Red Butler - Frome Blues, Rhythm and Rock Festival

After a break of almost two weeks I am back. I have tried writing posts both 'to order' and from self-imposed obligation and neither has tended to work out well. It seems that it is best not to worry about it and simply to wait until the bug, for that it what it is, bites me again.
It's not that I abandon music in these interstices. It is arguable that quite the opposite is true; in this time I have seen seven bands live and this is one of them.

Sunday, May 8 was the latest edition of Frome Blues, Rhythm and Roots festival. All was good but this was a stand-out for me: of course Corky Laing and Martin Turner were excellent - they are both (in all probability) rather older than the parents of any of the four members of  Brighton's Red Butler! This is their début LP but another is to follow towards the end of the year and they played some tracks from that too. This, together with the fact that it is produced by King King drummer Wayne Proctor, bodes very well indeed.

Red Butler - Freedom Bound (2014, self released).

Red Butler was only the second of the six acts to play that day and received a standing ovation from the otherwise seated audience at the end of their forty-five minute set. That might have been a sign of things to come for, as of this evening (17 May), they are confirmed as one of the six nominations in the category 'Blues Band' at the British Blues Awards 2016. A link to all artists and acts short-listed for all categories is here. 

New Music 2015 - Part 42 - Beth Porter & The Availables - Open Doors

After a run of posts in the 'New Music 2015' series that has concerned musicians on other continents it is time to come much closer to home.
You might have heard Beth Porter playing cello on the works of a number of artists that I have mentioned before but 'Open Doors' is an LP (and d/l but no CD) in which she takes charge of lead duties, including song writing, with the backing of her band The Availables that as the name suggests varies in both number and members according to those that are 'available' for any given event. It also explains why it has been several years in the making.

Indeed I mentioned that here after they played Frome's Cheese & Grain towards the end of last year when she mentioned that 'Open Doors' was forthcoming. 

Here she is then.

It is string based and acoustic. Here is the track list for it:

• Jack
• Time
• Open Doors
• These Days
• Willow
• Pylons
• Floorboards
• Salty Water
• Baby Are You Up
• Friends
• 30 Years
• Italy

Beth Porter and The Availables, if there are any, play Frome again very soon.

Here they are playing 'Salty Water' at the Bath Folk Festival in 2012. It returns from 8 - 16 August 2015.

Emma Ballantine, Beth Porter, and Winter Mountain - The Green Room, Frome

This is only the third edition of The Green Room but it is showing signs of becoming one of the best new-music showcases this side of anywhere. It is also good value: £8 advance, £10 on the door, with cabaret-style tables and seating.
First to play was London-based, though originally from Salisbury, Emma Ballantine. That she made the gig at all was itself a triumph over adversity. Her car was stolen yesterday and so she and her guitar made it to Frome by rail instead.

She played songs from her self-released 'Flying Machine EP' (2013) and other compositions too.

I had never heard her live before and one thing that I should mention is that she has none of that awkwardness that solo artists often display when introducing or describing themselves or, particularly, their songs.

Next to play was the flagship project of someone that you may very well already have heard, though are unaware of nevertheless. Bethany Porter is one of the most sought-after session cellists in the UK but there is a great deal more to enjoy than that.
Her headline project is Beth Porter and The Availables. The début LP 'Open Doors' will soon be available, on vinyl and download only. It has been a long time in the works due to pressure of commitments. 'The Availables' is just what the term implies: yesterday that comprised Emma Hooper (viola) and Ian Vorley (violin and baritone saxophone) with both adding vocals. Beth plays instruments other than 'cello and not all of them have strings.

The recorder is not the most fashionable of instruments. This is a treble recorder. Then again the even less common tenor recorder features in one of the most remarkable modern folk albums of 2014 - played by Josienne Clarke in that case - so just possibly its time is coming.
Top of the evening's bill was Anglo-Irish duo Winter Mountain. Joe Francis is from St. Agnes, Cornwall and Marty Smyth from the northern tip  of Co. Donegal. They met by chance at Union Station, Chicago and the rest is history.

Winter Mountain is signed to Frome-based Charcoal Records and this set was recorded live in its entirety.

Live and local - Domenic DiCicco 'Seeds of Evergreen' album launch

As summer fades into autumn so the outdoor festivals are replaced with the return of regular indoor music events as the staple of my live-listening timetable. The organisers of Acoustic+, an event that I have often mentioned here, decided to bow out at the start of the summer recess having put on 100 shows.
In its place a new approximately monthly event, The Green Room, has arrived on the scene here in Frome. It is not a carbon copy, nor should it have been. From what I saw yesterday I very much like that which I saw and heard.

