End Of The Road and all that...

So why have I written nothing since I returned from End Of The Road 2017 a week ago? Well I've been busy at work for a start, catching up on my sleep too and thinking about all the things I saw that weekend. Assisted by, and whilst working through, all the pictures that I took.
I've also been listening to a whole lot of new, some even forthcoming, music and started thinking about those many great albums already released in 2017; equally those still anticipated. Over the next couple of weeks I hope to intertwine my memories of EOTR 2017 with some of these forthcoming things and, also, a few releases the first nine months of 2017 that I have not mentioned up to now for whatever reason. That this will keep me more than busy is something of an understatement.

Le's start with something from last weekend and an artist that I have wished to see live for some years now.

 Lucinda Williams, Garden stage, Friday 1 September.

This stage is unsurpassed in atmosphere in so many ways so I shall stick with it, and a diet of artists from the US, for this post. Of the four artists here this is the only one that I had seen live before at EOTR 2015 but on the Woods stage then. The picture above was taken after nightfall.

Ryley Walker, Garden stage, Friday lunchtime, 1 September.

When the greatest stage light of all, the sun, is in play the Garden stage is unimpeachable. It was to be so again for much of Saturday.

Courtney Marie Andrews, Garden stage, 2 September.

Opening the same stage at lunchtime the same day was an artist from Oklahoma whose recent albums astound me only slightly more than the lack of appreciation that he garners. Yes there was a fair gathering here, certainly a very appreciative and dedicated one as the songs-sung-back attested. It caught a few others by surprise; some of these songs are devastatingly bleak but curiously hopeful rather than depressing.

John Moreland, Garden stage, 2 September.

2015 Festivals --- New music, artists and everything else...

I was in the supermarket today and in front of me in the queue was a group of four people, all in their 30s I'm guessing, two male and two female, discussing the idea of going to a festival this summer - I don't know which one and I suspect that they had no particular target. The discussion, which was loud enough for me to be able to hear most of it, went along these lines...
Person 1: "I can't make a decision before the (headline?) acts are announced."
Person 2: "Or until we see the weather forecast."
Persons 3 & 4 then added various caveats - involving camping, toilets, showers and the like.

I just smiled to myself: I can see that this is a plan that is almost certainly not going to happen. This approach is a sure-fire way to never go to a festival. Even if they did do so the arguments about what to see would be likely be catastrophic.
I really wanted to say why doesn't one of you simply commit to going. If nobody else follows the leader then just go anyway and  face the music. At least you can say you were there and report back on the brilliant/awful time that you had!
Of course there is the utterly selfish approach, which is to go alone by design. That way you can't spend all the time with your friends. You have to meet and talk to strangers and it just happens. What is more you can go see whatever you want, plan a military-style campaign if you wish to, and yet change your mind as often as you please. This is the diametric opposite of loneliness.

That brings me to albums released today in the UK by two artists that I have seen before at festivals and that I plan to see again in 2015.

Laura Marling is confirmed, as of today, for End Of The Road Festival 2015.

The Staves are playing Green Man Festival 2015.

This will be the third time that I have seen each at festivals (and never anywhere else).  Indeed I have seen both at EOTR in the past and each once at a different festival too. I may look out some pictures of those performances. I shall certainly comment on both albums once I have had the chance to listen to them sufficiently to form a stable opinion.
I shall return to the artists and acts that I have not seen before very soon.

New Music 2015 - Part 19 - Girlpool - Before The World Was Big

Just when you thought all-female garage rock couldn't get any better and with Girlpool confirmed as booked for End Of The Road Festival 2015 it is now a real challenge; can Cleo Tucker (guitar and vocals) and Harmony Tividad (bass and vocals) better the set that Deap Vally produced on the Thursday evening in 2013 at EOTR, only to then better it themselves with an astonishing one at Truck Festival 2014 when playing on the main stage?
Here is the reason that I mention this. The stakes are suddenly raised for the début Girlpool LP has come to be known...

Girlpool - 'before the world was big' (Wichita Recordings) 1 June 2015 in the UK. (2 June in USA & Canada.)

Maybe I should have shared this, the first single lifted from the LP, yesterday.

End Of The Road 2014

I'm back home and, unlike yesterday, no longer dog-tired. I have started to think about it all with some clarity and also, this helps with the foregoing, view it through the perspective of the pictures that I took throughout the weekend.

