Bucketfull Of Brains

Dateline Jan 28th 2012: News from BoB Towers (Finally)

2012-01-28T16:37:00.000Z

So, hello. Where’ve you been? Oh, where’ve we been? Around...

Is it that long since 78/79 landed? Guess so. Have you got it? No? Quickly here, there aren’t many left. What’s been happening? Well Richard Buckner and Sacri Cuori were pretty ace, alone and together. Danny Champ and Richard Warren. Jason McNiff just last Monday at the Borderline. Taking Ben Folke Thomas to see Glen Campbell. The Loft. Pete Wylie being Pete Wylie. Jones and Simonon and Primal Scream doing ‘Jail Guitar Doors’. There’ve been moments but it’s been a hiatus, and now before nature abhors this vacuum too much let’s see some activity.

First activity is announcements from the record label of no less than three upcoming releases between now and May:

First off is a reissue of Trent Miller’s Cerberus (BoB 112). Originally self-released on his own Hangman Label in autumn 2009 it’s now getting a new push with a listed release date of 5th March. Visit his website and learn more about it.

Then we’re very pleased to be giving a UK and European release to Edward Rogers’ Porcelain (BoB 121) originally put out in the US and Canada on Zip last autumn. This is Ed’s fourth solo album and as ever it features a plethora of New York’s finest. Due 2nd April.

And then, drum roll if you don’t mind, we’re extremely pleased to announce we’re putting out John Murry’s The Graceless Age (BoB 122) on 7th May. An extraordinary record. You may recall World Without End which John recorded with the old Memphis folkie Bob Frank; this is the solo album he’s been working on since. It involves a number of famed SF musicians including Chuck Prophet and it’s going to make some waves.

All that is just bare bones (and a few links) for today but over the next days and weeks we’ll surely be posting a lot of (metaphorical) meat.

Rivington Street - Richard Warren

2011-10-03T17:41:00.001+01:00

Track 1 of The Wayfarer
From the Stripped- down Mixes available free as a cover-mount CD with the upcoming issue of Bucketfull Of Brains

A New Magazine, A Free CD: Oh Yeah

2011-10-03T17:18:00.001+01:00

If you've been following our doings on the some of the other sites where we're active you'll have picked up that there's a new issue about to surface. And coming on the 11th October is our spanking new double issue.

Now those of you who've been paying attention for a while know that spanking double issues come with gifts, and this time we have one hell of a gift.

Our good friend RICHARD WARREN is about to release his new album THE WAYFARER, and it's an absolute corker. What's more having recorded it he's made a whole separate 'stripped-down' mix of it and given it to us. And we've stuck copies of it on the cover of this new issue. Plus we've really gone to town on stories, filled more pages, and bought in a couple of new young Turks (possibly stretching veracity there a little).

So not only do we have features on Richard but also:

THE BASEBALL PROJECT, PHIL OCHS, MATT PIUCCI, DAN STUART & THE SLUMMERS, BAND OF OUTSIDERS, THE FLAMIN' GROOVIES, MADAM, DOG AGE, JASON McNIFF, JON LANGFORD, PAUL COLLINS, THE HOT KNIVES,and DENNIS DIKEN of THE SMITHEREENS

Not to mention a few wacky little pieces on other folk, and the strangest set of reviews you'll have seen for a while.

The mag will be available hither and yon but if you press the button below you can order it now straight from us and be sure of getting it sent to you as soon as it's published.

Prices inclusive of postage and packing:
UK: £4.50, Europe: £6.00, USA & ROW: £8.50
Please select appropriate price from drop-down menu

Neal Casal: The 1998 BoB Interview

2011-08-23T23:12:00.001+01:00

I was listening to Danny Champ on Bob Meyer's radio show last night and Neal Casal's name came up. By coincidence I'd come across this interview earlier in the day and thought I should post it. This interview dates back to 1998, and the first time Neal showed up in the UK. It originally appeared in BoB #51 which has been long out of print.

There are two ways of dealing with adversity. One is to wallow in self-pity, to whinge and take on the victim persona; the other is to believe in yourself and your inherent talents, to have another go from an alternative direction. If you take the first option you're probably lost for good; if you take the second it's amazing what you can do. Neal Casal won't thank me for praising him as an exemplar of the latter path, but I want to hold his hand up as a guy who took a heavy blow at a crucial moment in his burgeoning career and who's now back on the tracks stronger than ever.

Neal Casal is a singer-songwriter from New Jersey. He's in his late twenties and he's been playing music for over fifteen years. His parents split when he was young and his childhood was somewhat peripatetic, taking in Georgia, California, Michigan, and upstate New York. As far back as he can remember music captivated him:

"I became obsessed with listening to music as early as I can remember. My first recollections of really loving music was, I must have been three or four, and I had Bill Haley's 'Rock Around The Clock' and Don McLean's 'American Pie', little 45s, made my mother play them and I would dance around on the bed. I remember 'American Pie', goofy song that it is. It's a long story song. I remembered the words even then just affecting me, and those images, I just thought about them a lot. The rhythm of 'Rock Around The Clock' was something I loved."

His Damascus Road moment came when he was thirteen:

"My ma had this little clock radio. One night I heard 'Sympathy For The Devil' coming out of that radio. I just heard that it really sounded dangerous, that guitar solo, Keith Richard's guitar solo that had that very shrill tone, coming out of the little speaker on my mom's radio. The radio was across the room and I almost ran to it, looking at the speaker, like something was happening to it. Then they said it was the Rolling Stones, I just went out and got all their records and that started me. Soon after my dad bought me a guitar, and the minute I got that guitar I knew the direction of my life was solidified right there and then. It was instantaneous. And I still remember the moment."

Back in New Jersey in his mid-teens he started to form bands with school friends:

"I wanted to be a guitar player primarily. I didn't want to sing. I didn't even want to play lead guitar that much. I just wanted to be a rhythm guitar player, because Keith Richard was my main inspiration. I'd read quotes of his: "the best way two guitars work together is when you don't know who's playing what". The identity in the guitar playing gets lost, and I like that idea, instead of the typical lead guitar hero thing which I never really got into".

Singing was initially forced on him:

“Young bands always have trouble finding a singer. There's plenty of drummers, plenty of guitar players, bass players are kind of hard to come by but you can always turn the worst guitar player into a bass player. Never find a good singer though.. Went through all these singers who wouldn't turn up, they'd be off drunk somewhere, and they'd show up three hours late. Finally out of necessity I took control, said I was going to learn how to sing. I started doing that and I burned my voice out there pretty good for a few months, and then I started to get the hang of it. I realised that I just didn't want to play covers anymore. This was the mid-eighties, the town where I grew up if you wanted to play in a band you had to play metal. I wasn't very into that either. So I figured that instead of having to play all these bad eighties covers, any covers, I wanted to start writing my own songs. Sixteen, I wrote my first song, and it never stopped from there. That band turned into an original band, We made a little local record and it all started from there. And the songwriting process became increasingly interesting, and now it's overridden everything else I do. It's the single most important thing I do".

This band, Exire, a pun on Exile as in ...On Main Street, was basically a high school band and on graduating Neal wanted to move on, fearing that he'd find himself stuck in the rut of a local circuit, so he left the band:

" I went to work in a music store, far away from where I lived, in Pennsylvania. There was a guy in there, in his forties, he managed the place, he was a great guitar player, had played with Leslie West, a great electric guitar player in that old Leslie West, Cream-era Clapton school, that thick toned, slow handed kind of style. He was a great acoustic guitar player as well. He heard me play and thought I had something, and I went and worked for him. I studied under him for a year. He was much older and much wiser, and that was what I was looking for. I knew that I had a lot to learn and this guy was a big mentor to me. I was going back to the first music that I loved, sixties stuff, The Stones, Allman Brothers. I saw the Woodstock movie on public television when I was a kid, and I loved all those bands. Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Santana, and where that music leads you. It goes back to the blues, goes back to country music. If you're into the Stones you'd inevitably hear about Gram Parsons, that lets you into a whole other world of Hank Williams, Buck Owens, and Merle Haggard and on down the line. From the Woodstock movie I loved Arlo Guthrie and I found out he's Woody Guthrie's son. So I start listening to Woody Guthrie, and that takes you to Leadbelly and the whole folk tradition that eventually leads you to the English guys, and Led Zeppelin of all bands. I start reading between the lines, Jimmy Page into Bert Jansch. This is what I started with and it got derailed and distracted in the '80s. But I couldn't find band members that wanted to do what I wanted to do. So I just performed by myself. I was making a lot of demos, recording a lot, get musicians to help out, or do it by myself,. I was learning a little about engineering, and how to produce myself, and learning how to sing in the studio".

Neal became friends with Gary Waldman who in time was to become his manager. Through Gary he got a publishing deal with Warner Chappell which allowed him the freedom to go on making demos. On the West Coast Bud Scoppa, then at Zoo Records, got to hear them and immediately took an interest, though he didn't think Neal was ready to be putting records out:

"It took me a couple of years to get to the point where I was ready for a record deal. I could have made a record, I had enough songs, in '91 or '92, but it wouldn't have been a fully realised record. I think if I'd made it then, I would regret it now. So Bud just kept up with me for a couple of years. I did a batch of demos in Summer '94, and he went, 'alright, you're ready to go, do you want to come with me?' "

Neal signed up to Zoo, but before any recording took place Bud Scoppa was gone, the victim of down-sizing. It's often the way that if the guy who signs you goes from a label your days are numbered, but Zoo initially stuck by Neal and he got to make his first album in 1995 in the idyllic surroundings of Palacio Del Rio in Santa Ynez, California. He'd initially been booked into Shangri-La in Malibu where the Band used to record, but Porno For Pyros already in residence refused to leave on schedule. So they were found this other massive place:

"It was this big old Spanish mansion up near Santa Barbara, used to be Dean Martin's house, and Jimmy Stewart's before him. When we got up there, up the mile long drive, and realised that was where we were going to make our record we just about fainted. The place was just insanely huge, about ten bedrooms, a tennis court, pool. Decadent. We set up in the living room, lived there for a month, we held colossal parties, made great music, no record company people were around to spoil the fun. It was really one of the greatest times of my life. David Crosby lived up the road and he came by one day".

The album was produced by Jim Scott and some great people worked on it: apart from a band including John Ginty and Don Heffington, there were guest appearances from Greg Leisz, Julie Christenson, and George Drackoulias:

"That cast of musicians was a dream for me. It started out with Heffington because I really wanted him to play on the record. We got Bob Glaub who'd played on some of my favourite records. Leisz, who's probably the most amazing musician I've ever worked with, without a doubt. Drackoulias came by, he's real fun to hang out with. We had a great day listening to Humble Pie records."

The album that came out of these sessions was Fade Away Diamond Time. It's a most stunning debut album, full of curiously valedictory songs, fine singing, fine playing, lyrically simple but so well crafted. Evocative and empathic, and universal. We've all had to let things go, and take other roads. Sadly it's now a great lost album, because soon after it was released by Zoo so was Neal. He found out by phone in a Nashville bar around Christmas '95. The story gets told that it was a devastating blow. Neal denies that now:

"It's been written about me a lot that this was a horrible time but I don't remember it that way now. I remember it as a great time in my life. The whole thing that happened was disappointing and a bad time, but I don't even look at it like that now, I don't let it embitter me or even impede my progress. I think of that as a great time. I got to make my first record exactly the way I wanted to do it. I had a particular sound in mind. I loved to play slow at that time. I had a big slow groove in mind. Listening back to that record I think it was a collection of really good songs. It could have benefited from an uptempo song or two, but that's hindsight."

The dumping came in the middle of a tour. He cancelled a few dates, honoured a few more, ended up stuck in a blizzard in Pennsylvania for three days. Then home in Jersey:

"Home with no record deal, but it didn't take me long to figure out what to do. I wasn't going to sit around and let a negative situation ruin my life, feel sorry for myself, stop dead in my tracks. I wrote a whole bunch of songs, went to a friend of mine with a record label and we agreed to do a record, so I just went right in and did it in five days and that album is Rain, Wind and Speed. It got me over the situation really quickly. The premise was play and sing live. I didn't want to overdub my vocals. It was a goal of mine to just sing a song, all the songs on the album, 100% all the way through, no fixing, no nothing. Just sit down, sing your song, tell the truth. If there's something a little out of tune you just leave it. It was a goal. I wanted to sing my songs and know that I'd made it all the way through, that there was a continuity there. It's the way I was feeling at the time. It's what I needed to do. I just poured it out in a couple of days and it was good. And by the Springtime we had that record out. I already had my mind on something else. A new record and a new place to go, instead of thinking, 'oh I lost my record deal'. Self-pity is not something in my character. It's what I needed to move on. Otherwise the only record I had to hold in my hand was Fade Away Diamond Time, which was never spoiled by what happened. So now I had this other record, and I achieved my goal which was to sing live, whether it's any good or not I don't know but I did it. That was the best way to move on."

Rain, Wind And Speed, an essentially acoustic album, came out on the small New Jersey label, Buy Or Die. An advert in No Depression was spotted by Reinhard Holstein at Glitterhouse, who was a big fan of Fade Away Diamond Time. The end result was the German label distributing Rain, Wind And Speed in Europe, then putting out the compilation of archives Field Recordings. In 1997 Neal did a solo tour of most of Europe. Returning to the States he produced an EP for his backing singer Angie McKenna, did some co-writing with Parlor James' Ryan Hedgecock, and recorded and toured with James Iha. In early July he went back to California and with many of the same musicians from Fade Away Diamond Time he recorded the songs that comprise his new record The Sun Rises Here.

The Sun Rises Here is his finest release to date. There's a blending of styles and musical genres, the willingness to sing about himself which began to surface on Rain, Wind And Speed is much more in evidence. In essence it's a mature work:

"The sound of the record is different, a cross between the two previous records. My goal was to make a folk band album, and I tried to sequence it, to have more variety of songs and tempos on it than my other records. It's a spare kind of record. Lyrically some of my best moments are on this record. There's some very truthful moments for me. Some of the lyrics I really believe in. I'd play them for anybody, 'Last Of My Connections' and 'Real Country Dark'. A few albums down the line my experience is starting to show through."

Neal made his first London appearances a few weeks ago, two nights supporting Kelly Joe Phelps and a brief in-store at Rough Trade in Portobello. Just him, his guitar, and his harmonica. At Rough Trade he held us spellbound through 'Eddy & Diamonds', 'All The Luck In The World', 'Maybe California', and 'Today I'm Gonna Bleed' which he wrote after Shawn from Hazeldine dubbed him "Mr. Poetic". What he is is a singer-songwriter from the old tradition, but he can rock more than a bit too. I saw him at first as a cross between acoustic Neil Young and Jackson Browne, but I fancy there's a lot of young Bob Weir in there too. He's currently in Europe with his band, let's hope they get to England fairly soon.

