During the 1960s and 70s, New Yorker Ed Hamell was tripping out, playing his guitar, working in a music store and having a Beatles epiphany. Later on, he grappled with drug addiction, lost friends to the same affliction and to Aids, struggled with dead-end jobs and coped with lost record deals.
There's a lot of lamentation over loss and death in his show The Terrorism Of Everyday Life - a slightly overlong biographical set of storytelling and songs that is bookended by memories of fallen heroes John Lennon and Bill Hicks.
But this hellraiser stands out because of something he worships - music. He has been in numerous bands, had material released on Mercury and been championed by Ani DiFranco for his intense anti-folk songs, which he performs with fingers scuttling furiously over his 1937 acoustic Gibson guitar like tomorrow was going to be his last day.
Wry humour shoots through these and his highly scripted patter, too: a tale in which he happily listens to his friend recount the moment their estranged mother died, and how said pal twisted her hand once rigor mortis set in so that she permanently gave the world the finger, is a good example of his deviant sense of fun.
Ultimately, this sidelong look at America is a resurrection of the beat generation spirit more than anything else, and is performed with an anarchic passion that's difficult to resist.
Until Feb 23, Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street W1, Mon to Sat 9.30pm, £10 to £17.50.
Tel: 0870 429 6883.
www.sohotheatre.com
Tube: Tottenham Court Road/Piccadilly Circus
Ed Hamell: The Terrorism Of Everyday Life
Soho Theatre
Dean Street, W1D 3NE
