Avant-garde pop collective Woahgetter to play debut show at The Black Prince

Avant-garde pop ten-piece Woahgetter will play their debut live show at The Black Prince next week.

The brainchild of songwriter and producer Mark Cann, Woahgetter will see names from across the county’s music scene come together for the inaugural performance at the Northampton venue.

Ahead of this, Woahgetter’s debut single I Can't Love You Anymore will be released on Friday.

In recent weeks, promotion for the gig across social media has seen Cann revealing a series of AI created papier-mâché heads of himself and the musicians who will be joining him on Thursday, February 29.

Woahgetter has existed for about 18 months, with Cann and around half-a-dozen musicians working on tracks which will eventually form a debut album.

Many of the musicians involved in Woahgetter are people Can has previously worked with in a professional capacity at The Lodge Recording Studios but had not previously written music with.

“The hardest thing is getting people I trusted with my weird interpretations,” he explains.

“Getting into people’s heads and saying, ‘Can you deliver this in a semi cinematic way’.

“I would quite often approach someone and say, ‘Can you make it sound like a sinking ship’ as opposed to talking in scales. It takes a certain sort of person who will put up with that.”

Cann describes Woahgetter as avant-garde pop, while joking he’s not ‘breaking moulds’ in the way ‘real’ avant-garde artists may do.

He said: “There’s hooks in it, we’re playing with structure a little bit. It’s in time and it’s in tune.

“It’s listenable, there’s a lot of instrumental hooks and it’s quite groovy.

“For me it’s an outlet for my literary ambitions, it’s poetry led. Luckily I’ve got a whole bunch of people around indulging this.”

Pushed to reveal more about the music and lyrical influences of Woahgetter, Cann said: “It’s a weird one. It’s bits from a lot of things.

“Some of the Scott Walker chamber pop which undoubtably influenced Bowie.

“Elbow – but then that seems to be fighting against cowbell ridden LCD Soundsystem-esque groups.

“I will get something that’s lush and safe, similar to Lana Del Rey or Father John Misty’s smoother points, something almost bordering on elevator music - and then want to fight it with cacophony, with really aggressive groove-driven stuff.

“I’m a massive fan of bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain - where feedback is louder than the vocal line.

“There’s been times where I’ve asked brilliant musicians to solo over a whole song but make it almost inaudible – they look at me like I’m crazy.

“But when it’s there with the smoothness and a harmony part, it’s the right level of cacophony.”

I Can't Love You Anymore may be the first Woahgetter track being released, but according to Cann, it’s not necessarily indicative of the sound of the rest of the record.

He says: “There’s a big hook there, but that hook is essentially six people singing the tambourine part. It’s ridiculous, but it works.

“It’s very instrumentally hook driven and then there’s a lush chamberey string thing happening which gives me a bed to whine over.”

Lyrically, Cann reveals influences ranging from William Burroughs, James Joyce, Bertolt Brecht and Kafka to Dostoevsky, William Blake, John Keats and Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods.

“The most visceral elements of poetry are quite often the starting point for the songs,” he adds.

Woahgetter will be Cann’s his first return to the live stage in about seven years – following the demise of former band The New Hellfire Club.

At that time Cann was working at the former Big Noise Studios in Northampton alongside bands including New Cassettes and TANAOU.

Talking about his former project, he said: “I was proud of the songs, proud of moments we had in a rehearsal room but it wasn't a thing that had any value in the live arena unfortunately.

“I didn’t miss playing live. I didn’t enjoy playing live.”

It was not long after the end of The New Hellfire Club that Cann, who also formerly played in The Uptown Decadence Unit, began working at The Lodge, continuing to record music for other musicians.

However, he continued to write songs – something he explains he has done throughout his career, whether working in music or not.

“I guess I was happy for a long time just going home and writing songs,” he explains.

“At some point, I had a weird itch to get back on a stage and show off.

“Some of my poor mates have known it as ‘Mark Cann’s imaginary band’ for quite a long time until there was something a little bit more solid.

“I like being in a room with humans and bouncing ideas off them - but I’ve not much technical aptitude as a musician.

“I like saying ‘Can’t we do this, can’t we do that’, and whistle hair-brain hooks at people who are good on their instrument and then play them back to me.

“I like that experience, I've always enjoyed that and was lucky enough to do that from a relatively young age.

