Credit: Found On Internet

Big Strides are one of those bands that people have been urging you to get into for ages. They’re one of those bands that that guy you half-know from down the pub is always going on about. So when Music Towers heard they were playing their biggest UK show to date at the Electric Ballroom in North London, we decided to bust down and see what the fuss was all about.

Mayor McCa is a Canadian, hillbilly, cowboy one-man-band. If that hasn’t peaked your interest, then you should lobotomise yourself now with whatever sharp object is nearest to hand; don’t worry, your imagination and sense of wonder are both clearly already dead, so you won’t be losing much.

Sitting astride a kickdrum (that he thumps with his left foot), McCa plays bass with his right. Sometimes he sings, sometimes he plays the harmonica strapped to his face.  Some people play the spoons. Mayor McCa plays the scissors. Mix in a spot of tap dancing, topped with an armpit fart (no, really) and you can see why you can’t take your eyes off him when he’s onstage. Even when he’s not being very good.

Even in the one-man-band stakes, Mayor McCa is no Rod Thomas. Early on, before the quality starts to slide, he’s like an entire Dixie-fried bluegrass riot. It’s just a shame that for much of tonight’s show, he’s more like a batch of soggy grits.

You know what they say about being “Big In Japan”? Big Strides are Big In Japan. They win awards there. They play festivals and do tours there. But “Big In Japan” is often a byword for “Not Very Big Anywhere Else”. Or “Failed Miserably Everywhere Else And Are Capitalising On Whatever They Can Grab”.

You get the impression that it’s not quite firing on every cylinder tonight – while it’s perfectly competent, the trio don’t quite seem to know how to work a stage as big as the Ballroom’s. This is in part due to singer/guitarist, Marcus O’Neill, being the only one who can move about the stage and work the crowd – while Tom Pi’s stand-up bass might be the epitome of jazz-funk cool, it doesn’t exactly lend itself to mobile performances. O’Neill is left to manhandle a Lord of the Rings cardboard cut-out of Orlando Bloom that he finds in the wings by way of bolstering their slightly repetitive pop-skiffle with some visual vibrancy.