Ten Years Of ATP: Josh T Pearson

A fellow SG writer recommended, nay, compelled me to see Josh T Pearson, quoting something about the “mournfulness”. Not far from the mark I started to think, and then started to hope.

And hope is an unfair thing to lay on a Texan who seems less hungover at three in the afternoon and more drunk but exhausted. Either way, something had run out. What was left behind was conscious enough to feel every shred of pain. Throughout his set on the centre stage the floor pulsated like a boiling kettle, presumably that was Lightning Bolt soundchecking downstairs. I was lying on the floor, and it was half annoying and half like being in a fancy car seat that massages your back. I wonder if Pearson was entirely sure it wasn’t just in his brain.

“Shouldna had that party…”

His most memorable refrain.

I was quite hopeful that I might enjoy it. From my horizontal position I wasn’t far from an old acquaintance, a bearded fellow who was present at pretty much every set I chose. He worked in the stockroom of the bookshop where I did work experience when I was 16, we used to throw the big poster tube lids from one end to the other. Perhaps work experience really does frame your attitude to future economic endeavour.

I’d like to take a minute to applaud him, because every time I saw him he was having a whale of a time. I usually find that kind of thing annoying, but he was a magical thing to watch. While I burrowed further into my hole, he was always visible, swaying and nodding… swaying and nodding. Well done my friend, you are an artist of high calibre. Thank god you left Truro, it would have crushed you.

Anyway, what’s the point of this? Ah yes: I didn’t like Josh T Pearson. The thrashy caterwaul bits that stuck out like pikes from his sexy red mustang guitar were all mid range and he was a mumbler to boot. The drummer had some tricks but no-one wants to see an exhausted magician at 3pm. on a Sunday at Butlins. The quieter bits were a little like Townes Van Buckley, the louder bits were all Thrash Van Zandt. But if they had a bass player and more energy and perhaps if he stopped singing into his beard and had more energy it could have been different. 

Seemed like a charming gent though, with not the least bit of nonsense about him. Well, maybe some. The Stetson box. Symbols make not the man nor the music.

Josh T. Pearson ATP Photos: