Big Yoga Muffin - Preston Guildhall - 14.3.01

It says a lot when a band like Big Yoga Muffin (BYM) don't break through the mainstream. An eclectic journey through pop & rock history with touches of funk and classical music thrown in for good luck obviously is a little too strange for the ultra straight laced British public. I wonder whether the possible name change to FLK (Funny Looking Kids) will do them any favours. Apparently it a medical term given to children with there eyes too close together (there's a lot of interbreeding in Cornwall or Dorset and those types of places) and could fit in with that post modern Eminem / Marilyn Manson is-it-me-or-am-I-just-a-charachter nonsense.

BYM are very very strange though. If I didn't know any better I'd say their lyrics were down to copious amounts of illegal drugs, but in truth its probably down to too much sugary tea. With one album already behind them and another one ready for later in the year its strange too see how the Levellers fans actually warm to them. Nothing against BYM, but the Levellers fans are traditionally the types that listen to the Levellers, maybe a bit of Chumbwumba and very little else from the last 10 years.

Perhaps its down to the fact that the new material sound a little more conventional, its all a little more song based rather than the 1st album which at times seemed like being in Alice In Wonderland on acid. Still the likes of  "     " are still more inventive and euphoric than 99% of guitar bands on the scene today. Perhaps the only other guitar band who have mixed such traditional rock music with a melange of musical history is the Super Furry Animals. As Michael Jackson once said "I'm not like other men" - this band aren't like any other men, women or animal.

Alex McCann