Nashville Day One: Departure And Arrivals

A long but perfectly straightforward journey from Gatwick to Atlanta. The last time I came through this airport in 2003 it took over three hours to be processed. At the desk I was fingerprinted, had my photograph taken and my passport scanned.

“Now wait a minute...” the official said.

Immediately I felt uneasy, wracked with guilt and sensing an impending cavity search and waterboarding might be headed my way. “Is there a problem?” I timidly asked.

“Well now, there’s lot of folks by the name of Smith on this list.”

“Yes it’s a problem having such I common name” I remarked attempting to keep a chipper disposition as his face got gloomier and glummer with every swish of his mouse.

“Yes Sir, I do get to see more than a few every day.”

Then I was off to baggage reclaim and from there over to my gate for Nashville. The airport was temporarily closed because of lightning. Yet we still managed to get on board and up in the air without too much delay.

The only set back in all of this was that my mobile phone wasn’t working which meant I wasn’t able to hook up with Adrian Holmes who is looking after all kinds of logistics for the tour and thus meet up with the team at the rehearsal space.

A shuttle bus dropped me at the hotel - my home for the next few days.




After changing, Biff swung by and took me out to the rehearsal studios. For reasons that I don't fully grasp it's impossible to keep a straight face in Biff's company...

At the rehearsal studios we bumped into this guy wearing a rather stylish titfer.


After a beautiful meal (marred only by a rising sense of utter disorientation that made it feel like the floor was periodically giving away) it was back to the hotel and not long after 11.00pm, blissful oblivion.

Strawbs Dragonfly Nomadness

Once Upon A Time...
Strawbs /Dragonfly/Nomadness
Universal

These three reissues mark the long-awaited conclusion of the remastered Strawbs' back catalogue on the A&M label. Their arrival ties up a niggardly loose end for completist fans of the innovative 60s hybrid folk-prog outfit.

Their self-titled debut of 1969 captures founders Dave Cousins and Tony Hooper (along with new recruit bassist Ron Chesterman) in a popish mode with only very distant echoes of their earlier bluegrass incarnation of the Strawberry Hill Boys.

It's a florid pot-pouri of belated psychedelia ("Pieces of 79 and 15"), whimsical pen portraits ("All The Little Ladies" and "Poor Jimmy Wilson"), and Middle Eastern-laced exoticism ("Tell Me What You See In Me", and the Beeb-banned "The Man Who Called Himself Jesus"). Such a kaleidoscopic debut surely deserves to be hailed a psych-folk classic by revivalists such as Bob Stanley, et al.

Having blown the budget with the first record, its 1970 follow-up was an all expenses spared effort. Yet it's this that lends Dragonfly its cache of warmth and intimacy. Produced by Tony Visconti, this is a vivid and lovingly etched pastoral sequence. Joined by Claire Deniz, whose soaring cello is marshalled by sparse but effective arrangements, the rapidly maturing coherence and authority of Cousins' writing distinguishes itself from the somewhat scattergun debut.

Dragonfly represents an artistic turning point for Strawbs. The stoic melancholia of "I Turned My Face Into The Wind", or its redemptive counterpoint, "Josephine For Better Or For Worse" and the shrill orchestrated romanticism of the non-album single, "Forever", (included here as a bonus track) suggest an admirable career in the mainstream could've been theirs. Yet the epic and episodic narrative of "The Vision Of The Lady Of The Lake", stylistically different to anything else on Dragonfly (and ironically the weakest sounding piece now), heralds Strawbs' first melding of folk and progressive rock forms proper. It also marks the debut of Rick Wakeman, who would go on to join the band following this session.

Strawbs' hard work on the road had earned decent followings on both sides of the Atlantic but by Nomadness (1975) it had also taken its toll. Opting for a rockier approach, tracks such as Little Sleepy, and the throwaway frolics of "Tokyo Rose" make for jarring listening next to the ethereal beauty of "The Golden Salamander" or the sublime acoustic rushing of "So Shall Our Love Die." Sadly, their last hurrah with A&M proved to be their most uneven and blemished. Criminally overlooked, if you thought Strawbs were just the band who had a dodgy hit with "Part Of The Union," then think again.

