Mojo Juju and the Snake Oil Merchants

Burla Excerpt
(expanded article & drawings are in the relevant edition of the Burla)




You should catch Mojojuju and the Snakeoil Merchants. A caravan of feral gypsies and carnies channeling the Weltschmerz of half a dozen fallen aristocrats, the incandescent joy of deranged pychic mediums from the carnie diaspora, buskers, lovers and the possessed; they perform with maddening passion.

So many fine young itinerant talents traversing the landscape, banjos, guitars, saws and accordions in hand makes a festival spontaneously combust wherever they intersect..

Mojojuju and the snakeoil merchants, refined their exploits in the underworld of minstrelsy and their enchanted wanderings make dark deals on their audiences behalf. Spirits of love, desire, death and song rise up and play with them. The mask of comedy and the pants of gravity each find a place in this Novacastrian sect.

They urge you to rise from your chair; with or without skill, they urge you to rise and enjoy. Gently cajoling or swearing at the dying of the light, you will be a participant.

You are not made to feel that everyone else in the room is a qualified lindyhopper, the beat bids you sway, become just a little intoxicated with the snake oil, stomp, or if you wish, bob to the rhythm. The more perverse your dancing the better, shaking and quaking will not be discouraged in the church of the Juju gypsy spell. The music is made for it.




We have caught them at the Factory and the Underbelly, and we are pleased.

MojoJuju & the Snake Oil Merchants

So how good was Mr. Percival ?

How good was He ? Tops mate. He seemed amused that we, the paying public might go to see him loop his voice and build great vaults of sound and atmospheres from it, but we were marveling. We marveled big time.

We caught Mr. Percival at the Clarendon Katoomba. That neat venue that keeps on giving. Tipped off by friends that we would miss something if we missed this something, we cracked a few bottles of the sparkly stuff and sat back and listened. A sweet night of music ensued.

Mr Percival has the ability to make a crowd join in. Humour, fun and a simple idea excellently executed, couple this with an amazing vocal range and you have a vox out of the box that charms you out of your socks. Why is it that truly talented people are so damnably nice ? The joy he finds in the vocalisations he creates on stage live before your very ears are a warm thing indeed.

On the night we heard him he was fresh out of CDs so we missed out, but we'll catch him elsewhere if we are tipped off again. We would love to hear him create a song or two using his Australian voice with an Australian accent, especially those that are about Australia. Seems a challenge worth pursuing, and one a talent like his could meet. But you can't have everything even when you want it. Nevertheless, furthermore, moreover and however, he was a bloody charmer and that can be enough for a nice night's fine entertainment. In fact, given that he builds every performance from scratch and throws in lashings of spontaneous sounds, he is not the type of performer who is going to bore you with identical shows every house. So catching him twice or thrice may prove nice.

www.mrpercival.com