FRIDAY 10th October 2008
Times : 8pm
Tickets : £5
“Fujii is the collective name for the duo of Kuichi Fujishima, aka 'Fuji', and Paul Shearsmith. Fuji is a Japanese slide guitar player and singer, while Paul is an English player of pocket trumpet, tuned gas main, baliphone and founding member of Echo City, the group that plays plastic tube instruments.
Fuji is a true folk musician, with his music deeply rooted in that of his heroes, Fred McDowell, Son House and Bukka White, but at the same time, consciously or not, in the folk music of his Japanese background. He sounds perfectly at home singing his Japanese lyrics to these pentatonic blues scales; something like a Japanese Rainer. Paul Shearsmith adds utterly modern pocket trumpet, blown and sucked pieces of metal and plastic tubing” - Mike Cooper
Mike Barnes, biographer of Captain Beefheart, said in the Wire: 'Questions of authenticity are redundant with music this faithful to the Delta blues spirit'
Charlie Gillet said, after the bands performance at the 2002 Thames Festival: 'their first song was a raucous country style blues that inspired me to exclaim that I had not heard such an intense blues performance since seeing Son House at the 100 Club in 1967.'
Andy Kershaw said 'this extraordinary thing....a blues slide player from Japan and a bloke from Kentish Town who blows down a gas main...It's an unlikely combination, but it works...'
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