Discography:

Fade Away Diamond Time (1995) Zoo

Rain, Wind And Speed (1996) Buy Or Die/Glitterhouse GRCD 409

Field Recordings (1997) Glitterhouse GRCD 429
(1000 limited/mail order only)

The Sun Rises Here (1998) Glitterhouse GRCD 430

Glitterhouse, Gruner Weg 25, 37688 Beverungen, Germany.

Sid's Coal Porters and The Water Tower Bucket Boys at The Bush Hall - Thurs 25th Aug

2011-08-18T12:49:00.000+01:00

Sid Griffin's Coal Porters and The Water Tower Bucket Boys together at Bush Hall next Thursday.

Third annual Elvis night at The Betsey Trotwood - Sat 20th Aug

2011-08-18T12:38:00.001+01:00

Richard Warren previews The Wayfarer at The Social - Tues 16th Aug

2011-08-11T12:55:00.000+01:00

Richard Warren's first solo album Laments was revelatory. It was initially reviewed in Bucketfull last summer and then featured in our top ten of the year. We called it: "A record imbued with a Memphis feeling, with a vibe similar to that aspired to by Primal Scream on Give Out But Don't Give Up but here perhaps bettered."

On October 17th Richard releases his second album The Wayfarer on Tenor Vossa. We've heard two different mixes of it and they're very good indeed. Next Tuesday he's previewing the whole album at The Social, and in support is Trent Miller playing songs from Welcome To Inferno Valley just released last Monday .

You'd be wise not to miss it.

Bucketfull Of Brains needs you!

2011-07-16T12:10:00.000+01:00

This a serious announcement; somewhat more than just one of our periodical suggestions that people might like to contribute.

The last few months have very much made us aware of how vulnerable we are. A magazine run entirely by two people is very dependent on both of them being on the ball pretty much all the time. So when one gets knocked off as has really been the case since late last year it has a drastic effect. So...

We need to get new blood on board with new ideas and new perspectives. With the proviso that a quarterly print magazine must continue and the editorial bent remain broadly similar to what it is now all is up for grabs.

In the areas of advertising, distribution, and online we now almost certainly need a year zero approach. There’s a lot of information held by the magazine that needs reorganisation, and there’s also a cache of back issues dating back almost to the beginning, along with quite a lot of 45s and flexi-discs that need better exploitation. We could also do with people prepared to take responsibility for sections of the magazine. (And, of course, if there's any publishers out there...)

At present the tangible rewards are tiny but this title has generated significant income in the past and can do again. Logistically it will certainly help to find people based in London, as that’s where we are, and we like company, but a heck of a lot of stuff can be done just as well online.

If this sounds vague it's because we don't want to shut out anyone's ideas. We just want to hear from people and what they might think. Contact numbers and email addresses are on the website. We look forward to hearing from you.

Danny & The Champions Of The World - New Album streaming here

2011-07-13T17:35:00.001+01:00

Listen to a stream of the new Danny & The Champions Of The World album Hearts & Arrows here. Just click on the album sleeve and it'll take you to the player. You'll be able to listen until the 18th July when the album's released. Then you'll have to go and buy it.

Hearts & Arrows - Danny & The Champions Of The World

2011-07-12T10:05:00.001+01:00

It’s six days away from the release date of Hearts & Arrows from Danny & The Champions Of The World; curiously almost exactly six months since the songs and the new Champs were unveiled at The Betsey’s Winterlude. So songs that have seemed for a while the personal property of a small coterie are launched out into the world. A time of palpable excitement and anticipation.

The CD, now we have it, is quite as fine an artefact as is possible from such a medium. A glossy, mini-gatefold sleeve; a facsimile of what’s to come a little later with the vinyl. Tom Sheehan photos, of Dan in the upstairs room at The Betsey, and the Champs, in ‘last gang in town’ demeanour between narrow, dark brick, alley walls. It seems to carry visual and design echoes of Bowie’s Young Americans; not inappropriate given that one of the elements of the record is the positing of an eternally present mid-70s.

There’s also direct connection with that time in co-producer Tony Poole, back then the guitarist of Starry Eyed And Laughing, and still the finest English exponent of the 12-string Rickenbacker. Poole’s guitar is all over this record; even though Paul Lush, now an integral part of the band, is pictured, the recording pre-dated his involvement – the same is true for ‘Free Jazz’ Geoff Widdowson, now handling keyboards and sax.

For the full BoB take on Hearts & Arrows you’ll have to wait for the printed #78 due at the end of this month. But it’s probably fair to say that we like it. From the rhythmic juggernaut, sweeping all before it,that’s ‘Ghosts In The Wire’, and the sustained, rushing momentum of ‘Heart & Arrow’ on, it’s a wild trip through a warm, if slightly garish, dream rock’n’roll London, where one should never, ever, “let the truth get in the way of the story”.

And at the beating centre sits the extraordinary ‘Every Beat Of My Heart’; a song that defies the belief that we could have got 56 years into the rock’n’roll era without it being written, when it sounds now like its always been there. A song too, that’s about to change drastically. For the last six months it’s been a ‘History Lesson’; now it’s being launched to a world where ‘the fox’ will be no more ‘real’ than ‘the magic rat’ was, and where borderline won’t start with a capital letter. I remember being in Chicago in the summer of 1976 and hearing ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ coming out of every radio; it doesn’t take that much of a leap of faith to imagine it happening with ‘Every Beat Of My Heart’ in Shanghai and Buenos Aires.

Hearts & Arrows released on 18th July on SO Recordings

Danny & The Champions Of The World play Bush Hall on 22nd September

The Walkabouts - Travels In The Dustland

2011-07-11T11:27:00.000+01:00

The Walkabouts have announced a new album Travels In The Dustland to be released in October. This is their first new release since 2005's Acetylene. There's also a new website just beginning to take shape, and here's a teaser video to be going on with. Plus they have the usual Facebook and Twitter stuff.

And while you're waiting check out Chris Eckmann's L/O/N/G project with Rupert Huber of Tosca.

Wooden Shjips - new album West due in August

2011-07-09T13:48:00.000+01:00

Wooden Shjips have a new album West coming out in August. Here's a track called 'Lazy Bones' to be going on with.

They're going to be playing End Of The Road on 3rd September and The Scala in KIngs Cross the night after, with the Wolf People. Now signed to Thrill Jockey here's what the label have to say about them:

"Wooden Shjips, as it is today, started in 2006. The band self released a 10" and 7" that year and started playing shows shortly thereafter. Prior to 2006, Wooden Shjips was an experiment in primitive and minimalist rock. After it imploded, Ripley Johnson, guitar and vocals, assembled the current lineup of Dusty Jermier on bass, Nash Whalen on organ, and Omar Ahsanuddin on drums. West marks the first time the band recorded in a proper studio, as well as the first time with an engineer (Phil Manley). All previous recordings, either self-released, for Holy Mountain, or Mexican Summer were done more piecemeal in the bands rehearsal studio. West was recorded and mixed in six days at Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco. It was mastered by Sonic Boom at Blanker Unisinn, Brooklyn, with additional mastering by Heba Kadry at the Lodge in New York.

The over riding theme for the album (as indicated by the title) is the American West, and all of the mythology, romanticism, and idealism that it embodies. The band members grew up on the East Coast, so for a long time the history and literature of the West was an abstraction and a fascination for them. Part of the allure of the West, which is part of the myth, is the concept of Manifest Destiny, the vastness, and the possibilities for reinvention, which is not to say that is what each song is specifically about, but it was very much an undercurrent during the songwriting of the album. The artwork also touches on the same theme by using an iconic structure that is both a gateway in a literal and metaphorical sense.

It is easy to see why these would appeal to Wooden Shjips, as their music lends itself to exploration. It is both transformative and transporting, the sum being far greater than its parts. The steady driving rhythms are the elliptical motion machine driven by the often thick and distorted guitar lines, melodic and boundless. Where they may lead cannot be anticipated but following them is exhilarating. It is all about getting there, the destination, while the experience of getting there is an adventure. It is the guitar lines that guide both the listener and the band on the literal and metaphorical journey into the vastness. The ghostly vocals, obscured by dense layers of instruments surrounding them, are alluring with their airy mystery. This elusive quality further draws the listener in, while they attempt to grasp at their meaning. While indebted to both the psych music of the 60s and mid-70s, electric Neil Young, and even the induced travels of Spacemen 3, the Wooden Shjips music is modern and in every way their own. West is an epic journey to the edge and beyond."

The Wicked Whispers at The Alley Cat Club - Tues 5th July

2011-07-04T16:54:00.000+01:00

The Wicked Whispers are a impressive pop-sike band from Liverpool. They're launching their four song 10" single at The Alley Cat in Denmark Street tomorrow and I'd seriously suggest going down to catch them.

There's a real melodic 60s folky, pastoral thing going on, along with farfisa organ. Check out lead track 'Amanda Lavender' below and listen out for 'Flying Round In Circles' which is like Peter Sarstedt with added harpsichord.

Dogfishtrombone night at the 12 Bar - Sun 3rd July

2011-06-30T11:21:00.000+01:00

Our good friend and BoB contributor Martin Dowsing aka Hungry Dog is putting on an evening at the 12 Bar Club this Sunday. Go along and support it, and get a free CD.

Dogfishtrombone presents

A night of country and Americana with…

Turnstile Junkpile + Scott Dennis (USA) + Simon Stanley Ward

12 Bar Club
Denmark Street
London WC2H 8NL
Doors 7pm
£5

Turnstile Junkpile 10pm

Taking their name from a Townes Van Zandt song, Turnstile Junkpile are a British Americana band. Their guitar-led, retro and country-influenced sound recalls artists such as The Jayhawks and Neil Young and features appealing harmonies, pedal steel, banjo, and some serious grooves.

Scott Dennis 9pm

UK debut from front-man with Brooklyn-based band The Dirt Floor Revue, who combine the twang of Buck Owens, the grit of Johnny Cash and the edge of the Flying Burrito Brothers to create their own modern urban country sound. Other influences include Webb Pierce, Lefty Frizzel, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Old 97's, Gillian Welch, Uncle Tupelo, John Prine, Chuck Berry and Link Wray.

FREE SCOTT DENNIS CD TO FIRST 25 PEOPLE!

Simon Stanley Ward 8pm

Former singer with the now sadly defunct band Black Bart, Simon Stanley Ward is a young country and Americana singer from London. Unashamedly adorned in cowboy hat and shirt, he even has a song called 'American Voice' which wittily pre-empts any criticisms about Englishmen singing in American accents (although the truth is, he doesn’t lay it on too thick and is voice is wonderfully distinctive).

Mekons release new album - Ancient & Modern, 1911 - 2011 - due September

2011-06-30T11:05:00.000+01:00

Mekons are proud to announce their return with their latest record, Ancient & Modern. The band’s 26th record will be released on September 27th on the band’s own, newly reformed Sin Record Label. To coincide with the release, Mekons will hit the road this fall. Stay tuned for upcoming tour dates.

On Ancient & Modern, Mekons bring you an 'album' just like albums used to be; cardboard things filled with cheeky, chunky 78rpm shellac. Just take a look at the cover of Ancient & Modern and you’ll know what we’re talking about! Let the band take you for a walk down memory lane, to the world as it was just before the First World War … to the Edwardian Era, to the Naughty Naughties a hundred years ago, a cozy nostalgic world: cricket on the village green, punting down the river in a striped blazer and boater, off with the hounds, picnic hampers, community singing, mistresses and wives, mysticism, secret societies, dangerous poetry, radical modern art, Freud, national strikes, revolution, anarchists, bombers, British concentration camps … oops, is that really a hundred years ago?!? Mekons travel back/forward to a world unaware that it’s waiting for the pistol to CRACK CRACK CRACK in Sarajevo, plotting their singular course through the digital tsunami of contemporary sounds that blare tinnily from your mobile phone or spin at 78rpm in His Master’s Voice from the horn of your exquisite Gramophone.

Mekons formed in Leeds, England 34 years ago in 1977 and Ancient & Modern is their 26th album. This current classic line-up has remained intact since the mid-1980′s. Throughout their history, they have worked collaboratively and collectively with everything credited to the band, never to individuals. Their mind-boggling output consistently blurs the lines between high art and low and has included exhibitions in the UK and US, a deranged musical recorded and staged with Kathy Acker, an art performance with Vito Acconci and several books including the unique art catalog/unfinished novel Mekons United.

Featuring for your delectation and delight…
On his wheezing chest piano, it’s Bertie Bell!
Behind his traps…St John Goulding!
All the way from Bethnal Green, Seraphima Jocasta Honeyman and her amazing fiddle!
On the electrified bass, Sophia Corina!
Master of saz, cumbush and all things Oriental, it’s Edward ‘Lucky’ Edmunds!
Chorister and Axe Meister extraordinaire, Algernon Langford!
Tiverton’s Own Bearded Bard, Frederick Arthur Greenhalgh!
The little Nightingale, Gertrude Florence Timms!
And bringer of mayhem, ‘Mad’ Mortimer Mitchell!

Mekons – Ancient & Modern
(Sept. 27th – Sin Record Label)

Tracklist:

1. Warm Summer Sun
2. Space In Your Face
3. Geeshie
4. I Fall Asleep
5. Calling All Demons
6. Ugly Bethesda
7. Ancient & Modern
8. Afar & Forlorn
9. Honey Bear
10. The Devil at Rest
11. Arthur’s Angel

Jon Langford plays at The Buffalo Bar on Sunday 17th July.

Leon Russell, Nick Lowe, Paul Brady, at The Porchester Hall - Tues 28th June

2011-06-30T10:41:00.000+01:00

It’s the week for catching up on long-time heroes. Both Leon Russell and Greg Allman first came to my attention in 1971. Leon through his recording work with Dylan; ‘Watching The River Flow’, and his central role at The Concert For Bangla Desh where the verse he takes in ‘Beware Of Darkness’ can still raise the hairs on my neck; and Greg through The Allman Brothers’ Fillmore East live album.

Tuesday found us at a charming BBC 4 show at the Porchester Hal; Leon taking part in a songwriters circle with Nick Lowe and Paul Brady. Porchester Hall is one of those large wood-panelled municipal halls that local government accountants would love to sell off, or the bureaucrats wish to modernise; a beautiful setting, very easy and very comfortable. A familiar audience; Jake Riviera and Peter Blegvad sat on adjacent tables across the row.

Almost on time the artists take the stage. Leon, no longer as mobile as he once was sits at the piano and he starts things off with ‘A Song For You’. It remains one of the loveliest of love songs; “I love you in a place where there’s no space and time” still arrests. He’ll go on to do as fine versions of ‘Tight Rope’, ‘This Masquerade’, and ‘Delta Lady’. Nick Lowe meanwhile essays ‘I Live On A Battlefield’, ‘Cruel To Be Kind’, and ‘Peace, Love And Understanding’ and Brady ‘Luck Of The Drawer’, ‘Crazy Dreams’ and ‘Steel Claw’.

