bluesbunny is known for his sweet tooth so he is always a sucker for some free candy. Tonight's Free Candy Session features Traquair, Cousti and Reed & Hutchison.
First up tonight is Traquair. Now this guy is determined. Technical problems faze him not one bit. He is also a veteran of Glasgow's coffee house circuit and tells us how it feels to be less important than a cappuccino. At least he can look at such things with self deprecating humour. The path to fame and fortune is a rocky one. Barely two songs into his set, the pickup on his guitar packs up. Fortunately there are plenty of musicians in the room to offer technical support. This consists of suggestions to hit it. Traquair does the smart thing instead and swaps to another guitar. His own music has a pleasing softness and warmth of spirit that is easy on the ears with "Swedish Lullabies" proving particularly entrancing. As is becoming the fashion these days, he squeezes in a Neil Young cover in the form of "Rockin' in the Free World". No doubting his musical taste then and, like we said, easy on the ear.
Reed & Hutchison are on next. There are two of them - strangely enough - one on acoustic guitar and one on keyboards. They look like the sort of musicians that would play a lot of covers. Part time musician, part time postman kind of thing if you follow what we mean. They just look too respectable for that hard drinking life on the road. There is the ghost of seventies' style adult oriented rock in their style but after a few songs you do get to like them. The vocal harmonies work well and "Daddy's Girl" was the highlight of their set when the keyboard player gave it laldy, as they say hereabouts. Their last song "Tinbox Soldier" also had merit although it did not benefit from the addition of a cheep and cheesy drum machine.
Cousti are the last act of the evening. They are down to a duo tonight; Dave Lamb and Matt Morrow. There is the ghost of rock's past in their music too but Dave Lamb's distinctive vocals are always a pleasure. Starting with "High on Love", Cousti mark their ground as purveyors of slick, melodic rock music. They might be acoustic tonight but you can tell that they will sound their best with the amplification. As if to illustrate that point, they choose to cover songs by the Grateful Dead and Van Morrison. "Float Away" did it for us too with its catchy guitar riff. It is hard to find fault with them. They make it all look so easy.
So tonight was a pretty good Free Candy Session. Good music, good beer and soon good chicken pakora. Life is indeed good!