You’ll probably know by now that I love the music of Neil Young – the loud, the soft, the tender and the fierce – so it’s no surprise that I like the music of Crosby, Stills and Nash, who have been Neil’s musical collaborators on and off for more than forty years. But I have a problem with them: I don’t think they’ve written a really good song for more than thirty years and I suspect I’m not the only fan who feels this way. And that means that their concerts tend towards the greatest hits package shows that concentrate on their ‘golden years’ of roughly 1968-74. That’s fine if you’ve never seen an artist before, but it begs the question why you’d go more than once, to put it bluntly. After seeing CSN last summer at the Royal Albert Hall, thanks to my friend Nice One blagging a very plush box there, I asked myself that question when they announced Albert Hall dates again this summer.
I trumped the question by deciding to go to Paris to see them at the historic Olympia music hall there, while the rest of the family were camping in windy Kent. I wasn’t expecting a very different show, but the change of scenery would be good and I’d like a couple of days to see something of Paris.
After checking into my cheap but cheerful hotel just north of the Tuileries, I headed off for a bit of gallery-strolling and a few beers before meeting up with MoMo and the other French CSN-loving internauts before the show. First beer stop was Au Trappiste near Châtelet, where I met JJ for a couple of Leffe Blondes and a delicious gueuze. Then we headed to the Brasserie Capucine, right opposite the venue, to meet up with MoMo, The Suit, N and all the other Gens Ordinaires. The place was a wee bit smart for my liking but, hey, they serve beer and it was but a short stagger to the Olympia.
JJ had scored us wonderful seats right in the middle of the third row, so we grabbed more beer and sat down expectantly. The trio strolled onstage to huge applause and, backed by their band which included veteran drummer Joe Vitale and Crosby’s son James Raymond, they launched into Woodstock.
Hmmm, here comes my first mini-moan – why start with a cover version? OK, it was played and sung very well, it’s the song of a generation, yadda yadda, but it’s not their song. Isn’t there something of their own material that would suffice – particularly as I knew that their set (like last year) was to be punctuated by a variety of cover versions? Oh well…* Next was a rocking Military Madness, one of my favourite Nash songs. I’m not quite sure why, as some of the lyrics are a bit poky, but the riff is good and the sentiment fine, which will do.
The rest of the electric set was skilfully served up by the band, with Stephen taking solos at the front of the stage while David and Graham were content to see mainly to their vocal duties. Bluebird, Marrakesh Express, Southern Cross and Neil’s Long May You Run were all toe-tappingly fine, but eclipsed by an excellent twosome to close the electric set – Déjà Vu and Wooden Ships, possibly my favourite two CSN(Y) songs. I was actually enjoying it more than I thought I might, and a couple of interval beers helped the mood too as the trio came out for the acoustic second set.
First off was a perfectly executed Helplessly Hoping, which was great, but then coveritis took hold again – Norwegian Wood (with an unfortunate, utterly off-key solo from Stephen), Girl From The North Country and Ruby Tuesday all followed. Now they’re all fine songs in their own right but, again, aren’t there enough C, S and N songs to fill a show? The answer, it seems, is that CSN have been ensconced in the studio with producer-magician Rick Rubin and are recording or have recorded an album of cover versions (and there are surely better songs by The Who than Behind Blue Eyes, which they likewise covered later in the set).
There are two cynical conclusions to draw from that: first, that Rubin heard what original material they had written and told them bluntly that it wasn’t up to scratch; or secondly, they really need one more big-bucks mainstream AOR album out there before they retire (if indeed the rock ‘n’ roll generation can or will retire), and a craftily selected range of covers will keep many more baby boomers vaguely happy than keep a small group of people extremely happy that CSN have recorded their own stuff. As I said, that could just be the cynic in me.
There was plenty on the second set to admire, though. Guinnevere was beautifully sung by Graham and David, as always, and Cathedral is another song by Graham that I really admire. There’s something naive about the straightforwardness and candour of his lyrics, but the sentiment is spot on:
I’m flying in Winchester Cathedral.
All religion has to have its day,
Expressions on the face of the Saviour
Made me say
I can’t stay.
Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here!
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ
For anyone to heed the call.
So many people have died in the name of Christ
That I can’t believe it all.
