The Tiger Lillies
I first came across this little outfit circa 1992/3 when I turned up for a Sonja Kristina gig at the Weavers Arms in North London. While waiting outside for the doors to be unlocked, I heard what I thought was Sonja practicing some new numbers. Her voice sounded somewhat different to normal, having become higher pitched than previously.
Eventually the doors opened and in I went. Imagine my surprise when the support act, The Tiger Lillies took the stage and I discovered that the voice belonged to a guy 'Martyn Jaques', the group's lead singer and accordion player.
Martyn's voice and gentle manner did not match his appearance. He is stoutly built and wore a Beret, a horizontally striped white and navy blue tee shirt and jeans. He also looked like he hadn't shaved for a couple of days. The impression was of a cross between a pirate and a French onion seller.
Phil Butcher on bass was completely bald, while Adrian Hughes on percussion concealed his short hair under a fez. With the accordion and bass, their sound created a French cafe atmosphere.
Over the following eighteen months or so before I moved to Singapore, I turned up at a number of their gigs at various folk club style venues. Their turnover of material was quite amazing as evidenced by the fact I bought four cassette tapes of their music over the course of this short period.
The tapes were:-
Little death
The angels
Wrong attitude
Mother always knew
William
Peace and Love
Wake up
Filthy money
Overtime
The Queen is dead
Born to fail
Graveyard of Marseilles
Right to wrong
A Bouquet of Vegetables
Palace of St. James
Wrong Attitude
This town
Holy men
Deluded
Don't mean a thing
Thousand violins
You're a river
William
He don't love her
Quick and slow
Little boys blues
Bones
Her room
Flowers
War
Obscene
Your world
Sense of sentiment
Wake-up
Repulsion
Sod'sville
Bones
Circle line
Haunting me
Lilli Marlene
Custard Shoe
Promised Land
Stitch me up
Suffering
Weak
Violin time
Fallen hero
Ealing
Way on down
Doctors and nurses
Thank you
Heaven
Our hearts
Spanning the tapes my favourite tracks are 'Peace and love', 'Wake up', 'Palace of St. James', 'War', 'He don't love her', 'Lilli Marlene', 'Promised land' and 'Ealing'.
The tapes refer to having been published by GEE STREET (at that time the central London, England phone number provided was 821 9457, but this may well have changed).
Since writing the above, I have been contacted by Doris a friend of the Tiger Lillies. They have clearly moved along since I last saw them and seem to be just as prolific. You can learn more about them in their current incarnation, obtain gig dates and even play some samples of their songs from:-
Today 18th March 1999, the HMV shop in Singapore called me to let me know, that the copy of 19 track Tiger Lillies album which I ordered a while back, 'The Brothel to the Cemetery' has at last arrived. I wasted little time, before picking it up. It went straight onto the stereo as soon as I got home. As before each of the tracks is of quite short duration.
Well they are certainly more irreverent than I recall, when I last saw them in London in 1994. I guess Martyn really has earned himself a place in Hell, if one believes God is unforgiving. I doubt it though. He sings like an angel.
Whether you approve of the lyrics or not, the music and vocals are beautiful. Given the subjects of the songs, decomposing bodies, crucifixion etc. you could expect to very depressed after listening to this lot. I wasn't.
It is almost as though the more depressing the subject matter, the more melodic is the accompanying aural experience. If I had to pick a couple of early favourites, they would be 'Alone with the Moon' and 'Pretty Soon'.
The first time I heard Martyn's voice, those several years ago, it was obvious that his is a uniquely gifted talent. That hasn't changed at all.
If you want to hear something totally different, delivered by real talent, which I doubt anyone could fail to recognise, you must listen to this.
Over the years I have also come across and purchased a further two CDs, "Circus Songs" and "Shock Headed Peter".
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Wow it is now May 2004. I am still here in Singapore and have been suffering Tiger Lillies starvation for nearly 10 years. The other day I picked up my post, which included an advertising flyer for a local supermarket chain. I was just about to drop it down the rubbish shoot when I spotted this:-
Well as you can imagine I rushed out and bought tickets for both evenings. The Esplanade where the performances will take place is Singapore's new arts venue, known locally as the "durian" (which is the name of a local spikey skinned fruit, which the Esplanade resembles. There is a picture of the Esplanade on my Singapore page, which can be found on my Index).
It is now nearly 1:00am on June 13th 2004 and one hour ago I was watching the Tiger Lillies finishing their second performance here in Singapore.
Since I last saw them in 1994, Phil Butcher has left to be replaced by Adrian Stout and Adrian Hughes has renamed himself to Adrian Huge, but that is very old news, which I had long ago gleaned from their CDs & web site.
I attended both performances (11th & 12th June) and wondered whether they would hold back on their most controversial material, given Singapore's reputation for being some what straight laced. Well there was no sign of them holding back. Whores, pimps, sheep, hamsters, flies and Jesus all got the Tiger Lillies treatment, on both evenings. As I noted from when I first heard "Brothel to the Cemetery" , the fouler the words, the prettier the accompanying music and vocals.
It is possible that the Tiger Lillies were asked to tone things down after the first performance, or decided to do so themselves, because on the first evening I'm pretty sure that Johnny had 20,000 whores, but on the second evening he only had 10,000 of them. Apart from that nothing else was toned down.
Adrian Huge's collection of toys, both percussive and otherwise has grown considerably since 1994. Adrian Stout as well as playing a rather emaciated looking double bass, seems to have worked out how to make a wood saw sound like a Theremin.
The Recital Studio at the Esplanade lacked the informal atmosphere of the London pubs, where I had seen the Tiger Lillies perform before, but in compensation it boasted great acoustics and a beautifully toned grand piano, which Martyn took full advantage of (musically not sexually). With the quite large venue (for the audience size, which I guess must have been slightly over 100 on each night), mist and minimal lighting, it did look rather like the Tiger Lillies were performing in a cemetery.
The two performances differed a little in material, but not greatly, which was good since they sang some of my favourite songs including "Wake up" and "Alone with the Moon". After the first performance I asked Martyn if he would sing "Palace of St. James" the following night, which he kindly did.
I don't know if the Tiger Lillies themselves thought the applause was muted, but regardless, by Singapore standards it was not. On the second night they were called back for an encore, which would also no doubt have happened on the first night, had there not been some confusion as to whether Adrian Huge's resurrection was itself an encore or not.
Apart from thoroughly enjoying both performances, I was also able to add a further three CDs to my Tiger Lillies collection. They are "Farmyard Filth", "Ad Nauseum" and "The Sea".
I hope the Tiger Lillies will come to Singapore again. I also hope that if they do come here or to any other Asian countries, I will get to hear of it in plenty of time to make sure I can adjust my travel schedule accordingly.
It would be interesting to speculate what Martyn would write about if he lived in Singapore. My expectation would be that the first album might include songs such as "Durian", "COE", "PIE", "Speaker's Corner", "CTE", "CPF", "Four Floors", "PAP", "ECP", "Fine City", "ERP", "MRT" and "Maid Abuse".
Finally I must congratulate the Singapore Arts Festival organisers, who brought the Tiger Lillies to Singapore, for taking the initiative by inviting what by Singapore's reputed standards, must be regarded as a controversial act.