Three In A Row IV Strawbs

Grave New World
1972

Bursting At The Seams
1973

Hero And Heroine
1974

Heavenly Music

This morning I've been listening to the remastered versions of No Pussyfooting and Evening Star. I had goosebumps listening to "The Heavenly Music Corporation" here presented is the, the reversed, and my own personal favourite, the r e a l l y, r e a l l y
s l o w version of this awesome beauty.

It's an odd feeling to have been involved in the production of something (no matter how passing and slight that involvement has been) that I loved so much when I was a kid.

For reasons which are beyond me now, I failed to buy the Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel sessions when they were first released.

So my quest in the USA will be to nab a copy of this set. I'm assuming that Nashville, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York will have more than their fair share of competitively priced record shops? Anyone with insider local knowledge please feel free to send me a pointer via the usual channels.

Bags packed for the first leg of the journey. Trivia fans will note that the large holdall accompanied me on P4's West Coast tour.

It seemed like a neat symmetry that the same bag should now make it to the East Coast. The shoulder bag is new as my old one(purchased in Boulder whilst on the P4 tour) gave up the ghost after ten years of consistent abuse. I remain to be convinced that this new whipper-snapper will give as good a service as the Colorado bag (as I stupidly called it) but we'll see how it gets on.

And now - the airport!

My sister Lesley very kindly dropped me at Newcastle airport and following a straight forward flight down to London, the substitute Yellow Room for the next 12 hours is the Gatwick Sofitel.

As I sat in the cavernous lounge of the hotel an email from the editor as Classic Rock asks if I can pick one track from King Crimson's entire recorded output. Hedging my bets I offer two for the price of one.

"The Facts of Life" from The Power To Believe (2003)

A gritty vocal about polar opposites, colliding opinions and the way things are by Adrian Belew cuts between the triple axe surgical slashing of power chords so brutal they'll stomp you flat like a tent-peg. Fripp's solo is like a bull charging headlong toward you. A spine-tingling moment that's equal to anything they've done in their entire career.

"Starless" from Red (1974)

Arguably the best song from the early Crims; haunting mellotron, yearning vocals and a two-note tension-building guitar solo that eventually explodes into a thrilling solo section by founder Crim now guest player, Ian McDonald. The resolution when it comes is guaranteed to have Crimheads of a certain vintage drooling and slightly slack. The last track on the Red album proved to be their epitaph as they broke up a few months after recording this. Stunning from start to finish.

I'm guessing it'll be the latter rather than the former they'll go for. How strange to be asked to provide a desert island choice for Crimson when I'm on the eve of spending about three weeks in the company of this group.

The Animals Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted

Reunion ends with a whimper not with a bang
Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted
Ark
Greatest Hits Live!
The Animals
Repertoire
It was 1975 when Chas Chandler persuaded the original line-up to set aside the bad blood that had caused their split back in 1966. Laying down a decent and dependable set of blues and rock covers, the band are in good shape though their trademark edginess has calmed somewhat. Legal wrangling delayed its release until 1977 and by the time Before We Were So Rudely... saw the light of day, any resonance this reunion had was lost in the noise of punk.

Another studio attempt was made with Ark (1983), here with patchy original material from Burdon and co-writers from his solo career - though significantly not from Alan Price. Tame and undistinguished, Ark pales next to its predecessor. Out on tour, the roars of approval from punters were mostly reserved for their glory days, captured at Wembley on Greatest Hits Live.

Sadly Burdon’s voice is often little more than a wayward howl, a punch-drunk heavyweight stumbling around rather than delivering anything with bite or the power that was still evident in 1975. Even the now augmented line-up sound like an anonymous pick-up group going through the motions. A sad end.

Sunshiney Day

Today the sea fret that has clogged the air like a wet blanket for the last three days finally lifted and sunshine broke through!


Ginger Bob says "it's too hot!"

In the afternoon it was time to say goodbye to Tom and Joe. They are heading off to a holiday destination with their mother and are quite excited about it. I tried to get the boys to give a "mean and moody" pose but this was the best they could do.



Lots of lose ends to tie up now before I start packing for the USA.

Random Penguin XXXI

1974
Cover illustration by Ken Sequin

The Day Today

We are hemmed in by a sea fret so strong that there are times when I cannot see the end of the street. I hear rumours on the radio that the region is enjoying brilliant sunshine. Not here though. Mist billowed across the road deadening the sound of things both human and mechanical. Even the gulls and other birds looked lost - as though they too were searching for blue skies...





