The accidental shoplifter
Pete Drake is a bit of an enigma – somewhere between comedy and social observation, he’s a staple in solo acoustic guise, compere and open mic administrator at festival scenes. On Facebook he runs a popular spot the ball competition, and documents the painstaking do-it-yourself duties that are required to maintain the hard slog to becoming a pop star. Whether it’s presenting existing pop stars with badges, getting involved with Japanese radio stations, it feels like there’s no random stone left unturned!
I can quite vividly remember the first time I heard him, we’d just arrived at Roystonbury Festival and it was hammering it down with rain so we’d not yet ventured from our van, but being quite close to the stage we could hear Accidentally Found, which I still love for its clever wordplay and observations.
The Accidental Shoplifter is his first full-length album, which he recorded between January and April this year. The CDs themselves promise to have unique hand-drawn inner sleeves complete with lyric quotes, at least for the first 99 he sells – each drawing themed around a word contained in the album. There’s no pre-ordering or crowd-funding here – you’ll have to wait until it’s released tomorrow to get a hold of it. I’m not sure whether it will be available on digital platforms – which one of the songs might offer reasons for it not to be!
I’m sure it will be available on his Bandcamp page though!
For those of you accustomed to Pete’s live performances you might be in for a surprise – along with his customary guitar and vocals there’s layers of percussion and synth here courtesy of Mark Adamson to give some depth and character. His characteristic authentic-accented vocals putting more emphasis on clever and witty wordplay than soaring melodic ranges – and it’s all the better for it, it’s genuine and honest. He’s just dropped a teaser video which you can see below.
The subject matter of the twelve songs vary tremendously. As a fledgling song-writer I often wonder where people get their inspiration from to pen a new song, with Pete it seems like anything and everything that occurs to him in his daily life is fit material to turn into music – usually irreverent, often funny and sometimes poignant it’s a rare talent! We open with The Accidental Shoplifter, observing the supermarket trend of installing self-checkouts and the opportunity many shoppers took to ‘accidentally’ shoplift. (Supermarkets saw record sales in ‘carrots’ as people weighed whatever goods they had whilst selecting carrots on the screen).
The Wizard of Oz sees Kay Spink joining on vocals, underpinning this eighties sounding vibe is observations around relationships taking themes from the famous film. I Believe in Magic is a boogie-tastic disco-classic – an album version, with an extended dance remix promised for a release later in the year. Airborne is literally a flight of fantasy, albeit based on a true story of Tom Stoker who spent $290k on a lifetime pass for United Airlines – 33 years later he’s travelled more than 23 million miles and visited over 100 countries, defending his carbon footprint by pointing out the plane would fly with or without his presence – a refrain that echoes through the song.
I Wasn’t Asked is probably a familiar refrain for many grassroots artists – that balance between being asked to play or be involved and over-asking / applying to events is something in my Darwin’s Rejects guise I can relate to strongly. It feels like the song is tongue-in-cheek with an element of seriousness, it feels hard to earn opportunities. The Ballad of Wally West continues what is now becoming a snooker player series – specifically his world record break which was a record he held for many years – that honour now of course sitting with Ronnie O’Sullivan.
30 Sets of Strings is a kind of tribute sequel to Star Botherers, Pete’s writing style does remind me more than anyone of Bart. Their song 3 Sets of Strings talks about the decline of high street music shops because supplies are cheaper on eBay – in this ‘answer ballad’ Pete recounts his loyalty to a particular music shop who went on to have a closing down sale, so in a panic bought all their remaining stock in a closing down sale!
There’s Only Two Pete Drakes offers the explanation why you might not find this on Spotify or Apple Music – there’s already a recording artist called Pete Drake, or at least – as we discover – that’s the name he took on rather than was given. He’s an American country performer sadly no longer with us, an amusingly embittered song as ever underpinned with humour. Mr Barton Says recounts a 1980s interview with Edward Barton on The Tube – Pete doesn’t elaborate on the specifics of the interview but whatever it was he said changed his outlook. Edward himself has approved the song too!
I admit I did lose myself in a Edward Barton rabbit-hole which I shan’t delve into here – but his Wikipedia entry is fascinating.
Halloween Has Been is a seasonal number that nearly didn’t make the cut – there’s a bit of a hint as to it being an older song than others, as there’s a few Covid-19 references (some of which he edited out, but I clocked the ‘staying in your bubbles’ one!). She Sells She Smells is amusing – having listened a few times I must admit that the backstory I started to construct was possibly slightly more deviant than the truth – a random article Pete found documenting a lady who was selling farts in a jar for a considerable sum. Far from mocking, it’s almost celebratory for the entrepreneurial spirit!
Then we reach the end with Turned Down the Turner Prize, upbeat with drums and bass synth from the off, guitars kick in and then we’re treated to a future vision of Pete’s creative output which diversifies from music considerably and well, the title kind of gives away the ending but perhaps not the journey which I’ve leave for you to discover yourselves. It’s a fun way to finish though – with lots of layers of sound in here.
Thus concludes an obvious labour of love. It’s perversely polished-yet-raw, despite the fancy machinations of production there’s an authentic punk feel – I don’t mean lots of Ois and electric guitar, more in attitude and philosophy – knowing that there’s a true ethos of DIY underpinning on the whole production – from the songwriting, recording, artwork, promotion – it’s endearing as it is clever and engaging, and it will make you laugh too.