So last night I made the scene at an underground venue in Athens going by the name of Secret Squirrel (among other things) and was priveledged to catch HAm 1 back from a Tennesee mini-tour and their friends The Mattoid which is an outfit lead by this guy whose wanderings began in Helsinki, Finland and currently calls Nashville, TN home. The music itself is something akin to the Velvet Underground, but he has a definite infectious kooky charm - for example, at one point during the set he asked the audience ‘Who’s ready to do some cocksucking?!’ and picking a woman from the audience he pointed and said ‘You! I can tell you are-’ and as everyone was laughing added ‘I can already see the cock in your mouth’, somehow had this entire exchange come off as amicable and hilarious. They then launched into a song I believe was called ‘We are here to suck your cocks’. The backing band, made of equal parts male and female, performing this routine with complete professional seriousness and occassional gospel style reverence definitely helped to pull it off. He is also supposedly a tri-toned throat singer and has invented his own guitar rhythm known as ’sango’. You can hear some songs through the link above, and also through their myspace page and here’s a link to youtube video with questionable sound quality. He does some rippin’ covers, but unfortunately had to explain to us how Lionel Richie had stolen ‘Hello’ from him.