Luke Duffett presents lounge cabaret for a disaffected generation – with occasional crowd surfing (but not today).
There may be a big crowd for this opening set at Rockaway Beach 2024, but it is Sunday, and it is only noon.
Few reviews of Enjoyable Listens manage to avoid references to Bryan Ferry, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, and a host of other smoothly suited troubadours with treacle on their tongues.
There you see… I’ve done it again.
Luke’s first home-produced song was recorded on a gumtree-purchased Apple desktop … he sent the recording to the sellers (whose son was ‘also in a marching band’) … but they never replied… and he’s never looked back.
A fact we are eternally glad of.
“This is my Glastonbury 2024,” says Luke, “… and when I play Glastonbury this year that will be my Rockaway Beach (I haven’t quite got the hang of Google calendar yet)”.
Whether the final offer letter has come through or not, we’re sure if you are lucky enough to have a ticket for Glastonbury this year you will find Enjoyable Listens on the line-up somewhere – we caught the set last summer and the vibe was quintessential festival gold.
“Tear up the photos of my kids” is Luke’s latest single (out on 31 Jan), and it’s as wryly dark as many of his previous work – well worth a listen.
This track also comes with a commercial break: “Buy some merch to help us out of a financially precarious situation brought on by a mounting number of ULEZ fines…”
It’s followed by number about how Luke decided it was better to write a song rather than go to the aid of his mum and his wife who’d been laid low by festive food poisoning… after all, he didn’t want to catch it…
Later tracks feature other real world observations… such as drinking red wine on Megabus trips to his girlfriend in Plymouth and the passive aggressive finger-pointing he was subjected to on first meeting his father-in-law to be.
If you haven’t yet had the pleasure get along to the next Enjoyable Listens gig near you… or if you are a festival booker do your crowds a favour and add them to the bill.