As is the nature of these shows, and as Lowe explains while leaving the template and playing the new ‘I Read A Lot’, the songs are ‘catalogue’. This is partly because they’re all supposed to be telling a lot of stories. This doesn’t happen to begin with though and Brady’s the first to warm up, both in loquacity and in a willingness to accompany, but by the end they’re getting there.

Following a finale of ‘Mystery Train’ they return, and Leon tells a good tale about Dylan as a songwriting master, and recalls the Blue Rock Studio sessions of March 1971 that yielded ‘River Flow’ and ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’. He then plays a splendid reading of ‘It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry’ where the piano seems literally climbing to the ‘top of the hill’, and then a final ‘You Win Again’.

And that should have been it, except they’d had recording problems at the start of the evening so “can we do a couple of rounds again?” As that brings a second go for ‘A Song For You’ who’s to complain?

John Wesley Harding - new album, The Sound Of His Own Voice, in October

2011-06-28T16:20:00.000+01:00

Our good friend Mr Wesley Stace has announced a new John Wesley Harding album. The Sound Of His Own Voice comes out on Yep Roc on October 11th.  

Recorded in Portland Oregon it's produced by Scott McCaughey and Wes, and mixed by Tucker Martine, featuring Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query and John Moen (members of The Decemberists), along with Peter Buck and Scott, on every song. Also featured are Rosanne Cash, Laura Veirs, John Roderick, Steve Berlin and many others.

Below you can listen to and even download one of the tracks: 'Sing Your Own Song'.

The Jasmine Minks return - Borderline show 23rd July

2011-06-24T14:34:00.000+01:00

Creation's Jasmine Minks return with a show at London's Borderline on July 23rd.

The Jasmine Minks, one of the first bands signed to the legendary Creation Records, will play their first show in over a decade at London’s Borderline on July 23rd.

Formed in Aberdeen in 1983, The Jasmine Minks' debut single ('Think') was the fourth ever record on the iconic Creation label. They recorded four albums for the label, the most successful of which, Another Age, is to be re-issued on Poppydisc, run by Creation co-founder Joe Foster.

The Jasmine Minks’ return – featuring most of their classic line-up of Jim Shepherd, Dave Arnold, Tom Reid and Martin Keena (with Dave Musker on keyboards) – continues a surprisingly busy 12 months for the Creation label, even though it officially stopped trading in 1999 when its most high-profile founder, Alan McGee, left to pursue other projects. Following the release of the label biopic Upside Down, other early Creation signings The Loft and The Jazz Butcher also re-formed for shows this year.

But The Jasmine Minks pre-dated both of these on the ground-breaking label’s roster, and it was on their early records – such as 'What’s Happening' and 'Cold Heart' – that Creation’s reputation was initially founded.

Singer Jim Shepherd said: “I’m confident that we can still excite. It will be a great get together for us and our London friends, old and new. A celebratory night is anticipated…”

Expect songs from throughout their back catalogue, plus tracks from the recently released Poppy White EP, released on Jim Shepherd’s own label, Oatcake Records.

Support will come from Edinburgh School For The Deaf and The Electric Sugar Children.

Edinburgh School For The Deaf, featuring ex-members of Saint Judes Infirmary, combine elements of The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Fall. Alan McGee himself confessed a liking for the band when he saw them perform live in Scotland at the start of the year. Their album, New Youth Bible, will be released on Bubblegum Records in June.

The Electric Sugar Children, named after a song by McGee’s own band, Biff Bang Pow!, will open the show. Always having been influenced by the Creation sound, they re-formed last year and released two EPs. Their song 'Lead Singer Syndrome' was used on the London Pub Radio PlayStation spin off. They’re currently recording an album with Glasgow producer Tony Doogan.

Trent Miller show this Saturday and new Inferno Valley review

2011-06-22T12:46:00.002+01:00

Trent Miller headlines My Autumn Almanac at Filthy MacNastys on Saturday. All the info follows. Meanwhile here's a fine new review of Welcome To Inferno Valley from Bob Meyer of Bob's Folk Show. Bob's Folk Show broadcasts every Tuesday evening from 9.00pm to 11.00pm. Check him out he always has lots of cool people on.

Mr Trent Miller and the Skeleton Jive

Gene Clark is alive and well and comes from Italy!!! Trent will be playing a collection of songs that reflect upon the dark soul of country music, All taken from his forthcoming LP for Bucketfull Of Brains Welcome To Inferno Valley.

"Miller’s work is dark, arresting country folk that quickly infiltrates and attaches to the listener’s soul; cathartic but not depressing. "

backing Trent up are The Skeleton Jive comprising of Anders Dal on drums and Jim Taylor on bass Shou Jie Eng on violin, Duncan Drury on trumpet and Jason Collins on mandolin

Mr Bob Biggs

brings along his quintessentially English stories of a country boy in the city illustrated by a lyrical a-z of place names post codes and familiar themes.

"little gems from a treasure trove of songs finely crafted with ever so slightly complicated chords and melodies ."

Listen hard all ye!!

And as ever.....

The resident Garden City Projects Band, the hosts of the evening bringing their low-fi but careful mixed bag of foot tappers folk rockers and deep soul ballads.

"soul folk Bossa beat from beneath the hedgerows of South Hackney Village"

Playing songs from their forthcoming Birmingham Small Arms EP.

So to recap

Trent Miller and the Skeleton Jive

The Garden City projects Band

Bob Biggs

Live at My Autumn Almanac Music Society

Saturday 25th June

8pm

its free skinflints !!!

Frank Bango launches Touchy/Feely on Kickstarter

2011-06-10T17:27:00.000+01:00

Frank Bango is one of the few artists who turned up on two of our CD compilations from around the turn of the century with ‘Olivia 101’ on the 50^th Issue compilation and ‘Roses Are Not Red’ - recorded live at the Mercury Lounge with the much-missed Drew Glackin on lap steel – on 21^st Century BoB (BoB#60). Frank has had a somewhat mixed 21^st Century so far but he’s still out there fighting.

Frank Bango’s currently working on his new record Touchy/Feely which he intends to manufacture and distribute himself. It’ll be the follow up to 2008’s critically acclaimed The Sweet Songs Of Decay.

Along with his songwriting partner Richy Vesecky, Frank Bango has always strived to keep the album art form alive by providing a complete listening experience from first to last song. Frank Bango offers a boutique brand of songwriting in the tradition of the Brill Building; where quality and craftsmanship come first, the purest form of melodic pop, with a dark edge and poetry. Touchy/Feely will create a sonic landscape where The Shangri Las meet Tom Waits. Adding to the rich history of successful long playing albums, in a package collectors will LOVE!!

Like many artists who appreciate keeping control of their work in these uncertain days Frank is looking for individual investors to help him make Touchy/Feely happen. So he’s going the Kickstarter route and you can find out more here.

The Finding of Nic Jones

2011-06-06T16:53:00.001+01:00

It’s quite possible that my first experience of the Queen Elizabeth Hall was in the summer of 1983 helping (in a small way) my friend Mike Bettison who was directing a production of Peter Bellamy’s folk opera The Transports. Over the previous year I’d been falling among Salami Brothers and spending a lot of time at the Islington Folk Club then at The Empress Of Russia. Presided over by Bob Davenport it introduced me to people like The Watersons and Robin & Barry Dransfield, and took me to festivals big and small; Bampton, Whitchurch, Cleethorpes, and Sidmouth. And while it introduced me to many records the two that remain the soundtrack of that year were Dick Gaughan’s Handful Of Earth and Nic Jones’ Penguin Eggs.

Nic Jones already seemed the lost man of English folk. In early 1982 he was involved in a horrendous car accident and was almost literally smashed into pieces. It was understood that the damage was such that he’d never perform again. So in the ‘83 production of The Transports his original role of The Father was taken by Taffy Thomas. Jones’ song on the original recording was to remain one of the few of his performances readily available. Even today it remains legally very hard to obtain his first four albums, originally released on Trailer.

What does remain readily available, on Topic, is Penguin Eggs. It’s an album that remains as fresh and as vivid as it was in 1980, and as essential. But it did seem to stand as his legacy as Jones appeared a shadowy figure living a twilight existence in Yorkshire and then latterly in Devon. That standing was changed irrevocably on Saturday last back at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

When I bought the ticket earlier in the year for In Search Of Nic Jones I was expecting a tribute show from a classy line-up. I thought that perhaps we’d see Jones, as an audience member or possibly briefly as an ensemble singer with the other members of the short-lived folk ‘supergroup’ Bandoggs. It was very moving when at the show’s commencement as the participants took their seats around the stage he joined them, walking with a stick, tentative but with an aura of self-possession, seating himself next to Martin Carthy and adjacent to Pete Coe.

The show did progress as a series of splendid performances. To remark that I was especially struck by Jackie Oates and Belinda O'Hooley’s ‘Isle Of France’ and ‘Annachie Gordon’, Anais Mitchell’s ‘The Drowned Lovers’ and ‘Humpback Whale’, Blair Dunlop’s ‘Canadee-I-O’, and the singing of Damien Barber isn’t to suggest that any of the other artistes, and remember we’re including Carthy here, weren’t also super.

Towards the end of the first half the surviving members of Bandoggs, with Barber taking Tony Rose’s place, stepped forward for a set comprising ‘Adam Was A Poacher’, 'Tailor in the Tea Chest’, and Loudon Wainwright’s ‘Swimming Song’; Lindsay Hutton would have enjoyed Pete Coe’s recollection of a John Peel moment, “ that was Bandoggs in session and now The Cramps”. If it was inspirational to see Nic Jones standing amongst that ensemble, what happened at the finish of the second half had to be one of the most emotionally-charged moments I’ve ever witnessed on a stage .

As Martin Carthy concluded ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ Nic and Belinda O'Hooley moved across to the piano, and proceeded to give us a devastating reading of Rick Lee’s ‘Thanksgiving’. It was a quite extraordinary experience; against all expectations this great singer returned and as he sang, just a few yards away from me, one could still see clearly the face from the Penguin Eggs cover, and could tell that despite all Nic Jones remains vital.

He then joined his son, Joe Jones, centre-stage. Joe, with his purple mohican and otherwise shaved head, is not only a typically dry Yorkshire punk but also a fine guitarist. He began by paying tribute to his mother; “without her he wouldn’t be here...and nor would I”. Then they played one of her favourite songs, allegedly, ‘Oh Dear Rue The Day’ followed by Radiohead’s ‘Fake Plastic Trees’: “Everyone’s paying tribute to my dad he wants to pay tribute to Radiohead”, and then, seemingly at Jim Moray’s suggestion ‘Ten Thousand Miles’.

‘Ten Thousand Miles’ was the cue, no doubt all around the hall, for the tears. The song, in its own standing, is moving enough but hearing it sung in 2011 by the man who sung it best in 1977 on The Noah’s Ark Trap was close to overload. So much of past time, memory, loss, and redemption were all bound up in that one performance and it was carried off so perfectly.

Over the following couple of days I watched the videos and pondered on the show, realising that for me with all my baggage ‘Ten Thousand Miles’ was the killer, but the important song, the deal-breaker, of the night was really ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. What it showed was that Nic Jones didn’t stop in 1982. Last Saturday he wasn’t a museum-piece, an archaeological find, but still a living musician and a performer even if the events of his life may have narrowed the parameters inside which he can practice his art. I would think it’s unlikely he’ll perform live regularly but on this evidence there seems no reason why he and Joe shouldn’t record a few songs and put out an album, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d be intrigued by their choices.

Trent Miller - Welcome To Inferno Valley - Album Launch - Tues 7th June

2011-06-02T16:47:00.002+01:00

Following on from his self-released, widely acclaimed debut album Cerberus, Trent Miller now returns with his second collection of arresting country-folk, Welcome To Inferno Valley.

Unlike his debut, …Inferno Valley is very much a band album, comprising songs road-tested and honed at literally dozens of gigs around the London area and throughout Miller’s Italian homeland with The Skeleton Jive. Featuring the combined talents of Anders Dal (drums/guitars/backing vocals), Jim Taylor (bass), Shou Jie Eng (violin) and Jason Collins (ex-The Seers, mandolin/backing vocals), the album draws upon special guest contributions from labelmate Ben Folke Thomas (12-string), Duncan Drury (trumpet), Ruth Jacob (banjo) and Emily C Smith (backing vocals). The album was recorded at co-producer Richard Johnson’s Randomcolours Studio.

Born and raised near Turin, but based in London for some years now, Miller is strongly influenced by legendary 80s performers like Jeffrey Lee Pierce of The Gun Club and Guy Kyser of Thin White Rope (he contributed a version of ‘Timing’ to the TWR tribute album Hidden Desert), while ‘Fear Of Flyin’’, one of the album’s highlights, pays tribute to another hero Gene Clark.

This is the first full-length album release on the re-invigorated Bucketfull Of Brains label, following on from the acclaimed Benjamin Folke Thomas mini-album of last summer. Directly affiliated to the legendary magazine - 32 years publishing and still thriving – the first UK champions of the Paisley Underground and REM – as adept as ever at unearthing and supporting maverick talents.

Miller’s 2009 debut Cerberus received substantial press coverage and airplay, including Cerys Matthews on BBC 6 Music.

Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive will be launching Welcome To Inferno Valley on Tuesday 7 June at The Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3BL.

Press for Cerberus:

These stripped back songs, with just him, his guitar, harmonica and the odd bit of percussion, are mean, moody and magnificent… Folk noir is definitely the new black and Trent Miller wears it well. Bearded

Miller's voice conjures a life lived at the bottom of a whiskey bottle and an unhealthy acquaintance with a draughty boxcar… a perfect complement to the subject matter. R2

It is incredible how a music so dark can warm one’s heart. 8/10 Blow Up

If you wish you could relive the troubadour folk scene days of 60s Greenwich Village, then you'll want to take this three-headed dog walkies. Net Rhythms

Chuck Prophet and The Spanish Bombs perform London Calling in London

2011-06-01T15:16:00.000+01:00

Earlier this year Chuck Prophet and backing band styling themselves the Spanish Bombs toured Spain playing The Clash’s London Calling album in its entirety. This was the second such enterprise enterprising Spanish promoters had initiated as a little while before Howe Gelb had toured a performance of Johnny Cash’s At San Quentin. The difference is that while Howe didn’t then go to San Quentin, Chuck is now bringing the enterprise to London and beyond: “It’s our contribution to Guy Fawkes Night. The Gunpowder Plot lives on in our gentle hands.”

Chuck’s performing the whole double album, from start to finish, at four UK shows including the Garage, less than a mile from where London Calling was recorded at Wessex Studios - or a mere 5 minutes "on the route of the 19 bus" in Highbury. Clash tour manager, Johnny Green, who oversaw the demoing and recording of London Calling, will also be reading from his book A Riot of Our Own (a memoir of his time with the Clash) before each show.

