Willard Grant Conspiracy wash up on our shores every two or three years in one form or another complete with acoustic guitars, fiddle an occasional saw and the odd bit of percussion. Tonight its just main man Robert Fisher (guitar, vocals and harmonica) and David Michael Curry (viola) who are promoting a new album "Ghost Republic" about an American ghost town way up in that old weird America that barely exists anymore beyond the advertising hoardings and the multi-lane freeways.
Fisher's sonorous songs spin out over a strange lost world where padlocked gates over a single tracked dirt road leading nowhere guard the entrance to this bizarre place where a paid guide tells you to “go right on in." The album came together when Robert and his extensive WGC compatriots were asked to imagine characters who might live in this "Ghost Republic" and spin some songs out around them.
Live though the songs call up a variety of bizarre characters who haunt the show backed by an evocative back drop projected onto a screen behind the duo. The photos and written statements flashed onto the screen blend with the musicians giving us hints of Fisher's desert world out there in the far distance beyond our sight.
This is a lost world that we need to be reminded about and Fisher and his world view gives us insight into that nether world that exists beyond our celebrity obsessed culture. There's a small crowd sitting in hushed silence but most of them seem to buy at least one CD at the end of this impressive show. Do yourself a favour and get out and buy "Ghost Republic" and check out the Willard Grant Conspiracy next time they are in town.
Words: Greg Johnson
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