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Previous Journal Entries

"The cords of all link back...strandentwining cable...

"Hello...put me on to Edenville... aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one"

Entries from May 1, 2014 - May 31, 2014

Saturday
May172014

Rockingbirds & record round-up

Another excellent evening at The Palmeira, courtesy of the ever-tasteful Brightmelmstone Promotions: the Rockingbirds did their Brit Americana thing to very good effect.

I was never at the Hope and Anchor or the Nashville in the seventies but last night felt I could have been. There was a definite Brinsley Schwarz pubrock air to this, er, pub rock. Ace pedal steel player Patrick Arbuthnot was even sporting a denim jacket with a sheepskin collar.

Old numbers I knew, like 'Jonathan Jonathan' (a heartfelt tribute to Mr Richman) and 'Time Drives A Truck', nestled up to pleasant newer ones. I have to report that Gram Parsons' 'Return Of The Grievous Angel' was the strongest song of the night - but then it would be in most people's sets. The Rockingbirds' strengths are in their excellent guitarists, cohesion and overall warmth, rather than knock-out writing and singing. They're a lot of fun and well worth seeing.

Meanwhile, some notable records to recommend to you.

I'm still waiting for my CD copy of Wussy's Attica! and will say more when it arrives. But if it's possible to wear out a download, I may well do before then. Glorious stuff. I've also been re-listening to their second album, Left For Dead, courtesy of a very well-produced vinyl reissue, pressed in limited numbers for Record Store Day in the US. You'll have to get Shake It Records to post it to you from Cincinatti, but it's worth it...

I'm similarly listening to an advance MP3 of Two Wings' A Wake, which is due out at the end of the month and sounding very good. I'm looking forward to seeing them play in Brighton on the 27th, and to having a fullsize version of what looks like another lovely piece of cover art from Hanna Tuulikki.

They're competing for listening time with others that I've already mentioned: Ryley Walker's All Kinds Of You, The Hold Steady's Teeth Dreams and Powder Blue's Dream In Black.

Let me add one more to the list: Thus Owls' third release (and first on vinyl) Turning Rocks. They're less out there than when I first encountered them at The Great Escape in 2011, but still distinctive and intriguing. It is a great shame that they appear to have dropped the colon from their name, but then again that has made the first sentence of this paragraph easier to read... Here's a taster

 

Sunday
May112014

Great Escape 2014

Just a paddle in this year's Great Escape festival, after the immersion of recent years.

I knew that other commitments would keep me from wandering the streets and bars of Brighton for the full three days, but I had to sign up when The Hold Steady were added to the bill. I then caught half a dozen other sets and snippets of a few more - but I'm not your source this year for a real overview or 'best of' list.

 I've been following The Hold Steady's records since picking up Separation Sunday six or seven years ago but haven't had the chance to see them live before. I was doubtful whether a 45 minute festival slot might not suit what can be a discursive narrative style to front man Craig Finn's songs, but I needn't have worried.

They were tight, focused and powerful, using every minute to good effect. The opening chords of the next song rang out before the crowd had time to acknowledge the last. Finn was pumped up and bouncing, striding up to the edge of the stage and shouting off-mic, clearly enjoying being free from the constraints of guitar duties now Steve Selvidge has joined the band.

The set was a seamless blend of the punchiest stuff from this year's Teeth Dreams - including opener 'I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You' and the lovely 'Big Cig' - with some irresistible older classics. Six albums in, they're a band with a back catalogue to kill for: 'Constructive Summer', 'Sequestered In Memphis', 'Your Little Hoodrat Friend' and 'Chips Ahoy!' all featured, and all sounded as fresh and crunchy as ever. The last of these - a tall tale of a girl who can foresee the winners of races - was briefly introduced with:

This is a song about a boy and a girl and a horse...

and that was about as chatty as Craig allowed himself to be, before a slightly longer paean to the joys of going out and joining a rock crowd, instead of sitting at home with electronic devices, as he led the way to 'Spinners'. Another of the stronger songs from the current album, it's a movingly uncynical portrayal of the ups and downs of a single-again girl going back to the city scene:

She's two years off some prairie town.

She dresses up and she spins around.

Little looks and smaller talk.

Heartbreak hurts but you can dance it off.

It was really good to see a band so full of fire and enthusiasm at a stage in their career when they might have hoped to be bigger. Finn's lyrics are intricate, perceptive and clever - but also often very funny. I still smile whenever I think of the hapless narrator of 'Sequestered In Memphis' being interrogated about the aftermath of a one-night stand:

In bar-light, she looked all right.

In daylight she looked desperate.

But that's all right - I was desperate too.

I'm getting pretty sick of this interview...

If I'm not preaching to the already-converted, why not give that song a try?

I'd already got my money's worth from The Great Escape after three quarters of an hour from The Hold Steady, but what else can I tell you?

Finnish heavy metal band the Von Hertzen Brothers were exactly what that description will bring to mind, and were not for me, I fear.

I very much liked Ethan Johns' work on Laura Marling's last album and he obviously has a fine pedigree from producer father Glyn. But I was left unmoved by his tasteful but formulaic Americana, 'there's a red moon on the rise', etc. 

I had better luck on Saturday afternoon. One of the joys of festival-going is hearing styles of music you don't normally listen to, and Poland's Rebeka - a synth and beats based electro-pop duo - were certainly in that category.

They won me over with a high-energy set, dramatic vocals (occasional echoes of Donna Summer?) and strong stage presence.

Singer Iwona Skwarek drew things to a conclusion with:

We are quite wet now so we have to finish

but an enthusiatic crowd at the Green Door Store were ready for more.

Earlier, I'd caught a couple of bands in what seems to have become a traditional Canadian session at the Blind Tiger Club. A man from Alberta Music praised the federal and provincial governments for the amount of support they provide for this sort of activity: apparently Canada is 37th in a list of the world's countries by population and 8th by music exports...

Anyway, Calgary's Boreal Sons had a nice manner and some carefully wrought songs - though the lyrics were a bit too overwrought and sensitive for my taste (shirt cuffs brushing dust motes from window sills and the like).

But my top discovery of this year were the band that followed them: Powder Blue, from Saskatoon. They were billed as psychedelic rock and I also caught elements of shoegaze, Krautrock and even Jesus and Mary Chain-style surf in the mix. It's a tight, drony, layered sound, shorn of any luxuriation in melodic soloing. I found myself mesmerised by Amber Kraft's drumming - an object lesson in precision, attack and sheer brutality. She put me in mind of Free's Simon Kirke in his pomp, both for the sound and the way she disappeared behind a curtain of hair, absorbed in pulverising the kit. And full marks to keyboard player Elsa Gebremichael for a pretty good effort when the pair swapped instruments for one number.

Anyway, the band have an excellent mini-album out, Dream In Black - available on appropriately powder blue vinyl, as well as on cassette. Pretty cool artefacts, I'd say.

There's a taster below. 'Go On Forever' sounds attractively like it could do just that.