Bernard called round today, bringing with him his monkey wrench. A water pipe in the back yard is leaking. Nothing to worry about in terms of flooding but the trickle needed stemming before it got any worse. Remedial treatments applied, Bernard took a seat whilst I played him some edited musical highlights that included Jim Moray, Ron Sexsmith's latest, DFA and some P2. Ginger Bob made the most of Bernard's visit as only Ginger Bob can.


Bernard suggests that whilst I'm out in the USA I should make a radio show about King Crimson's tour and the history of the band. Now that's what I call a good idea! Podcasts From The Yellow Room anyone?

On the blower today, a conversation with an old pal who, like me, recalls having Eno's Discreet Music before Fripp and Eno's Evening Star was released. The written record and received wisdom says it was the other way around. Common sense dictates that our memories must be wrong. And yet...we remain convinced it must have been that way round.

The news from Wales: all is well with Deb and the gang.

Two emails suggest I may be getting more blue skies than I might be able to cope with. Nashville, I am told by one recently arrived correspondent, "is very, very hot. Too hot for a Geordie." Another email confirms this assertion but adds "having just returned from Phoenix where the temp was 109F every day, Nashville is nice and spring-like!"

Jim Moray Low Culture

The Culture Show...
Low Culture
Jim Moray
NIAG
Some artists take a while to get into their stride whilst others arrive on the scene fully-formed. Having been hailed as the saviour of folk music by just about every broadsheet up and monthly magazine up and down the land, you could be forgiven for taking all the hyperbole about Jim Moray with a very big pinch of salt. The thing is though, he really is every bit as good as they claim, and his fourth album continues a roll of good tunes and canny choices that many artists much longer in the tooth would give their right arm for.

The yearning clarity of Moray's voice on the sublime, uplifting chorus of "Across The Western Ocean" is utterly addictive. That same song is also an eloquent testimony to the infectious off-centre arrangements that infuse this material. His belief that the often bucolic settings of traditional music should rub shoulders with more urban and contemporary airs, are brilliantly realised in "Lucy Wan". Here, a rapping guest spot supplied by British/Ghanian performer, Bubbz, drills down deep into the psycho-drama of the tale much like the sub-woofer sonics underpinning the clattering synthetic beats that dart in and out of the tawdry tale.

If the music is a triumph of different cultures and references then so too is the album artwork. Witty pastiches of pulp fiction pot-boiler paperbacks, with their seedy mix of debauchery and violence, echo the content of many of Moray's songs. His rousing cover of XTC's "All You Pretty Girls" has a blonde bombshell posing beneath the promise "Her Wanton Ways", or how about the cover for the racy reading of "Henry's Downfall", emblazoned with the lurid strapline: ''She belonged to every boy in the gang.'' What else are the verses of those 'I spied a young maiden'-style tunes if not the trash fiction of their days?

Low Culture is so itty-bitty perfect in just about every respect that it's hard not to join in with the tidal wave of praise that's been flowing his way. In the end attempting to apply any credible kind of objectivity proves to be a futile exercise as one beautiful melody after another hauls you in, hook, line and sinker.

The final choice for best album of 2008 just got a lot harder!

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Debra, Sam and Alys headed off to Wales today to spend a week with Bill and Kath. The annual trip is something they've always done and though you might think as the kids got older they'd not be so up for sitting in a caravan for a week, they really love it. Debra and I did diaries and realised that August was going to be a grim month for us.

The day after I get back from the USA Debra is going down to Shaldon to spend time with Neil and Halina. As much as I'd like to do the same, time, family commitments and moolah means it's simply not possible.

All told, This we'll have spent about a two days in the month together and represents the longest that we've been apart since we became a couple.







We did that thing where you keep waving until the last possible moment as the car began its journey. Needless to say after they turned the corner I sat down in the kitchen and wept like the big softie I am.

Holy Island Magic

Today we went off to Bernardstrasse...

...where we fired up the Dad Nav (or Bernard as we know him).

In no time at all we were driving over the causeway to Holy Island



After making a pitstop for some supplies it was through the village and into the priory...


...with its lovely view of our eventual destination, Lindisfarne Castle



Along the way, Debbie and Lesley are beguiled by a gorgeous blue flower populating this part of the island...