I’m no fan of Graham’s more popular numbers, however – Our House is just far too sugary for my palate and final encore Teach Your Children likewise rubs me up the wrong way. Before that, though, we had a good Rock ‘N’ Roll Woman from Stephen, the usual meandering Almost Cut My Hair from Croz and a fine Love The One You’re With as the first encore. The crowd was very enthusiastic and I enjoyed it overall, but there are just too many quibbles, niggles and cavils for me to want to see them again, unless they have something new, strange or different to offer. There you go, I’ve said it. CSN, you’ve been great and thank you for some unforgettable music.
* – Nerdy Rusties** will point out that I didn’t complain when Neil started one of his gigs I saw (in Berlin last summer) with two cover versions – All Along The Watchtower and A Day In The Life. My response? Yeah, well, that’s Neil. He’s a thrillingly unpredictable old bugger – sometimes he’ll turn up and play six or seven new songs, sometimes he’ll start with a safe hit or two, and sometimes he’ll play an entire set of new and difficult material. CSN, on the other hand, are a show band… Hey, and anyway, ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,’ as Ralph Waldo Emerson once so rightly said.
** – obsessive Neil Young fans, of which I’m one.
So was this a gig or not? There was no music, no band and John Cooper Clarke doesn’t sing. It was also part of the Southbank’s London Literature Festival. This included a Brazilian film-maker discussing her documentary, a smattering of Brazilian jazz and two events with truly horrible names: the ‘Litweeter Festival’ and the ‘Story Slam’. God forbid a literature festival should confine itself to, well, literature.
From the literary perspective, yes, JCC’s a poet, but he’s also a bit of a stand-up and he used to be backed by a band, the Invisible Girls (including Martin Hannett on bass and guest appearances from Bill Nelson and Pete Shelley) – I remember back in the 70s enjoying my brother’s copy of Disguise In Love, with the immortal tracks Readers Wives, Psycle Sluts and (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space. So, yes, it’s a gig.
Mr P was keen to come along, as JCC’s acerbic poem Evidently Chickentown appears in the first pages of Mr P’s now burgeoning commonplace book (and thanks to Mr P for the ethereal photo – left). The two of us took our seats and enjoyed a good hour-and-a-half of gags, daft observations, ranting verse and more from ‘the bard of Salford’. The gags are mostly crap – not that the audience minds – and the observations are those of a man who spends much of the day watching TV (‘GMTV? Stands for “Give Me The Valium!”‘). Actually, not all of the gags are crap. He spieled about ‘health and safety’, before observing, ‘Those ancient Greeks didn’t care for health and safety – a cyclops and a unicorn? That’s a f***ing accident waiting to happen…’
It’s the poems that form the heart of the show, though, and what I like about his material is how he delights in words and phrases – unusual ones, ordinary ones and everything in between. In this he reminds me very much of Mark E Smith (indeed JCC’s often supported The Fall in concert) in his appetite for a certain richness of language. There’s a lot in both of them of the auto-didact’s verbal peculiarities that nevertheless hit the mark. And there’s no better display of JCC’s talents than perennial favourite Beasley Street:
Vince the ageing savage
Betrays no kind of life,
But the smell of yesterday’s cabbage
and the ghost of last year’s wife,
Through a constant haze
of deodorant sprays,
He says… retreat,
Alsatians dog the dirty days
Down the middle of Beasley Street…
People turn to poison,
Quick as lager turns to piss,
Sweethearts are physically sick
Every time they kiss,
It’s a sociologist’s paradise,
Each day repeats,
Uneasy, cheasy, greasy, queasy
… beastly, Beasley Street.
Not content with resting on his laureate’s laurels, JCC has updated the poem to reflect the upward mobility of modern Manchester (and possibly Salford) but, with his eye, he’s not fooled by appearances – here’s a bit of Beasley Boulevard:
The Hoxton fin
With a nervous trim
And a fragrant disregard,
It’s an urban splash-art ghetto gym
Beasley Boulevard…
Anything could happen
But it hardly ever does,
There’s a pub but the regulars are barred,
Nobody there to harsh your buzz
On Beasley Boulevard…
He’s a unique talent, but not getting any younger. A sad note of the evening was his mention of the passing of Chris Sievey aka Frank Sidebottom, his long-time pal and collaborator. But old age holds no fear for JCC. He alluded to the famous Dylan resemblance, but said instead, ‘These days, my rock star looks make me perfect as Ron Wood’s decoy – and believe me, that Jo packs a hell of a punch…’ And as for his new passport photo, he commented, ‘My face looks like that of a man whose obituary ends with the words, “… before turning the gun on himself.”‘ Brilliant stuff.
