THE MESCALINE SMUGGLERS

Jore Heikkilä[a]
Davy McGowan[b]
Tuomas Laitila[c]
Tarja Niittumäki[d]

with
Taina Heikkilä[e]
Eero Peltonen[f]

Cinnamon Salami

CD1

What an appropriate start for a 4CD set by a group called The Mescaline Smugglers. . Right from the beginning, the lovely 'rinky tink' programming of Jore's perfectly compliments Davy's vocal on this very traditional-feeling song of Black Jack and other folk staples. The spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson permeates the entire length and it takes no imagination whatsoever to envisage dark deeds and smuggled goods travelling quietly along Devon or Cornish cobbled streets at some dark hour, with most of the local inhabitants safely a-bed…

An evocative instrumental, evoking mists and a timeless sense of undefinable mysticism. Little more needs to be written. The sort of song that is 'all things to all people'. Deserves to become a classic.

Very Tom Waits! A distinct change of direction from the two folky numbers preceding it but no less welcome because of it. One could almost suggest something of a monetary theme at this point, with both doubloons and dimes featuring in the titles. Much musical invention is shown in this and it's a number that will invariably divide listeners into those who think it's a change of pace and those who simply view it as intrusive; breaking the mood of the earlier pieces.

Find the listener who's not moved to the verge of tears by this simple but heartfelt tribute to one's late father (and the song does speak for everyone who has lost their dad, not just the father of the singer) and you'll have found either a corpse or an automaton. Is the title also a deliberate tilt of the cap to Tennyson's famous poem about 'passing over' Crossing The Bar? In truth, it matters little – this is about simple-yet-complex emotions, universally felt and beautifully expressed by our Mescaline twosome.

Tuomas joins to take lead vocal and play midi keyboard on this Jim Croce cover. It's got a sing-along chorus and is jaunty enough, despite the subject but it is hardly essential.

Here's Blind Blake, reincarnated in the person of Davy McGowan. The plain backing, with the aforementioned on guitar and Jore on mandolin works a treat and this could well be taken for an authentic slice of a sharecropper's songbook. Excellent.

...Whereas this doesn't quite cut it for me. Davy attempts to play as many instruments as possible, including a kantele and Jore wisely sticks to guitar. OK but 'ho hum'. Like any track on the entire set though, you'll be impressed by the musical virtuosity of these fellows. Make no mistake – these guys can play!

A solo track by Jore. Very traditional-feeling. In-built melancholia and Mr Heikkila's guitar and banjo accompaniment layers another level of wistful reflection upon the structure. Despite noting that seasons are always cyclical, the song accurately reflects the thoughts of everybody who, once past a certain point, realises they have more 'yesterdays' than 'tomorrows'.

Now this is an instant 'drinking classic'. Anybody who's ever enjoyed a libation or nineteen will readily recognise the conversation taking place in this Brendan Behanesque song. Delightful, with some very amusing but realistic spoken word 'conversations' redolent of pubs, inns and well-oiled characters the world over.

Likeable but perhaps the recently-deceased Cyril Tawney's song has been covered far too many times to make any real listening impact.

Toumas' voice is shown to very good effect here, combining with Davy's and Jore's, as the latter picks out the tune on this flesh-creeping tale. It is not recommended that you listen to this late at night, with the lights off!

I'm afraid I found my own attention wandering way above the clouds on this – Jore's first lead vocal. It's a Jore solo effort in fact, as he also plays everything on it. Once again, the musicianship is impeccable but the tune and delivery didn't hold my concentration for more than the first 30 seconds.

A Fife pipe-and-drums style backing for this – another fine example of the 'traditional' folk song, complete with black jackdaws and travelling off to war.

How great it must be, to be as versatile as these chaps! Joined again by Tuomas, this time on midi keyboards, Davy and Jore lead the listener through a lovely Mungo Jerry type number, replete with jug-blowing, kazoo, jew's harp and all the other instrumentation that so readily recalls those days three-and-a-half decades ago, when a handful of the simplest implements could be used to make happy music. And still can, as this track proves.

These CDs do not lack for atmosphere. Here's another song, written and performed in trad. style once more. With Davy taking a rest, Jore is joined by Tarja Niittumaki, who performs the eerie vocal. Menacing and compelling. If there's a sexier voice than Tarja's, I've never heard it.