At the top our long walk in the sun was was rewarded with some beautiful views...

...so much so I got in on the act.

Out across the bay...
...the imposing shape of Bamburgh Castle loomed like some ancient myth...


After a few hours wandering around the village we drove off across the causeway once more. This time it resembled a Hipgnosis cover...

On the way back we bagged ourselves Bamburgh Castle which we had seen in the haze earlier in the day...
...and my own personal favourite, Warkworth Castle.

Nominations For God LI

Anne Briggs

Street LIfe CXXXII

Alexander Tucker Portal

The Noise Inside His Head…
Portal
Alexander Tucker
ATP/Recordings
Transmitting from the outer edges of a place where acoustic and electronic music coalesce into a curious fluid unit, Portal is Alexander Tucker’s third release. Listening to it is to enter into a world of ominous repetitions, fuzzed-out glissandos and luminous, jagged guitar lines. At times it could be the outtakes from the best album that Tiger Mountain-era Brian Eno and the seminal avant-rock terrorists, This Heat, never made.

Most songs emerge from layers of simple lines of acoustic over which Tucker ladles on the reverb, rattle and cavernous electric notes that give this album such a distinctive, hypnotic edge. There are times, as with “Bell Jars” and the booming “Husks,” when it really has more to do with the agitated, unstable energies of kraut-rock than anything that might be said to resemble folk music or the blues formats which Tucker claims he’s dabbling with.

Mashing up guitars, fiddles, vibraphone, double bass and voice into a haze of processed loops as he does on “Energy For Dead Plants”, Tucker often produces a disturbing cloud of sound that evokes the unease of early Tony Conrad rather than anything approaching today’s somewhat supine ambient genre.

Aside from the music, Tucker’s nasal voice trembles in and out of focus – the medium is clearly the message rather than anything tied up in the lyrics. His words skim across the tops of the chaotic waves, rendering meaning elusive, syllables become ornamental points of light and shade.
Although a completely different kettle of fish, this aspect is reminiscent of Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, and reminds us again how inventive people can be when it comes to picking up a guitar and a stomp-box.

Tucker’s blending of irregular textures, frosty moods and sleight-of-hand sonics gives Portal a desolate other-worldliness, creating the impression of a lonely soul broadcasting from some distant frontier.

Three In A Row III: Tangerine Dream

Zeit
1972

Atem
1973

Phaedra
1974

On The Blower

The last couple of days has been spent trying to finish off various bits and pieces before I leave for the States next week.

However, today was spent interviewing Dave Stewart about Egg. Long term readers will note that I had in fact interviewed Dave a while back, but suffered the injustice of having my digital voice recorded nicked (along with the laptop and other stuff) when we were out in the Canary Isles.

Today we picked up where we left off and went back around and did it all again. Dave manfully put up with a sequence of dumb-ass questions over a few hours (including a comfort break!) and coped fairly well with my gushing fanboy praise.

Dave Stewart speaking on the phone
(voice not pictured)

Random Penguin XXX

1995
Cover design by Stewart Brand and Daniel Rembert

Street Life CXXXI

Away Days

It’s strange how the traditional associations of certain days of the week remain ingrained in our psyche. Saturday night was always a night out on the town. Thursday was always pay day (I’m old enough to remember being paid weekly) and Monday was back to the grind.

Being a freelancer means those kinds of distinctions are often blurred or completely irrelevant. Yet Sunday mornings retain their of air of calming stillness, an idyll in an otherwise constantly churning working week.

This morning Debbie and I sat in the warm glow of a sunny Sunday morning accompanied by the subtle strains of Fripp and Eno's Equatorial Stars. Over a cup of tea we discussed all the comings and goings of the next few weeks.

I’m off to the States soon and before I go, she’ll be leaving for her annual trip to Wales with the kids. Tom and Joe are also on holiday with their mother. There’s an unsettling aspect to all of this motion. Don’t get me wrong. Of course I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks of Crimsonising but I’m a poor traveller when it comes to missing my loved ones.

The air of luxuriant relaxation was helped along by all three cats of the house joining us in the yellow room.




I might even miss these buggers too. And speaking of cats last week on the Culture Show I was introduced to the joys of Simon's Cat. Since then every single person in the house has been wandering around going "Meow!" Watch this brilliantly observed cartoon (which seems to be modelled on our very own Baby Wilson) and you'll be going "Meow!" too.