Was my sixth consecutive EOTR adventure up to the standards of the previous five?
Well. Let's put it this way; I am clearly not alone in my opinion. I have my 'Early Bird' ticket for EOTR 2015 (4 - 6 September). They went on sale this morning (2 September) at 9am BST and by 6pm BST more than two-thirds of those available had already sold! It will be some months before we know the identity of a single act to play then but my view is that if I can't trust the EOTR team to deliver then there is no longer any trust to be found.

It is going to take me much of the rest of this week to complete this self-debrief process. Here are a couple of pictures to kick things off. 

Jenny Lewis, Woods stage, late Friday afternoon.

The Stealing Sheep dragon, Tipi stage, 1am Monday.

Yes it was this glorious; endless blue sky on Sunday afternoon. This is the Woods stage about 16:45. Deer Tick was still playing but I was on a mission. The Tipi stage and a little project that had only occurred to me after I had got back from Green Man Festival. 

What if... ?
Two festivals a fortnight apart, the same three acts, all playing on the same stage at each festival. It was technically possible, that much I had worked out. The rest was down to fâte and my ability to harness it. I have only myself to blame.

New Music 2014 - Part 16 - Ethan Johns - The Reckoning

I first saw Ethan Johns live as a solo artist at End Of The Road Festival (EOTR) 2013, shortly after the release of his first solo album 'If Not Now Then When?' Here he is on the Saturday afternoon, playing the Garden Stage.

As I mentioned then I was already much acquainted with him as a producer of other people's music. I was amazed that he had found much time for his own work, good though it indubitably is.
It would seem that he has made time for more, and in a time scale that is astonishing.

It is released, on vinyl, CD and d/l by Three Crows Music on June 2, 2014.
   

What he certainly has done is to walk away from producing it. It was a deliberate volte-face. Ryan Adams, with whom he has long worked as producer, takes on the desk duties here. This article, about the reasons and the reckoning, is well worth sharing I think.

EOTR 2013 - more from the Garden Stage - Part 1

The Garden Stage was, until 2011, the main stage at End of The Road Festival, by when its audience capacity was becoming a serious issue and therefore the larger and more open Woods Stage was added too. The Garden Stage however remains the most beautifully atmospheric stage, surrounded as it is by Victorian follies, one of the most remarkable of which is in fact almost invisible behind it.
This is a picture across the Garden Stage audience on Saturday evening.

   
On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of watching Serafina Steer, who I had never seen live before, perform on the same stage.

The majority of this set was devoted to songs from her recent album The Moths Are Real.
Not before I saw Joanna Newsom live did I really consider the concert harp and its place in modern music but rather in the context of a sepia tinted throwback - more fool me!  As this was my first day using a new camera for music photography the fact that harpists can't move very far or fast was much appreciated! This evening I have been listing to the album Week of Pines by Georgia Ruth, and that is often led by her harp and vocals too.
   
Back then I never suspected how my liking of, and interest in, Americana and roots music would develop to parallel my long-standing liking of UK and Celtic folk music.
Earlier still, Friday lunch time, Diana Jones had performed solo and took the sun-drenched Garden Stage audience for a trip courtesy of much of her very recent LP Museum of Appalachia Recordings.

I was already aware that it is garnering excellent reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and here it was quite obvious to see why - you could have heard a pin drop during the quiet moments of her set.
   
This is indeed Part 1 - I shall return to the Garden Stage soon with amongst others, Ethan Johns and The Barr Brothers. In the meantime here is another from Daughter's set just after dark on Saturday evening.

Why wasn't If You Leave nominated for the Mercury Music Prize?

EOTR 2013 - acts to see live again.

For all that I say that festivals are largely about seeing acts that I haven't seen live before there is always the pleasure of seeing one's favourites for a second, third or.... *whistles* ...time.

One of those was The Staves, three sisters from Watford who specialize in close harmony vocals, that I first saw at Deer Shed Festival in North Yorkshire in July 2012. In the meantime they have recorded an album 'Dead & Born & Grown', released by Universal - so at least the major labels are finally sensing the way the wind is blowing. Here are Camilla, Emily and Jessica on the Garden Stage at EOTR on Sunday afternoon.

This next I had only seen as recently as Truck Festival 2013 but I was happy to see their quite esoterically British show all over again. As a matter of fact, as often such things are, it was better the second time around because I noticed so many things that had passed me by on the first listen. I was right at the back of the Big Top stage and so I couldn't take pictures, which allowed me to give my full attention to the performance. This picture is therefore one taken at Truck Festival 2013 and then I found it difficult to capture what makes Public Service Broadcasting worthwhile watching (and listening too; I had the EP before seeing them live).

