King Biscuit Time

King Biscuit Time is, essentially, The Beta Band's main man, Steve Mason, with 2 backing musicians, a bassist/guitarist and a keyboardist/percussionist. I always felt that the Beta Band's live shows were a much better representation of their music, than anything they ever recorded in a studio. They had this chaotic and unpredictable vibe, wild graphics, and were both mesmerising and upbeat at the same time. As we quite miss getting to see the Beta Band, and as his original EP as King Biscuit Time was such a brilliant record, we decided to go and see him play, just to get an idea of what it would be like.

Essentially, King Biscuit Time is a stripped down version of the Beta Band, without the visual displays, and with less on-stage chaos - gone are the mid-song instrument swaps and playing percussion on all sorts of weird nonsense. What is left is Mason, an acoustic guitar, a bunch of drums, a bass, and a keyboard and sampler. The songs ranged from really low-key acoustic numbers to rhythmically driven dance numbers, all of which were highly hypnotic and made you want to sway in time to the beats. For us old-time fans, Mason even threw in an old Beta Band number. The highlights of the evening were the cheesy, elevator music, dub cover of "Anarchy in the UK" and "I Walk the Earth" off his original "No Style" EP.