Saturday, September 29, 2007

The kind of stuff you don't hang on the wall

I seem to have hit a solid run of folk/country music, given that three of the last four gigs have been just acoustic guitar and vocals, and the fourth was only the fully amplified Oyster experience. Jace Everett has a voice that combines the raw roar of early Bryan Adams, and the throaty growl of an exceptionally cross dog, his guitarist Chris does the best gurning while playing solos that I've seen in ages, and between them they produce a great soundtrack to some neat little tunes.

Which is pretty much the same thing Verlon Thompson and Guy Clark do. VT looks like Steve Martin doing an impression of Johnny Cash, and plays deft guitar lines which complement GC perfectly, as well as doing a handful of songs on his own. Guy Clark looks like a guy who's seen some serious living, and certainly knows some stories.

There's an awful lot of your average, common or garden, blue collar, normal, working people about Guy Clark's songs and that may be why they are so good. Either way, it takes a certain amount of bottle or experience to start a gig with no setlist and no fixed plan beyond playing whatever songs come up. Of course, if there's any doubt about whether or not the stage of 'past it' has been reached, there's also something about coming out of a gig to be confronted by university newcomers young enough to be your children attending the gig in the venue next door, using their heelys to get in everyone's way and buying up bootleg posters from parasites to let you know where you stand!

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Folk Here, Country There

As far as I can see the two genres are pretty closely connected, to the point of the join being invisible in some cases. Before I got sidetracked by Pepsi Tate's death, I was about to post about seeing over two consecutive nights what the poster called 'English Folk Veterans' The Oysterband, and Kentucky bluegrass and country legend (and some time Long Ryder) Sid Griffin. The joy of modern media means I can share a pic of John Jones, whose distinctive voice makes the Oysterband stand out from some distance, and Sid doing Gene Clark's I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better. With their thirtieth anniversary just around the corner, the Oysters have still got an awful lot to say for themselves, and they say it well. Sid may live in England these days, but there's still no mistaking the Kentucky in his voice, and in both these cases there's much to be said for their keeping in touch with exactly where they come from, even if they express it slightly differently. And maybe that's really the only difference between what is country and what is folk, where it comes from.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007

Shouting End Of Life

I was about to post about just what a cracking show I've just seen The Oysterband do, and instead I'm sat here listening to Living Without You, having found out that Pepsi Tate has finally succumbed to his pancreatic cancer. Forty two is really no age, and it's a very sad loss. Tigertailz were a great band for doing everything their own way, without the Londoncentricity that sometimes appears to be a requirement for musical success, and without ever giving up on what they knew were their best points. And just in case the world needs proof of just how much fun stoopid metal can be, this should do the trick. The hairspray alone in this is probably responsible for a sizeable dent in the ozone layer, and as for the bleach...

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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Two Worlds Collide

It's a refreshing change to be home from a gig without hours of driving being necessary. Metal done solo acoustic is something that it would be easy to get wrong. especially when your stock in trade is big swooping, almost operatic vocals. Blaze Bayley's got more front than Chesil Beach, and more cheesy lines than a Butlin's redcoat - add those to a fistful of tunes and you get a quality night's entertainment. Which would be plenty enough fun on its own, so it was a huge surprise to run into two people that I certainly wouldn't have expected to see there. Seems I'm not the only one to keep my own counsel, though I'm assured it's more my faulty radar that means I didn't spot the rocker in someone! Having been an internet news story in my own right in the last week, albeit as a minor result of the way some websites aggregate and compile info about what else is going on on the web, I'm now amused to death to find myself featured in another story that is actually reported as news, of the local interest variety. But the funniest thing is how the bit that is claimed to be me actually isn't me at all.

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Friday, September 14, 2007

Look what I got - I think this is the first one with a candle since my 21st, though I'm not sure if I should be impressed to have reached the sort of age where single candles are more practical than one for every year. Though my chances of a fiery demise, or worse, a waxy cake are now substantially reduced, so there's always an upside!

Painting Huge Books And Gluing Them Together

And so the calendar goes round again. I'm not sure I can put my finger on this year having anything in particular to mark it, though I continue to surprise myself in just how much my father is on my mind since he died. I guess that's only natural, but I certainly never expected I'd be quite so affected. It's not a case of regret, or missing, or of feeling sad, just a general sort of increased presence in my consciousness. It's true I've been back to some interesting places, seen some great gigs and the odd stinker, seen some less successful football and the odd great game (or moment, at least!) but I guess what marks this year is gradually increasing domestic stability. Compared to a lot of people in a lot of countries, and plenty enough in this, I have a very privileged life and I'm exceptionally blessed. Sure, it's always possible to want more, or better, or different in some way, but that's just tinkering round the edges. What I've got is worth hanging on to, and I intend to - what's another year?

