The Band of Holy Joy
Forever changing, consistently unique yet, always somehow the same, the Band Of Holy Joy began life as gutter chansoniers using junk shop instruments to propagate a brute romantic madly literate form of dispossessed urban folk music.
Since then the band have scaled a few heights fallen down in one or two gutters, broken up, glued themselves together, toured the world, released a fair few albums for the likes of Rough Trade and fully explored other media by presenting two audio visual song plays: Troubled Sleep at the Shunt Theatre in London 2008 and an Invocation for William Burroughs at the Sorbonne Paris in 2009. They have set up their own label and Internet radio station Radio Joy.
These days the junk shop instruments of old are long gone, and guitars, violins and visuals very much to the fore. But the band continues to write about the same outsider concerns with the same measure of spirit and care and man, they still put on a show.
The Band of Holy Joy – forever changing, consistently unique, always the same. Join the adventure as they pass through your town.
Buy their new album, “Easy Listening”, here.
You can also find out more about Band of Holy Joy at their website, their Facebook page, their Twitter feed, or on Soundcloud.
This is an excellent clip from a 1989 TV Interview: