With All Due Respects to Our Sponsors...DH Temple Delivers!

Wild Paths: Day 3 - Evening SPACE Studios, Swan Lane

The Wednesday of this year's Wild Paths was quite wonderful and there was more to come.  Having located SPACE Studios, which is housed up very steep stairs in a building on Swan Lane, right in the heart of the old city, I was impressed by the intimate dive club venue.  I had been briefly once before for an electronic music junket, when lighting was deemed an unhelpful distraction, but a necessary evil. To see it this evening with its trippy, bright walls and full lighting arrangements was a bit of a treat.

The very serious DH Temple corporation at work

DH Temple, resplendent in black leather waistcoat and strides, with a matching ten gallon hat, or maybe six gallon hat, (I wasn't too sure), to top it all off. What would that be in litres, forty, thirty-six? His band, of drums and guitarist / keyboard/ effects man and bassist with backing singer, were just about all set for an on-time lift-off.  They looked great, with the drummer squeezed into the corner, girls to the left, keyboards and guitar to the right and DH Temple smack in the middle of the diagonal stage. 

I have been listening to the DH Temple EP since its release this summer. Who does the timbre and pitch of his vocal remind me of? What memory does all this curated craziness spark off?  Then, one morning it came to me and (I hope DH Temple is okay with this), but I believe him to be the 21st Century re-incarnation of Frank Zappa come to Norwich.  Which makes total sense. Why would Zappa want to live in LA nowadays?  Norwich is the perfect left-field setting for him to relaunch himself as a besuited, corporately sponsored, Viking god, rock act, armed with ironic humour and access to You Tube.

Sometimes life gets a bit over-whelming and you need somebody like DH Temple to spotlight how ridiculous it all can be.  Check out this video, Debra to get an idea of what DH Temple is all about.

Debra! A paean to D Meaden, entrepreneur? Possibly.

How does one convert the doolally brains behind such a crazed video to a stage show? One hell of a lot of hard work, preparation, a few props and a band who get the whole concept and are able to chip in with their own on-message embellishments. By the end of the show, the audience was on message too. Dancing, laughing and feeling that persistent, rock beat pulsing right through the body to the funny bone and feet. 

To coin a phrase, I loved it, which is an insufficient description of how I felt when DH Temple closed the set, with the track featured in the above video. I felt elated and energised. That was great fun!  What the long blond locks of DH Temple hide is a mystery. What must be happening in his head to create such material? Mock phone calls to the stage, the idea of a South Korean rice wine manufacturer sponsor, (featured on stage and shared with an audience member, who approved of the libation), due homage to an imagined Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sponsorship deal and a cover of Justin Bieber's worldwide hit, Baby, with rap section provided here, in exemplary fashion, by DH Temple's sidekick guitarist. The suggestion that this song was a stolen DH Temple composition was very funny , (any copyright lawyers out there, check your dictionary for what 'Joke' means, before picking up your quill).  

One thing I particular enjoyed was that the DH Temple songs don't back down, or just give us the idea of an ironic joke, but they are fully developed, suitably complex tracks. There is a groove to these tunes and the frequent contributions of the female backing vocals adds another tidy quirk. Their interventions are not dissimilar to the work done by a a brass section, blasting in a neat phrase for interest here and there in timely fashion. The whole act is sharp and tidily put together.  Do watch that video above and do get along to the very next DH Temple gig you possibly can.

Homage being paid to Bieber's 'Baby'

This set was a complete hoot, within a tight, danceable, rock band framework.  DH Temple's developing persona and stage presence are well-honed now. The man spoofs the language of corporations and mega bands who have sold-out to sponsors, ridicules the cult of money with his mocked up, suitably modest DH Temple presentation on fake Dollar bills.  Other bands I have seen with this tongue-in-cheek approach to modern living, (not that I ever saw Zappa at work), include The Rezillos and on an epic scale, The Tubes. 

It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you leave your musical pretensions at home and attend in a relaxed frame of mind, you should have a jolly good bop and a bit of a laugh. Don't go if you just want to be 'seriously' entertained in a shoe-gazing kind of way. Oh, and if you are looking to sponsor some local talent, the number to call is in the video link.  

Spencer Ide

17th October, 2025