Jack Jones - The Trew Era Cafe.
The Trew Era Cafe transcends Russell Brand, run by the wonderful Forward Trust, this non-alcohol venue has somewhat of a allure to all rebels. It's a place where people can come to be themselves, to plot revolution, to meet and the fact that it employs (and by all accounts empowers) people in recovery makes it a true community. People there can't help but infect you with encouragement, excitement and perhaps a touch of sadness that the Trew Era Cafe is stepping in and helping people who deserve a chance, something that our government won't. The fact that it showcases rebel hearts only adds to the magic of the place. We were lucky enough for Megan to be able pop down to catch Jack Jones, thanks to the wonderful hospitality of the ladies at the Trew Era....
Jack Jones In Trampolene he is enigmatic with something of the Manics in him. All skinny jeans and messy hair he is the ragged poet with an electric guitar, nostalgia and grunge shaken up like crushed ice, spilled across sticky black tarmac in the summer. Alone, standing behind a microphone in East London's Trew Era Café he is sensitive and sentimental. Bathed by the warm amber glow of naked light bulbs suspended from the ceiling above he moves with the music, eyes closed as he curves to the current of his guitar.
"Forget what I closed my eyes for, dreams so rich life so poor," he sings, the room completely taken in by his lilted lyrical prowess. He is illuminated, entwining tales of high school and scratching around your hometown with lackadaisical wit. Although only a few months old Trampolene's debut album, Swansea to Hornsey has had quite the reception, its cover stirring up Facebook controversy and its content earning the band a place on the Independent's top 30 albums of 2017. The album is effusive, warm fuzz and flushed cheeks in September, thawing your frozen tongue, amorous punk to soothe 21st century chest pains and chapped hands. Opening with Artwork of Youth Jones reels off a list of names & a list of brutal firsts, painting a candid picture of his school days. It’s the kind of introduction you smirk to alone in your room, but deny the way it resonates in front of your parents when they stop in the door way and ask "what the hell" you're listening to.
'Already Older Than I Dreamed I'd Be' is yearning, melancholic, slow burning emotion and then suddenly raw, hitting you all at once, intoxicated, reeling and coming keen. Jack's spoken word is uncanny, an eerie whistle down the back alleys which link crumbling terrace houses in neglected corners of town, with darker notions and subtleties running between the riffs and melodies of Trampolene's songs. Ketamine is bleak and haunting, surreal in the way it sucks you in with a soundtrack you struggle to decipher, it could have been scribbled on the back of beermats in a pub, it could have been scribbled across the back of a Biology textbook on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, its author pining for the bus and a giggling school girl. His intonations lull and lament you and as the last line fades out ringing in your ears. You Do Nothing For Me lurches you from the haze you weren't expecting to cloud your senses so easily. It's rough and jagged, smashed glass on the kitchen floor of another house party you don't remember anymore and though you picture bleeding fingers and a broken guitar, you're left buzzing with a strange sort of thrill. The Gangway is a tender tribute to the growing pains of the bittersweet schoolyard romance. It is soft and saccharine, almost too close to comfort you and yet it does. Like Vicks rubbed in circles across your chest it alleviates the strains of heartache and unwinds you, stroking your hair as you simmer until eventually you settle down.
With dusky undertones Swansea to Hornsey is the soundtrack to the uncomfortable early years hesitating on the edge of adulthood, and with a backdrop of kitchen tiles and saucepans, the room still as we sat content, Jack Jones endeared us to the cloudier side of Trampolene.
Check out more of Jack and Trampolene!
Lucie Barat plays the Trew era Cafe, Feb 17th. Reserve your HOT TICKET here.