Rework Norwich GIve GAGA a Go

The Garage Goes Goo-Goo for Gaga

Joyous REWORK Norwich Show picks the meat off Lady Gaga's tunes

Words by Spencer Ide, Photographs by Gordon Woolcock 

It’s bloody difficult! and It’s hard, really effing hard! and it’s Scary!  But it’s a lot of fun too.  Last night’s show at The Garage was the twentieth appearance of REWORK Norwich in the past two years.  Twenty shows of local bands and musicians being tasked with stamping their mark on the work of the biggest names in the music biz. 

 

The latest focus was the songbook of Lady Gaga.  Three groups of Norwich-based musicians were invited to rework her songs for as diverse an audience as she would have hoped for herself.  Posters around the city these past few weeks attracted the curious, the self-questioning, embryonic-confident and some of Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters keen to hear some of Mother Monster’s songs live, (at an affordable price).

 

Musical diversity was splashed all over the bill.  The shape-shifting house band, psychedelic-folk duo Lassie, Jo Millet (playing live with a band for the first time) and top of the bill, playing genre defying “postapocalypticbilly”, the increasingly popular, garage rock trio, Snakemilk. 

 

REWORK Norwich organiser, promoter and MC, Alex Carson invited the artists to wrap up their Lady Gaga revamps in a set with their own original material, giving the audience a taste of each act’s personality, as well as something familiar.  It is a generous and free-thinking, liberal and creative approach, more than worthy of a radio show or TV show, (but not in a competitive way).

 

The eclectic house band opened the night with Gaga songs as straight as the format and budget allowed.  The catchy, sing along number Disease kicked us off.  An easy to enjoy pop number, led by the vocals of Fozzie (a.k.a. DJ Love Train) , decorated by Carson on keys, Acer of Flat Venus on drums and wearing a bright Hotel Chelsea red turtle-neck, Dylan from yer blooze calmly playing finest art-school-cool guitar.  This was another fine instance of a Norwich music happening.  I love this city!  It’s a living tapestry of music and here was another embroidery to enjoy.  The house band did what house bands do the world over, warm up the venue.  Bright and lively, without threatening to over-shadow the rest of the programme.  Despite a couple of initial minor tech issues, they bounced through Telephone, then slowed things down with the cell-phone light swing-along ballad Shallow, before handing over to Lassie.

Lassie, well-established in the pre-Lockdown Norwich music scene, compañeras of The Neutrinos, were new to many at The Garage, adjacent to Chapelfield Gardens, because most of the audience would have been too young to have been allowed out in Norwich pre-Lockdown.  Norwich music world is a broad church that has been divided.  The two ends of the city’s music spectrum are defined by what was happening before and after covid.  The first out and about, making new connections, hungry for the love of music are a young musical community.  Inhabitants of the rented, shared house career-free world.  They were quickly gathering after lockdown and into Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom when on Timber Hill, trying out new material at open mic nights there and at the Louis Machesi, making new friends, experimenting with instruments learned under the strictures of lockdowns.  

 

At the other end of the spectrum, as in the city’s lively poetry world, those performers who had been out and about pre-lockdown were slower to reappear on stage and would only pop up occasionally at more expensive, 'serious' artist venues, such as the Norwich Arts Centre, which initially took a conservative approach to engaging with new, local musicians.  Thankfully, Alex Carson’s REWORK Norwich project is stitching the two ends together and it was a real pleasure to see Lassie at The Garage in front of an audience mostly new to them and vice versa.

 

Emily Winng, flame-haired chanteuse, combines the work of lead singer with lone-drum drummer, with Camille Davila on guitar, (an attention-seeking, jealous guitar, which neurotically demands to be retuned between each number).   The seriousness of the prep needed to rework Lady Gaga’s pop songs was emphasised by Winng recounting how Lassie’s duo had been online internationally in weeks running up to the show, as well as rehearsing madly on the day of the show itself, in order to put together a coherent set.  An invite to perform at REWORK Norwich is not to be taken lightly.

 

Lassie introduced themselves with the haunting harmonies of 13 Keys, with lyrics that appealed greatly to the young goth-aware, punk-savvy audience.  Together the two women command attention, with Winng’s unruly stage presence, a stark contrast to Davila’s sleek stance.

 

Leave the Grass Grow Wild is a strong song that epitomises their punked-up folk sound.  It is builds like a storm cloud and ends like a thunder clap.  The moment’s silence following the dramatic last beat and the audience understanding that the song was done magnificently.  The audience had been leaning into every word, so the guillotine finish took the collective breath away - before a roar of approval.

The scary bit, mixing up the Gaga tunes proved to be nothing for Lassie to be scared about. Their versions worked a treat.  Bloody Mary, was undoubtedly an improvement to her ladyship’s own version.  Always Remember Us This Way, (taken from the modern Hollywood version of A Star Is Born), had less scope for re-invention, being another ballad, but Lassie’s triumph was Poker Face, putting an electro-stomper through the psychedelic-folk blender produced a version that would not have been out of place at an Avebury Ring mystics gathering on a Solstice night.  Having worked their sorcery on Lady Gaga, Lassie concluded with White Hair, written by Camille Davila, which may or may not have been an acceptance of ageing, an appreciation of ageing, or a complaint about the demands of fighting ageing, or something else.  Whatever, the crowd loved Lassie's set.

