Matthew C. Whitaker

The MOTH

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Biscuits, Banter and the Omnichord

A glitter-bombed stage and a curtain of gold tinsel greeted the audience at The MOTH last Saturday — the sort of shimmering, slightly tacky décor that feels half cabaret, half community hall disco. Front and centre sat Matthew C. Whitaker, looking like he’d wandered in from a sun-bleached coastline somewhere, with an open Hawaiian shirt and a mane of hair that had the air of seaweed dried in salty wind.

Whatever the room lacked in subtlety, the music quickly made up for it.

This was a seated show, which suited the mood. As the lights dimmed and the usual pre-gig chatter dissolved into a sea of polite shushing, Whitaker was already deep into a feverish strum — something that felt faintly indebted to the flamenco urgency of Spanish Caravan. His small-bodied acoustic guitar sat perched on his thigh like a prized catch, the amplified tone crisp and articulate.

The opening number, ‘You Can Only Let Us Down’, set a sombre tone. Whitaker himself acknowledged it moments later with a grin: “A bit of a downer, wasn’t it? Just had to get it off my chest.”

From there, the set loosened up. Violinist Alan Shunya joined him on stage, adding texture and variety to the follow-up material. Whitaker joked about “pitting up my songs with his bits and bobs,” but the pairing worked beautifully. Tracks from the upcoming album Songs for the Weary — including the jaunty ‘Chestnut Tree’ — brought a warmer, more playful energy. A smooth undercurrent of bass hummed beneath delicate strings, the whole thing vibrating with quiet confidence.

Whitaker’s stage presence is half the charm. Between songs he bantered freely with the crowd, interrogating a front-row punter about quitting cigarettes before abruptly deciding it was time to get on with the show. The audience lapped it up — heads nodding in rhythm, a steady ripple of laughter throughout the room.

Material from his first album, Feud, made an appearance too. Whitaker delivered a cheeky low-key brag about selling out the vinyl pressing (“all gone… three years ago”), before launching into a piece that sounded like revenge on horseback — galloping rhythms and inherited grudges wrapped in warm folk instrumentation.

A highlight came midway through the set with a sprawling mini-suite drawn from Songs for the Weary: a megamix-like overture that eventually flowed into ‘Mind How You Go’. The instrumental introduction stretched luxuriously, electric keys sliding in alongside a newly electrified bass. It built into a kind of sonic smorgasbord — part folk, part experimental gadgetry — even featuring a tiny theremin-like flourish. It was easily the most technically adventurous moment of the night, and the crowd responded with an enthusiastic (and slightly premature) “wooo” from somewhere behind the bar.

Whitaker acknowledged the interruption with a smirk. Apparently, it had never happened before.

Later came ‘Bones’, driven by sharp skeletal plucks that clattered through the mix while softer strums floated around them. The mood tipped toward the eerie — an intrepid little ghost story in musical form. Around this point, plates of biscuits mysteriously began circulating through the audience, passed along the rows like communion wafers for the mildly folk-curious.

Not everything landed equally. A couple of songs from the Henge project felt more like curiosities than centrepieces, and even Whitaker seemed slightly tentative performing them. Still, the occasional rhythmic wobble was handled with good-natured humour, and the audience remained firmly onside.

Before the end came perhaps the most unexpected moment of the night. As Whitaker introduced a Suzuki Omnichord, promising “sleazy jazz beats” if there were any children in the room, his bandmate quietly slipped off stage mid-show — apparently for a swift and entirely unannounced bathroom break. Whitaker carried on regardless, coaxing frantic foxtrot rhythms from the Omnichord at maximum speed while the temporary absence became part of the evening’s loose, slightly chaotic charm.

The encore — ‘Whisky Cats’ followed by ‘Valerian Tea’ — closed things on a slyly comedic note. The latter, in particular, had the unmistakable feel of a lost sitcom theme: the most Peep Show-adjacent tune you’re likely to hear outside the show itself.

Even if folk-leaning oddities like this aren’t normally your thing, Whitaker’s charisma and musicianship make it difficult not to get swept along. Beneath the jokes, biscuits and omnichords lies a genuinely talented songwriter — one capable of turning a glitter-drenched room into something quietly captivating for an evening.

