Upon first glace, in a dark alleyway somewhere up North, the look of Shane Meadows may startle you. Let’s not mess around, the guy looks like your average local thug who enjoys a fine glass of Stella Artois any day of the week.

That possible premature presumption is so far off the mark. He’s a incredibly smart and gentle giant who I consider to be one of the best British directors around.

A Room For Romeo Brass, This Is England, Somers Town and his most recent comedy mockumentary Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee are all fantastic films in different ways and Dead Man’s Shoes is one of the best horror/thriller films made in the UK. Ever.

Something Meadows is always praised for are his songs to his films which he personally selects  - they’re often from relatively unknown singers and bands and they all capture the scene/film/setting perfectly. The Somers Town soundtrack is entirely written and performed by Gavin Clark who you would have heard on UNKLE’s War Stories album and it’s amazing…

…so when I recently read that the two are teaming up for a low budget documentary, I was over the moon.

Speaking on his website last year, Meadows explains the concept for his new film …‘The idea came about a few weeks ago when I dropped in to see Gavin after Clayhill’s tour of America (supporting Beth Orton) and found him sat with the Yellow Pages looking for a job delivering Pizzas! It turned out that the Record company had ran out of money after the last album and had dropped the band that very morning. The idea of Gav delivering pizzas again at 37 made me wanna puke up and I got in touch with Mark (my producer) about trying to get the funds to make an album and short film that could get Gav known to a wider audience and hopefully get him re-signed as a solo artist in the process.’

I personally can’t wait to see Clark’s story behind Meadows’ camera and to get a taste of his talents here are a couple tracks from the Somers Town soundtrack.  I don’t think this is available anywhere else online or in-store and so I was umming and arring about whether to put the tracks up for free but I made to decision to do so simply to spread the word about the man.

Enjoy.

Gavin Clark -- Low Are The Punches -- download

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Gavin Clark -- Painted Glass -- download

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UNKLE -- Keys To The Kingdom feat. Gavin Clark --

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Gavin Clark -- The Years Have Loved Us (Live at Union Chapel)