Event

Spooky Men's Chorale

It takes a rare skill to be very silly, thoughtful, and sing in perfect harmony, but the Spooky Men's Chorale manage to achieve just that Robin Denselow, Guardian live review, 2015

In the second of our occasional La Belle Angele concerts we welcome the Spooky Men's Chorale on Wednesday 19 July. This band is a vast, rumbling, steam powered and black clad vocal behemoth, seemingly accidentally capable of rendering audiences moist eyed with mute appreciation or haplessly gurgling with merriment. Based on the twin pillars of grand foolishness and the quest for the perfect subwoofer-rattling boofchord, the Spooky Men seek to commentate on the absurdity and grandeur of the modern male armed only with their voices, a sly collection of hats and facial hair, and a twinkle in the eye.

Formed in the Blue Mountains of NSW in 2001 by Christchurch-born 'spookmeister' Stephen Taberner, the Spooky Men soon attracted attention with a judicious combination of Georgian table songs, pindrop beautiful ballads, highly inappropriate covers, and immaculate man anthems like 'Don't stand between a man and his tool', all of which amounted to a manifesto for the new breed of man: happily suspended between thug and wimp.