 TTSSFU

The Moth Club

 Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

It was the night of The Great Escape (Festival’s First 50) but over at Musos’, we were planning to break in. After an exchange of tenuous communiques between promo and label teams, it was still quite uncertain if we’d find our way into the gig; you never wanna be without a chair when the music stops. As we queued up, we noticed The Moth was absolutely heaving and quite a few humanoids were still sluggishly shuffling forward like a dessert into an already bursting gut. By this point, many had adopted a rather cavalier attitude when announcing they were on the list. Most, if not all, were turned away which did not bode well for yours truly. When it was finally our turn, announcing ourselves before the gatekeeper as NAME REDACTED, predictably our fate followed the trend; ‘not on the list’. As a last-ditch effort, and ashamedly in the meekest of voices, we uttered, ‘try under Captain Stavros?’ Still not on the list, but this moniker caught the attention of one statuesque blonde parked a few feet away, en route to snagging a margarita pizza across the street. ‘He’s with us’. Enter one Xenia ‘The G’ Owens of Partisan Records, formally of Brace Yourself Press and friend of the blog. Her supernatural hearing, and timing, whilst interjecting herself into a supremely chaotic situation, is the stuff of legends That Totally Saved Shit From Undoing. After a few pleasantries (mainly groveling), we negotiated our way cautiously through a packed house to the front of the stage to behold Manchester’s proud daughter and sons, TTSSFU.

The set opens up with ‘Strange and Careless’, a possible euphemism to describe the spectacle before us and their performance largely as a whole. Not a criticism, friends. It takes a lot to blend into the Moth’s crinkled tinsel strewn backdrop with giant sparkle encrusted lettering, but Tasmin’s heart-shaped candy apple red sparkling guitar does a fantastic job of doing so. The trio of energetic bandmates, plucking bass strings, hammering percussion and squelching high frets, with Murphy shoving his guitar into the amp conjuring ghoulish feedback, is juxtapositioned with languid strumming and warm vocals that seem to shrug off the surrounding distractions with a natural nonchalance. This really stuck with us throughout the gig.

Arguably, Britain’s music scene is one of the most saturated in the world with pure untapped talent, and one of the hardest to break into. To wiggle your way up, even if extremely talented, is no small feat. Getting representation and signed to a label (the likes of which PJ Harvey, Idles and Cigarettes After Sex grace) makes it almost forgivable if the band in question might have a slightly inflated ego after traversing this musical gauntlet. One normally has to wade through performances patiently as an insufferable cavalcade of speeches and antics clomp by, all just so you can hear your favourite tracks performed live. Not so with TTSSFU, they used their newfound platform to embrace and infect the audience with an unfiltered, ego-deficient performance. And perform they did, in weird and wonderful ways. Fuzzy, wobbly sounds in drop-D tuning and static fuzz remind us of cassettes recorded over far too many times with the same flair of watching Johnny Cash’s psychobilly Cadillac roll on by. With endearing and peculiar charm, Tasmin makes known, “this next one’s a classic” as they ease into ‘California’, released a few years back as a single.

‘I Hope You Die’ is the penultimate track, of an entertaining set, largely made up of yelling non-lexicals. Before us unfolds a confusing scene, a mystic conjunction of precariously placed drinks laying spilt over electrical components that stubbornly refuse to quit. This, coupled with what we thought was a stadium crowd sampled and laid over the track instead turns out to be an un-hinged audience losing their collective shit over this song that resonates with them so profoundly. The set rounds off with ‘Remember’, where Tasmin thoughtfully introduces Paddy Murphy (lead guitar), Matt Deakin (percussion) and Reuban Haycocks (Bass), each of whom shone in their own merit. The track, and set, both culminate in Tasmin asking the audience to, “Look after your friends”, before launching herself into the audience shrieking at the top of her lungs. An infamous ending to be sure. TTSSFU is finishing up touring with English Teacher and coming back strong in 2025 with a host of new music and tour dates. You might, at this juncture, be asking yourself, what’s the draw? I guess it is an intrinsic dichotomy boiled into a band of wild wallflowers meet subtle exhibitionism. Tasmin and company tick a lot like a Swiss watch but more diabolical, if you know what we mean.