The opening act was Simon Allen, unaccompanied other than by his own acoustic guitar.

The main act was the album launch for Domenic DiCicco's latest LP 'Seeds of Evergreen'. He is, although Canadian, well known in Frome where he now resides and in particular as part of Praying For The Rain.
While 'Seeds of Evergreen' is a solo LP that is far from implying that he appeares solo, although on one song that was indeed the case, despite the unexpected absence of Paul Sax on violin due to illness. Indeed there were still eight on stage at times. My initial thoughts on the music is that it is slightly less obviously influenced by world music that that of Praying For The Rain, in generality if not specific songs. It was certainly most enjoyable and I think it would stand up well to repeated listening. Here are a couple of pictures.

Domenic DiCicco (2nd left), with Mal Darwen (bass), Delagh King (vocals) and Richard Kennedy (vocals).

As a harbinger of Green Room events in the future it bodes very well indeed. The next, on 24 October, looks like a real treat. It is headlined by The Black Feathers, whom I mentioned here not so long ago, and also includes Exeter trio Wildwood Kin amongst others including Lauren Castle.

New Music 2014 - Part 26 - Ward Thomas live in Frome

I have been intending to write about the UK grown country music of twin sisters Ward Thomas (Catherine and Lizzy) for a little while now but the stuff around Truck Festival and those forthcoming has got in the way until now. Right now. The début album 'From Where We Stand' was released on 21 July. 

The UK headline tour in support of it started here in Frome tonight. I have just got back home. Frome is not Nashville and this, in the Cheese and Grain, was not The Grand Ole Opry but whoever set up the lighting tonight thought that it was and all credit to them. The set was wonderful. Yes, this is country music and yes, I did write that. Do not adjust your eyes and ears.

In that vein, with the harsh lighting, here they are. Live. In Frome. Tonight.

Before going further:
Support artist was Jess Roberts, about which I know next to nothing except to say that I would like to hear more. Once again a demonstration of my conviction that support artists really do matter. 

The real question is why are Ward Thomas being hailed as the act that, finally, will make UK country music something that inspires more than snide remarks and muffled giggles? More than that, be taken seriously in America too.

If this were Wikipedia it would require me to provide a reference. I hope that the comments of The Times Culture Supplement will suffice. It is not the clearest of images to read but here it is. The interesting thing I think, is not only that it was written and appeared when it did, but in so much detail. A short note in an "also consider" column would have been the best to be expected until fairly recently.

I have to say that any misgivings I had evaporated in seconds.

Live Music 2014 - Martin and Eliza Carthy

These are my thoughts on Saturday evening just gone, spent at The Cheese & Grain in Frome. I have long liked traditional folk music. Although that is no secret it was often one not mentioned in public, more kept to a circle of like-minded friends and family.
The support act was Amelia Orgill and The Teazle Folk Ensemble and my attempts at photography got off to a curious start.

I had no prior knowledge. I suspect they may not have seen themselves in a psychedelic light.

This was entirely down to a lack of forethought on my part although, looking on the bright side, less of a disaster than a flat battery. I had forgotten to reset my camera after using it outside in brilliant sunshine earlier in the day. It was nothing that, with a little thought and a pint of Milk Street Brewery '15' (it's just had a birthday!) on hand, I couldn't quickly overcome. Here is Amelia Orgill and The Teazle Folk Ensemble in the real world and indeed an unusual case of two bands that include father and daughter on the same bill.

I can't even start to imagine how terrifying this must have been. To open for one of the heroes of the first folk revival would be hard enough; add a heroine of the second and it is uncharted territory. I could hide, largely unseen, behind my camera whilst they could not and I was very aware of that. 
There is little that I can say about the Carthys other to say that it was a object lesson in traditional folk. The stories about the songs and where, by and from whom, they were collected might prove tedious to some --- too many tales of violent bailiffs, starvation and mining disasters.  

A certain northern sense of humour might help. They have it, and it is humbling.

Martin Carthy was born in St. Albans, which is not notably northern, in 1941.

 Eliza spent many years in Scotland. I think she said fourteen and it matters, as it so happens.

She sat out the occasional song, leaving her Dad alone on guitar and vocals.