Here’s a clip of Evidently Chickentown used as a Sopranos ending:
The inaugural Leadenhall Market Americana Festival was an all-dayer on Saturday July 10th, but I couldn’t make that, so I settled for second best – going to one of the lunchtime and post-work ‘curtain raisers’ during the week before. I decided on Rod Picott and Amanda Shires, as their brand of country-folk balladry very much appeals.
I hotfooted it from work to get there for 5.30, dived into the lovely Lamb Tavern, where I saw Gig Mike waiting at the bar. Having strong-armed him into buying me a pint, I settled in front of the stage as the City suits enjoyed a few pints after spending the day crippling the world’s finances and lining their own Italian silk pockets with filthy lucre.
Rod and Amanda took the stage, said hello and started off with Rod singing Gone from his 2004 album Girl From Arkansas, followed by Broke Down from his fine (and recently rereleased) 2001 album Tiger Tom Dixon’s Blues. The song was co-written with one of my favourite singer-songwriters, Slaid Cleaves, who grew up with Rod in South Berwick, Maine.
During the song, a confused-looking ‘street person’ holding a red balloon crossed in front of the stage, scowling. He turned to Rod, who was singing away, and slowly raised his middle finger to him. He then wandered off but quickly came back and started yelling garbled extracts from 99 Red Balloons. Rod and Amanda could barely keep a straight face. After the song, Rod said that he’d grown used to dealing with critics…
Then both of them sang Gettin’ To Me from Tiger Tom Dixon’s Blues before Amanda sang a lovely version of Angels And Acrobats from Rod’s Stray Dogs album and also also her West Cross Timbers CD. Their manner is easy, though it belies some seriously good talent, with Rod on guitar and Amanda on fiddle. Their voices work well together and Rod’s songs are superficially simple, but there’s a fine artistry at work in constructing such straightforward but effective ballads. And Rod’s voice improved after a kindly audience member bought him a pint.
They romped through the excellent River Runs and Gun Shy Dog before Rod introduced a new song he’d co-written with Slaid, possibly called Some Things You’re Born To. It was good. Alas, at this point I had to leave, but I’d enjoyed Rod and Amanda’s company, the beer and the prospect of listening to some more of their stuff in future.
© Jane Donald 2010
The set wasn’t very different from those of last December as it wasn’t part of a tour but a one-off benefit gig for Brian O’Connor, Homme’s musician buddy who has cancer but insufficient medical coverage to get treatment – don’tcha love the US of A? The main gripe The Suit had with the set last December was that there was little change of pace or volume during the show, and I suppose the same was true this time around. But when the music’s this good, I’m not complaining.
We did get one new song, which was fine, though the night was dominated by the big numbers from the album – No One Loves Me And Neither Do I, Scumbag Blues, the riff-fest Elephants and Mind Eraser, No Chaser. The crowd was very much into it, which seemed to give the band a little more interaction than last year. The pace did slacken slightly with Interludes With Ludes and a noodly though good solo by guitar back-up Alain Johannes, but the highlight of the night was album closer Spinning With Daffodils and a fabulous extended keyboard solo from JPJ – quite took me back to his massive No Quarter solos with Led Zeppelin. When Dave Grohl crashes in at the end, it’s a mighty righteous sound.
It’ll be interesting to see if they can take the sound further with a second album – their hugely diverse output elsewhere suggests scope for variety – but for now what they serve up is quite fine enough. After encore New Fang, they waved goodbye to a huge roar, having well and truly rocked the house.
In the ultimate book of rock ‘n’ roll (to be published in 2110, just after the end of the 45-year-long Great Oil Wars), the Georgia Satellites will appear in a tiny footnote to a paragraph about Southern Rock in the 1980s. In fact, main-man Dan Baird‘s association with the group – who had a hit in ’86 with Keep Your Hands To Yourself – lasted exactly the ten years from 1980 to 1990, when he decided to leave the band and go his own way.
Southern Rock often gets a bad press for being dumb and r*dn*ck, but this is unfair. For every Confederate-flag-waving loon with a geetar, there’s a musician working away at a particular white take on rock ‘n’ roll, while being steeped in the black music tradition of the South. Little Feat were perhaps the greatest exponents of this cultural mix, while in recent times the Drive-By Truckers (and especially ex-Trucker Jason Isbell) have injected some serious soul into good-time boogie and rock ‘n’ roll. And this is where the Dan Baird fits in too (photo left – thanks to The Suit for the pics).