Here's more Mungo Jerryisms, in a pointed dig at all the health freaks. Also features some of Mr McGowan's best 'Billy Connolly-isms'. Not one that's likely to become adopted by The National Council For Healthy Eating as their theme tune.

Best 'Scotch' (sic) voice from Davy and more jaunty support from Jore on this lively song. Be warned: includes some 'scat' singing (or did he just forget the words?).

A subject near to both featured Smugglers' hearts. And one they're very well-versed in! Brief but very apposite. Probably not literally accurate.

Here's a health to this bonny song, too. Just the kind of thing you can imagine your Grandpa bellowing out with his mates in the shebeen or the bothy. (Preferably accompanied by several of the glasses of liquid that caused the participants of the previous song to be as smashed as apes).

Tuomas and Davy sharing vocals with Jore sticking to guitar. He was probably as drunk as the other two, though. Good-timey and enthusiastic.

Okay but a trifle dull. Vague bossa-nova, Jobim beat but it really moves along quite quickly without making any great impact on the listener. Well, this listener, anyway.

Another visit to Traditional Country. Jore's mandolins (plural) and Davy's bodhran are the real highlights here.

CD2

Bizarre. Bit like a Native American riding a freight train, with an African Masai warrior chanting along!

Here's something you don't stumble across every day – an acoustic cover of a Status Quo hit. Like the opening track on this compact disc, it's very different. Again, something of an acquired taste and not for staunch rockers.

Jore in the solo spotlight once more. He pulls off the astonishing feat of sounding like a born-and-bred Celtic minstrel and his bouzoukis, guitar and mandolin only further emphasis the Celtrin strain. Some achievement for a Finnish man!

Passable but nondescript cover of the Gordon Lightfoot song.

A personal favourite of Davy's and he even throws in some of the seagull and waves-washing-up-on-the-shore sound effects so beloved by Donovan. A more funereal pace than the original and the vocal makes the song sound more like a threnody than an evocation of something intangibly magical.

And here's an Alex Harvey number. Nobody can claim Cinnamon Salami isn't eclectic. Tuomas' vocal drives the thing along at a decent lick and the harmonium and tablas give the song a very different slant. Another for those who like their covers markedly different and not slavish – and pointless – replications of the source material.

Not the Claire Hamill song of the same title but hey, Tarja's back on vocals, so who cares? Notice a distinct theme running through the set? What becomes of all those things indeed.

It may be due to over-familiarity with the material but the covers on this set are adventurous and darting in their (re)arrangements but don't seem to have the same 'bite' as the original songs. A Gerry Rafferty song that hangs on the edge of being vaguely....something but never quite topples over into one mood or another.

A wise man, was McGowan Senior. 'Be your own person'. Therefore, make your own minds up about this song. I liked it.

The ¾ time works well for this brief instrumental, performed solo by Jore on several musical instruments.

A long time back in the memories and here Davy, Jore and Tuomas are also joined by Taina, on 'spoken words'. Back with Tom waits again, with that kantele again cropping up and Davy growling away. In fact, varied vocal effects are much the order of the day here, with whispering as well. Twenty Two sounds as if it's about to collapse into nothingness halfway through and proceeds on this charmingly ramshackle way until it close.

Another brief, humorous song featuring Jore. Fathers, cups of tea and biscuits are mentioned. Very true.

Old JJ gets the cover treatment now. The instrumental meshing between the three (yes, Tuomas is back again) is the best part. There's a nice retro Hammond organ sound applied by Tuomas, via his midi keyboards too.

An encounter that could have been less than pleasant. Nicely understated performance from Jore, including a very realistic gulp of fear!

A spoken blues that doesn't really come off. Maybe the programmed backing just didn't mesh for me. Maybe it was the faux American accent of the narrator. I dunno. Others will undoubtedly rate it the highlight of the entire 4 CDs. That's the wonder of music, eh?

Now, how many songs about auctioneering have you ever heard? Exactly. Contains a warning about inadvertently ending up with something you had no intention of acquiring. File under 'fun'.

A nice, jingly-jangly number that perhaps pales slightly against the invention of originals like The Sly Auld Dogs and Crossing The Road. Don't dismiss it completely though: it's a mark of how high the standard of the set has generally been so far that this seems merely 'adequate'.

This is utterly unlike anything you'll normally here. Presumably Mr Peltonen is a traditional Finnish composer. How to best describe this? Difficult. Sorta like 'Rolf Harris imitates a didgeridoo crossed with John and Yoko mad vocalisations, via Kate Bush's Dreamtime but taken much further out there'. Great stuff!