The LP that much, but certainly not all by any means, of this set came from is 'The Moral of The Elephant'. That song is a warning that judging anything, based on just a part of the whole, is likely to be flawed.

This is another album, released 2 June 2014, that I feel is likely to make the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards list in 2015 and neither Martin or Eliza Carthy would be strangers to that.

This is a very interesting, yet concise, guide to the thinking behind the album.

Live & local in central-south England

Well here things are; after RSD (of which more later) and an inconvenient computer failure what better is there than the thought that unlike RSD live music is a year-round occurrence in these parts?
None of it gets better than Acoustic+ in Frome. Yesterday was the 98th edition and probably one of the finest that I have had the delight to attend. The first artist to play has been around since the start of Acoustic+ about a decade ago and is currently on a 'World Tour' - indeed he was in Trowbridge last week and will be in Bristol this coming one! He is also an active promoter of live music hereabouts as well as a fine singer-songwriter. In the past he has often played accompanied...

Yesterday he played solo and with plenty of the usual patter between songs...  Leander Morales.

The act I was most looking forward to seeing was Gloucestershire duo The Black Feathers. Due to Play at Acoustic+ in late 2013 they had to pull out at the last minute as Sian Chandler had lost her voice. A month or two after that they played Nunney Acoustic Café, but I was elsewhere that day. I was determined to see The Black Feathers this time and not least because, in the intervening months, their star has very much been in the ascendant including, if I remember correctly, a mention on Mike Harding's independent folk and roots show. Having finally seen them play live I can certainly see why that is. I bought the 2013 CD EP 'Strangers We Meet'.

On it they have discreet and subtle backing, including Anna Jenkins (of 'The Red Clay Halo') on violin and viola, but yesterday they were just performing as a duo.

They mentioned that this was probably the amongst the largest venues that they have played. Once their début album arrives I doubt that this will remain true for long. A certain kind of festival awaits The Black Feathers with breath bated and, believe me, it is the kind of festival at which I may be in attendance.

The last act to play was another that is a stalwart of the arts scene hereabouts - Ben Waller and the Tell Tale Signs. Usually a five-piece they were joined, for the purposed of looped sounds, by a Toshiba laptop that proved wholly uncooperative! They got on fine without it and then, as if one trouble was not enough, one of Ben's guitar strings broke. The result of this was that he borrowed Leander's acoustic guitar, when he needed one, for the rest of the set. I never quite managed a picture with all five band members in it as this one lacks the drummer.

Towards the end one of the rarer instruments seen at Acoutic+ made an appearance...

Autoharp. There is a whole festival dedicated to this instrument.

That leaves just one of the four acts to mention. It was the only one about which I had no prior knowledge at all and, if you know me, you will already know that such things are one of my favourite festival pastimes and why I like the smallest of stages and opening acts in general. In this case, however, they were first support and the band was Budada.

The four-piece based in Bristol/Bath are an interesting find indeed and difficult to categorize. You might therefore best check it out for yourself!

Live, local and multifarious folk

If one were to spend the start and also the end of a weekend with live music, as I did this weekend just gone, I really think that I could not have chosen better. This was Friday evening and a fifteen minute walk from home.

Olde Boston Tea Party, a bluegrass tinged quintet from the borders of Devon, Dorset and Somerset, played as support for Oysterband. The music was excellent.

My photography, unfortunately, certainly wasn't.

    

The best thing I can say is that, come Sunday evening, I could drive just twenty miles, albeit in the pouring rain, and start all over again as if nothing had happened. This should have been a more frightening prospect but, even though the village hall was turned about-face, it wasn't.

As well as being one of the best modern folk songwriters, Steve Knightley is one of the best narrators about, and between, songs. This applies just as much to those of often mysterious tradition as it does to his own.
   

 I didn't realise, or indeed even think about that, until I was driving home afterwards.

Frome Blues Festival 2013

Well that's North Dorset Folk Festival 2013 reviewed but I'm quite sure that you haven't heard the last of it. 

There is no rest for the wicked and so the following day it was all change. I was closer to home, less then a fifteen minute walk, at Frome Blues Festival 2013. I have to say I wondered how it, and the change of genre, would fare with me in comparison to the previous day. My stamina was one thing I was pretty confident about - this was no test like End of The Road Festival in that respect!
The good news is, that at least from my point of view, it was all good and I have now had ten days to think about it. What I haven't done much of is working through the pictures that I took that day...
It was opened byAlbany Down that I first experienced live saw live at Rook Lane Arts in Frome earlier in the year as support for Chantel McGregor; a few months after she had played Frome Blues Festival 2012 as first support.