Johnny said of London Calling: "London Calling was conceived & written by The Clash touring the highways, byways 'n' freeways of the USA. The tunes were hatched back in a dingy garage, down by the river Thames. The wholeness was polished, with Guy Stevens, in a Highbury, London, studio, plus furious Stateside gigging. It suits here, there and maybe the whole world. Chuck Prophet has perfectly caught the essence in his re-interpretation, like some rockin' jazz singer while sometimes he rides along true to the originals. I recently toured Spain with Chuck and watched every show from start to finish so I was there too."

That January Spanish tour sold out nine of the twelve shows, as well as selling out two shows in San Francisco. The suitably impressed SF Gate gushed:“Once again, Chuck proves he's got singing chops, goo-gobs of guitar-playing skills, charm to spare, fashion sense, and the instincts of a svelte cheetah.” As on previous dates in London he’ll be joined by West Coast power pop legend Chris von Sneidern who’ll be Mick Jones to his Joe Strummer.

Chuck’s releasing a DVD of the Bilbao, Spain show which will be sold on this tour. His final comment before take-off: “Guy Fawkes, Guernica, The Clash. We’ll light the fuse. Plenty of matches, plenty.”

The shows:

Thursday 21 July - Nottingham - Glee Club

Friday 22 July - Bristol - The Polish Club

Saturday 23 July London The Relentless Garage with The Strummerville Band

Sunday 24 July GatesheadSummertyne Americana Festival – Hall Two, The Sage

Gene Clark celebration tonight at The 12 Bar Club

2011-05-24T15:22:00.000+01:00

A CELEBRATION OF GENE CLARK AND BOB DYLAN

Today Tuesday May 24th marks both the 20th anniversary of the passing of the Byrd who couldn't fly - GENE CLARK - and the 70th birthday of Uncle Bobby - BOB DYLAN. To celebrate the music of these two American originals a host of musicians are gathering to perform their songs and generally have a good time.

Mr SID GRIFFIN, who knew and played with Gene Clark in LA in the 80s and has written two books on Bob Dylan, will be our master of ceremonies and raconteur-in-chief, and so far confirmed as participating are:

JASON MCNIFF, SIMON MOOR & JOHN O'SULLIVAN (SNAKES),
SIMON ONIONS, TOMMY HINKLEY, KATHLEEN HASKARD,
JAMES WALBOURNE, DARRELL BATH, QUIET LONER,
BEN FOLKE THOMAS, SIMON J ALPIN,
HARRISBURG, AND TRENT MILLER.

Please join us on this unique evening at the 12 Bar Club.

£6 entry

Danny & The Champs - London show - Wed 8th June

2011-05-18T10:43:00.000+01:00

In the run-up to the July release of their stunning Hearts & Arrows album Danny & The Champs play the Borderline. After their amazing debut at Winterlude back in February they've been intensely rehearsing and the fruits of that were shown in the cracking set they played at Record Store Day in Cheltenham last month. This is going to be a good one.

And I should mention that I'm the DJ for the night.

Tommy Hinkley plays for Bucketfull at The Bull & Gate this Sunday

2011-05-12T08:22:00.000+01:00

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS PRESENTS...TOMMY HINKLEY
15 May · 17:00 - 20:00

A Bucketfull Of Brains presentation in the front room at The Bull & Gate in conjunction with Stuntfox.

TOMMY HINKLEY plays guitar in the Moon Music Orchestra, has his own band TOMMY HINKLEY & THE WANDERING HORSE, but has recently released a stunning solo album RAYS OF PALE LIGHT which has drawn comparison with 70s JIM WEBB and JOHNNY RIVERS.

A review in a recent Bucketfull called it "a music luxuriating in the strength of strings, plaintive piano, emotive singing".

A rare North London appearance from Tommy.

As is customary BENJAMIN FOLKE THOMAS will play a few songs to open the proceedings.

All kicking off around 5.00

Despite his broken ankle Nick from BoB will be playing a few tunes between the acts.

FREE

Robert Johnson Centenary Celebrations

2011-05-06T13:29:00.000+01:00

BoB faves The See See play Clerkenwell on Sunday afternoon

2011-05-05T09:01:00.000+01:00

The See See are playing at Come Down & Meet The Folks this Sunday 8th May.

They'll no doubt be playing tunes from their super Late Morning Light album. BoB#77 said they "have catholic tastes and influences, and while Gene Clark and The Searchers are plainly in the mix, it would be quite wrong to write them off as retro-merchants. They bring a sense of excitement and drive, allied with moments of gentle chilling".

At The Apple Tree, Clerkenwell, on at 6.30ish.

GENE CLARK Celebrations tonight and on May 24th

2011-04-29T11:59:00.001+01:00

Ok folks - unless you're already in LA you ain't going to get tonight's shindig, but you can bet your life it beats some over-hyped, shoddy nuptials. I'm sure you'd like to know about it though, and I'm sure you'll want to get your orders in for the new Two Sides. But this is also the first announcement for All I Really Want To Do...Is Sing A Song For You at the 12 Bar on Tues 24th May. It's an evening to celebrate Gene Clark and Bob Dylan and we've already got a load of people signed up to do two or three songs from their extensive repertoire. Mr Sid Griffin will be the master of ceremonies and raconteur-in-chief and we'll all have a really good time together.More news soon - now back to the city of the angels:

On April 29, High Moon Records will celebrate its label launch and upcoming release of Love's 1973 Black Beauty and Gene Clark's 1977 Two Sides To Every Story with a one-time-only concert at the Roxy in Los Angeles.

During the concert, Clark's son Kai Clark and the Kai Clark Band will perform Two Sides in its entirety and a full set of Gene Clark songs, and the surviving members of the Love Black Beauty Band will perform never-before-heard live versions of songs from Arthur Lee’s lost masterpiece Black Beauty.

Special surprise guests will perform throughout the night and include the surviving members of the Gene Clark Group (Chip Douglas, Joel Larson and Bill Rinehart) who will reunite for the first time in over 40 years and be joined by Kai Clark, Tim Bluhm of the Mother Hips, Stephen Ehret of Wildflower and famed rock photographer Henry Diltz of Modern Folk Quartet. The event is hosted by Jim Ladd of KLOS and sponsored by LA Weekly and Music Connection.

Event Details:
WHAT: High Moon Records Official Label Launch Party
WHO: Love Black Beauty Band, The Kai Clark Band and special guests
WHEN: April 29, Doors - 7PM, Show - 8pm
WHERE: The Roxy
9009 W Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069

For tickets

North Mississippi Allstars - Keys To The Kingdom - Dingwalls show in May

2011-03-27T16:15:00.001+01:00

The North Mississippi Allstars are playing Dingwalls on the 11th May. Around that time they're releasing a new album celebrating Cody and Luther's late father Jim Dickinson:

North Mississippi Allstars are proud to announce that their new record, Keys To The Kingdom, (Songs of the South/True North Records), will be released in the UK on May 23, 2011. The album was recorded in the spring of 2010 at the Dickinson family's legendary Zebra Ranch Studio in Coldwater, MS., produced by the band and features guests Mavis Staples, Ry Cooder, Spooner Oldham, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Gordie Johnson and Motown Funk Brother Jack Ashford. The album was recorded after an emotional year during which guitarist/vocalist Luther Dickinson and his drummer brother Cody's father, Memphis music legend, Jim Dickinson, passed away. During that same year, Luther and his wife welcomed a daughter into the world. Keys To The Kingdom is a song cycle, a celebratory declaration of life in the face of death as well as a musical interpretation of this unique experience with the cycle of life, written and recorded honestly, fast and raw.

Jim had always told Cody and Luther, "You need to be playing music together. You are better together than you will ever be apart." Coincidentally, the Dickinson brothers were not together when Jim passed. At that moment, they were both off on their own, Luther with The Black Crowes and Cody with the Hill Country Revue. So they came together at Zebra Ranch, where they had spent countless hours together with their dad, to create a record that could help them cope with the loss, and, at the same time, rejoice in his honor. The first line of Jim's self-written eulogy was, "I refuse to celebrate death." Luther, Cody and bassist Chris Chew took heed and aimed to celebrate life instead; and the songs for the new record, Keys to the Kingdom came pouring out of their souls.

"As is our family's tradition, we gathered in our homemade studio and recorded," Luther says. "We carried on as we've been taught and dealt the only way we know, by making music. Our dad used to say that production-in-absentia is the highest form of production. The credits read: 'Produced for Jim Dickinson.' Keys To The Kingdom is definitely our finest collaboration."

Jim always advised in a very no-nonsense way, "Play every note as if it's your last because one of them will be," and that's just what NMA set out to do on Keys To The Kingdom. The results are powerfully played and deeply visceral as the best blues music is - spiritual without being god fearing, heavy without being depressing.

"In the end," Luther says, "We recorded our best country blues and Mississippi rock 'n roll record yet -- as if our lives depended on it." Ten years after the release of their debut album, Shake Hands with Shorty, Chew sums it up: "This is grown folks music."

The track listing for Keys To The Kingdom is:

1. This A'Way
2. Jumpercable Blues
3. The Meeting
4. How I Wish My Train Would Come
5. Hear The Hills
6. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
7. Let It Roll
8. Ain't No Grave
9. Ol' Cannonball
10. New Orleans Walkin' Dead
11. Ain't None O' Mine
12. Jellyrollin' All Over Heaven

Sandy Salisbury - Rev-Ola vinyl release

2011-03-26T12:55:00.002Z

Last week I was very pleased to receive a copy of Sandy by Sandy Salisbury on vinyl. A lovely piece of work both as an artefact and in its content. It's certainly true to say it's a reissue though perhaps truer to say in this case it's a re-imagining. Sandy was a proposed 1969 release on Gary Usher's short-lived Together label. It never appeared and has only really been around in the last decade on CDs on Poptones and then Rev-Ola.

Sandy Salisbury worked extensively with Curt Boettcher; they're both icons of sunshine pop. He was in The Ballroom, The Millenium, and Sagittarius. Boettcher produces and plays on this album. The list of players is certainly distinguished; apart from Usher, credited for moog, there's Lee Mallory from The Millenium, Jerry Scheff, Red Rhodes, and Waddy Watchel. It's an exceptionally poppy album diminished not a jot by a decided lack of those psychedelic elements that saturated other contemporary projects drawn from this well

Mainly consisting of Salisbury compositions and co-writes, it kicks off with ' I Just Don't Know How To Say Goodbye', a submission to John Barry as the Midnight Cowboy theme song and under serious consideration for a while. As that brackets it with 'Lay Lady Lay' and 'Everybody's Talkin'" you can tell we're dealing with quality here. A touch of country in there, and more so in 'The Hills Of Vermont'; Salisbury is published by Acuff-Rose. Then a Beach Boys cover 'With Me Tonight' and a nice reading of The Fleetwoods' 'Come Softly'.

This album comes from Rev-Ola in its latest incarnation which is as part of the Glasgow-based PoppyDisc (POPPLP009). It's due for release on Monday and if you can find a copy you should snap it up.

Bucketfull Of Brains #77 available next week - order now

2011-03-18T13:00:00.002Z

Issue number 77 is currently with the printers and we're expecting it around the middle of next week. There's a pretty intriguing mixture of content as ever.

DWIGHT TWILLEY provides the cover story. Terry Hermon has been his biggest fan for more years than he'd care to admit to and they have a long exchange about many many matters.

ROSANNE CASH recently put out a collection of interpretations of songs from her dad's list of 100 key country songs. Prof Jud Cost had a chat with her about it.

WILLIE NILE has long been a BoB hero and recently he's begun turning up in the UK regularly and releasing new records. Phil Suggitt talked to him before a show in Bedford in the autumn.

PAUL COLLINS could well be the King of Power Pop; certainly he's the commander of The Beat Army. On the back of last years King Of Power Pop album Roch Parisien heard some of what's keeping him busy.

We have more of Hugh Gulland's interview with TERRY EDWARDS plus a catch-up of his more recent activity.

Various members of THE PINK FAIRIES and THE DEVIANTS gathered in Portobello before Christmas to benefit BOSS GOODMAN. Simon Wright took the opportunity to talk to MICK FARREN, DUNCAN SANDERSON & RUSSELL HUNTER and reports on the show.

Mick Dillingham catches up with JELLE PAULUSMA once of Daryll-Ann and hears of his many doings since.

Anthony Clark tells us about the making of Love Over Money - the new record from North London's own Flamin' Groovie CHRIS WILSON.

And there's pieces on TWO WOUNDED BIRDS and A BAND CALLED MITHRAS.

Plus Dennis Dalcin's last ever visit to his garage, all the news that's fit to print and a lot of reviews.

Purchase the issue here and now, or take out a subscription (three issues) before the prices have to rise, and it'll be winging to you in a few days.

Bucketfull Of Brains Shows At The Bull & Gate

2011-03-09T17:36:00.000Z

Here's a quick announcement of a number of shows we're involved with over the next few weeks and months.

After a break of just over two years we're putting on shows again with Piers Miller of Stuntfox at The Bull & Gate. These will be happening regularly on the third Sunday of every month. The first is on the 20th March featuring JASON McNIFF. Then on 17th April TRENT MILLER will be playing. The rest of the year is being set up and as those shows are finalised they'll be announced. For at least the first four or five shows the opening act will be BEN FOLKE THOMAS. The good people at Club Fandango who run the pub were so impressed when he played there in February that they want him to see him there regularly.

Ben and Jason

Shows run from around 5.00 - 8.00 with opener on around 5.30 and the headliner about 6.30. There'll be Bucketfull DJs playing tunes before, after, and in-between. happily the pub serves decent beer.

Two other dates for your diary are Saturday 9th April when we'll be putting on a line-up at The Windmill, and Tuesday 24th May about which later.

Trent Miller - Welcome To Inferno Valley

2011-03-08T15:30:00.000Z

Bucketfull Of Brains is very pleased to announce we'll shortly be releasing Trent Miller's new record Welcome To Inferno Valley.

The selections on the album have been recorded with The Skeleton Jive along with guest players including Benjamin Folke Thomas, Emily C. Smith, and Ruth Jacob. More details will be posted presently but among the tracks are live favourites such as 'Fear Of Flying', 'Ballad Of The Gospel Oak', and 'Whispers Of A Fool'.

Release date and full details of a launch party will be announced soon. Meanwhile Trent is playing regularly around London and beyond (check his website for more details). Specifically on Sunday 17th April he headlines a Bucketfull Of Brains/Stuntfox co-promotion at The Front Room at The Bull & Gate in Kentish Town.

Bucketfull Of Brains #77 nears publication date

2011-03-07T16:51:00.000Z

Dwight Twilley

We're now very near to the publication date of the new issue. It'll be with us well before the end of the month and sets us on our target of four issues before the end of 2011.

The main cover artist is DWIGHT TWILLEY and Terry Hermon has been talking to him about what's been a very busy and creative recent period. Professor Jud Cost chatted to ROSANNE CASH about her father's list, and Mick Dillingham had a series of exchanges with JELLE PAULUSMA, once of BoB faves Daryll Ann, about what he's up to now. The forever-young WILLIE NILE met up with Phil Suggitt on one of his recent visits, and Anthony Clark gives us the low-down on CHRIS WILSON's new record. Simon Wright converses with various DEVIANTS and PINK FAIRIES as they pay tribute to BOSS GOODMAN, and we get more fascinating stuff on TERRY EDWARDS. Plus all the usual stuff and more.