This REWORK experience was proving captivating.  If you love music, I urge you to make it to one these shows.  They are by definition unique and not to be missed.  The next one, 27^th June 2025, homes in on the music of The Beach Boys, a truly exciting prospect, given the innovation that Brian Wilson et al engineered as electronic instrumentation became accessible in their recording era.  

 

After the break, Jo Millett valiantly took on a double challenge.  Not content with tackling Lady Gaga’s oeuvre, Jo chose the evening to see how performing with a band, rather than performing solo, would work out.   The previously un-named band, (excepting their own personal monikers) was launched by MC Alex as Jo Millet & The Fillet of Fun, at least for the night.  Jo’s music is a lot darker and more layered than such a band name suggests, but for one night only, perhaps given the meat content, Jo was good-hearted enough to roll with the off-the-cuff suggestion.

Again, starting with one of their own numbers, Taking Trains, Jo Millet demonstrated a vivid poetic bent.  Jo’s voice is a powerful instrument and is used to full effect in this song, with the band adding further depth to the sound.  The band moves Jo on from being just another lonely lyricist with a guitar, to a lead singer of substance.  Is this symptomatic of a shift in post-covid society? Might we be seeing the seemingly un-ending misery of solo performers coming to an end, they being replaced by people with something original to sing and their music becoming richer than one plaintive voice and a strummed guitar? Jo's set was fascinating.

 

The increasingly lively audience responded enthusiastically to the band and all Jo’s songs, loving how they all tucked into Just Dance and the hugely popular and well re-worked Gaga tune Boys, Boys, Boys before they slowed up for a highly effective take on Paparazzi.  The set ended on another Jo Millett number, It Hurts, which gave full scope to Jo’s powerfully rich voice.  The song provided a perfect crescendo to a hugely enjoyable set.

Tunes, arrangements, instruments, lyrics are all up for grabs under the scope of the REWORK Norwich manifesto and asking Snakemilk to cap the evening off was, in itself an act of creative bravado.  Robin Evans and his band are by definition wild, sweaty and risqué.  Pitching them into this Gaga mash up was only ever going to produce a high-octane finale.

How hard is it to REWORK Gaga? 
Robin Evans worked nights for this. 

Gaga’s irreverent ‘love’ song Judas is the entrée to Snakemilk’s rocking set.  The tension-filled progress of the song delivered by Snakemilk never quite builds into a full rocker, deliberately keeping us hanging on, holding back from become Madame G’s dance anthem.  It’s a clever and absorbing take. 

 

Midnight Radio cannot be other than a Snakemilk song.   On the road, late-night driving from A to B from B to Yarmouth, listening to whatever the radio throws up just to stay awake, to stay alive.  Dirty and swampy, it’s a rickety, rackety Snakemilk classic, fuelled by Evans’ guitar work and the frenetic drumming of Boomslang.  The straight up dirty Quiverin’ follows.  Garage rock covers it perfectly; loud and rough – a right rocker. 

 

Snakemilk had the honour of playing around with Born This Way, the peak of Lady Gaga’s gospel, a song and message that will live on for generations to come.  Snakemilk simply smashed through this one, although Evans went off line with the words halfway through, the chorus brought recovery and the crowd went wild, dancing at the front and in their seats.  This number was going to be loved regardless of Evans' misfiring for a couple of lines.  Faster than Gaga would deliver, Born This Way had been transformed into a great rock song.  I can imagine it turning up as an encore at some stage in a Snakemilk set. 

After the stonking, brief kick of Hobabana, the new Snakemilk single, the headliners concluded the show with Bad Romance, which again I would happily hear again in this rocking version.  With Cobra (Ace) on electronic bits and pieces,  Snakemilk, did the business and REWORK Norwich Gaga was done. Uplifting, fun and a creative challenge to the musicians. Pure entertainment from start to finish for the audience, this was a night to savour.   

 

Budding musicians, when you think of pitching yourself into an open mic music evening for the first time, take a lesson from REWORK Norwich, don’t meekly just do a cover - take a number from one of your favourite artists and make it your own.  Do you want to be a tribute artist, or pay tribute to one of your music idols?  Just playing what they played and mimicking what they sung will mean that your performances will always be defined by their greater talent, why not be brave? Stick it back to them with your version, take the harder route.

 

The venue, The Garage is a flexible space usually used for drama and dance, but it was big enough for this show. The sound board was operated by Jack Halsall and the lights were managed by Cian.  Alex Carson has done a great job to secure it for these shows.  The event was close to sold out on Friday.  When the word gets out, a bigger venue will be needed.  I can't praise REWORK Norwich highly enough as a concept, or as a night out.  

 

Who hasn’t been to a REWORK show before?  Alex asked the assembled before the show.  It’s a question worth asking.  If you haven’t, the next REWORK Norwich show is, (as I mentioned above), at The Garage on Friday  27^th June with The Beach Boys being reworked. Book yourself in ASAP.

Spencer Ide

Norwich

27th April 2025