I was somewhat nervous about how many middle-aged Status Quo fans were in the audience. They might have been expecting an evening of repetitive twelve-bar boogie, but what was delivered was a very entertaining set of loud, fun rock ‘n’ roll with a Southern twist. The crowd loved it, so perhaps I’m being unfair to Quo fans – among whom I’d include The Suit, who has made the ill-advised decision to go to the Cropredy Festival this year to witness the likes of Quo, Rick Wakeman and others too ghastly to mention.
There were lots of oldies to keep the audience singing along – Nights Of Mystery, I Love You Period and, of course, Keep Your Hands To Yourself – and Dan seemed to be enjoying himself, as did guitar sidekick Warner Hodges (left), drafted in to the Homemade Sin a few years ago to join ex-Satellites bassist Keith Christopher and drummer extraordinaire Mauro Magellan. I last saw Warner in his ‘day job’ with Jason and the Scorchers, and his antics were just as entertaining tonight, with his over-the-shoulder guitar-slinging and maniacal solos.
In keeping with the soulful undercurrent, they played a great cover of Tears Of A Clown, while the other two of this evening’s covers – The Ramones’ I Wanna Be Sedated and Bob’s Like A Rolling Stone – show just how versatile they are. All great fun and a wonderfully energetic way to finish the weekend.
Hop Farm Festival, Paddock Wood, Kent, July 3rd 2010
Two years ago, the first Hop Farm Festival featured a storming headlining set from Neil Young, but as a one-day festival it had its drawbacks – the main one being the inability of most people to get out of the car-park for two or three hours after the show. This year, the festival included camping and had spread to Friday night too, but I wasn’t tempted by Friday’s headliner, Van Morrison. Last time I saw him nearly twenty years ago he seemed to be almost as bored as I was. It was dull and I left, vowing never to see him again.
Saturday’s headliner was Bob Dylan, with Ray Davies in the number two slot, which was very tempting – and the addition of special late trains back to London sealed it for me, so I got myself a cheap day-ticket, a cheap day return on the train, lots of suntan lotion, a hat and a bottle of water. Devendra Banhart, Tunng and Pete Molinari were also on the bill, so it was worth making a day of it, and I met up with Big Steve and his missus, both of them avid Dylan fans.
A quick real ale in the Bread And Roses beer tent at the back of the main arena brought back memories of the Neil Young show two years ago, with its pouring rain which necessitated staying in the bar between Everest’s opening set and Neil’s brilliant set some seven hours later. As it turned out, this was my penultimate beer of the day – the queues for the bars were huge and didn’t get any shorter, so I stuck to re-filling my water as it was scorchingly hot until late into the evening.
I heard some of the early acts from a distance – Foy Vance and the Magic Numbers, who created a pleasant background to my wandering around the stalls and doing some people-watching. I was struck by the range of ages there, but I suppose you could have come along to see, say, Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons and Pete Doherty, without caring a hoot for Ray and Bob. They were also lots of old geezers getting very drunk, so I felt strangely in the middle of the age range, which is unusual for my gig-going.
The first act I actually wanted to see up-close was Chatham troubadour Pete Molinari, a fine exponent of country-blues-folk-rock-‘n’-roll of the old-fashioned variety. However, things in the big tent (the second stage) were already running so late by mid-afternoon that I positioned myself right near the front just as the act before Pete was about to come out… which allowed me to see up close the full horror that is Alan Pownall. 
Not that he looked horrific – far from it, he might well be the world’s vainest man – just look at his bloody picture (left). However, everything about his act was horrible: his coiffed matinee idol ‘good looks’, his well-rehearsed naughty boy pout, the casually casual clothes, the tedious 80s-style lounge-soul that his band played, his dull ballady songs, the stupid (and probably expensive) neon sign with his name illuminated on it at the front of the stage, and finally the smiley young men who came out after his set to hand out promo posters and glossy cards to the crowd. It all smacked of record company cash backing a man of limited talent, and lots of posh boys using daddy’s money to play at the ‘music biz’, which, if they hadn’t noticed, is dying – music’s alive and well, but this crappy slick record-label marketing biz increasingly doesn’t work any more. Bleeurgh!
Seeing Pete Molinari was a blissful contrast to this soulless tripe. About a dozen members of his family (seemingly including mum, dad, siblings, cousins and relatives from Malta) were right down the front too, and they cheered proudly as he took to the stage. Pete grinned back at them and launched into his set, which was anything but slick – his amp didn’t work at first and then his guitar strap broke, which he laughed off and carried on, supported by his fine band. His brand of rocking folk-blues isn’t unique, but he creates an attractive and individual mixture of all that’s best from the music of the Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan.
I suppose the nearest equivalent this side of the pond would be Elvis Costello in his earlier T-Bone Burnett phase back in the mid-80s. Like Costello, Pete managed to attract interest from some of the old greats of American music and got The Jordanaires to back him on his Today, Tomorrow And Forever EP last year. 
His latest album, A Train Bound For Glory, is just out, and this set gave us a taster of some of that album’s songs – and the verdict is they’re rockier, which is all good. Pete’s also let his hair grow back to curly black rather than slicked back, though he is wearing the fetching red and blue polka-dot shirt seen on the album cover (left).
There was lots to like about Pete’s set, including a lovely version of relative oldie Absolutely Sweet Louise, catchy new songs New York City, Streetcar Named Desire and What A Day, What A Night, What A Girl, and a positively Stonesish rocking version of Joe South’s Walk A Mile In My Shoes. Great stuff.
By now, things were running seriously late, so I’d (mercifully) missed Pete Doherty and Seasick Steve on the big stage. The information desk posted up new timings and I realised that I’d miss seeing Tunng if I wanted to see Ray Davies, which was a shame, but Devendra was now pencilled in for 11.00pm, after Bob’s set, so that would be worth a look. I decided that if I wanted to be near the front for Ray and Bob, I’d move in as Mumford and Sons finished, as I figured a lot of younger folk would want to bugger off to buy drink and so on at that point – leaving the oldies to move in.
That meant listening to Mumford and Sons relatively up-close and, boy, were they disappointing. Lots of speedy kerching-kerching on acoustic guitars and although they’ve been described as indie-folk, that’s nonsense. A mandolin, dobro and accordion do not a folk band make. They’re indie, full stop. And they do the same quick/slow, quiet/loud routine that I railed against Grizzly Bear for. These anthemic songs with stirring crescendos get so tiring after a while and I’m surprised that the crowd can keep up with so many musical mini-orgasms. I certainly can’t…
Anyway, enough impure thoughts – it was time to listen to Ray Davies, the king of the Kinks. The old curmudgeon wandered onstage and launched into a set packed with Kinks hits, played with great punch by his band – Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, All Day And All Of The Night, You Really Got Me, the lovely Days and the dubious Apeman, sung in a cod Caribbean accent, which just made it even more dubious. It was all good fun, but Ray’s an awkward performer, not knowing whether or not to enjoy himself or stir the crowd up without just whooping at them. Such a festival set also lays bare just how painfully empty his song cupboard is after the early 70s – Come Dancing really won’t cut the musical mustard, I’m afraid.
Being a curmudgeon, Ray had to moan about something and, not content with dissing Bob by saying that some of the big acts on the bill don’t live in gated communities, he then had a right go at promoter Vince Power for getting his people to tell Ray to leave the stage. Everything was running late, so I presume a request for ‘one more song’ came from stage right. Ray exploded and said he was going to carry on f***ing playing and hadn’t met any promoter who was so rude and that he’d worked with Bill Graham back in the day and Bill was a real gentleman… You get the picture.
The funny thing was he soon changed his tune, despite carrying on playing. He must have realised that this was a big gig for him these days, so it doesn’t make a great deal of sense to bite one of the few hands that’s feeding you. After the next song he said how much he appreciated ‘Hop Fest’ and remembered going hop-picking when he was a lad. Later he wished the ‘Hop Fest’ great success in the future, thus completing one of the greatest onstage ‘reverse ferrets’ I’ve ever witnessed.
After a short break, Bob and his band came on, dressed in dapper suits very much in the manner of Neil Young’s Prairie Wind outfits. We were treated to a disappointingly curtailed set, but one played wonderfully by the band, as they took old songs and gave them stylistic twists to breathe new life into them. Things started well with a rollicking Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, where it seemed the whole crowd joined in with ‘Everybody must get stoned’ – and by the smell of the front area, the demand was likely to be fulfilled…
Oldies Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right, Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again, Just Like A Woman and Simple Twist Of Fate received their radical re-workings, but much of the crowd seemed unaware that this is Bob’s way. Many also seemed ignorant of Bob’s vocal eccentricities these days, which is odd, because he’s been singing like this for years now. And you get used to it – of course he can’t sing like he once did, which is a shame, but it doesn’t mean he should shut up for ever.
Bob and the band also played fine versions of more recent songs such as High Water (For Charley Patton) and Honest With Me from Love And Theft, Workingman’s Blues #2 and Thunder On The Mountain from Modern Times, and one of the few really good songs he wrote in the 80s, Blind Willie McTell. It was nice to see how many of the younger folks up front knew the songs – old and new – although given Bob’s vocal style, it’s not advised to attempt to sing along, though many tried.