Second appearance for the late James Croce. Perfectly acceptable cover of this "honey, I'm leavin' in the mornin'" song.

A song that presumably, from the credits, pre-dates the Smugglers. But this is no mere cast-off. The lyric references Big joe Turner, who all blues aficianados will know and there are riverboats and some excellent 'tack piano' effects from Tuomas. The American accent works well, this time. A song inhabited by the ghosts of many characters. That could almost be Gypsy Dave on kazoo at the end but it's Ginger Davy instead, which is why it's played better...

Tuomas takes vocals on this song, which with the 'a' in the Scottish vernacular of 'home' as 'hame' betrays the fact that the lyricist was Davy, who is absent from this song. Tuomas plays virtually everything on this lament, but for Jore's banjo. The dirge-like vocal makes it clear that Daddy returning may not be the joyous event you'd otherwise expect.

CD3

This isn't a Scottish colloquialism for 'back door men', a la Willie Dixon but a humorous – if unlikely – tale of being up S*** Creek, lacking the proverbial paddles. Naturally, drinking plays its part in the narrator's predicament.

Carribean? Calypso? Look no further. This could be taken for an outtake from any Lord Kitchener session. Complete with authentic 'chessy organ' instrumental break and minimal, chanted lyrics.

More tack piano sounds from Tuomas, as he and Davy combine, to much merriment, on this deliberately-cluttered cover. 'Easy as pie and lots of fun'.

Literary references are scattered throughout this look back at the person the singer used to be and the (first?) love that he's long lost touch with. Another song that chimes with universal resonance for anybody who's no longer in the first flush of youth. As so often in this set, there's some beautiful mandolin playing by Jore.

A mid-tempo, highly-defined groove provides the backbone for Living On Borrowed Time. With mild changes, it wouldn't take much imagination-stretching to visualise this as a disco number, although the subject could prove too morbid for the assembled hipsters. There again, since when did they ever listen to the words and sentiments of a song?

This is Finnish for I'd Like To wake When the Birds are Singing and the instrumental is a gentle enough essay, effortlessly bringing the dawn and the dawn chorus of the birdsong to mind. A nice 'classic' wash of strings sweeping in at various junctures adds to the tranquility.

Is there anybody unfamiliar with this song? That's no excuse not to cover it, of course and it's one of those 'feel good' numbers, this time filtered via America, Lonnie Donegan, Huddie Ledbetter to Finland, with a smattering of Celt. That Rock Island Line is both cosmopolitan and extremely extensive.

Begins with some instrumental doodling, then a menacing vocal from Tuomas. The person that's putting him through the changes would be well-advised to cease her campaign, regardless of his professed love for her.

It's not often Desperate Dan, Homer, Jack and the beanstalk, Red Riding Hood and God all get mentioned in the same song. Whistling, shakers, guitars, 'rhythms' and more in this solo Heikkilä number.

Is this an autobiographical McGowan song? I rather think so, albeit with a humorous slant and comically exaggerated singing.

Jore poses the eternal question of who watches the watchers, while Davy weighs in with his best broad Glaswegian.

Definitely something deliberately 'Leitch-like' going on here. First Changes, now Sadness. Another Jore solol. Maybe it's something in the air in Finland but the country seems ideal for creating minor-key melancholia. A great song for the dusk/twilight hours, when the days seems to be both fading and failing away, before night asserts itself.

Ditto comments for Rock Island Line. Recommended, naturally.

We're in mid-American, cowboy-and-Indian territory here but the sound is far from Oh Susannah. Denotes a fateful fight against circling 'native Americans' and you know the conclusion is both inevitable and bloody for the defending cowboy.

If ever anyone deserved an instrumental, Tarja Niittumaki did. Here it is. Pleasant enough, as it meanders along, with the guitar and replicated grand piano effects.

It's Leonard's turn to be 'done' by The Mescaline Smugglers. This is good but odd, as it sounds very peculiar to hear a delivery that is far more animated that Cohen's and also more optimistic in its tenor. Which almost certainly wasn't the intention! The bouzouki evokes the 'cafe setting' perfectly.

This incorporates vocal calls and steel drum samples.

