Crime And The City Solution / Joshua Murphy / Jack King (live at the Jam Jar)

Bristol
30 September 2025

I was excited about the thought of Crime And The City Solution returning to Bristol so soon after the previous show, having never managed to catch any of the iterations over the last forty years. On arrival at the Jam Jar, we found thirty-five seats set out and a sense of expectation. Instruments were laid out on the stage and the stripped-down trio of Simon Bonney, Bronwyn Adams and guitarist Joshua Murphy were happily milling about the venue in anticipation of the opening act.

After a brief wait, local singer-songwriter Jack King came on all dressed in black, Fender Jazzmaster in hand, and commenced to treat us to some dusty tails of despair which seemed stark and monochrome against the lurid lily pond backdrop of the stage. His voice seemed to come from the bottom of his boots, a low seasoned drawl, cracked and heartbroken that belied his youthful visage.

The Jazzmaster blistered and echoed around the nicotine throb, its dusty gnarl slicing through the desert air. There was real yearning in the chords, the selection edgy and smothered in reverb while the barren voice appeared too ancient for his years. There was something of Rowland S Howard in the side-on stance and the judicious use of the tremolo arm, but the sense that he was dragging himself from his desolate sick-bed to deliver these tales of despair and doubt was a real winner.

If they ever decided to remake A Fistful of Dollars, Jack King would be right up there to tackle the soundtrack and after almost obliterating some chords with a blast of fuzz, he left the stage to deserved applause.

We had an audience of about fifteen by now and after a short break, Joshua appeared to give us a short solo set, covering the four tracks on his recent 2022 EP Lowlands. Although also dressed in black, Joshua played an acoustic and against the ambient hum of the air conditioning offered us a more poetic and visceral set, the guitar slowly strummed, its reverb awash in a Spanish lilt.

Another deep voice, his was clearer and the existential poetry was delivered across stark chords, the lowest string vibrating as he undertook slow-motion callisthenics. Joshua was constantly on the move, the songs driving him somehow, his part-spoken delivery and vivid imagery bringing to mind a latter-day Leonard Cohen. With titles like “The Fault Was Lain There Too” and “Littered With Ghosts”, you sense a seriousness but also a joy, revelling in the words.

There was something sexy and kind of sinuous about his rich, creamy delivery and general demeanour, with a High Plains Drifter vibe, although his fingerpicking which opened some of the songs was exquisite and all without picks. He seemed a natural performer and not remotely bothered about the sparse attendance, giving his all regardless. Needless to say, we were enthralled and headed straight for the merch stand where he turned out to be utterly charming.

For me back in the eighties, Crime And The City Solution were on a par with The Bad Seeds; they both appeared in Wim Wenders‘ Wings Of Desire, both included Mick Harvey and for me if anything had the better front man. There was something of the desolate romantic in Simon Bonney, but first and foremost he was a poet, his imagery impressionistic and vivid.

For some reason or another their career meandered and now while Nick Cave is playing at enormodomes, Simon and Bronwyn are happy playing to twenty people in a Bristol backwater. For this tour, Crime are stripped down to a three-piece of Simon, now looking like a grizzled beatnik, Bronwyn delirious and wired on violin, and Joshua on guitar. It seems that with the addition of Joshua to the ranks and with the release of 2023’s The Killer, Simon and Bronwyn have been rejuvenated. It is twelve years since the supergroup line-up recorded American Twilight and the intervening years seem to have been kind to them.

I was expecting Simon to be reticent, but he was open and engaged, regaling us with takes of his time as a civil servant and truck driver. The majority of the set was taken from The Killer and they opened with “Rivers Of Blood”, Bronwyn’s violin entwined with Simon’s voice as he hung from the mic stand. They still have that magic and even after forty years their interaction was full of love and respect. His delivery was full of belief and the voice imperious as the violin’s ecstatic reach framed Joshua’s clever chords.

The stripping down of the songs to these basics gave them a new life and the trio was clearly enjoying seeing how the audience reacted to them. “River Of God” followed and the power of the song was enhanced with Bronwyn’s violin as the harsh element and her voice the wilder of the three. There was just something really earthy, almost primal about it. After some amusing anecdotes and interactions, what followed was a journey and “The Bride Ship” started to crawl from the stage, the stumbling guitar and the intense personifications of the various characters bringing it alive as Joshua’s extemporisation added pressure and momentum.

The violin cried and as the audience sat back, the whole thing felt like watching some strange short play as the trio were totally drawn into the telling. All three sang on “Brave Hearted Woman” and Joshua’s voice was sweeter here compared to his solo stuff. As the guitar crashed, so the violin became the warmer element meandering around the melody. “Witness” is a true boy girl duet and after they gazed into one another’s eyes, Bronwyn’s violin break had real attitude, its vitality flooded with character.

They regularly engaged with the audience and at this point Bronwyn told us of the scene in Melbourne in the late seventies, reminiscing about the gathering of all the oddballs and artistic types before throwing all her wild emotion into “Peace In My Time”. Another trip down memory lane brought 1990’s “The Last Dictator” to life in all its four-part wide-ranging glory; the Spanish guitar flourishes, high speed shuffle and strung-out violin helped to tell the tale of hubris and downfall. The intensity the three produced was palpable and as Bronwyn delivered blood-curdling scream, it is extraordinary to think a song can still carry this power after thirty-five years.

They closed with “Killer”, a slow lament highlighted by Bronwyn’s guttural snarl that took us by surprise and then they were gone, the lights on and there was no more. Why they aren’t playing to at least a few hundred people per night is a complete mystery, but they clearly enjoy their peripatetic lifestyle, selling merch to ensure safe onward travels and enjoying the enthusiasm of those people that made an effort on a Tuesday night.

It was one of the best things I have seen in a long time; the joy, the intensity, the love for the songs and respect for the audience all added up to an unforgettable evening and long may they continue.

-Words: Mr Olivetti-
-Pictures: Michael Rodham-Heaps-