It’s all a long way from when I saw Bob for the first time, at Earl’s Court in 1978. That was a magical evening and it can’t be matched, which is perhaps a shame, but there’s no point worrying about the trials and tribulations of the ageing process – they’re going to happen to us all unless we fall under a tram first. The last two songs were the hugely predictable Like A Rolling Stone and Forever Young, and the crowd streamed off into the night – many of them towards the big tent to catch Devendra Banhart’s set. I did likewise briefly, but then had to hop on a shuttle bus to get one of the late special trains back to London. Oh, and I managed to grab a pint just as I was leaving, to make it a heady two pints for the day. Cheers!
Hippy Nick and I met up with our old friend the Beloved Entertainer and had a fantastic lunch at Zucca in Bermondsey. You should go – it’s the best ‘modern’ Italian meal you’re likely to get in London without having to pay an arm and a leg for it (for the best value trad Italian, go to the Ristorante Trevi at Highbury Corner, and if you’re lucky you won’t bump into Tony Parsons). We then had to dash to a pub to watch the Brazil v Holland World Cup game in the afternoon, but after the Beloved E almost got into an altercation at one boozer, we had to go to the lovely Horseshoe Inn off Snowsfield to see the rest of the game. Well done, Holland. And well done to the Ringwood Brewery for some delicious beer.
Our arrival at the Dulwich Hamlet Football Club bar at 7ish was timely, as Astral and Mr P were just about to head in. As you can probably tell, this wasn’t going to be the sort of evening where I took notes, so there’ll be no setlist for this review, just a rave – Eliza Carthy is a brilliant entertainer as well as being a fine folk fiddler and singer. And Saul Rose is the perfect accompaniment to Eliza’s up-front playing and talking – more diffident, but dry and amusing.
Back in March, I sang Eliza’s praises, not just as a folk artist but also a (reluctant) defender of the folk tradition against ignorance and stupidity – both from a bunch of little-England fascists, and from stupid faux-liberal Guardianistas. 
Incidentally, for all the hot air and tribal-political bluster post-election, I still think there has been too little attention paid to the comprehensive trashing of the BNP in that election. For me, that gives more reason to celebrate than whether or not my favoured man did or didn’t get the keys to No. 10. Good on England, I say. And kudos to Folk Against Fascism for being there and continuing to take a stand.
The hot and sticky evening seemed not to slow Eliza and Saul down as they raced through a raucous set of traditional tunes, old songs and Eliza’s own numbers. Her voice is strong and tender, while her fiddle-playing is powerful, swinging and expressive. Saul is a wonderful exponent of the melodeon, getting shades of sounds out of it that you wouldn’t think possible. But they both wear their proficiency lightly, which is how it should be, and their banter is just right for a summer crowd about to ‘break up’ from The Goose Is Out club until the autumn. Many thanks to Sue and Nyge for putting on some cracking shows.
Jeff Tweedy, Union Chapel, Islington, June 30th 2010
Jeff Tweedy is not a well-loved character in our household. In fact, it’s fair to say that Astral loathes him. I don’t warm to him – and there’s more of his band Wilco‘s output that I dislike rather than like – but my feelings are less hostile than hers. What’s more, I saw a lot of the band up-close when I went over to the USA in December 2008 to see five Neil Young shows on the East Coast.
Wilco were supporting Neil (as were the fine Californian band Everest, who have just released a good new album), so I saw them night after night. What impressed me about them is also what makes me not love them – they are tight, eminently versatile, impeccably rehearsed and extremely self-assured on stage. And that goes against my ingrained English Midlands psyche – anything this confident and slick is not quite on the level. We may have loved superstars like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but listen to some of their live shows and you can hear just how raw and rough around the the edges they were. That made them more ‘real’, man…
The other sticking-point with Tweedy is the history of the wonderful 90s band Uncle Tupelo and its other main architect, Jay Farrar, who went on to form Son Volt. The nasty break-up of Uncle Tupelo has been well-documented elsewhere and in these situations no-one’s all right or all wrong, but I’ve always felt that Farrar resolved the conflict better by effectively starting all over again. And I’ll still maintain that the first three Son Volt albums, Trace, Straightaways and Wide Swing Tremolo are better in their own right and as successors to Uncle Tupelo’s legacy than Wilco’s first three. Finally, and without wanting to kick up a hornet’s nest, there was something about the life and untimely demise of former Wilco multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett that leaves an unhappy taste in the mouth.
