PONY UP presents Westside Cowboy
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Westside Cowboy sound new but seem to come from an old place. Surrounded by 1978 Fender Twin Reverbs, well-thumbed Wem catalogues, a four-track recorder and spools of cassette tape the Manchester four-piece are made up of Aoife Anson O’Connell, James (Jimmy) Bradbury, Paddy Murphy and Reuben Haycocks. With a sound raw as a carpet burn, they ride a thrilling lo-fi boxcar tuned to the melodic precision of Teenage Fanclub and held together with the slacker cool of Pavement. For most bands this would be enough, but not for Westside Cowboy.
Just when you think you have them pinned, they career the entire thing into a brick wall of country, trad and early harmony coated, major-key rock’n’roll. They call this process ‘Britainicana’. A portmanteau of the band’s own making to describe Amer- ican culture digested by English people in small towns with almost nothing in the way of cosmopolitan sheen. “Think kids in double denim and Converse eating Greggs vegan sausage rolls.” It’s alarming and exhilarating in equal measures and marks them out as a band perpetually on the verge of losing con- trol but having too good a time to notice the smoke screaming out from under the wheels.
