Hamish Hawk @ Rough Trade, Liverpool – 19/08/2024

Over the last couple of years, gigs have become a drag. There, it’s been said.

I feel horrible about this, not least because of my waning support for local venues, but this growing longer in the tooth business coupled with the general stresses of life… it all pounds you into submission where something must give. For my sins, it has been live music.

Which is why this Monday night is strange. Not only do I have a rare desire to break the shackles from the daily grind, but to yearn for live music as the alternative is equally peculiar. Perhaps it’s the subliminal forces saying, “You need this back in your life!”

Those same forces have me in a room with the witty Edinburgh provocateur, Hamish Hawk, whose ascent is sharp. Released last Friday, his latest dispatch and third long-player, A Firmer Hand, is an unbridled hit in wait. A game changer that will launch the songwriter into new stratospheres.

Weirdo Rippers #14

For now, though, the milieu is Rough Trade where Hawk’s album launch is warmly greeted with a strong attendance. Yes, it’s Monday. Yes, it’s Liverpool. But this doesn’t seem to deter the 150-strong who bear witness to Hawk confidently striding onstage alongside his band and trusted left tenants, Andrew Pearson (guitar, backing vocals), Alex Duthie (bass) Stefan Maurice (drums) and John Cashman (keyboards).

There’s something about Hawk that is fiercely alluring. No bullshit image, looking more like someone to spew from the exits of a high-rise home to a financial services firm as opposed to a wordsmith dispensing stories that dangle on a knife’s edge. Why isn’t he writing novels instead of trying to make ends meet in the viper pit that is the music industry? In fairness, Hawk is that good he could do both.

Tonight isn’t for those questions. Instead, it’s for watching something special unfold, and the proceeding 45 minutes sees Hawk weaving through the pillars that make A Firmer Hand the careering-defining record it is.

The first of them is A Firmer Hand’s second track, Machiavelli’s Room. Daughn Gibson-esque grandiosity littered with the beautiful filth of William Burroughs’ Junkie. Yes, Hawk doesn’t do love songs, he does lust songs (“There’s nothing he likes more / Than to watch me disappearing inside him”).

Big Cat Tattoos is delivered with Sinatra worship, but instead of those swooning eyes, Hawk glowers into the crowd as he launches into a diatribe about a relationship that unfolds like a car crash in slow motion. In many ways, it’s a subtle nod in the direction of Fiona Apple’s Under the Table.

“Who needs heaven? From my ivory towers the view is crystal clear,” croons Hawk on Nancy Dearest. A dirge-y, androgynous rocker that thrums and gallops, running rings around the boring post-punk tropes that clog up the arteries of BBC 6 Music. Then there’s Disingenuous. Hooping with a rockabilly majesty, it takes its queues from Morrissey’s Your Arsenal, and after hearing it live, if this doesn’t force one’s hand to finally bid farewell to Mozza’s discography, then fan favourite Dog-eared August might just seal the deal.

It’s one of two moments that sees Hawk backtrack to last’s years Angel Numbers. The other, Rest & Veneer, a countrified ditty that you could imagine Orville Peck parting with, and with Hawk’s partner-in-crime from behind the studio glass in Rod Jones, the song permeates with the same Idlewild fairy dust.

Dragged Up Interview: “To us it just makes sense to get out there and play.”

Meanwhile, Men Like Wire is a story through the gritty lens of self-criticism and self-deprecation (“I watched my body soften / In front of men built like wire / Thrilling as sick leave / Vainglorious men / Fullfilling as a dry heave”). Through this dalliance across the fault lines, it’s the kind of outsider anthem that will see Hawk find his way from crowds like this to arenas.

And speaking of, with Cashman’s keys reminiscent of Roy Bittan, Bakerloo, Unbecoming has all the anthemic mania of a Springsteen concert. Staying with his 2021 debut, Heavy Elevator, Hawk finishes with the aptly titled The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973. With clever wordplay and big-hearted choruses, it’s a worthy cut to end the performance with. One that is stirring, and while musically we may have heard it before, lyrically Hawk is a true one-off parting with the kind of sharp vignettes that reveal more and more with each listen.

While the questions will remain about Rough Trade’s long-term future in a city with many well-supported record stores in an ailing economy and shrinking demographic of vinyl collectors, it’s their venue that is the true hallmark card.

With so many city centre venues going to the wall, Rough Trade is the one that fees like a crucial hub for live music, facilitating the magic of shows like the one Hamish Hawk has delivered tonight. The kind of shows that light fires under people. Particularly under those who feel like gigs have become a drag….

A Firmer Hand is out now SO Recordings / Silver Screen Limited. Purchase here.