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

That Girl, Those Guys

And here we go again. With more reformation activity than the sixteenth century currently in the air, there's a freaky inevitability that having just got one out of the way, something else would pop up sooner or later. So there I was checking for info on the Tyketto reunion shows that I'd known for months were supposed to be in the offing this autumn, and blow me if they aren't second on the bill below this proud headline:
FM (First live show in 12 years! Steve Overland - Merv Goldsworthy - Pete Jupp - Andy Barnet - Jem Davis)
Now, it's an arm and a leg job, not exactly local, and I'm supposed to be somewhere else that day anyway. I'm reluctant to pay that price for getting there late and only seeing two bands, even if it's these two that are the only reason I'd be going, but all the same, That Girl is in the unremovable folder of stuff on my mp3 player for good reason, and I have no idea at this point how I can possibly knowingly miss that show. In between turning into a tenth rate version of the splendid Dave Ling's diary, I'm aware that this is also gradually coming to resemble an extended obituary feature, which I guess is as much a consequence of growing older in the information age as it is anything else. All the same, Anita Roddick's passing at 64 is less notable for me from an environmental perspective than from a very personal one: the first item of cosmetics I ever bought was a lipstick from a branch of The Body Shop just down the road from Victoria, in a first step marginally less momentous than first seeing Wolfsbane, but significantly more difficult. And without either I wouldn't be the person I am today.

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Monday, September 10, 2007

Seen How It’s Done

So, four hours' sleep later and it was up and off to work. Not quite up to the standards of seeing Springsteen at Wembley, getting in at 3.30 and up at 6.30, though I'd barely left school then. And indeed, amusing novelty though these sort of late nights are, I'm not sure that it's a habit I really need to carry into my 40s as they start to loom over the distant horizon. Going back through my records I see that I saw Wolfsbane five times within two hundred yards of Tottenham Court Road tube, and I think that those trips to the Marquee were among my first experiences of travelling for gigs as a matter of course rather than as an occasional novelty, and other than The Grip they were the first band you'd not expect many people to already have heard of that really caught my imagination. Wolfsbane were of a generation that made a virtue of personal accessibility, and though I have more music by other bands, it's possible that their stuff forms my most complete collection of merchandise and memorabilia. I spent some time on saturday night watching the In Bed With Wolfsbane video, and that merely cemented the monster grin on my face that's been there most of the week looking forward to last night. On the back of that, it was a little disconcerting to see Steve Danger with a shiny chrome dome, and Jase must be really bored of the rogue Magic Number comparison too by now. Jeff looks more or less the same – same bass, same bouncy shoes. Eavesdropping on someone else's conversation, the guy said he'd have crawled over broken glass to get there, but at the same time kinda wished it wasn't happening. The suggestion was that it was like running into an ex, nice to be reminded of the good stuff but one of those things that might be better left to fade away rather than confront anew if raking it all up could be avoided. While I can relate to the broken glass, from where I'm standing it's one of those things that really needed a proper send-off, and laying it to rest in the same spirit of celebration and fun that made such an impression all those years ago is really the only fitting way. Of the three complete one-off gigs I've seen this year, I'd gladly have missed seeing that version of the Mega City Four if it meant Wiz were still with us, and the Jel show was beyond all known laws of probability, so this was the one that I'm both absolutely thrilled to have made it to, and had honestly never expected or even felt it realistic to hope to see. Cheers chaps, and if there's the slightest chance of a repeat, I'll see you there. Rock on!

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Temple Of Rock

Just got home from a pilgrimage to the hotspot of metal that is Tamworth. Some other bands, blah blah blah, but at this time of night the only thing that counts is having had my birthday present a few days early, and seen the first performance of Wolfsbane in thirteen or fourteen years. Setlist: Steel, You Load Me Down, Loco, Kathy Wilson, Temple Of Rock, Manhunt, Paint The Town Red, Born To Run (yes, that Born To Run!). If if turns out that that really is that, then this way we all go out with a bang rather than a whimper. They rocked, I rocked, we all rocked. And for half an hour I was in my early twenties again.

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Respec Mah Authoritaah!

I'm a firm believer in respect being earned, though I'm happy to take people as I find them. What I'm less good at is taking being messed around with good grace, and indulging people who struggle to make their minds up about what they are doing, and to let people know when they've decided. And this is what's behind me having the amusement value of being chased into a toilet by a security guard today. Of course if I'd been determined to cause trouble I'd have stayed in the cubicle a lot longer, but after what might be called a frank exchange of views I'm sure I got my point across. I'm not making an apology and calling it a policy, but one thing I do know is that claiming to have a policy and then varying the policy from one day to the next, and apparently having no policy at all half the time is no way to get yourself taken seriously. * early hours post-script: of course, this sort of nonsense disturbing my sleep is something I could really do without, but you know how sometimes you get stuff just buzzing away in your head that you can't ignore? I'm sure that my being extra tired when we approach the same scenario later this morning, even with me adapting to comply with what the head man claims the policy should be, is only going to make everything easier and more pleasant for everyone!

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

"Let It End Here"

Cracking idea. Interesting to consider the comparison between the mass hysteria that followed one death, and even raised its ugly head a decade later, and the reaction to another death. Sure, early steps in rehumanising people with HIV/AIDS was a very good thing, and any effective reduction in landmines littering the planet is a good thing too, and for any children to be deprived of a parent is always a sad event that's likely not to be in their interest. But there's a big difference between posing bikini-clad for long lense paparazzi shots on a yacht in Monte Carlo and being in training for yet another fundraising triathlon or marathon performance in spite of terminal cancer. Jane Tomlinson fought the good fight, and then some.
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