Union Chapel, Islington – 29th April 2014

Words and photographs: Charlotte Barnes

Although Micah P. Hinson isn’t a stranger to gigging in the UK, Islington’s Union Chapel holds a special place for him.  It was at the same venue in 2008 that he proposed to his wife Ashley Bryn Gregory.  A lot has happened for Hinson in this time, including three albums and a near fatal car crash in Spain.  The 2011 collision badly injured his arms and robbed him of his ability to play guitar during the recording of his most recent release, Micah P Hinson and The Nothing.  Since then, he’s recovered enough mobility to perform on both guitar and piano, but still walks with a cane.

Judging by the audience alone, Hinson has quite a following in the UK.  The Union Chapel was packed with North London hipsters, wearing beards, checked shirts, thick rimmed glasses and flat caps.  When the man they’d all come to see finally took the stage, dressed in what he described as a “quarter-dollar thrift store shirt” and carrying a plastic jug of milk, it was obvious that this wasn’t going to be any ordinary show.  Greeting the crowd, he explained that he was known for “being a bit weird before my gigs” and with his battered old guitar, with the artwork from his new album over the sound hole and the almost-obligatory ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’ sticker, he certainly wasn’t about to disappoint.

His vocal style resembles a more hesitant Johnny Cash.  Complete with the occasional sub-vocal growl and strangely strangled end notes, it was almost as if he was improvising lines as he went.  After three songs, Ashley came on stage to accompany him on the drums.  Together, they were like a Southern White Stripes, singing ‘Love, Wait for Me’, a stripped-down, almost naïve ballad, which ended with them sharing an on-stage kiss.

Hinson’s lyrics are rich and complex, drawing on his experiences of drug addiction and homelessness.  At 33, he’s seen a lot of life and his songs reflect a world-weary outlook that sometimes soothes and occasionally shocks.  His performance of ‘Sons of USSR’, a song about paedophile snuff film maker Dmitri Kuznetsov was genuinely unsettling but, as he remarked after singing it, was, “getting a lot of radio play”.  With shambolic references to Jesse James and Doc Holiday in between songs, alongside occasional swigs of milk, it’s hard not to wonder what is going on in his mind.

Whether it was by accident or by design, Ashley’s drumming on ‘I Ain’t Movin” sounded like it was always trying to anticipate or follow Hinson’s irregular rhythm and this lent a sense of discomfort and awkwardness to an otherwise rather lovely song.  The occasional wrong move on the fretboard just seemed part of the overall performance, explained no doubt by the obvious physical pain he was experiencing.

Introducing ‘A Million Light Years’ with his characteristically croaky voice, we were told that it was, “written when I was fifteen and a better guitar player.”  ‘The Same Old Shit’ bought a welcome warm melody and comforting rhythm, albeit with an ultimately downbeat message.

It’s hard to characterise Micah P Hinson’s music; certainly it’s more than just alt-country.  From a distance, the duo seem like good, God-fearing Texan folk, but look a little closer and you begin to suspect that whatever they’ve been on recently, the effects haven’t properly worn off.

Words and Photos: Charlotte Barnes

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