By Darren Grayer.
Teenage Waitress is the brainchild of Southampton singer/songwriter Daniel Ash, who over the last five to six years has built a reputation for producing melodic indie pop music, centred around sharp lyricism that compares favourably to the likes of Difford/Tillbrook (Squeeze) through to Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy).
Tonight (1/11/25) sees Heartbreakers Bar host the launch of the latest, and third Teenage Waitress album, Upstairs To Finish A Dream, mostly written around a theme of dreams versus reality.
A mighty fine piece of work it is too, stacked with melodies and cleverly used arrangements that create an interesting and wholly enjoyable experience for the listener. In fact, so far I’ve found every listen draws you in more and you discover something new each time. Always the sign of a creative mind at work.
The other thing to say is Upstairs To Finish A Dream is released through the excellent Black Star Record Shop label in Lyndhurst, which is well worth a visit for any vinyl enthusiast, even if you just end up having a chat with owner, Fran, or his knowledgeable side kick behind the counter, Jonah. The shop recently celebrated its fifth birthday – quite the achievement in these times.
Teenage Waitress are introduced on stage by the aforementioned Fran, and Daniel sets about the scuzzy guitar intro to opening track on the album, Square One, a short, sharp burst of power pop that builds over his impressive vocal delivery, and immediately leads into Blue Tick Burning, which rattles along at pace with an instantly singalong chorus – “ I keep burning out”.
The short refrain of Let’s Get Drunk And Watch Some Science Fiction (Part One) offers up a reflective moment about perhaps feeling better about the state of the world and leads seamlessly into Baby Blue, taken from 2023’s Your Cuckoo album. A song that for some reason puts me in the mind of George Harrison’s writing for The Beatles, although the influence of that band along with David Bowie is evident throughout much of Daniel’s work without ever feeling plagiaristic.
New song, Bridesmaids, is given an airing, and shows Teenage Waitress not to be resting on any laurels that may have gathered during the writing of this latest album.
‘Til Tomorrow highlights pretty much everything I love so far about discovering Teenage Waitress, and particularly Daniel’s songwriting, and his ability as a poet. A dreamy slow-paced number that feels melancholic yet slightly optimistic, given its beautiful chorus- “It’s gonna take some time but will be over in the flash of the light, and as I place my flag, I’ve got a million things I need to align, I better kiss today goodbye”. A beautifully arranged piece all round.
Dan jokes that Too Much Of A Good Thing (from Your Cuckoo) was written for Chas and Dave. You can hear why, it has that Ain’t No Pleasing You air about it, but hey, it’s still a foot tapping ditty that brings a smile to the face, even more so when he states “We’ve reached the Jools Holland part of the set” during the piano interlude. “I wrote to Jools Holland to ask if we could appear on Later. He said ‘No, you can’t’. He didn’t even spell ‘can’t’ right”.
Times Square Kiss and Best Of Me provide two more tracks from the new album and are great examples of the album’s variety of sound and arrangements, with percussion and keyboards at the forefront that steer the sound into electro-pop territory.
Trak! Trak! Trak! allows Dan to play his personal favourite Teenage Waitress song, and is taken from the debut album, Love And Chemicals.
The set is brought to a close by two songs of total contrast – Stupid And Strange is a delicately sung piece set over keyboards and Maggie is short, sharp blast of full-on indie rock.
The band leave the room, before Dan returns, carrying a miniature piano, which he places on a table on the stage. He’d earlier explained that it was a long-held dream to live in a house that had a cat and a piano. And sure enough, a small fluffy toy cat appears and is placed on the top of the piano. Let’s Get Drunk And Watch Some Science Fiction (Part Two) provides a gentle first part of the encore, before Too Much Of A Good Thing is given a second outing to wrap up a highly enjoyable and excellently performed hour of songs from across the Teenage Waitress spectrum.
Quick mention for Shoes On Now, who kicked off proceedings and provided an enthusiastic and loud set of largely Green Day driven songs that ranged from chickens interfering with your gardening to turning 40.
- In Common is not for profit. We rely on donations from readers to keep the site running. Could you help to support us for as little as 25p a week? Please help us to carry on offering independent grass roots media. Visit: https://www.patreon.com/incommonsoton