Pop Levi Never Leave Love

Plastic Pop
Never Leave Love
Pop Levi
Counter
The indie pop trickster from LA, who has enjoyed stints with Super Numeri and time with Ladytron, loves to mix up psychedelic motifs, glam-rock scams, subliminal pop sonics, electronics and rock. Imagine Mud (you know, ''that’s right, that's neat I really love your Tiger Feet'') crossed with Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog" and you have some idea of the who'da-thunk-it mix-up that is the opening big bang of "Wannamamma."

The audacity of this iconoclastic combination is initially striking and startling in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. Yet within a few minutes of this self-style assault and disassembling of popular culture, what at first appeared audacious quickly begins to wear thin and becomes simply tedious. Very quickly it's so bad it’s just, er, bad.

Like some musical alchemist, perhaps Pop Levi is attempting to turn base metal into gold. Perhaps he is on some visionary quest seeking a greater truth about the world by sifting through the things it throws away. Perhaps the man who once claimed to develop his writing through the occult practice of scrying, finds connections and ineffable correspondences between musical bodies that would ordinarily cancel each other out.

Thus in Pop Levi's world the Bay City Rollers lay down Dub, The Sweet play Springsteen at his own game, and Rick Astley is the new Nick Lowe. Perhaps all of this is possible in the world of a performer who, in addition to his psychic-inspired song writing, has also declared he wants be a giant cult.

Or perhaps he's just having a laugh.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth...

Showcasing all the emotional and spiritual depth of a gnat, he struts, pouts and cartwheels through 13 songs like some hyperactive kid in a frenzy of self-absorbed prattle. Just when you think it can't get any worse, any more gormless, or any more contrived, along comes the blue-eyed reggae tosh of 2Mai's Space." Sounding like Cher on helium, this is exactly the kind of abomination Jonathan King used to come up with.

If pop music is meant to be utterly disposable, trivial and forgettable then this record is a triumph.

Nominations For God L

Kent Walton

Three In A Row II: Van Morrison

Saint Dominic's Preview
1972

Hardnose The Highway
1973

Veedon Fleece
1974

Helena Espvall And Masaki Batoh

Across the borders...
Helena Espval & Masaki Batoh
Drag City
Geographical, cultural and musical boundaries are well and truly blurred in this appealing project featuring the enigmatic Japanese guitarist Masaki Batoh (the presence behind avant-psych Ghost) and Swedish born cellist, vocalist and guitarist, Helena Espvall. Based in the USA since 2000 Espvall has plotted an impressively diverse route that has encompassed the terse experimentalism of Eugene Chadbourne and Pauline Oliveros, the pastoral post-rock folkish undertow of the group Espers and even a stint in Vashti Bunyon's US touring group.

Following an encounter with Batoh in 2006, it wasn't until the end of 2007 that the duo finally got together in Tokyo with a varied sequence of songs and improvisations. Glistening production values lend the music a radiant clarity, bringing a sharp focus to some of the traditional Swedish folk tunes they had elected to record. Their vocal harmonising on "Uti Var Hage" and the subsequent meandering postscript is reminiscent of the dreamy wanderings of the Incredible String Band.

A different but no less mesmeric idyll is crafted on the instrumental "Beneath Halo" whose ghostly high-register harmonics from Espvall's cello shiver across Batoh's simple acoustic figure. The understated simplicity of what they do, moving between courtly medieval airs, classical interludes and stripped back folky decoration has the same contemplative qualities which one would attribute to the Penguin Café Orchestra.

Alongside the straightforward songs and ballads on the album there are a couple of improvisations. Given Espvall's previous form (specifically the abrasive, not to say, abusive extremes of her 2006 solo album Nimis And Arx) and Batoh's penchant for experimental, often atonal, improvisation it might have been expected that the sounds resulting from the pair would strip paint at a 100 yards. Instead they've come up with something beautifully fragile, remarkably melodic and dare I say it, charming.

Street LIfe CXXX

A Short Lesson In Boxing

Pressure can be a good thing. Sometimes it impels into things that you'd otherwise not take on. Earlier today a telephone conversation piled the pressure on but in doing so pushed things forward into a new space that ordinarily I might have shied away from.

