Saturday 17/02/07 Pop Levi @ New Cross Inn, London

“That gig was the shit,” says the man the people call Pop, in the back of the band’s tour mini-bus. “A crazy week, in all, and the Islington gig was amazing,” he adds. Indeed it has been crazy for Pop Levi and his band Woman – and the culmination of over three years’ hard work has seen more and more people tuning into Pop music. After moving to Los Angeles from Liverpool two years ago, Pop Levi has drawn his magick from a myriad of cross-transatlantic influences – and importantly, stayed away from being attached to a certain ‘scene’. So now, quite rightly, he’s labelled neither ‘cosmic scouse’ nor ‘West Coast’, because he’s decidedly out on his own limb. “I’ve been progressing forwards by going backwards in a way,” he says. “It’s not always about taking the direct path.”

And he’s right. With no hype preceding him, Pop Levi has come, as if out of the ether, to capture the consciousness of the mainstream press with his soulful Prince-cum-Bolan psychedelic boogie-rock, and tonight at the sold out New Cross Inn, there really is no room at the inn.

Pop’s got at least three photographers with expensive looking cameras in his face as he starts the randy rhythm chords to ‘Blue Honey’, and it soon becomes apparent that anyone crowding the tiny stage expecting a note for note rendition of the album will not get it. Instead, they get treated to some stripped down extended rock ‘n’ soul grooves. ‘Sugar Assault Me Now’ turns into a backstreet dirty funk blues version, with drummer Marius hammering out some serious floor rumblers. The staccato attack of non-album track ‘Bloodlust’ gets Pop jigging, and by the time the elongated intro to the bounding ‘Dollar Bill Rock’ crashes into the chorus, Pop’s in his full Cuban-heel strutting, karate kimino-wearing, body-popping glory, and the track continues freaking out for another ten mad minutes.

Put it this way, Pop Levi is on the other side of musical universe right now, so let’s all take a trip and join him there for a black magick party.  

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