It's an interesting year coming up for Bucketfull Of Brains. Our label will shortly be releasing TRENT MILLER's new album. There are a number of live shows coming up that we're involved in. Along with a very special project still being discussed and thus still under wraps. Stay tune.

You can order copies now and they'll be dispatched on publication. Or take out a three-issue sub before the rates rise.

Every Beat Of My Heart - from Winterlude 19/02/2011

2011-02-22T19:18:00.001Z

"Walking down the stairs of the Borderline / Big Steve’s been singing 'bout his grandpa’s grave”

“Tyler said that he’s gradually learning / I wish I was too"

“I’ll be the one on the crazy night bus home / head inside of Bucketfull Of Brains”

Video courtesy of Ali Rawlings (Rawlings Cakes)

Winterlude: The Story

2011-02-22T12:31:00.002Z

The Conway Hall, charming headquarters of the South Place Ethical Society and oasis of sanity and reason in an increasingly mad world, sits quietly at the hidden end of a leafy Holborn square. Over the years it has hosted some singular events; Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs’ multi-media invocation of their adventures with the Merry Pranksters, and an evening of spoken word featuring Nick Cave and Ken Campbell, remain vividly memorable. To these we now add the two Winterludes, organised by Raz and Scotty from The Betsey Trotwood.

Situated a brief walk away from Red Lion Square, down in Farringdon Road, The Betsey has, in a few short years, achieved an impressive status. It now serves as the heart and refuge of the musicians and fans frequenting not just its own events, such as Clerkenville West and The Lantern Society, but also The Tapestry Club (whose festival it provided the bar for), Come Down And Meet The Folks, and The Easy Come. At the two Winterludes (thus far) it has celebrated that status in presenting impressive line-ups drawn from its habitués.

Thus one element of Winterlude is a bit of a gathering of the clans, but that in itself wouldn’t fill a 500-plus capacity hall, and would be far too smugly up its own arse as well. So on both occasions a wider audience is deliberately aimed for, making the bills a pleasing mix of local heroes and renowned crowd-pleasers. In 2008 The Magic Numbers were the star attractions and played a magical set; this year John Otway signed up, along with Camden country icons The Rockingbirds, and Danny And The Champions Of The World.

Arriving out of the late afternoon drizzle it was good to come into the inviting foyer and be immediately greeted by music; the interludes between the acts in the main hall being enlivened by a series of soloists and ensembles. There were also the redoubtable Rawlings Cakes and Betsey Pies to be discovered in the same locale. The hall itself was already well-populated and ready for The Cedars; they made for a gentle opening on a stage arrayed as a front room. Following them was Benjamin Folke Thomas and his band, in whom we must confess an interest. In a set of eight songs Ben took full advantage of playing on a proper stage, seizing his material by the scruff of its neck, and resolutely projecting himself; though the excursion into the audience which ended with an undignified clamber was perhaps unwise. Paul Cuddeford alternating between lap steel and electric guitar continually put his effective mark on the material, and Graham Knight and Steve Brookes proved yet again the utterly dependable rhythm section they are. Fine readings of ‘Dreams Of High Quality Truth’ and ‘Paradise Lost (Heaven Found)’ opened the set and the benchmark thus laid down was adhered to throughout.

Following Ben were The Treetop Flyers. My pal Karl in Hamburg has been going on about these since he saw them at the Reeperbahn Festival last September, to the extent of threatening to fly to London just to catch them again, and seeing what their twin guitarists got up to I can appreciate why. Note to self: dig out that recording he sent.

Then John Otway! What do you say about this man? The Great English Eccentrics’ Great English Eccentric of choice. It’s a mighty long way down rock’n’roll since he played in Aylesbury Town Square with Kris Needs on bongos, and a good long time since ‘Really Free’ first charted, and you can do nothing but commend his survival and continuing successful self-publicity. This was a thoroughly entertaining set. We got ‘Really Free’, and ‘Beware Of The Flowers Cause I'm Sure They're Going To Get You Yeah’, along with the forward rolls, the headbanging, and the theremin, plus versions of ‘Crazy Horses’, ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ and ‘Two Little Boys’. However by far the best song he sang was ‘Josephine’ which showed he can really write good songs and sing with real emotion, and I’ll tell you what, I’d have swopped the lot for ‘Geneva’.

The arrival of The Rockingbirds cranked the evening up another notch. The Betsey’s good ales were doing their work, and this is the band everybody loves, the band who bought country rock back to Camden, and through Alan Tyler (and, of course, Big Steve) in Come Down And Meet The Folks provided it with a home. Their return was the secret wish that everyone on that scene carried all through those years and now it’s happened. So this couldn’t help being something of a homecoming with an audience determined to enjoy themselves. Well into the groove on their third show in three nights this was a cracker of a set; a lot of new songs (an album on the way seemingly) along with the favourites like ‘Jonathan, Jonathan’ and ‘Gradually Learning’, finishing off with ‘Time Drives A Truck. Happily for me, unlike the previous evening in Leigh, I got the whole of ‘Till Something Better Comes Along’, which is Tyler’s finest song since ‘Ladder Of Years’.

And thus to Danny & The Champions Of The World whose set, even a couple of days after, still has something of the quality of a dream to it; a very good dream, naturally, and one that you sorely want to retain as much as possible of. As the show played out I had reaffirmed for me the very reason why I’m still in this game. For kids who grew up in the 60s week in, week out, you heard new and amazing and magical music that pulled you up and shook you, and the buzz from that is the jones that we still want satisfying.

First up was the shock of the new Champs; three very familiar faces in Paul Lush on guitar, Chris Clarke on bass, and Steve Brookes on drums, then Rosalie Deighton on guitar and support vocals, and a keyboard and sax player only identified thus far as ‘Free Jazz’ Geoff. Quickly followed by the sound and the swagger. The body of the set is all new songs taking off where ‘Follow The River’ from Streets Of Our Time left off, losing the banjos and mandolins and very much adopting the electric thrust of those Hawkish Champs who backed up Fionn Regan last spring. Unsurprisingly there’s a lot of New Jersey in it plus the dynamics of late 70s/early 80s stadium rock; did I hear Boston and Journey?

Looking around me there are people simultaneously gob-smacked and beatific; you can hear their immediate responses on some of the videos already posted. The songs really rush by; marvellous moments of guitar and sax interplay, and a great extended intro from Paul Lush; and snippets of lyrics stick. And particularly there's ‘Every Beat Of My Heart’; a celebration of the musical milieu Dan grew up in and which formed him it name-checks Big Steve, Alan Tyler, and the Borderline, along with a certain magazine. It’s set to be the first track of the new record, produced with the help of Tony Poole, and currently being mastered, and, did such things still exist, has all the makings of a classic radio hit.

Here’s an (informed) stab at the set list:

‘Ghosts In The Wire’

‘Heart And Arrow’

‘Every Beat Of My Heart’

‘Soul In The City’

‘On The Street’

‘Colonel And The King’

‘Brothers In The Night’

‘Can’t Hold Back The Hands Of Time’

‘These Days’:

the encore being the only back catalogue song played

The event thus drawing to its close there was little left to do but make that brief walk down to Farringdon Road, where long and hard, almost inevitably too hard, another splendid day in the life was celebrated to its conclusion.

Phil Gammage’s Kneel To The Rising Sun Album re-released in deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition

2011-02-21T18:16:00.001Z

PreFab International Productions is pleased to announce the re-release of Phil Gammage’s critically acclaimed album Kneel To The Rising Sun. The album was the second of Gammage’s four solo albums recorded in the 90’s. Originally released in 1991 on France’s legendary indie rock label New Rose, the record spotlights some of Gammage’s best compositions and performances.

Gammage’s vocals and guitar work are excellent throughout. His guitar playing shows an element of tasteful refinement and restraint not found in his extensive work with the New York rock band Certain General. The songs share elements of blues and folk with strong melodies and lyrics.

Kicking off the album is “Shed My Skin” a catchy song about renewal and personal rebirth. Other standouts are “Season of Rage”, “Through My Window”, and the Fred Neil classic “Everybody’s Talking At Me”. The band’s musicianship overall is stellar and features some of the best New York based players from that era. Marc Jeffrey (Band of Outsiders, Playtime) contributes guitar and slide guitar, Vinny DeNunzio (Feelies, Richard Hell, Health and Happiness Show) plays percussion and harmonica, Dave Kaufman (The Nails) is on keyboards, D. Lee (Band of Outsiders) is on bass, and Phil’s band mate from the Corvairs, Martin Blazy joins in to play percussion and drums.

The 2011 reissue features two previously unreleased bonus tracks. “Johnny Guitar” is the collaboration with Spanish chanteuse Patricia Navarro and the music is pure Gammage. “Yes It’s Me” is from a recording session shortly after the Kneel sessions and fits beautifully with the rest of the collection.

This album was a minor hit in France upon its original release in ‘91 but never saw a proper American issue. Overall it is a dynamite collection of songs from a long overlooked and underappreciated songwriter and musician.

Available for digital download through most digital distributors (iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby)

Rockingbirds and Cusack in Leigh-On-Sea - Friday 18th Feb

2011-02-19T13:42:00.000Z

Lance Baldock

A little Friday night excursion into Essex to see The Rockingbirds and Cusack provided a amiable prelude to this afternoon's Winterlude. The Ship, in Leigh-On-Sea is a proper pub with a comfortable and inviting function room upstairs, and it's always refreshing to see favourite bands away from the London maelstrom. And aside from anything else it was good to see Will, Matt and Dave from The Lucky Strikes, and Borderline Barry Everitt, master of the House of Mercy, currently down in Thorpe Bay seeing to family obligations.

A vignette of a set from Cusack. Lance Baldock sang a mixture of songs from the splendid new Mildsensations album, accompanied by Matthew Boulter on pedal steel, to moving and entertaining effect. Along with 'Never Get To Heaven' and 'Get Well Soon' there were memorable covers of Big Star's 'Thirteen' and Neil Young's 'On The Way Home'.

Mr Tyler

Having to get the last train we didn't see all of The Rockingbirds' set but cracking versions of 'Jonathan' 'Restless' Standing At The Doorstep Of Love' and 'Everybody Lives With Us' - "from our ill-fated second album" said Alan - suggest this afternoon's set might be a riot. We were making our way out into the cold as they were playing 'Till Something Better Comes Along'; that I don't propose to miss today. See you there.

Matt Boulter

Buy Mildsensations here

International Pop Overthrow finally hits London - May 27th to 30th

2011-02-17T20:17:00.000Z

David Bash's International Pop Overthrow hits London finally. It's been a long wait for the world's premier festival of power pop to reach the capital; there's been an IPO Liverpool at The Cavern for several years now, and there's one there this year in the week preceding the London event.

Many acts are booked already for the London event at The Bull & Gate; no names yet, no prices, but mark down the dates - 27th to 30th May.

Dino Valenti - Lost Recordings set for release

2011-02-16T20:13:00.001Z

Splendid news reaches us of some lost Dino Valenti (let's not dwell on the spelling of Chet Powers' pseudonym) recordings about to show the light of day. I first heard 'Time' on one of the Rock Machine comps a very long time ago and was pleased to get the Dino Valente Epic album on CD when Koch put it out at the back end of the 90s, but as you can read form the press release this is a fascinating prospect:

Who would have thought that Philadelphia record label ItsAboutMusic.com would uncover lost music from legendary Quicksilver Messenger Service lead vocalist Dino Valenti, and the quality would be this good? And when we say "lost" - we really mean it. The tapes used to form this new CD 'Get Together' were found in a storage unit in northern California by some very nice people who just knew that this music was valuable without even hearing the tapes. They figured out how to reach Dino's son, Joli and the rest is history in the making.

This CD marks the very first time that a Dino Valenti album offers his own recording of his song, "Get Together" (made more than famous by The Youngbloods). It also features covers of "Midnight Rider" (Gregg Allman) and "I'll Try Something New" (Smokey Robinson) which are both stellar performances. But the true gems on this album are the original tunes that were recorded back in the early to late Sixties. How did this music survive all this time and sound so cool? And since the recordings have been literally lost, it's a question as to who's playing on it besides Dino. Some of the tracks sure sound like Quicksilver Messenger Service - you decide.

In the early 1960s Dino Valenti performed in Greenwich Village coffee-houses, often with fellow singer-songwriters Fred Neil, Bob Dylan, Lou Gossett, Josh White, Len Chandler, Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul & Mary) and others, influencing other performers including Richie Havens who continues to perform some of Dino's early songs. By 1963 Valenti had relocated to Los Angeles where folk-rock had already become popular. During this period he wrote his best-known song, "Get Together", a quintessential 1960s love-and-peace anthem that was later recorded by Jefferson Airplane and became a major hit for The Youngbloods.

Valenti moved north to the San Francisco Bay area where after working with several groups, played in an early line-up of the San Francisco psychedelic rock group Quicksilver Messenger Service featuring John Cipollina (guitar), bassist David Freiberg, and Jim Murray (harmonica/vocals). Dino later rejoined the group in 1970 as its lead singer and main songwriter. In the late 1960s he signed as a solo artist with CBS Records, releasing an eponymous solo LP. He traveled with Quicksilver's Gary Duncan to New York in January 1969 to form a new band to be called The Outlaws, while Quicksilver's noted album 'Happy Trails' album was released in March. While Valenti and Duncan were in New York, British keyboardist Nicky Hopkins joined Quicksilver for their third album, 'Shady Grove' (December 1969). Eight of the nine songs on the group's next album, Just for Love (August, 1970) were written by Valenti, six of them under the pseudonym of Jesse Oris Farrow. He remained the chief songwriter on their next album, in December, 'What About Me?'. Despite occasional personnel changes, the band released 'Quicksilver' (1971) and 'Comin' Thru' (1972) before disbanding. The 2-LP 'Anthology' was issued in 1973 and a tour and the album, 'Solid Silver', appeared in 1975.

Quicksilver Messenger Service first gained popularity in San Francisco's Bay Area, and then the rest of the world through the release of their critically aclaimed albums. Several of the group's LPs reached the Top 30 on the Billboard Pop charts. With their jazz and classical influences, as well as a strong folk background, QMS attempted to create a sound that was individual and innovative. Dino Valenti drew heavily on his early folk music influences. According to John Cipollina, “It was Valenti who organized the group. I can remember everything Dino said. 'We were all going to have wireless guitars. We were going to have leather jackets made with hooks that we could hook these wireless instruments right into. And we were gonna have these chicks, backup rhythm sections that were gonna dress like American Indians with real short little dresses on and they were gonna have tambourines and the clappers in the tambourines were going to be silver coins.' And I'm sitting there going, 'This guy is gonna happen and we're gonna set the world on its ear.' "

Dino Valenti passed away in 1994. According to his son, Joli, his father recorded a multitude of songs that were never released. The songs on the ItsAboutMusic.com release, “Get Together” were recorded during the period from 1964 to 1970 but were only recently found in a storage area in Northern California. In an effort to be authentic, ItsAboutMusic.com licensed the cover photo from Herb Green who is famous for taking the cover shot for Jefferson Airplane’s 'Surrealistic Pillow'. The song “Get Together” was never released on a Dino Valenti or Quicksilver album. Its only appearance came on the Rhino box set entitled 'Love Is The Song We Sing' – a 4 CD collection of recordings by Bay Area artists from the Sixties.

