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John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey: The Fleece & Firkin, Bristol

Ben Thompson, Spin, January 1997

POLLY JEAN Harvey first met John Parish ten years ago, when he was the neighborhood performance-art lecturer in her hometown of Yeovil. She went on to play pre-PJ guitar in his band, Automatic Olamini, and he later returned the favor by coproducing her third album, To Bring You My Love. Their recent collaboration, Dance Hall at Louise Point — on which Parish supplies the music and Harvey the words and voice — has been widely received as an indulgent side project, and the decision to promote it with just a handful of gigs in a Bristol pub seemed to shore up this theory. But the shows themselves left no trace of it except a few burning embers.

Total word count of piece: 411

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