​THE DACHA BAND

For most Dacha Band albums, I would produce a demo of the songs, guitar and voice only, that I would play to Lee in the car as we drove to the session, acquainting him, but only vaguely, with the tracks. The first eight tracks on ‘After the Fair,’ are one of those demos. After writing the songs over one weekend, I sat down and played them with barely an edit one afternoon and was so happy with the result that I asked Steve and Lee to simply play over the one long track. Of course, my timing was slightly out, causing a few mishaps and the tuning might not be the best. But the suite of songs that starts with ‘The Out of Bounds’ and concludes with ‘Bottle of Wine,’ is one of my favourite Dacha Band moments. ‘A Weaker Hand,’ and ‘No Pain,’ were added in a more standard way a week or two later. Finally came ‘Shut Off the World You Dream’ which I recorded alone as a kind of calm rant. Indeed, the whole album is a curiosity, gentle and terrible at once. I have always hated fairs, particularly the air of sexual tension and violence that surround them. ‘After the Fair,’ glimpses behind the façade to the rape and the cons, the muggings and teenage drinking. Some of the lyrics are pretty near the knuckle but it is all done on a light melodic fashion that tricks you into thinking you are listening to something on the ‘Mike Harding Show.’