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Frank Turner: Tiny Desk Concert

By Stephen Thompson
Published July 13, 2013 at 8:00 AM EDT

Frank Turner writes folk songs that harness the fury of punk and the majesty of Springsteenian rock 'n' roll. But more than anything else, his music is playful: There's conversational wit and bite to Turner's music, even as he's bellowing to the back rows. His songs lose little when you strip away electric instruments and leave the entertainment value to a single skinny, tattooed guy with an acoustic guitar.

For his Tiny Desk close-up, the U.K. singer-songwriter isn't actually alone: He brings along Matt Nasir, the pianist in Turner's band, The Sleeping Souls. Nasir joins in on mandolin, but Turner still does plenty to convey the bawdy rowdiness of a full band on his own. Opening with the terrifically anthemic, rehab-themed first single from his new album, Tape Deck Heart, (sample line: "On the first night we met, you said, 'Well, darling, let's make a deal/If anybody ever asks us, let's just tell them that we met in jail' "), Turner shines in what may well be the most brightly lit performance space he's ever graced.

Set List

  • "Recovery"

  • "The Way I Tend To Be"

  • "Photosynthesis"

    • Credits

    Producer: Stephen Thompson; Editor: Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Parker Blohm, Denise DeBelius, Gabriella Garcia-Pardo; photo by Hayley Bartels/NPR

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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    Stephen Thompson
    Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)
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