I hope you’ve made it through this long waffle, as it paints the background for what I think and feel about Jeff Tweedy. He’s clearly one of the most talented writers, performers and arrangers of modern ‘rock’, but there’s always a barrier between me and my really liking him. However, the rare chance to see him play solo is one I jumped at. One of my biggest peeves with Wilco is their penchant for burying a song under mountains of instrumental variations, changes of pace, needless ‘bridges’ and so on. Rarely in recent years can you hear the song shine through, and that’s something that just has to happen if you’re going to stand up on stage solo, with just a guitar and a microphone.
Jeff, of course, has six guitars rather than one waiting for him on stage, but The Suit and I, after reserving our fourth-row seats, headed to the Union Chapel’s outside and upstairs bar (left) to indulge in some of their delicious homemade food. I’ve raved about it before, but it really is that good (I had the sweet pepper quiche, new potatoes and green salad). After a couple more pints of 6X, The Suit bought two Cokes for us to pour two JD miniatures into so that we weren’t blatantly breaking the church’s rule on not drinking in there. Hey, if there’s a God, I don’t think he’s going to bring up that little indiscretion at the Crack of Doom. If he does, I’ll know I don’t have too much to worry about.
About the support act – a Geordie stand-up comedian – I’ll simply say ‘wtf?’ Eventually Jeff came on stage to huge applause, fiddled with his microphone, launched into Someone Else’s Song from 1996’s Being There – and promptly fluffed the second line. Not bad for a control freak, but he did seem nervous. He apologised, smiling, and started again. A couple of days ago, my friend the Ragged Norseman suggested that this wasn’t uncommon and might be a deliberate ploy by Jeff to loosen up both him and the audience. Interesting.
Anyway, after Spiders (Kidsmoke) from 2004’s A Ghost Is Born, Jeff invited old British songwriter Bill Fay to join him onstage for a delicate rendition of Fay’s Be Not So Fearful. Not earth-shattering, but it did relax Jeff and he started to exchange a few words between songs, mentioning that his missus and son had been soliciting requests from the audience before the show. It was clear, however, that he intended to ignore nearly all of these requests. He did mention that an ‘asshole’ called David had asked for ‘anything by Dylan’ and proceeded to play Simple Twist Of Fate, followed aptly by Wilco number Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard. Later, he played Uncle Tupelo’s New Madrid, saying that a girl had asked for it and he responded, ‘I’ve done about ten albums since then. Don’t you like the new stuff?’ This knockabout faux-grumpy attitude went down well with the audience.
The rest of the show (apart from a surprising Handsome Family cover, So Much Wine) was a thorough trawl through the Wilco back catalogue, from I’m Always In Love, Via Chicago and A Shot In The Arm from 1999’s Summerteeth, to One Wing from last year’s Wilco (The Album). In between, he included three songs from his Woody Guthrie Mermaid Avenue project, Remember The Mountain Bed, Someday Some Morning Sometime and California Stars, and two from his side-project band Loose Fur, Laminated Cat and The Ruling Class.
We also got ‘crowd favourites’ Muzzle Of Bees, Jesus, etc. and Impossible Germany, though the last of these played solo is slightly weird without Nels Cline’s over-the-top guitar solo in the full band version. Overall, though, I enjoyed the evening, as the solo setting really did strip the songs down to their essentials, but the flipside of that is that it’s quite demanding to sustain audience interest with just guitar and voice. Jeff is a good guitarist and a fine singer, though, but I’m surprised that others found him to be ‘relaxed’ and even ‘cheerful’ at this gig. He’s still very standoffish from where I sit.
The final encore was very good – a front -of-stage PA-less rendition of the lovely Acuff-Rose from the Uncle Tupelo days. You’ll guess that I still prefer the older stuff, though Jeff did most of his songs a favour tonight by letting them shine rather than the band.
This will be mercifully brief. Last summer, The Suit, Sigourney and I went to the Regina Spektor gig at the Serpentine Sessions in Hyde Park. These shows craftily use the second stage and back part of the bigger weekend Hyde Park summer gigs to showcase smaller bands than those that play at the mega event. So we went along to see Regina, had a pleasant beer at the picnic tables outside the big tent… and stayed there for the whole show. It wasn’t that we necessarily didn’t like the show, we just couldn’t be bovvered.
