Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Howl’ deals with issues of repression, rebellion, drug misuse, the alienation of youth, mental illness, capitalism, industrialisation, and sexuality. It rails against conformity and censorship. When the American poet and writer first performed ‘Howl’ in public in October 1955 it could be argued that he lit the fuse that connects poetry and rock’n’roll and, as a result, helped transform the face of popular culture.
Nearly 70 years later Louisa Roach continues to forge that creative path of resistance and protest through her work as lead singer and songwriter with She Drew The Gun. And tonight in York she opens an 11-date tour of the UK of what will be a series of intimate, unplugged shows featuring poetry and music drawn from the Liverpudlian band’s three albums. Roach tells us that An Evening With She Drew The Gun promises to be a “journey into my psyche.”
Sitting on a raised stool, cradling her electric guitar under the soft 60-watt glow of an 80’s living room standard lamp, Louisa Roach is a picture of warmth and affinity. She opens the concert, appropriately, with ‘Where I End And You Begin’, the opening track from She Drew The Gun’s debut album, 2016’s Memories of the Future. It is a beautiful, intimate, stripped-back reading of the song.
Louisa Roach then picks up her book of poems and recites, rat-a-tat, a long meandering verse of emotional detachment, of a life once lived and now left behind. It is as powerful and intense in its delivery as it is as open and honest in its content.
Two more songs ensue, the second of which is the deeply atmospheric folk-blues of ‘Wolf & Bird’, from She Drew The Gun’s second album Revolution of Mind. Louisa Roach’s voice has never sounded better, it’s textured light and shade magnified in this most intimate of settings.
She is then joined by the brilliant bassist, Anna Donigan, once of PINS and now of Honeyblood and LIINES who brings further versatility and sonic ballast to the occasion. ‘Diamonds In Our Eyes’ from She Drew The Gun’s third and most recent album, 2021’s Behave Myself is positively divine.
After a moving ‘Since You Were Not Mine’, Louisa Roach acknowledges that much sadness is present in her music. She jokingly blames her Nan for this after she had bought the 13-year-old Roach a ghetto blaster for her birthday and the teenager promptly went out and bought two CDs to play on it, R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People and Steam by East 17. Her grandmother was to die two days after her birthday and Louisa Roach then proceeded to play the songs ‘Everybody Hurts’ and ‘Stay Another Day’ from those two albums on constant repeat.
After a short intermission, the two women return and Louisa Roach launches into her reinterpretation of Frank Zappa’s ‘Trouble Every Day’. And just like Zappa before her, Roach defies convention. She embraces politicisation and a strong sense of civil disobedience. Both her songs and her poems – she tells us that some of her songs do start life as poems – are strong, singular reflections upon both the individual and shared experiences of life in the deeply-divided present day. Like Ginsberg, Roach speaks of inequality and injustice as well as personal feelings of gratitude, longing, and regret. She reads a poem written by her mother years ago to the local council in her efforts to obtain a grant for housing repairs and cites this potent piece as the inspiration for her subsequent work.
Bringing a fabulous evening to a most fitting close, Louisa Roach returns to She Drew The Gun’s first album and ‘Poem’, another telling indictment of a broken society. She fiercely refuses to reject politics for art and her voice remains as resilient, resolute, and relevant today as it has ever done.
Mention should also be made of this evening’s opening act, emerging local artist Sarah Armitage. She recited half a dozen of her poems, all astute, acerbic observations of living in a material, modern world. With a rhythmic style that is equal parts wry and dry, Armitage concluded with the hilarious ‘Fat Fuck’ where she looks through an insightful eye at the banality of many of today’s social and cultural pursuits.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from An Evening With She Drew The Gun in York
