Today's hopeful continues the 50s revival by bringing Bo Diddley and Buddy Holly kicking and screaming into the present
Hometown: Wellington, New Zealand.
The lineup: Willy Moon (vocals, music).
The background: We must get out more often. Last week we went to see the highly touted (mainly by us) Gross Magic (a band, not an unhygienic act performed by Penn & Teller) at a London venue, where we met a gentleman who urged us, as people tend to when they see us out and about, to watch out for a new musician. The name of the artist, he said, was Willy Moon. He then offered a capsule definition of his musical style: "Think Bo Diddley," he teased, "remixed by Swizz Beatz." At which point we did our impression of a mobile phone, with an LOL and an OMG and various emoticons using our highly malleable face. We also made a mental note to check out this Moon character, on the off-chance that he did, indeed, sound like the aforementioned 50s rock'n'roller remixed by the aforementioned hip-hop producer, because how amazing would it be for someone to combine the primal power of that olde worlde with the punch and polish of this modern world? Really amazing, right?
The happy news is, our gentleman friend wasn't exaggerating, not even remotely. You take one listen to Willy Moon's debut single I Wanna Be Your Man and you really do think: "This sounds like the signature tune of Ellas Otha Bates given some avant-funk echo and crunch by Alicia Keys's hubby." Or you might, at a pinch, think it sounds like Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away taken to outer R&B space by Timbaland. It's referential ? "People try to put you down," sings Moon, while his delivery is strongly redolent of Mick Jagger singing that self-same Holly song ? but also refreshingly different, much like Friday's ska-pop girls from Norway. There is an audacious focus on vocal and beat, and a cheeky disregard for trendy mores, with its line about "talking jive all over town". Jive? The late-50s revival continues apace, daddio.
All this and he's not yet 21. But he's packed in plenty into his short life. Born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1989, he grew up in a household where "most of the belongings had been stolen from local department stores and on the arrival of the police had to be hidden under the floorboards". His parents were teachers (say no more) who taught around the world, but given their miserable salaries couldn't afford much (hence the inability to actually, you know, pay for stuff) and so ended up in a shared single room in the Rotherhithe YMCA with Moon and his sister forced to sleep on the floor, living on bread and cheese. Aged 18, after ODing on brie, he moved to Berlin, where he stayed for a year and abstained from dairy products completely. Today he lives in London's Spitalfields, where the snappy dresser is regularly seen walking about as though he's just stepped out of the black and white video to I Wanna Be Your Man, with his Brylcreamed barnet and snazzy suit, all silhouette and shadow, a man out of time, oscillating wildly between the rowche rumble of the past and the shiny clang of the future, avoiding Androuet like the plague.
The buzz: "His songs persist in the mind vividly and then grow in emotional resonance upon further listening. They have the rare authority of nursery rhymes" ? howtobearetronaut.com.
The truth: He's the (Baa Baa) Black Sheep of the Moon family, and all the better for it.
Most likely to: Be your man.
Least likely to: Fade away.
What to buy: Debut single I Wanna Be Your Man is released by Loog in late September.
File next to: Link Wray, Dirty Beaches, Bo Diddley, Timbaland.
Links: willymoon.com.
Tuesday's new band: Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
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