Likewise this year, with the big difference that I most definitely didn’t like the music. Critics have raved about Grizzly Bear’s 2009 Veckatimest album (which I haven’t heard), describing it as ‘compositionally and sonically airtight’, ‘chamber-pop’, ‘intricate’, ‘sophisticated’… you get my drift – I should have seen the warning signs. I ignored my instincts and went along, when I should have trusted my hunches.
They sounded dull, laboured and noodling, and we’ve all heard those swooping harmony things dozens of times in the past few years. In fact, part of me is crying out for a band that says, ‘Our vocalist’s great, but the rest of us? Tone deaf!’ And Grizzly Bear do that annoying soft/loud, quick/slow thing as well… bleurgh! What’s the bloody point? Waste of time. So we drank our beer, made our excuses and left, as the tabloid reporters used to say.
A gorgeous sunny day and a free folk festival down by the seaside – what’s not to like? The four of us packed our suntan lotion and took the train to the coast, accompanied by hordes of Londoners heading to Southend to get greasy chips, strong lager and severe sunburn. Leigh, however, is one stop before Sarfend and a little bit more genteel – not that you can’t get a decent pint of cockles and whelks there.
But first the music… Those lovely people at Rif Mountain were hosting events in ‘the Clarendon’, which is not, despite its name, a pub, but a wooden meeting hall next to the Crooked Billet, the best pub in Leigh (there are four pubs in a 200-yard stretch along the old High Street, which is good). I popped in just as Wolfgang and the Wolf Gang were striking up some serious folk drone. This impromptu band, partly hidden behind wolfy masks, comprised Rif Mountain luminaries Jason Steel, Dom Cooper, Steve Collins and some of their chums. They were great – lots of psych-folk chanting, hypnotic percussion and sitar – and I hope they can put some more of this stuff together in the future. The website promises ‘more soon, when the fog clears.’ We made sure to grab one of the thirty free CDs on offer, though.
It was now getting seriously hot and we were fanning ourselves like Italian grandmothers in church as Jason Steel took to the stage in his solo guise. He played pretty much the same songs as when we’ve seen him a couple of times recently, including The Bonny Black Hare and Goodnight, Irene, but, by golly, he played them well. His soft but spooky voice lends a power to even the simplest of songs, and his guitar- and banjo-playing are excellent.
After a bit of Drohne, aka Philip Martin and his hurdy-gurdy, I was in sore need of another pint, so joined the queue outside the Crooked Billet. Entertaining and talented trad-folk duo Vicki Swann and Jonny Dyer were playing on the outdoor Billet Wharf stage across the road, but were soon interrupted by the lunchtime parade of Morris sides, folk dancers, weirdly dressed oddballs and assorted mummers, fakirs and fiddlers. It was all a lot of fun and, after a spot of lunch, we caught some of Megson’s set before Humungous and I decided it was time to find a pub showing the Germany v England World Cup game on a big screen.
The Crooked Billet had a tiny telly, so we walked to the other end of the old High Street to Ye Olde Smack Inn. I trust that’s ‘smack’ the boat rather than ‘smack’ the heroin, but with English seaside resorts you can never be quite sure these days. Anyway, this seemed to be where most of the Essex geezers were gathering, so we joined them for two hours of miserable football, shouting, swearing and lots of drinking. Bloody England…
Astral and Mr P had avoided the big sporting occasion and were enjoying the sunny afternoon by Billet Wharf (left), where we’d miss both Alasdair Roberts and Nancy Wallace, which is a shame, but there’ll be other opportunities. We did, however, catch Anglo-American couple Cath and Phil Tyler, who put on a great set of stirring American and British folk songs. Phil’s from north-east England while Cath’s the American, and you can tell that her roots go back far. She’s a follower of the ‘sacred harp’ tradition of strong harmony singing and used to be in long-standing US folk-punk band Cordelia’s Dad (one of whose current members, Tim Eriksen, is making a trip to London soon – I must go and see him). The power of their playing and singing is obvious from the first moment, and there are no pointless embellishments. In fact, their music is simple – which is not easy. I like this comment about them by Frances Morgan of Plan B magazine: ‘It’s a weird looking-glass effect many folk fans will be familiar with: the straighter you play it, the stranger it gets…’
After a couple more pints and a hearty ‘tea’, we caught the train home, having enjoyed a lovely folky day at the seaside. Leigh puts on a fun and friendly festival and all for nowt. We’ll definitely try to be back next year. Here’s a shaky video of Nancy Wallace on the Billet Wharf stage performing I Live Not Where I Love:
A Gig's A Gig 