Here is my first take on Albany Down at Frome Blues Festival 2013 and, no doubt about it, they were very impressive.

That isn't the quite the term that I would have chosen six months ago.

  

I couldn't have taken this then either but it was, in all probability, not there to be taken.
  

To be quite honest Ron Sayer Jr. had no intent to be taken lightly, and with some reason, if not always exactly perhaps the one that he had in mind. 

He was good but his band kept him on tip-toes all the time and that is well worth seeing.

Innes Sibun was new to me but blues-rock of some impact. Indeed I thought in the moment that it might even become the highlight of the day but, while that ultimately was not to be so, it says a great deal about Frome Blues Festival. 

Innes Sibun on lead guitar.

With album 'Lost In The Wilderness' to trial. It is released 18 November 2013 in the UK.

  

Jo Harman and Company became the first and only act to play both editions of Frome Blues Festival. Last year I noted that I was impressed and this year was a step change.

Here, during an instrumental interlude, is the eponymous vocalist with a quite different take on blues-rock. Jo Harman is one-to-watch in 2014, there is no doubt about that.
First support was Nimmo Brothers and kicked some ass... as well as it falling to them by fâte to announce the sad demise of of Lou Reed. Their response was anything but a sombre set but then again I don't think that is what he would have wanted. As live performances go this could truly be described as visceral.
  

This was at the start of the set and shows all of the band. While clearly committed it gave little hint of the intensity that was to follow. Not least the brothers' dual lead guitar work and certainly not that it would become quite as complicated as this. I took this next picture on a hope and a prayer, whilst simultaneously trying to believe in that which I was watching.

It would be a good trick if...    and they certainly could.

In some ways this repeated last year's festival when the first support act, Chantel McGregor, pitched the headline act into what proved to be an impossible situation. The Climax Blues band headlined this year, and it was excellent too. It was made quite clear however that it was fully aware of what it had to follow. On any other occasion either could have been the highlight of a marvellous day for the pleasingly large audience. It just so happened that Frome Blues Festival came with more than one highlight... and I for one can't help but look forward to the next edition.
Here are a few pictures of Climax Blues Band and, I have to say, I must start with their astonishing saxophonist.

Some slide guitar to die for...

...and a lead singer for whom the epithet 'craggy' is something of an understatement.  

What a wonderful day that was. See you next year!

Acoustic+ - live in Frome

It has been a couple of months since the last Acoustic+, with the customary summer hiatus following the Frome Festival Food Feast. It returned to the Cheese and Grain yesterday evening with aplomb, despite the fact that the venue is part way through a comprehensive £500k re-configuring to bring it up to the standards required of a regional venue and one of the four acts being forced to cancel at the very last moment due to a temporarily voiceless vocalist! The good news is that at the eleventh hour a quality replacement was scrambled and The Black Feathers have now been rescheduled for Acoustic+ on 22 November.
The evening started with Frome-based duo Seasons.

Bertie Harrison-Broninski on Irish bouzouki and Fin Scholefield on guitar.

Their original songs were very interesting and far from wholly traditional - so their chosen bookmark as alt-folk is very much warranted - but the choice of cover versions was no less remarkable.

The bouzouki is an instrument that has expanded its territory vastly in the last century or so; it made its way to Greece from Asia Minor as late as the start of the 20th century, Celtic-influenced folk by the late 1960s and is now in common use in Scandinavia too.
I seems that I need to 'look sharp' when it comes to the act that stood in in place of The Black Feathers and not least because Sloe Jam is appearing on Frome FM this evening (from 9pm BST/UTC+1).

Francis Hayden on guitar.

Sloe Jam is no flash in the pan - that should be obvious - so here is what I thought about Sloe Jam in 2009 and you really do need the album.
The third act to play was Albatross Archive. Once a four-piece, latterly a three-piece, and as it happened yesterday (because their saxophone player was in San Francisco presenting a research paper on Post Modernism) just a duo for the very first time. It was astonishing and not least because most others would have given up long ago. Then there was a faulty lead and then Coleridge smiled (possibly and posthumously). 

Everything went well thereafter.