It's one man band time once more, with Davy going all Don Partridge and setting down that lonesome trail. The thought occurs that the trail must be anything but 'lonesome' now, with everybody's that's set off along it. The narrator ends up in jail, accused of killing the sheriff's wife but remains remarkably cheerful, regardless of being fully cognisant of his fate, seeing the gallows being erected. All works out well in the end, which explains the happy tone. Irresistible.

Nothing to do with the village in Devon but a question-and-answer song, with Tarja breathily (and sexily, natch!) posing the questions and Jore coming back with the ripostes.

Sprightly rhythm defines this tale of an adventure that you just know is gonna end in mishap and mayhem....

Almost a modern Finnish fairy tale. What a friendly man Jore is! "Hello!" to you, too. Should be in Finland's equivalent of Palgrave's Golden Treasury.

Some of these sweethearts aren't very faithful. It's as well the vmen aren't lovelorn, being quite content not to worry and just concentrate instead on having a great time, as demonstrated here by the Smugglers Three.

CD4

A slow, meditative song with Tarja providing her own vocal backing, allied with another of Jore's soft but insistent soundwashes.

Where HAS Alberta been so long? Doesn't really seem as if the singer genuinely cares about her recent whereabouts, as it's a kind of perfunctory, "come on then – where were you this time?" type of enquiry. Enlivened by some truly impressive slide guitar, elevating the song to a much higher level.

A hat-trick of covered songs for Jim. Notable for Toumas' always-expressive vocals.

It's a Cockney intonation here, as the tale of a tar's life over the salty main is briefly outlined against a pretty, 'picked' guitar style backdrop.

The secret of life may well be not to record your joint vocals in what sounds like one of Phil Spector's old echo chamber devices. Or maybe it isn't...

As the title suggests, a list of thiongs not to do. Nice stop-start rhythm and additional comments and imprecations from Mr Heikkila.

A banjo-fest of pluckin' (though that word should be used sparingly, if at all, in the prescence of chickens) from Jore.

A cover for one of the recently-deceased Sydney Carter's song. Interesting how atheists can make such convincing, joyous religiously-themed music. A testimant both to the ability of those involved and the material itself. Yer-hoo!

Jore really conveys melancholia: instantly, the listener feels totally alone, regardless of whether he/she is in company or not.

More American-drawlin' but failin' to catch my attention. Musicologists should note that 'snaps' are used on this track.

Another musical form is offered up here: the tap-room drinker's farewell valete. Or something like that. A distinct change from previous fare and sounding like Francis Albert Sinatra on one of his more lethargically-vocaled days. This is a song that takes several plays to insinuate it's way into the cranium.

Go jump that train, boy! Catch that train, feel the wind rustling through your hair, say goodbye to Mary Jane, relish the freedom etcetera. Just don't fall asleep and fall out of that box-car door you left open to feel the breeze...

Or The Ballad Of Repa Kuusisto, in English. It sounds intriguing, despite being rendered in Finnish. Always the mark of a good song, if it can hold the attention despite being indecipherable to the listener.

Back to familiar Americana. Cain't git the gal you want but there's always good drinkin' to be done. You almost expect to stumble upon this trio in the next barn you come across. Add plentiful straw for the perfect mix.

It's raining. Heavily. And it matches the mood of the vocalist – pessimistic.

Bodhran-driven 'riddle' song. Close your eyes, imagine you're listening to The Dubliners. Or even The Chieftains. Very much a 'children's riddle' song. Effective in its repetitive chanting.

Tommy Makem has been under-appreciated for decades. Even his pioneering work with The Clancy Brothers has his contribution frequently downplayed or just ignored altogether. It's good to hear one of his songs given the appreciative treatment it deserves here.

It looks like a private prank of Jore and Davy was to compose as many songs with the same titles as previously-recorded versions as they could. Notwithstanding, this lopes along nicely, in a very relaxed manner. The Smugglers will probably choke on their low-fat muesli (Jore and Toumas) or lard-cooked sausages (Davy) but this could easily become an in-concert favourite for somebody as middle-of-the-road and laid-back as Val Doonican.

Now, this is something that definitely won't be recorded by Doonican or anybody else! Very much a joke 'song', in the tradition of You Know My Name (Look Up The Number), this features stilted clapping, a guest appearance by 'Bugs Bunny' and thanks Pete Seeger in its credits. Has to be heard to make any sense of it – and there's (deliberately) precious little sense to be made of it anyway.

In Conclusion