“That’s where I got my buzz and kicks. ‘What about if we do this, what about if we play it in reverse’, ‘What about if you play a solo over that which you can't hear’.

“I like throwing daft ideas at people who know better but for one reason or another acquiesce my silliness.”

At The Black Prince, Cann will be joined by drummer Will Parker, bassist Dan Battison, guitarists Josh Ryan and Elliott Williams, keyboard players Rosie Bullock and Ryan Bachmann, violin player Simeon Georgiou and singer and percussionists Jo Collis and Celeste Day.

Many of the acts have played in past and present bands from across the Northants music scene including Oh Boy, New Cassettes, The Retro Spankees, My First Tooth, Big Loss, Baby Lung and Twenty One.

Cann adds the decision to go with such a large line up came out of pragmatism and not wanting to overload members with too much live.

“I’m trying my hardest to just sing and dance - I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit,” he adds.

While Cann’s plans for Woahgetter are based around the ‘write, release, tour, repeat’ pattern, he explains he’s unsure if, in 2024, anyone truly knows how the music industry works any more – or what the best thing to do is.

“Some human in the middle of England has written some songs and for whatever reason has got nine other people to sort of go, ‘I'll do that for a bit’,” he explains.

“How you then get that to the ears of enough of a listenership to make it sort of sustainable, I'm not sure.

“But that wasn't really the primary reasons for doing it. It was me realising I really miss it and want to do that again’.

Part of drawing people’s attention to Woahgetter and the forthcoming gig has been the promotion across social media, based around papier-mâché heads and images of band members holding up cardboard instructional art pieces.

Cann said: “Alongside the rest of the project, it’s an indulgence.

“Months ago, like the rest of the whole world, I was like, ‘AI - it’s coming for our lives and jobs’.

“I was interested by it and aware I was about to attempt to promote this project. I looked into AI and it was almost impossible not to factor it in.”

Cann instructed the nine musicians who will be performing with him at The Black Prince to send him ‘passport style photos’. He then used AI to generate the papier-mâché heads.

He explains: “I found a love for AI in terms of its inadequacy. It isn’t art. There’s no intention there which is primary in art. But I think it being so ‘not art’, it’s sort of beautiful.

“I like the functionality of AI. If I were to look for a budget of having portraits done of 10 humans, it’d be huge and beyond the realms of realistic in terms of a return.

“With papier-mâché, the charm is in the defects and the images felt almost hyperhuman.

“Alongside that was also the concept of the fluxus movement which had recently come into my peripheral vision.

“As someone who was toying with the idea of going and flogging themselves to people on the internet, I had lots of internal dialogue around responsibility and what art is and who the artist is.

“Is the artist the person writing the card, is the artist the person carrying out the instruction, is the art the instruction being carried out, is it the card itself?”

Looking ahead to 2024 and the future for Woahgetter, Cann said the priority is to release more singles, to finish work on the debut album and continue to play live.

He said: “As much as I’m understated and pragmatic and realistic about it, I’m super ambitious and I think everyone else is. I want to put it into the ears of as many people as I can.

“That was a thing when I was younger, I was always ashamed off and thought I was too cool for.

“I now find that preposterous.

“I don't want people who don't like it to be inflicted with it, but if there was a chance that someone's going to like it and it's going to improve a life – is there an onus on me to do that.

“I think there's also an element of believing it’s quite good. I think it's got value in so much as a thing like this can have value.

“Then there’s me as a human which wants it to be really well received and I don't think that's fragility, I think that's duty.”

Referring back to this month’s inaugural gig, Cann hints at something “specific to the show” which won’t happen again.

He said: “There’s a plan with the instructional art pieces which will make more sense on the evening of the 29th.

“Without sounding too much like I’ve got ideas above my station, there is going to be certain cultural capital for people in Northampton at this gig.

“The more egomaniacal part of my character thinks that it's going to be a gig that people say there were there at the first one.

“There will be something which is specific to this show which can’t happen again, it would make no sense as a second running or when we play anywhere else.

“Something very specific to Northampton and I think there’s a charm in that.”

Woahgetter headline The Black Prince in Northampton on Thursday, February 29.

Tickets cost £6 in advance before fees via https://skiddle.com/e/37271528 or £8 on the door.

For more information www.instagram.com/woahgetter