Tonight Eric O called round to catch up on Saturday's concert, eat a sausage sandwich and, more importantly, helping me get to grips with the Vegas editing system. With Eric on board, what would have taken me hours to decipher and assimilate took minutes. The challenge was to get to grips with the editing process by picking up a bunch of threads on the hard drive, knock it into shape (no matter how chaotic) and from there get it up online. Which we did.

"It'll get easier the more you do it" said Eric. I hope he's right.

Random Penguin XXIX

1954

Ponytail Ice Cream Spiritual

They sing the body eccentric...
Ice Cream Spiritual
Ponytail
We Are Free
With their second album this quartet of precocious noise rockers from Baltimore offer another blurry snapshot of just about every major style that has influenced rock music since the year dot. It’s not unlike hearing every single note of Wagner’s Ring Cycle into three minutes and the odd few seconds. Whilst such an approach is not without its problems, it’s nevertheless an invigorating and eventful three minutes.

Frenetic to the point of seizure, you have to wonder how they manage to do this sort of thing over the course of an hour long show. Just sitting and listening to the dense, compacted material here would be enough to get a sweat on for most of us. The frenzied circular riffs and thumping primitive percussives that form the bedrock of most of the tracks have a thrilling strangeness and coarse angularity. Repeated playing doesn’t appear to dull the quota of surprises either.

“G-Shock” opens with blizzard of serrated notes slamming hard against a torrent of snare drum. This already energetic mix is topped by vocalist Molly Siegal’s yelps and squeals which sit somewhere between B-52s Kate Pierson’s outré whoops and avant-garde era Yoko Ono. Add a measure of atonal Beefheartian shock and awe from guitarist Ken Seeno and you’ve got something that flickers strobe-like between the apparently mutually exclusive worlds of pop, rock and the experimental.

The repeated windmilling guitar on 7 Souls acts like an accelerant to an already volatile mix, as ragged reverb and galloping riffs explode into chaos. Exciting doesn’t really cover it.
“Late For School” bucks the trend a little by opening with a reflective wash of faded-in, fuzzed up guitars. “Celebrate the Body Electric” lasts seven minutes and doffs its cap in the direction of Zappa, drone-rock in general, and the left-behind grease from just about every garage band under the sun.

Siegal’s wordless vocals provides a dissident mixture in what could otherwise pass as an out-take from Tales From Topographic Oceans! That progrock reference isn’t as foolish as it might at first appear. Anyone familiar with Mars Volta or last year’s hit combo, Battles will know that the genre that dare not speak its name is slowly but surely being rehabilitated and reintegrated into polite society.

Never mind the cross-cultural referencing. Perhaps the best thing to do is simply grab this album, turn up the volume and enjoy a turbulent, freefall skydive into the wonderful, crazy, whizzed-up world of Ponytail.

Street Life CXXIX

Signing On And Shipping Out

The last few days I've been feeling under the weather. Nothing specific just a general bleariness and a kind of tiresome ennui (is there any other kind?) that has hung in the air. Despite my desire to take to my bed and watch a bunch of Ealing comedies or Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple (celluloid comfort food if ever there was), there are several pressing deadlines which will not entertain such slacking.

In the afternoon, Declan rang and recharged my failing batteries by verbalising a project which we've been kicking around for ages but which we've not actually named and signed up to. Giving things a name can also give it shape, and with shape comes definition. With definition you get a sense of what you're signing up for.

Why would you sign up to something new when you've already got too many things going on as it is? We sign up to such things because they feel like the right thing to do, that they exude possibility and potential, and because sometimes we're just too bloody stupid to say no.

Pentangling

The first time I heard Pentangle was as the theme music to the 60s BBC drama Take Three Girls, although of course I had no idea who was behind the music at the time.



That came later when I moved into a communal house in the 70s and began getting exposed to the different record collections in the house. In amongst the Traffic albums, Planxty records and Steeleye Span discs was Sweet Child by Pentangle and I fell in love with that gentle mix of folk and jazz.

I never imagined that I would ever get to see the original line-up of Pentangle in performance but after speaking with Danny Thompson on the blower this afternoon, we arrived at The Sage in Gateshead to cheer them on. Although the place was packed to the rafters, I find the large No.1 Hall a little too formal, and so the atmoshere was rather staid I thought. That said the acoustics were spot on the group were on fine form.