Visit here for song samples and more info regarding Dino Valenti's 'Get Together'

Moon Duo - Mazes - debut album due in April

2011-02-08T15:37:00.000Z

Moon Duo are set to return with their debut full length album Mazes, which sees its release on April 18th through Souterrain Transmissions (Zola Jesus, Marnie Stern, Tweak Bird).

Formed in San Francisco in 2009 by Wooden Shijps guitarist Ripley Johnson and his partner, Sanae Yamada, Moon Duo’s first two critically acclaimed EPs, Killing Time (2009) and Escape (2010), fused the futuristic pylon hum and transistor reverb of Suicide or Silver Apples with the heat-haze fuzz of American rock ‘n’ roll to create tracks of blistering, 12-cylinder space rock. Now their debut album Mazes, recorded in San Francisco and mixed in Berlin during 2010 as the band prepared to move to the mountains of Colorado, explores a far broader, lighter, sound.

That’s most clear on the dreamy organ and skipping riff of the title track, which recalls the Velvet Underground, or the handclaps and swinging organ bloops over the potent shredding and guttural riff delivered by Johnson in When You Cut: “He is an incredible guitar player,”enthuses Yamada, “He is one of those musicians who has the ability to elicit a guttural, corporeal response in the listener.” Throughout, Mazes is the sound of Moon Duo carving out their own identity, looking to the horizon, and moving forward.

Ripley says that, as a guitarist and songwriter, delineating between Moon Duo and Wooden Shijps “happens naturally. I focus on one project at a time, and the way the two bands operate is very different. And there are certain limitations that Moon Duo is forced to accept, not having a drummer for example, and I really like that. I like the creative challenge of working with limitations. Having done so much home recording cultivates that. Working with one other person is much different from working with four.”

Yamada is happy to discuss how the romantic relationship at the core of Moon Duo has affected Mazes: “Any creative partnership involves a certain level of intimacy, as does any coupling. In each type of partnership you understand certain things about the other or others involved based on the nature of your interactions,” she explains. “To mix the two is kind of a melding of intimacies – you discover different dimensions of knowing the other person. At the same time it is hard to distill specific aspects that that dynamic brings to the music.” And she insists: “The music is the music.”
“We wanted to do something in a more ‘rock 'n' roll band’ style, something a bit fuller than our previous recordings.”In terms of recording this meant that Moon Duo “used more tracks on this record, in order to get a denser, layered sound to make this our ‘rock band’ record. I grew up a huge Stones fan, so I've always liked that dense sound, with multiple guitar tracks, percussion, piano, organ - anything you can squeeze into the mix.”

This meant a vastly different recording process to Moon Duo’s first two EPs, which were recorded fast and at home. Mazes was a more drawn-out process, involving proper recording studios for the first time including the trip to Berlin to mix and re-record certain parts and the track ‘Run Around’. “The working title was Die Blumen [the flowers], so going into the mix sessions we kind of felt like it was becoming our ‘Berlin record’, but in the end it retained the stamp of San Francisco and we liked Mazes title better anyway.” And ultimately, Mazes is a definably American record, recorded against the backdrop of the Johnson and Yamada’s move from the Californian coast to the heights of Colorado. “I think a lot of our music has something to do with the mythology of the road,”muses Moon Duo’s Sanae Yamada.

And if Mazes is a quest, a journey through American landscape and music, Johnson concludes that its key is “finding one's place in the world; moving forward,and the different paths one takes moving through life, trying to reach various goals, literally moving; love; pain; change. Or just getting by, and making sense of things”.

Mazes is released in Europe on April 18th through Souterrain Transmissions (US release via Sacred Bones).

Listen to the title track here and visit Soulterrain Transmissions to download

Moon Duo - Mazes by souterraintransmissions

Moon Duo on Twitter

Moon Duo on MySpace

Stuntfox and Honky Tonkin' Sunday - Sunday Gigs in Camden

2011-02-03T19:01:00.000Z

Two good shows for you Camdenites to choose from on Sunday afternoon. Our old friend Piers Miller, once of Turning Worm, now of Stuntfox, kicks off a series of laidback afternoon shows in the front room of The Bull & Gate. These are weekly and from March Bucketfull Of Brains will be curating one afternoon a month. This week features TALL TREE 6FT MAN, BLEECH, and our own BENJAMIN FOLKE THOMAS.

Meanwhile the recent parade of Paisley Underground aristocracy continues at Honky Tonkin' Sunday at The Golden Lion where SID GRIFFIN and his COAL PORTERS play, along with THE KITCHEN DRINKERS. This follows the recent appearances of Dan Stuart, Steve Wynn, and Chris Cacavas. Groovy times indeed.

The Slummers featuring Dan Stuart and JD Foster at The Windmill - Wednesday

2011-01-31T16:24:00.000Z

The Slummers at The Windmill on Wednesday.

The band was started by Dan Stuart and JD Foster after wondering whether they could rediscover their musical innocence. Mr. Stuart was the leader of 80's legends Green On Red and half of Danny & Dusty while Mr. Foster is a sought after producer and sideman (Calexico, Patty Griffin etc.). The album was produced by Antonio Gramentieri who along with percussionist Diego Sapignoli provided instrumental support and inspiration. The songs were written in NYC, recorded in Richmond, Virginia and mixed in Senigallia, Italy. Despite their collective artistic experience, the members insist the slummers are a club of amateurs in spirit and purpose. Gentlemen all, you can take them at their word:

"Let us now celebrate the amateur, pure of heart and motive, in it only for the experience. here we beckon, come slum with us, downtown and beyond, the love never stops…"

Mr. Stuart and Mr. Foster co-wrote the compositions, share vocals and play guitars along with other assorted contraptions. Mr. Gramentieri and Mr. Sapignoli fill in with everything from baritone guitar to vibraphone. The record starts with the Beefheart absurdity of "Rift Valley Evolutionary Blues" and ends with the hopefully plaintive "Waiting For You". The material runs from the Wire inspired "Bread and Water" and Keith meets Nino Rota of "Bowery Boy" to the George Jones purity of "All About You". The most intimate and hair raising track is "Ironbound", one take only, Foster's vocal haunts. Mr. Gramentieri's production touches are eclectic and sublime and suggest a distinct move away from the ho hum ghetto of alt/country Americana whatever. Bravo maestro!

John Otway - Tomorrow night at The Betsey - really free

2011-01-31T13:41:00.001Z

Tuesday 1st Feb - FREE

THE JOHN OTWAY LECTURE -

A guide to life in the frantic lane of the music business - how to make success out of failure … and back again.

Ahead of his full band show at BETSEY'S WINTERLUDE please join us for a powerpoint-assisted presentation on the highs and lows of being ROCK N ROLL'S GREATEST FAILURE ... From some ill-judged amp-balancing on The Old Grey Whistle Test to a 2nd hit single on Top Of The Pops ... performing to 4000 at The Royal Albert Hall for his birthday to a failed world tour, OTWAY has plenty to talk about in the two volumes of his autobiography (COR BABY THAT'S REALLY ME and I DID IT OTWAY). Hear some of the highlights in person as John presents the JOHN OTWAY LECTURE …

“highly informative.” – Jeremy Hunt

At The Betsey

8.00pm ££ Cor Baby its Really Free!! ££

Downliners Sect -Dangerous Ground - new Steady Boy album

2011-01-25T12:10:00.000Z

Out now from Freddie Krc's Steady Boy label.

The Downliners Sect were the ragged, rocking real deal, blasting out of England in 1964 on an early British wave that took their contemporaries the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Kinks, and the Pretty Things to rock and roll heights and history. But unlike their friends, the Sect stayed true to their rhythm and blues roots and the grungy glory of the two and a half minute record. Cool tracks like "Baby What's Wrong" and "Little Egypt" gave them stardom in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway and an enduring cult

status everywhere else. Half a century later, they're still true to those roots and still fronted by founding members Don Craine and Keith Grant. The Sect survives, and SteadyBoy is thrilled to bring this album of tracks that only saw limited release in the nineties.

Dangerous Ground presents the band true to the spirit of American blues-based rock and roll with a British twist, sounding like early Rolling Stones, had they never abandoned the raw sound of their first several albums. Speaking of the Stones, Ronnie Wood’s brother Art Wood painted the inspired Dangerous Ground cover. Blues rock gets no more authentic, no more psychedelic, no more

unrepentant than the Downliners Sect.

--Rush Evan, SteadyBoy Records

DOWNLINERS SECT-

DANGEROUS GROUND (SB-0032)

Release date: January 18, 2011

Produced by

Don Craine, Keith Grant, Mike Burch

12-track version available on CD

10-track version available on vinyl

1. Keep on Rocking (Grant) 3:41

2. Escape from Hong Kong

(Grant/Craine) 4:52

3. In the Pits (Tiller) 3:21 (CD only)

4. Dangerous Ground (Dwyer) 4:11

5. Lucy’s Bar Room (Craine/Dwyer) 4:02

6. Working on the Railroad

(Trad. Arr. Grant/Craine) 4:44

7. So Blue (Grant) 4:15

8. Ease Up (Craine/Dwyer) 3:22 (CD only)

9. Love with No Strings (Grant) 4:37

10. Quicksand (Grant/Craine) 4:37

11. Daemon Lover (Craine/Dwyer) 4:13

12. Bookworm (Craine/Grant) 6:17

Downliners Sect - 'Brite Lights - Big City' EP

2011-01-25T11:49:00.001Z

Here's a great piece of archeology available through Hand Of Glory.

The Downliners Sect are one the great names of the British rhythm 'n' blues putting out a bunch of singles, EPs, and three albums on Columbia between 1964 and 1966.

Before they signed to EMI they put out an EP 'Nite In Great Newport Street' on Contrast Sound. There was to be a second, 'Brite Lights - Big City', but the day the band turned up at the pressing plant with the sleeves they found it all boarded up and Contrast Sound had literally disappeared without trace and the master tapes along with it.

Now the tunes have turned up; in a box of reel to reel tapes bought blind on eBay; and Hand Of Glory have given it an (authorised) release. Lovely facsimile, pre-order now, they'll all go.

TIMEMAZINE #5

2011-01-25T10:54:00.001Z

Just had the latest issue of the splendid TIMEMAZINE. It's a psychedelic fanzine put together in Tripolis by the 3 Timelords. Lovely lay-out similar to Misty Lane and a great production values.

The latest issue has interviews with Sam Andrew of Big Brother & The Holding Company, Gary Duncan of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Gary Lee Yoder of Kak and The Oxford Circle. Plus Fifty Foot Hose, The Finchley Boys, and Fruits De Mer Records and lots more.

There is as ever a free CD with tracks from the featured artists and similar. Track list below.

Contact them through their MySpace

Betsey's WINTERLUDE gets closer

2011-01-25T10:11:00.000Z

Winterlude is now just over three weeks away. Tickets are selling quickly. This will be one of the musical events of the year. Don't miss it.

Tickets here or pop into the pub

Damien Jurado and Richard Swift - free covers album

2011-01-22T06:36:00.001Z

This has only just come to my attention but it looks interesting. A bunch of covers that Damien Jurado and Richard Swift made available last year. Some notable choices including Lenny Kaye's 'Crazy Like A Fox and Bill Fay's 'Be Not Fearful'.

He's also got a US tour with Viva Voce scheduled for March. Here's the dates for you in reach.

Other People's Songs

'Be Not So Fearful' - Originally by Bill Fay

'Hello Sunshine' - Originally by Relatively Clean Rivers

'Sweetness' - Originally by Yes

'Sincere Replies' - Originally by Oh! Calcutta! Original Broadway Cast

'If The Sun Stops Shinin’' - Originally by Chubby Checker

'Follow Me' - Originally by John Denver

'Outside My Window' - Originally by The Fleetwoods

'Radioactivity' - Originally by Kraftwerk

'Crazy Like A Fox' - Originally by Link Cromwell & The Zoo

Steve Wynn tour begins tonight

2011-01-21T15:29:00.000Z

The tour begins tonight in Cologne and they get to England on Wednesday, playing upstairs at the Garage, York, Bedford, and Newcastle. Someone didn't sit down with a map, again!

Chris Cacavas is with him on the English dates and some of the European, and the Newcastle show is a Songwriter's Circle with Danny Champ and Martin Stephenson.

More details of all the dates of Steve's site and he's tweeting in deadly earnest this time so you can keep up @stevewynn.

And here's a treat for the older brethren from the days that used to be:

Madam - Album launch tomorrow - Kings Place, Kings Cross

2011-01-20T18:45:00.000Z

Our friend Sukie Smith who performs as Madam is launching her splendid new record Gone Before Morning at Kings Place in Kings Cross tomorrow evening. Eva Eden supports.

In Praise Of Ace Records (And A Nod To Sartorial)

2011-01-16T13:53:00.002Z

As folk who've been with us for a goodly while will know we have endless time for Messrs Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. In the mid to late 90s Dan started to be a lot more visible than he had for nearly two decades. Memorably he appeared at The Russell Arms and The QE Hall in 1994. The latter as part of a magical songwriter's circle with Guy Clark, Joe South, Allen Toussaint and Vic Chesnutt. Sadly Vic is gone now, as is Charlie Gillett who curated, and Mike Hart who I attended both that and the Russell Arms in the company of. Mike's cassette recording of the Russell Arms show remains a treasured possession.

When Joss and I and company took over BoB in 1996 we were all well into the Memphis scene and story ; we took a trip there together in September 1996 and met Jody Stephens and Jim Dickinson and set in train the connections that led to the BoB 50th Issue CD in early 1998. That opened with Dan's 'Jewel Of My Heart' an (the?) outtake from the recordings for his 1994 Sire album Do Right Man. If there's one thing I can say with real pride it's that I put out a record on Dan Penn.

Of course all the Ace gang were at those London shows and the various ones that followed over the next few years; Borderline, the Embassy Rooms (with Bob Neuwirth supporting) and the theatre, the name of which escapes me, where they were supported by Nick Lowe. That just shows you how long Ace Records have been going, and I guess sometimes we take them for granted. But when I look on my shelves I see such a mixture of their stuff; all lovingly packaged with proper sleevenotes and booklets, with intelligent sequencing; and just realise what a fantastic job of retrieval they done over the years and continue.

