Indie has found its new Poet Laureate in the shape of the truly one-off, Derek Meins.
Part musician, and part performance poet, Derek is an eccentricity that has been badly missing from the UK’s tattered and torn musical map for years.
As vocalist in Berwick-Upon-Tweed’s Rough Trade signings Eastern Lane, Derek wrote and sang all the tracks across two critically acclaimed LPs. A beloved cult act, the band were underpinned by Derek’s delusional howl, and described by NME as ‘contrary, do-whatever-they-fucking-want-bastards’.
Now relocated to Brighton, Derek is still doing whatever he wants. His live performance is a real spectacle; armed solely with a battered acoustic guitar and his merciful larynx, Derek switches from bittersweet song to his Ivor Cutler-esque surrealist prose on a whim. He manages to silence, enrapture, and melt the hearts of audiences within thirty breathtaking, and often humorous minutes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am the famous poet Derek Meins.
I drink gin when I wake, and coffee in my dreams.”
– Taken from the poem, ‘A Famous Poem’ by Derek Meins.
This debut single introduces both worlds that intertwine within Derek’s headspace. From the wild and tortured, ‘Flicker Of Light’ through to the acerbic rawness of, ‘Grave For God’, his music is a potent brew of black magic, concocted in an extraordinary brain.
From that same warped mind, Derek’s poetry veers from the cutting and concise, a narcotic rant through troubled times, through to the simplistic oddball couplet.
Idiosyncrasy is to be embraced. In Derek Meins, he is comparable to no other.
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