I love the sweet and sour combination of Jacqui McShee and Bert Jansch's singing. Given the almost ethereal register of some of the original versions I expected her to struggle but she soared up to those notes with ease. Listening to Danny playing was the mutt's nuts: an expert in knowing when to hold back or throttle up, his bass work was tasteful from start to finish. He's one of the few players whose work is guaranteed to cause the hairs on my neck to stand to attention.

We waited around to thank Danny for a wonderful evening but the crowds for the meet and greet session afterwards were huge. After waiting in line for an age we abandoned the venue in favour of our last bus home.

Nominations For God XLIX

Roy Harper

I'll Be Lightning Liam Finn

More than a chip off the old block...

I'll Be Lightning

Liam Finn

Transgressive

OK let's get this out of the way as quickly as possible: Liam Finn is the son of Crowded House's Neil Finn. Being referred to as the 'son of' must be a double-edged sword. For whatever advantages there may be in having a recognisable name, mention Dweezil Zappa, Jakob Dylan, Julian Lennon and Adam Cohen, and one can't help but do a quick mental comparison with their famous forebears.

The milestones of the father can quickly become the millstone for the son, almost guaranteed to be a burden at the outset of a budding career. If all of that wasn't bad enough, the accolade of being singled out in Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 'top ten artists to watch this year' must add to the gravity of expectation.

The good news is that Finn has emerged with a credible album that would have deserved attention regardless of his illustrious lineage. True there are several songs which would easily fit into the Crowded House set without too much bother; "Remember When" has that bittersweet lilt, and "Fire In Your Belly" glories in those sun-kissed harmonies which are such a part of his old man's outfit. Elsewhere though he goes deep into the shady undergrowth of obsession with the excellent paranoia-pop of "Second Chance" in which the soothing tones become accusatory howls complete with ferocious tub-thumping drums (played, as are most of the instruments, by Finn himself).

"Lead Balloon" bounces happily around in a britpoppy/Blur kind of way until a dramatic change in mood and pace – a trick Finn repeats on several other occasions. The frantic ''I know what I'm looking for'' chorus has him jabbering like a demented Graham Nash before lapsing into a pensive outro. Finn's often obtuse dynamics add a subversive aspect to the material and happily wrong-foot the listener. As the title track belligerently demonstrates this is no introspective mumbling affair but a strident, roughhouse punch of a record.

As a songwriter and performer, Finn's journey may have only just begun but I'll Be Lightning suggests it's going to be an eventful trip.

Three In A Row I: Joni Mitchell

Court And Spark
1974

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
1975

Hejira
1976

She & Him Volume One

Girl Meets Boy...
Volume 1
She & Him
Double Six

The origins of this album sound like a Hollywood romcom. LA actress, Zooey Deschanel - with a clutch of promising cinematic roles to her credit - writes songs in her spare time but keeps them to herself. When guitarist and maverick producer, M. Ward hears her tunes, he declares his love of them and promptly proposes they make sweet music together.

Whilst that story may just be PR puff, it's entirely consistent with the combination of 60s girl group clamour and wistful bygone balladry that makes up the album. All the ups and downs of young romance are faithfully recreated in loving fidelity and a variety of styles to evoke that teary-eyed yesteryear pop ambience. Carole King's "It Might As Well Rain Until September" appears to be a pervasive template as do other Brill Building / Tin Pan Alley showtunes.

There's also a fair amount of endearingly kooky humour in the act. "This Is Not A Test" boasts a parping pursed-lips trumpet solo, whilst on a swooning lounge-style cover of Lennon & McCartney's "I Should Have Known Better," Deschanel can be heard giggling off-mic as Ward's lugubrious voice hams up the chorus.

"Got Me" and the Nick Lowe-ish, "Change Is Hard,2 are shot through with torch song stoicism and oodles of pedal steel guitar that glisten and drip from many other finely-honed chord changes and middle eights. Sure it's light and frothy but it's also impressively graceful in its construction; light on its feet without being lightweight.

Karen Carpenter, KD Lang, Barbara Lewis and others are skilfully conjured but that shouldn't deflect from the fact that Deschanel's warm and affable vocals work really well in their own right. Now that her secret songs are no longer a guilty pleasure, it would be a perfect Hollywood ending for She & Him if Volume One was a summer hit.