In 2010 I spent a lot of time listening to Georgie Fame's Mod Classics, really enjoyed the How Many Roads: Black America Sings Bob Dylan compilation, finally gave the three CD Southern Soul collection the attention it deserved and from there got into Doris Duke.

Also spent time with You Baby a collection of performances of songs by PF Sloan and Steve Barri. This was one of a continuing series of comps they've done themed around producers and songwriters; there's been two volumes around Bert Berns, one on Jerry Ragovoy, one on Lee Hazlewood, and a good few more. Now they've got round to Dan and Spoon and this one may run and run. Coming out next month it's a mixture of the well-known and the fascinating.; Percy Sledge's 'Out Of Left, Field', Charlie Rich's 'A Woman Left Lonely', Tony Borders' 'I Met Her In Church', and The Box Top doing 'Everything I Am' just to name a few. I've had a guide copy of it for a couple of months and it's been Penn season again in BoB Towers.

Then I was digging through files on an old Mac and came up with what follows. I used to write an imports column for Pop Culture Press who were based in Austin. It was basically about stuff coming out of English reissue labels and in the summer of 2008 I did a piece around the Rock On comp that Ace put out that year. It never ran as PCP never published that projected issue and their online plans never materialised. So here it is, mainly about Ace but a nod to Terry Edwards' Sartorial label towards the end:

If you came out of Camden Town tube station turning left into Kentish Town Road, at any time between the mid-70s and the late 90s, you’d almost immediately hear some classic rock’n’roll music. It came out of a little shop whose windows were filled with album sleeves and festooned with gig posters. Inside a remarkably tiny space was rammed with records. There were album sleeves everywhere; walls, ceiling, racks. Picture sleeves hung from above the counter. It was a veritable cornucopia.

This was Rock On. It opened in September 1975 as the third concern trading under that name. Ted Carroll, music lover, and tour manager of Skid Row, had visited Big John’s Oldies But Goodies Land in Boston in late 1970 and been inspired. The following summer he’d set up a market stall in Portobello and three years later another, under the management of Roger Armstrong, in Soho Market.

At a time when rock was turning increasingly serious, the album predominated, and singles were downgraded, almost derided, Rock On were pioneers. They searched out old records from a decade and more before and bought them in quantity when they found them. They were crucial in sowing seeds that flowered in the punk revolution. The people who formed the bands of 1976 had been hanging around the stalls for years and soaked up their ethos.

In 1975 too Rock On spawned Chiswick Records who put out singles by names like the Count Bishops, the 101’ers, the Hammersmith Gorillas, Johnny Moped, and the Nipple Erectors. Three years later Chiswick launched a reissue arm and called it Ace. The rest is now history as Ace has flourished for three decades making readily available a massive treasury of rhythm ’n’ blues, soul, rockabilly, country, folk, psychedelia, and much else too. It has rummaged throughout the US finding the tape archives of long dormant labels and bringing their contents to a new audience. It has licensed material from legendary imprints like Vanguard, Takoma, and Fantasy. And there’s no sign of it easing off.

Rock On is a tribute to the shop; a collection of the songs you’d hear if you ventured near. It’s the tunes that are the lifeblood of a generation of London musicians and music lovers. Slim Harpo’s ‘Shake Your Hips’, Vince Taylor’s ‘Brand New Cadillac’, the Flamin’ Groovies’ ‘Slow Death’, Jerry Byrne’s ‘Lights Out’, and a lot more too. Presented inevitably in true Ace fashion with pages of commentary, anecdotes, photographs, that both enhance the package but also send you looking for more.

A favoured Ace format is collections themed around producers and arrangers. This year has seen both Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy celebrated in this way. Berns, from New York, was dead at 38 before the end of 1967, but he left a rich legacy having worked with artists of the calibre of Solomon Burke, the Isley Brothers, and Van Morrison. As Bert Russell he wrote ‘Twist And Shout’, ‘One Way Love’, and ‘Here Comes The Night’. The Bert Berns Story - Twist And Shout covers the years 1960 to 1964. It runs from his first hit song, the Cuban-tinged ‘Push Push’ by Austin Taylor for the independent Laurie Records, through to the version of ‘Here Comes The Night’ by Lulu that he produced for her, and Decca Records, on one of his few visits to London.

Ragovoy, also New York-based, had worked with Berns and is one of the major figures of East Coast soul and R&B. Songs he wrote, or recorded, are now legendary. The Jerry Ragovoy Story: Time Is On My Side 1953-2003 includes that very title song by Kai Winding, the Danish trombonist, with Dionne Warwick and Cissy Houston singing the choruses, and ‘Cry Baby’ from Garnet Mimms, more widely known in Janis Joplin’s version. Ragovoy was also behind the phenomenal ‘Stay With Me’ where Lorraine Ellison, backed by a 46-piece orchestra, chills the spine and set the nerve-ends tingling.

Meanwhile on the West Coast in 1965 the 19-year-old P F Sloan was working as a songwriter for Lou Adler. He had his moment in the sun when Barry McGuire took his ‘Eve Of Destruction’ high into both the US and British Top Tens. His authorship of that tune was unjustly damned as exploitative of the protest movement. In fact it was a fine example of his blending of late-teen angst and proto-folk rock. There’s much more of it to be found on Here’s Where I Belong. The Best Of The Dunhill Years 1965-67, predominantly comprising the bulk of the two Dunhill albums, Song Of The Times and Twelve More Times. Sloan had been writing since the age of fourteen, and Johnny Rivers’ ‘Secret Agent Man’, Herman’s Hermits ‘ A Must To Avoid’ and the Searchers’ ‘Take Me For What I’m Worth’ are all his.

Another marvellous, but now lost, shop in Camden was Compendium Books where one could gain an introduction to writers like Derek Raymond. Almost 20 years after its publication his disturbing, brutal, and uncompromising I Was Dora Suarez is recognised as profoundly influential both as crime and London novel, though it remains a deeply uneasy read.

Raymond was the alter ego of Robin Cook; a louche Old Etonian, and habitué of Soho drinking holes. A natural raconteur with a voice reflecting his milieu, though he compared it to that of an ‘iron parrot’. He got together with James Johnston and Terry Edwards of Gallon Drunk in the wake of their From The Heart Of Town album and they provide eminently suitable settings for seven considerable extracts from the book, which Cook reads nervelessly, surrounding them with dark metropolitan noise, unstable jazz, incongruous musical boxes, and Chopin. It’s now reissued on Edwards’ Sartorial Records.

The Baseball Project - Volume 2

2011-01-14T12:49:00.000Z

Following the unanticipated success of the outfit's first album Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes & Dying Quails -- the band performed on The Late Show with David Letterman, was featured in the official World Series Program and Sports Illustrated among others -- baseball's sardonic rock chroniclers are back with Volume 2: High and Inside, an even more detailed look at the stories behind the stories of America's Favourite Pastime.

Their second season finds band members Steve Wynn (The Miracle 3, The Dream Syndicate), Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows, R.E.M.), Linda Pitmon (The Miracle 3, Golden Smog) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.) drilling down even deeper into the Byzantine, lore-laden annals of baseball history. Volume 2 also includes guests spots by Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan, as well as Chris Funk and John Moen of The Decemberists, dispelling any fears of a sophomore slump.

Tracklist:

1. 1976
2. Panda and The Freak
3. Fair Weather Fans
4. Don't Call Them Twinkies
5. Chin Music
6. Buckner's Bolero
7. Tony (Boston's Chosen Son)
8. Ichiro Goes to the Moon
9. The Straw that Stirs the Drink
10. Look Out Mom
11. Pete Rose Way
12. Twilight of My Career
13. Here Lies Carl Mays

The record's out early in March on YepRoc. Meanwhile have a listen to their interim Broadside Ballads chronicling the last year's baseball series.

Steve Wynn and Chris Cacavas are touring in Europe later this month. Dates here.

Wolf People announce headline tour and 'Silbury Sands' 7"

2011-01-14T10:55:00.002Z

After featuring in our editor's pics of 2011 for their superb Steeple album WOLF PEOPLE will embark on their first UK headline tour next month.

Twisted Nerve recording artists The Liftmen support on most dates, details as follows:

February 13 Nottingham, Bodega 7pm, £7 adv

February 14 Bristol, Cooler w/The Liftmen 7.30pm, £7 adv

February 15 Brighton, Prince Albert w/The Liftmen 8pm, £7 adv

February 16 London, Cargo w/The Liftmen 7pm, £8 adv

February 18 Oxford, Jericho Tavern w/The Liftmen 8pm, £7 adv

February 19 Manchester, Deaf Institute w/The Liftmen 7.30pm, £7 adv

February 20 Leeds, Nation Of Shopkeepers w/The Liftmen 8pm, £5 adv

February 21 Sheffield, Harley w/Wet Nuns 8pm, £6 adv

February 22 Glasgow, Captain's Rest 8pm, £7 adv

To coincide, Jagjaguwar are proud to release album opener 'Silbury Sands' on February 14. The song will be available on seven inch and digital formats, b/w exclusive b-side 'Dry'.

Wolf People have also been added to the line-up of April's Roadburn festival in Tilburg, Holland alongside Jagjaguwar labelmates and 2010 touring buddies Black Mountain (also among the BOB picks) who will headline the closing Afterburner event).

Flamin' Groovies in London at Easter

2011-01-06T14:57:00.000Z

More info here

Road Movie with Ben Folke Thomas

2011-01-06T14:36:00.000Z

Benjamin Folke Thomas on tour last year with Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou et al. This year Trevor and Hannah-Ou are off on a Tin Tabernacle tour.

2010 - Band Roll

2011-01-01T13:34:00.000Z

This year's lot - God bless then all

1st Jan – Johnny Throttle, Bermondsey Joyriders
4th Jan – Richard de Bastion, Benjamin Folke Thomas
7th Jan – Andy Hankdog, The Shattered Jew, Jason Collins, Benjamin Folke Thomas, Anton & Tobia
14th Jan – Danny & The Champs, Alan Tyler, (Romeo Stodart, Jason McNiff, Andy Hankdog, Ben Thomas)
15th Jan – Danny & The Champs, Yngve and The Innocent
21st Jan – Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou, Jack Day, Ben Folke Thomas, Marcia Mello, Hattie Longfield, Tom McRae, Danny George Wilson, Andy Hankdog, Jason Collins
25th Jan – The Coal Porters
26th Jan – Sarah Jaffe, Midlake
28th Jan – The Kissaway Trail, Midlake
31st Jan – Cowbell, Little George Souref
2nd Feb – Wilko Johnson (Oil City Confidential)
6th Feb – Ben Folke Thomas, Ange & The Wagon Band
7th Feb – The Coal Porters
10th Feb – Trent Miller, Harrisburg, Ben Folke Thomas
12th Feb – The Hankdogs, Danny Wilson & David Rothon, This Is The Kit
16th Feb – Wolf People
18th Feb – Danny & The Champs, Fionn Regan
19th Feb – Jason McNiff, The Coal Porters
20th Feb – Darrell Bath & Mickey Kemp
26th Feb – Mary Epworth & The Jubilee Band, The Masonics
27th Feb – Ben Folke Thomas, Jack Day, Pepe Belmonte, Alan Tyler & Paul Lush, Dan Raza & Andy Hankdog
3rd March – Mark Mulholland
4th March - Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou, Jack Day, Ben Folke Thomas, Old Kerry Mckee
6th March – Emit Bloch, Case Hardin
12th March - Band Of Outsiders
13th March - Irish Rock Review
14th March – Grada, Joe Hurley
15th March - The Cocktail Slippers, The Doughboys
16th March - Trembling Bells,
19th March - Nada Surf, John Train
20th March - John Wesley Harding
21st March - Kenn Kwedar
22nd March - George Usher
24th March - John Wesley Harding & Rick Moody
25th March – The Cabinet Of Wonders, John Wesley Harding, Freedy Johnson etc
2nd April - There Are More Of Us Than There Are Of You, Ben Folke Thomas
3rd April – Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive
4th April - Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive, The One Tree Hillbillies
5th April – Dolly & Rick, The Dog Roses, Chicken Shed Zeppelin, The Holloway Jug Band, Norton Money, Circulus, The Belles Of London, The Cedars
9th April – The Triffids, The Blackeyed Susans
10th April - The Blackeyed Susans, Melanie Oxley & Chris Abrahams, The Nearly Brothers
15th April – Bluegrass Champs, Jack Day, Four Quid Quartet, Alan Tyler, Trent Miller, Harrisburg, Ben Folke Thomas
17th April – Wolf People, Simon James Onions, Henry’s Funeral Shoe
18th April – Emily Barker, Danny Brittain, Circulus
19th April – Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, Danny & The Champs, The Duke And The King
20th April – Trent Miller, Andy Weaver, Darrell Bath, Ben Folke Thomas, Glassglue
22st April - Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, Danny & The Champs, The Duke And The King
28th April – Anny Celsi & Nelson Bragg, Viper Central
30th April – Oldboy, French Daniel
1st May - Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, Norton Money, Jack Day, Ben Folke Thomas
2nd May – Three Bonzos And A Piano, The Ian Hunter Band
3rd May – Tony Poole, Rick Bockner, Suicide, The Stooges
4th May – Simone Felice
5th May – The Badland Revival, Matt Keating
6th May – Martin Ledner, Jack Day, Lane, Pony Club Oration, Vanishing Twin, Ben Folke Thomas, Trent Miller, Andy Hankdog
11th May – Jason McNiff, Harrisburg, Ben Folke Thomas, Modena City Ramblers, Andy Hankdog
13th May – Foghorn Leghorn, The Coal Porters
14th May – Chuck Prophet
15th May – Ben Folke Thomas, J D Smith, Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive
16th May - Austin Lucas, Alan Tyler & The Lost Sons Of Littlefield, The Henry Brothers, Darren (Crazy Arm), Danny George Wilson, El Morgan
18th May – Ben Folke Thomas launch (Ben, Trent Miller, Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou, Jack Day, Hankdog)
19th May – Tamikrest, Dirtmusic
24th May – Henry’s Funeral Shoe
27th May – Neal Casal, Nicolai Dunger
29th May – Nic Dawson Kelly, Tommy Mansi & The Icebreakers, Tommy Hinkley and the Wandering Horse
30th May- Southern Tenant Folk Union
1st June – Woven Hand, Crippled Black Phoenix
2nd June – The Birds
4th June – Jason McNiff, Troubadour Rose
5thJune – Easter Sun
6th June – Hank Wangford
8th June - Alessi, John Grant
10th June - Tigercats, Lyrebirds, The Northwestern
13th June – Alan Tyler, Jack Day, Ben Folke Thomas
17th June – Hankdog, Jason McNiff & Ange Boxall
20th June – The Keys, Instant Flight, The See See
22nd June – Alejandro Escovedo
24th June – Alessi, Mountain Man, Lone Wolf, John Grant
29th June – Patti Smith, Fionn Regan
4th July – Tapestry Festival – Magic Numbers, Jim Jones Revue, Trembling Bells, Old Boy, Kitty Daisy and Lewis,
5th July – Pearly Gate Music
12th July – Danny & The Champs
13th July – Richard Warren
18th July - Redlands Palomino Company, King Salami & The Cumberland Three, Singing Adams, Jan Bell & Will Scott, Cowbell, Buckshot Soup
20th July – Honkeyfinger, Toehammer, Henry’s Funeral Shoe
22nd July – Howe Gelb and A Band Of Gypsies, Giant Sand, Kristen Hersh
24th July – The Lucky Strikes,
25th July – The Mekons
26th July – The Mekons
28th July – Onions, Hank Wangford & BJ Cole, Lucky Strikes, Dave Mesmelik
30th July – Emma Tricca, Jason McNiff & Ange Boxall, Richard Warren
31st July – Son Of Buff, Cowbell, The Fabulous Penetrators
1st August – Tony Poole
3rd August – Hungry Dog Brand, Jan Bell, Will Scott, Onions
5th August – Lyle Zimmerman, Jason McNiff, Ian Roe, Hannah & Rachel
6th August – Emily Barker (Tate)
8th August – Jason McNiff, The 16 Tonnes
11th August – Benjamin Folke Thomas, The Smoke Fairies
18th August – Sid Griffin & Wes McGhee
19th August – Lantern Society
26th August - Benjamin Folke Thomas, Josienne Clarke
27th August – Spirogyra, Wolf People
2nd September – Simone Felice
3rd September – Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby, Blockheads
4th September – Benjamin Folke Thomas, Redlands Palomino Company, Rockingbirds
6th September – Sam Beer, Caitlin Rose, Heidi Spencer
8th September – Caitlin Rose, Timber Timbre, Phospherescent
9th September – Troubadour Rose, Benjamin Folke Thomas Band
10th Septemebr – Elliott Brood, Trembling Bells, Wolf People, Edwyn Collins
11th September – Phosphorescent, Citay, Voice Of The Seven Thunders, Wilderness of Mantitoba, The Unthanks, Caitlin Rose, Black Mountain, Yo La Tengo
12th September – Daniel Lefkowitz, Singing Adams, Felice Brothers, Low Anthem, Caitlin Rose
15th September – The Nights, Bethia Beadman
23rd September – Morgan O’Kane
24th September – Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby
25th September – Benjamin Folke Thomas
26th September – Lucky Strikes
27th September – Kathleen Haskard, James Walbourne, Simon J Alpin
28th September – Jeremy Gluck and Marc Jeffrey, Trent Miller
30th September – Eilen Jewell, Benjamin Folke Thomas
1st October – Grinderman
2nd October – Marc Jeffrey & Paul Lush, Lions Of Least Resistance
4th October – Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, Caitlin Rose
7th October – Black Mountain, Black Angels
9th October – Stupidity
10th October – Ian Hunter
14th October – Ben Folke Thomas
15th October – Willie Nile
20th October – Wolf People
21st October – Seefeel, Hallogallo 2010, Trent Miller, Jack Day
24th October – The Snakes
27th October – The Duke And The King
28th October – Marmaduke Dando, The Electric Sunshine Band
30th October – Trembling Bells, Alasdair Roberts, Shirley Collins
1st November – Jason McNiff, Alan Tyler, Ange Boxall & The Wagon Band
4th November – Duke Garwood, Lonna Kelley, Giant Sand
5th November – 14 Iced Bears, Case Hardin, James Walbourne, Celilo, Bella Echoes
6th November – Los Explosivos, The Boonaraaas
7th November – Redlands Palomino Company
11th November – John Grant
12th November – Mick Farren and Portobello Allstars, Pink FA with Nik Turner
13th November – Lucky Strikes, Onions, Bob Collum
15th November – Fairport Convention
16th November – Michael Weston King, Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3, Giant Sand
17th November - Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3
18th November - Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3, True Lies
23rd November - Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3
26th November - Circulus
29th November – Hot Brew, The Magic Numbers
30th November – Sadies, Christopher Rees, Young Rebel Set
2nd December – Lantern Society – Ben Folke Thomas, Jack Day, Emily, Jason Collins Band
3rd December – Kelly Stoltz, Stephanie Finch & The Company Men
5th December – John Miller & His Country Casuals, Ben Folke Thomas
11th December – The Rockingbirds, The Arlenes
12th December – Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo, The Arlenes
28th December – The Kitchen Drinkers, Findlay Brown, The Dog Roses
29th December – The Arlenes, Gary Lammin, The Rosinators

