A couple of months ago on a hot June Sunday, I boarded a packed train from Manchester back to Glasgow where, by pure chance, I ended up sitting next to alternative comedy rockers Colonel Mustard and The Dijon 5. Over the course of the journey we got talking, covering topics such as life, love, Glasgow’s music scene, and Echo Falls. When the conversation turned to football and the Colonel himself told me he had penned an anti-bigotry track entitled ‘You’ll Simply Never Walk Alone The Best’ (if you know, you know) - I almost didn’t believe him.
Fast forward to the present, and I find myself reviewing John McMustard’s latest outing, Sports Mixture, released 9/8/19. What can I say? You’ll Simply Never Walk Alone The Best is real. Very real.
Overall, this album has something for everyone, and seems to span every genre. Fancy a lengthy, spoken-word rant about how pub sports are like hunting? Album opener Snooker, Pool and Darts The Modern Day Hunter Gatherer is your man. Want to relive childhood nostalgia, ball games on the streets and almost drowning on your first attempt at swimming? Try Kerby or Scottish Swimmer/German Efficiency. A guitar-heavy 80s-style power anthem about wrestling? Listen to The Wrestler.
Throughout the album you find yourself unable to fight picking up the lyrics, such as the repeated lines in Big John the Doo Man and the ‘there’s a lot to be said for German efficiency’ refrain in EDM-charged dance track Scottish Swimmer/German Efficiency. In fact, this album features some pretty iconic lyrics and one-liners which had me laughing out loud (see ‘take a slash, wear a sash, hope your team’s not gash’ in You’ll Simply Never Walk Alone The Best). Honourable mentions go to ‘Morrissey is murder’ and ‘one man’s high horse is another man’s burger’ in I’m A Vegetarian But I Don’t Like To Talk About It, ‘you’re not white or male or token enough’ in Golf You’ve Taken That 2 Par, and ‘at home playing Pac-Man or running with the pack, man’ in Hipster Or Wolf Which Are You?.
Personal highlights include Hipster Or Wolf’s jazzy vibes and single I’m A Vegetarian, which has been doing a successful run in the kids’ iTunes charts. The album even takes an emotional twist with short and sweet number My Grandfather’s Chair, which left me having to take a pause to process what I’d just heard before moving on to the upbeat Scottish Swimmer.
With his exploration of a wide range of genres covering a multitude of topics, particularly demonstrated in this album, to pigeon-hole Colonel Mustard into just one musical category would be incredibly unfair. And, unstoppable as ever, John McMustard is currently working his way through a string of festival appearances and Fringe shows. You can catch the final performances of Colonel Mustard and The Big Bad Wolf on the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th August at the Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, and late night performances by Colonel Mustard & Friends on the 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 25th August at the National Museum of Scotland.
Peace, love, sports mixture and mustard!