This review originally appeared here.

Street Life CXXVIII

Random Penguin XXVIII

1979
Cover illustration by James Marsh

Testing For Buzz LXVII 1968 And All That XVIII

As a child my understanding of what war involved was shaped largely by old movies on the television, All Our Yesterdays presented by Brian Inglis, Commando comics, Action Man and to a certain extent by the commentary of my parents. By and large this was a neatly packaged series of exhcanges, heroic deeds and a gung-ho "Cabbage crates in the briny" kind of war. I think I understood that people - that is civilians - got killed but it was a distant, almost abstract concept that I couldn't really grasp. The nightly reports of the Vietnam war began to change that and I began to see how "real people" were affected by such conflict.

This subtle and not quite understood alteration in how I perceived and understood the world around me was not welcome at all. It undermined the heroic aspects of armed conflict and reduced it to something that was incredibly cruel and vindictive. Beneath the veener of civility and the rules of engagement there lurked this snarling beast that was slipping off the leash. I suppose 1968 marked for me the beginning of my understanding that war of any kind has untold consequences.

I was profoundly disturbed by the images of famine and destruction that were beginning to filter out of Biafra. Whereas war - that is, war filtered through my juvenile lens of nationalistic posterity and fiction - had been something noble and just (although I couldn't have articulated it this way at the time), Biafra seemed to be more about that ravenous uncontrollable brute that would make victims out of whatever it came across. It wasn't fair!

Yet the anger and unease which these images created within me was not fuelled from a righteous indignation about the desperate plight of those children but rather the undermining effect they had upon my idealised fantasy of what war should be like!

In 1968 the real world was seeping through, irrevocably staining and tainting everything it touched.

Visiting

After all that rain yesterday, we managed a day out. First Debbie and I went up to Bernardstrasse to say goodbye to the Quinns who are off to Venice. We are so jealous of them especially as they are staying in the very apartment which Debbie, Alo, Gordon and myself enjoyed back in 2006. Our only word of caution to them was to avoid the Negroni - something which Alo and Debbie conspiculously failed to do...

From Bernardstrasse, we Metro'd into Newcastle so I could pick up a new bag for my impending US trip. After this and yet more rampant consumerism (a pair of trainers no less), we ended up in the newly refurbished Tyneside Cinema.



We went to see The Visitor, directed by Thomas McCarthy whose previous movie, The Station Agent, we both absoultely loved.

Picking up on another set of apparently ill-matched individuals McCarthy subtly explores alienation and the human necessity to connect, something the uptight and bereaved college professor (thoughtfully portrayed by Richard Jenkins) seems unable to do.

The elements of chance which bring people together can also tear us apart and in doing so, Jenkins' character comes painfully to life. As with The Station Agent, sentimentality is avoided via taut performances from Jenkins (and particularly Hiam Abbass) who work expressive wonders with the sparse dialogue.

Siege Mentality

One Listens The Other Doesn't

Nomination For God XLVIII

Dick Emery

A Zoom With A View

Taking a break from the shopping I pause to give the new camera a try out. This is the view of the Dome as I stand by the bus stop at Fitgeralds pub.

And the same view from the same spot following the application of the zoom.

Of course the amount of bells and whistles on this camera compared to my other point-and-press varieties means I'm lost in a maze of buttons, symbols and all manner of techy-looking hieroglyphics.

A Room Without A View

The travel details for the forthcoming trip to America are finalised though a little fine tuning is still required. Enthusiastically opting for a great flight out to Nashville, I’d neglected to leave myself enough time to get from Newcastle to London and the airport in question.

Such unmitigated dumpkopfery means I'm now having to spend a night in an airport hotel the night before. Casting around for a likely place to put my head, I’ve discovered the joys of Yotel. This is not something I’m looking to but it is cheap and well, there’s complimentary wifi.

In The Wake of Technology

In the post this morning...

Lesley called around to snaffle some free Guinea Pig grub from the garden.


After a pot of tea and a chinwag on the lawn, we take the Lumix for a little walk to the end of the street.


Later still Tom and I chat about how technology will change the world in ways we cannot begin to imagine. Tom, who is 17 years old, is seen here holding aloft the premier means of distribution and transmission of music when I was his age, and (in his left hand) what currently does the same job for a lot of young people today.

Random Penguin XXVII

1994