Certain General - Stolen Car

2010-12-23T11:49:00.001Z

This, of course, should also have been in the Top Ten but now it gets a post all to itself:

"Along with the Band Of Outsiders Certain General were scions of early 80s downtown New York, holding on to the torch of Television and Patti Smith, twisting their vision further through dark, intense Village back-ways, while forcing wide the doors for Sonic Youth.Based around an axis of Parker Dulany, Phil Gammage, and Kevin Tooley, they have reappeared periodically but now come up with a record of skill and invention, of instrumental virtuosity that renews our belief that music as a savage art can empower."

Robyn Hitchcock covers streaming inside The Museum

2010-12-22T15:03:00.000Z

Robyn and Scott

For Xmas Robyn Hitchcock has a set of twelve recently recorded, unreleased covers available to listen to. The new tracks are streaming from his Audio Bus at the bottom right of The Museum Of Robyn Hitchcock.

There's the Dead's 'Candyman' with Peter Buck, John Paul Jones, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, three Bowie tracks from The Feghorn in October, plus three guest vocalists in Scott McCaughey on 'I Still Miss Someone', Mike Heron with 'Very Cellular Song', and Nick Lowe on 'Blue Moon Of Kentucky'.

Below is a track listing:

1 Be Here Now 3:40

2 Blue Moon Of Kentucky 5:02

3 Candyman 7:16

4 Changes 3:42

5 Copper Kettle 4:44

6 I Still Miss Someone 3:48

7 Life On Mars 4:49

8 Pink Moon in C 3:40

9 Quicksand 5:50

10 Song For Bob Dylan 4:29

11Very Cellular Song 12:38

12 Wang Dang Doodle 7:07

WINTERLUDE - the flyer

2010-12-21T20:48:00.000Z

Top Ten of 2010 plus

2010-12-21T20:08:00.003Z

RECORDS OF THE YEAR: what a palaver. I started off with about three and it's just grown, with three sub-sections. So you're not going to hear that much about any of them. If I was to be so picky as to have a favourite of the year it would be Trembling Bells. More often than not they haven't quite done it live, though they were right there at Cecil Sharp and for much of the End of The Road set, but there is nothing even slightly off about the album.

Never the biggest Czars fan, but John Grant's Queen Of Denmark is opulent and gorgeous and its lustre doesn't fade. 'Where Dreams Go To Die' is to die for.

It's been a five year wait for a new Miracle 3 album, though Steve Wynn has been busy in the interim. This and the shows bought it all back home. 'Resolution' nestles in quite nicely next to 'Amphetamine' and 'John Coltrane Stereo Blues'.

Wilderness Heart from Black Mountain. A highlight and a discovery at End Of The Road. Like Deep Purple were they on SST and a lot more besides. A band to make you jump in the air.

A psychedelic delight and aural kaleidoscope from the ubiquitous Carwen Ellis' Colorama.

Okkervil River provided the setting for what turned out as fascinating a mining of Roky’s cultural milieu and personal odyssey as Time Out Of Mind was of Dylan’s.

An album that celebrates a personal history that’s also a shared history. A deeply romantic set of songs that good-naturedly hymn the rock'n'roll archetypes, with the same joy in the best of England that infused Nikki Sudden and Ronnie Lane.

Two wilfully eccentric performers providing quite beautiful readings of their and our favourite songs.

The patently close-knit group, now definitely a group rather than a collision of talented individuals, bought us this new exploratory, celebratory collection, drenched in soul, recorded in the sympathetic air of Bearsville.

Richard Warren's Laments is a record imbued with a Memphis feeling, with a vibe similar to that aspired to by Primal Scream on Give Out But Don't Give Up but here perhaps bettered. While there was an immediate recognition of some of the influences , and touchstones being worked from, it took a few listens to latch on to how good it really is.

The Wolf People's Steeple is their first album proper. A tour de force of intelligent, ebullient, progressive music

A 2009 album in all but UK release date. Rowland was dead before the year began but Pop Crimes, the work of a questing, living artist, enhanced our lives in 2010.

Quite simply the purest country singer practising his art on these islands, and the finest.

Utterly reliable in his unreliability, teasing and questing, never far from that Tucson dryness, Howe Gelb wanders free through cities of Europe and a plethora of musical side-roads.

REISSUES & EXCAVATIONS: It seems that seldom a year passes without a new version of Buffalo Bill surfacing. This double vinyl set from Munster in Spain is the definitive version. With Rowland Howard’s death four of the participants are now gone but as the years go by this 1986 recording gains the respect it deserves. Among many things it should be considered the proto-alt.country record.

A five CD set of the legendary show celebrating the 5th birthday of the UK's greatest ever music magazine. Lovingly restored by Tony Poole. A beautiful package with sleevenotes from John Tobler, Pete Frame, Andy Childs, Tom Sheehan, Deke Leonard, and Nigel Cross (without whom).

A remarkable piece of archeology from Mark Linn. Recorded at Bradleys Barn in 1970. Riley Watkins and Gary Stewart as a rootsy Moby Grape.

We've been waiting for this on CD for a long time. The classic second Dream Syndicate album featuring 'Merrittville', 'Bullet With My Name On It', 'Daddy's Girl', and 'John Coltrane Stereo Blues'. Which cheeky sod asked Steve if there was going to be a vinyl version?

Los Saicos created a monstrous concatenation of trash, surf and beat music in Peru between 1965 and 1966 cutting twelve tracks before disbanding. They're all here and remarkable.

Iggy and James playing together again. Alive doing the needful. We can perhaps retire our Radar copies now.

TRIBUTE ALBUMS: The best tribute album since Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST. I'll leave the plaudits on this to someone else:

“A great world-weariness in the vein of Jackson C Frank and Tim Hardin...if it was the 60s he would undoubtedly be on Elektra” - Nigel Cross (Founding Editor – Bucketfull Of Brains)

New REM album: COLLAPSE INTO NOW out in March

2010-12-16T10:41:00.000Z

COLLAPSE INTO NOW, R.E.M.'s new studio record, is set for a Tuesday, March 8th release in the USA on Warner Bros. Records. The album, the band's 15th, will be released internationally on March 7th. COLLAPSE INTO NOW was produced by R.E.M. and Jacknife Lee and features guest appearances from Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Joel Gibb, Peaches, and Eddie Vedder. Stay tuned for more details!

COLLAPSE INTO NOW
1. Discoverer
2. All The Best
3. Überlin
4. Oh My Heart
5. It Happened Today
6. Every Day Is Yours To Win
7. Mine Smell Like Honey
8. Walk It Back
9. Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter
10. That Someone Is You
11. Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I
12. Blue

Download 'Discoverer' now from here

The Palace Guards - Camper Van Beethoven's David Lowery releases solo album

2010-12-15T15:15:00.000Z

After years of helping steer the lauded and eclectic careers of both of his bands, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, co-founder and frontman David Lowery has seen fit to present a collection of songs recorded apart from those iconic indie & alternative rock entities. Stopping short of calling it a solo record, Lowery has collaborated with a handful of trusted musical cohorts associated with his Richmond, VA-based studio, Sound of Music - an inner circle that Lowery has relied on for over 17 years and who’ve been instrumental in helping create the sounds heard on this album as well as past projects. David recorded and produced The Palace Guards in conjunction with John Morand and Alan Weatherhead. Key players include Miguel Urbiztondo on drums, David Immergluck on guitars and bass, Craig Harmon played organs and Ferd Moyse on upright bass and fiddle. Special guest appearances include Cracker mates Sal Maida and Johnny Hickman, as well as the late Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) who played keyboards on “Big Life.” The Palace Guards will be available everywhere February 1st, 2011 through 429 Records.

The Palace Guards took David several years to complete. Lowery felt it liberating to write the songs without the constrictions of how they might fit in with the Cracker or Camper canon of songs and performances. The easy rapport and powerful creative chemistry that Lowery shared with his studio pals allowed his introverted musical inclinations to shine through. Apparent in this collection of nine songs is a willingness to push the envelope stylistically—from the Appalachian-woven folk of the album’s first single “Raise ‘em Up on Honey” to the swirling, languid psychedelia of “Deep Oblivion” and eclectic Syd Barrett-inspired title track, to the rocked-out “Baby, All Those Girls Meant Nothing to Me,” Lowery enjoys the freedom to write and record just about anything that pleases him at that moment.

“One of the reasons the album sounds the way it does is that I have pretty strong personalities playing with me,” says Lowery, “guys who I’ve worked with for years, who have done engineering or playing on Camper and Cracker albums. There’s that instant easy rapport that shines through. Working with them brought out the more extreme edges in these songs and amplified them. It was also liberating to start with no preconceived notions of what they would end up sounding like or worrying about how they might sound in a live setting, as I have to do when I write songs for Cracker."

Title track available here for download:

THE PALACE GUARDS TRACKLISTING:
1. Raise 'em up on Honey
2. The Palace Guards
3. Deep Oblivion
4. Ah, You Left Me
5. Baby, All Those Girls Meant Nothing To Me
6. I Sold the Arabs the Moon
7. Marigold
8. Big Life
9. Submarine

This is all in advance of what will certainly be a very busy year for Lowery in 2011. In addition to promoting The Palace Guards, he'll also be doing a string of East Coast this January with both Camper Van Beethoven & Cracker as part of their Key Lime & Kerosene Tour, where both bands will be performing their signature albums (CVB's Key Lime Pie and Cracker's Kerosene Hat) in their entireties. David has also currently been writing new music with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven for upcoming albums from both bands (this will mark the first new material from CVB since their lauded 2004 New Roman Times release). In addition, David also plans to continue working on his popular 300 Songs project - a blog chronicling all of the songs he's written and recorded with both Cracker & CVB. Plans are also in the works to turn these wry, humorous and informative musings on his songs, bands and, ultimately, the music business in general, into his first published book later in the year.

The Rockingbirds and The Arlenes- together again

2010-12-14T10:17:00.000Z

Saturday night was like being back at Rosie O'Gradys. So many faces from the first days of Come Down And Meet The Folks and Alan Tyler and Big Steve on the same stage. Here are a few shots from the evening and the set lists:

L -R Big Steve, Chris Clarke, Alan Tyler

Chris Clarke

Rockingbirds

Arlenes

All photos by Amy Djarf

WINTERLUDE: this dude thinks you're fine - Sat Feb 19th 2011

2010-12-10T16:39:00.000Z

Our pals at The Betsey have now announced their much-anticipated second Winterlude at Conway Hall on Saturday 19th February.

The line-up includes:

Danny and the Champions of the World
The Rockingbirds
John Otway Big Band
Treetop Flyers
Benjamin Folke Thomas Band
The Cedars

Tickets available here now