   
To close was the band Three Corners fronted at least to a great extent by the organisers of Acoustic+. That said, this was Three Corners in full band mode and I'm not actually sure that I managed to get everyone in a single picture.

This is as good as I got.

    

You could take a completely different perspective of course.

Summer madness - and why it makes sense.

So I haven't written much these last couple of months. That is true. What is certainly not true is that I haven't been both listening to and reading about music! Indeed the fact that I have been doing so is in part the reason for the lack of writing. That is likely to remain the case until early September but for a variety of reasons.
It is less than a fortnight until my last outdoor festival of this summer. It is going to take some planning to maximize those acts that I wish to see and hear. I wouldn't want it to be any other way...

  

I haven't really thought about the detail and, more than likely I will not do so until I am there on the Thursday afternoon: there is a distinct boundary between general preparation and detailed battle-planning.
Here, as a slant on my current thinking, is an (alphabetical) list of just five of the acts that I have never before seen live but really want to:

• Daughter
• Deptford Goth
• Golden Fable
• Warpaint
• Widowspeak

The other thing about this time of year is that I become focussed on the music, live and recorded, that I have already heard and that which I anticipate to do so during the next four months. More about that soon. I am also thinking about the many festivals that might warrant my attention in 2014...

EOTR (almost certainly), No Dirction Home (if it happens), Maverick, Wilderness, Truck... who knows?
I have a far better knowledge base on which to draw than I did when I first embarked on this in the early summer of 2007. This, most importantly, is not only based on the festivals that I have attended in the last six years but also those that I have been given first hand reviews of from others in the festival community which, although it sounds like some hippy cliché, is on occasion as blunt an object as it needs to be.

So eight months without live music, then?
Not likely! Here is an example...

• 25 September  ---  Acoustic+  (Cheese & Grain, Frome)
• 26 September  ---  North Dorset Folk Festival  (Marnhull Village Hall)
• 27 September  ---  Frome Blues Festival (Cheese & Grain, Frome)

The events at the Cheese & Grain, and many more too, are taking place while the venue is early in the throes of a £500k overhaul to make it not only more fit-for-current-purpose, with better public facilities - toilets, café, and box-office all included - but also the artist-facing facilities that are sorely needed in order to propel it to the status of a major player in the league of regional arts and community venues.

These are exciting times indeed.

Hello, weekend.

Blogger seems to have fixed the recent issues with, in particular, side-bar lists. This is, of course, good news.
Better still is that it was also sunny and less cold here today: indeed, so my car told me, it was 10ºC when I was on my way home from work at about 5pm this afternoon. That would be the first time in double figures for three weeks. I have loads of live, and local, music coming up but I'm particularly put in mind of this artist that I saw for the third time, live at The Cheese and Grain three weeks ago.
  
This album is astonishing.

Piano-led music didn't start or end with Adele.

Acoustic+ - Frome, 15 March 2013

It has been a few months now since the last edition of Acoustic+ but it returned with a vengeance yesterday. It is, without doubt, the best evening of music that you can get for £5 and this one was the first of the series to take advantage of the new stage in the Cheese and Grain.

It started off with Lady Nade, who I have seen live in Frome twice before - at Frome Festival Food Feast 2011 (in the Cheese and Grain) and then again at Frome Folk Festival 2012 (in the Masonic Hall), but playing as a duo this time.

Both EPs, 'All I Am' and 'Wrap Me Up, Pick Me Up, Take Me Home' were selling well.

Next up was Switch, one of two three-piece acts, on what was at least nominally their first ever public gig. To be fair you wouldn't have guessed that but on the other hand, young though they are, the members have both history and fans!

Switch have a self-titled CD EP and it seemed to be doing good trade too.

Next to play was Daisy Chapman, solo this time, and her third appearance at Acoustic+. She was showcasing some songs from the album 'Shameless Winter', to which I shall return before long. She decided to perform her opening song a capella. She had inadvertently left her tambourine at home, which might explain the vexed countenance, but the situation was soon rescued by Switch that loaned her one.

She also obliged us with the appropriate, given the weather yesterday, cover version that she played on her last visit to Frome - that being Rihanna's 'Umbrella'. One thing that was particularly noticeable this time was the use of live self-looping as accompaniment on many songs. I'm sure she did it before but perhaps I have become more attuned to spotting what is happening and how it is done.

Last to play was Crash and The Coots and they most certainly didn't disappoint either.

The next edition of Acoustic+ is on April 26.