Scott Lavene is a modern-day Essex likely lad, a unique music vessel and a stylish composite of Mod, Two-Tone ska boy with a hint of Where’s Wally. He is an individualistic UK voice who belongs somewhere in the Ray Davies, Steve Marriott, Billy Bragg, Ian & Baxter Dury lineage. Singing cartoon snapshots of his storied life, tonight the audience are let in on a bit of family history; it turns out Scott’s Granddad was a famous jazz trumpeter. I had picked up lyrics referencing this in his music before, there is the line about his Granddad saying “never trust a town that doesn’t have a jazz club” in the song ‘Disneyland In Dagenham’ for example, but tonight he imparts this as a fact. Why would it not be? Well, if you take all the colourful back story Scott puts into his songwriting, then some details might seem a tad far-fetched. If all true, this man has an incredible autobiography in him at some stage. Earlier, he told another story relating to the opening lyrics of ‘A Bus In July’, admitting that “I really did live with a Moroccan armed robber”, the story unfolding to the point where he was also playing tennis with the crack head lawyer from Finchley featured in the songs second line. And if you follow these random Lavene threads you might also detect a love of custard, which makes the lyric about first meeting his future wife on a bus with a carrier bag full of the sweet creamy dessert all the more believable. He is potentially the epitome of an artist unloading real life into his art with grit and raw honesty. I suspect the Scott Lavene we are presented with in concert is not a fictitious creation, more likely an exaggerated version of the real self, for the man has such an acute ear for the absurd minutiae of daily life that his sense of what can pass as entertainment is probably pretty fine tuned too. That said, I cannot find any information about the jazz playing grandfather online, so who knows? Does it matter anyway? Scott Lavene is a magnetic, charismatic performer arriving off the A13, wheel spinning a vintage Volvo estate car loaded with a cassette deck full of great songs.

To hold on to the jazz connection, rightly or wrongly, for a moment, there is a subtle musicality at play here. Scott fronts it out as a plain speaker which distracts a touch from the often disarmingly melodic and colourful flourishes in his playing. The guitar style can slide into hot progressive explorations almost despite itself and the piano songs have a touch and tone full of tenderness and colour. Even his singing, when he allows himself to let go without obscuring the vocal with a slice of cheeky chappy ham, hits the spot with a purity of tone. Scott Lavene could be an Essex soul boy if he did not feel so riled by the pretensions, posturing, double standards and hypocrisies in the world around him. Music might be his font for expressing feelings, but it also gives him an outlet to let off steam about everything from electric cars, overpriced posh coffees, gentrification and the ignorant soulless leisure activities of the newly minted. Tonight in Cambridge, he opens up about his own inner conflicts, alighting on his previous disdain of the middle classes alongside the realisation that he might now be one of them. These days Scott tells us, in one of many extended introductions (he does enjoy a chat with his audience), that he lives in a house with a garden, adapting to little things like stairs on the indoors, lawnmowers and neighbours who bring home made brownies. All of which makes his take down of middle class problems, ‘Waitrose Has Run Out Of Lobster’ with its images of burgundy chinos rising up in resistance to the shortage and specifically Janet, who has bought them all to store in a large freezer, all the more delightful.

While running through a superb set that draws from latest album ‘Cars, Buses, Bedsits And Shops’ along with generous pickings from records released over the past six years (he had to play longer tonight after the support act pulled out), Scott tells the crowd about a couple in attendance who travel around to every gig, giving them a shout out on their wedding anniversary. Scott inspiring this kind of loyalty is understandable, it is plainly clear that he is not an artist dialling in an identikit performance night after night. He plays solo, mainly an electric guitar with effects and loops but also a few songs in a piano ballad form. The music is a living being with Scott; if he plays about with form like this every night, it can only be to keep that restless inventive mind of his engaged. The delivery of a Lavene signature tune is anything but set in stone. ‘Broke’ is the story of an Essex lad riding his luck on the poverty line, shadow boxing with self-mocking wit as he thinks on his feet among societies forgotten and ignored, finding comfort in his vices, unexpected twists of fate and life’s simple pleasures; tonight it is caressed into a wholly different beast to the trodden slog heard on record. It is more like an electric free-form hymn with Scott crowd pleasing, after the line about his girlfriend sighing the longest sigh he ever heard, by repeating an impressive breath zapping example of that very thing. Like many artists who leave a little too much of themselves on stage, a gigs merits may depend on where their head is at on any particular night. At the Portland Arms, Scott Lavene seems relaxed and engaged, a venue he once worked as a chef is now a well-attended first headline gig in Cambridge. He takes requests and we sense that here is a songwriter in a golden moment; riding an upward curve in his fortunes, both personal and artistically, but still close enough to the sharp edges of life that shaped him to thrive in the creative inspiration those experiences provide. Get on to Scott Lavene at your earliest convenience, he is the ultimate Essex man in music, proving that a much-maligned region still has so much to offer the culture.

Words: Danny Neill Photos: Sophie Reichert