The A-Z of Awesome: D

D is for Devil and Casey Jones

I think I've talked about this band more than most bands over the last 5 years. Yes, Tool have been talked about a lot, Yourcodenameis:Milo have been talked about a lot, but if there was some sort of list of bands that have received the most airtime from my mouth, Devil and Casey Jones would be right up there in the top 3. The reasons why have been gone over and over and over, but they all remain completely relevant, and the fact that this band no longer exist is a crying shame. The phrase crying shame is ridiculous, but I'm going with it.

The first time I encountered this band was at a gig at Scruffy Murphys in Birmingham. My memory is a little clouded, and either us or them were a replacement band that night. As the evening started, my hopes were low for the other bands, as we had played with some stinkers over that summer, so I assumed we would watch them and then forget about them the next day. So they played, and I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely blown away straight off the bat. I enjoyed it, that much is true, more so than all of the bands we had played with, but I wasn't fawning. Not quite yet. They were good, that could not be denied. The songs were hooky and clever, but there seemed to be a certain awkwardness about them, and at that time I was knee deep in chug, so I wanted my bands to be chunky. They were selling a 2 track CD containing 'Militia' (which I clearly remember being my favourite of theirs at the time) and 'Every Stray Bullet Carves a Bloody Swathe Through History'. I spoke to Alex a little bit about playing more gigs and other things, and that was that. We played, Andrew cracked his face open, they went to hospital, me and Ben watched a lion train station chomp film with the Scruffys owner. Good night.

So I listened to the cd a few times, thought it was cracking. Stayed in contact with Alex via email and he was talking about an album they were recording, and he offered to mail me the demos. He did this, and this is when I was blown away. The recordings weren't of great quality, obviously, they were demos, but the songs were absolutely wonderful. Every single one of them, without fail, was catchy as hell, witty, and had a depth that I thought every band was missing. And by that I don't mean every band we played with, I mean EVERY band. This was the pop band I was waiting for. By pop I don't mean The Vengaboys, I mean guitar driven songs with hooks.

I played that CD to death that summer. My favourite song would change depending on the time of day, and we conspired to play more gigs with them. Henceforth ran a beautiful relationship, heh. We were asked to play at the album launch, which was a great night, and they were the first (and one of only 3, the others being Call it a Clunes and Phema) band we played with that we all agreed were excellent. The fully recorded album was great, and at the release they played a couple of new songs that hinted at better things to come. Better things indeed came. All of this led up to 'Devil and Casey Jones Rule Intensive Care', which was the last album, which is undoubtedly one of my all time favourite records. I mean that as well, its just a stunning piece of work. I wish, dearly wish, that we played with more bands like this, and it baffles me to this day how more people didn't fall in love with this band. Most of the people I know like their music to be catchy, but they also talk of wanting it to be intelligent. That is exactly what this band were. An intelligent pop band.

Their evolution as a live band was startling as well. There was a little awkwardness as I said when I first saw them, but I clearly remember at the last gig (the 30 song bonanza a while back) thinking that they were an absolute machine. Songs like 'The Nativity' just sounded absolutely huge, that was the chunk that was missing first time.

And on top of it all, they are the nicest, most awesome group of guys you could wish to meet. If I could go back in time, I would be a rich man and organise a summer long tour with the 2 of us, that would have been wonderful. And if I win a substantial sum of money, I'm paying them to make another record.

So yeah, one of my all time favourite bands, and if you gave the time to listen to them you would say the same. And its not a case of money, you can download their ENTIRE discography at www.dacj.com. I suggest starting with 'Rule Intensive Care'. Please do.

Seriously, go and do it.

(Alex, I'd like my payment in Euros please. Thank you).