Public Service Broadcasting, Market stage, Truck Festival 2013.

    

I am interested to see in what direction J. Willgoose Esq. and Wrigglesworth go next but I am quite sure that, given their awareness of history and its context, they have long ago considered this issue. The Yorkshire Post wondered, somewhat less charitably, about this too following a gig at Leeds' Brudenell Social Club.

  

I have to admit that the first time I saw The Leisure Society play live I was slightly underwhelmed but, perhaps sensing this was odd, I bought their first album anyhow. I saw them again last year and, as timings worked out that way, for a third time at EOTR 2013. At last I get it!
To be honest 17:15 - 18:15 on the main stage Saturday is not prime time; well in one way it is... after 36 hours many people are suffering from mid-festival lassitude, thinking more of food than music.  The food, and the choice thereof, at EOTR is pretty good too.

The Leisure Society - Woods Stage - End of The Road Festival 2013.

  

 [post in progress - to be continued soon but I am getting hungry]
  

There will be now be an intermission. There is nothing wrong with your TV set.

Please do not adjust your eyes or ears.

That was only supposed to be temporary but the

 cauliflower cheese was good, even if I say so myself. 

I shall finish with the artist who, as far as I am aware, I have seen more times playing live than any other. For readers of this blog she probably needs no further introduction. She played twice at EOTR 2013 and I saw all of both sets. The first was on the Woods Stage as part of her on-going UK tour. That is admirably summed up, though her apparent ennui is likely affected rather than genuine, by this review from the London Guardian of her subsequent show at Shepherds Bush Empire. It is no secret that she is not a fan of large venues and early stage times (17:45 start on the Woods Stage). Similarly you can have all the recorded music she has made, and I pretty much do, but it just isn't the same.

She reappeared about 1:15am Monday morning at an unannounced (at least in the printed programme) set on the small, tented Tipi Stage...

... and this truly was Caitlin Rose live: The real deal.

    

If I still had the slightest doubt that I would buy a ticket for End Of The Road Festival 2014, without any knowledge of the line up, it had well and truly vanished by this point. I have one and 'early-bird' tickets had all sold out less than 48 hours after their release on the Tuesday. It is fair to say that that is a public vote of confidence on quite some scale. See you at EOTR 2014?

EOTR 2013 - its not just about the live music...

The main reason I go to festivals is almost certainly quite apparent; it is to listen to music live and also to take photographs of that. It is not the whole story however, and this issue was thrown into sharper context at EOTR when I was asked how (festivals aside) I came across new music to listen to...
The truth is that I hadn't really thought about that in the "business-like" sense that this question implied I might. That was something of a shock. My first thoughts were "it just happens" and then "much of it finds me", but neither is a satisfactory answer to the question, although to me it might appear to be that way.
Indeed this is the point when it occurred to me that this is exactly how I had seen it. The truer answer, in so far as I have thought it through, is this. Listen, talk to people (I'm good at talking - like I need to say that - but I can listen too) about everything and anything they have to say, remember stuff and the apparent links between them. Then just go explore...
This is no real answer either, if only because of its generality, but I'll attempt a little more detail in a forthcoming post.
The other thing is to watch not just the acts but their audiences and indeed the festival milieu in general. At festivals such as EOTR you have already selected yourself to be part of a somewhat like-minded subset of the population, even the festival-going population! By that last comment I'm thinking that the EOTR subset of festival goers would be rather different to that at, for example, Leeds/Reading and it would be interesting, at least to me, to know more about that kind of social phenomenon. I expect it either has been, or currently is, the topic of several Ph.D. theses or research papers.
I'll leave that to someone else, as it all sounds like hard work, but please feel free to send me links to any such research because I'd love to read someone else's thoughts.

Here instead are images from EOTR 2013 that don't actually include any artists performing but are of other aspects instead. There are five such images, presented in the the order that they were taken between Thursday evening and Saturday evening. The caption with each is just a snapshot on my thought at the time that I took it. That has reminded me of another issue - always take a pencil and paper - a combination that can survive wet conditions although this was not a necessity on this occasion.

'Home for the next few days'

'The shadow audience at the Garden Stage'

'Sunshine always makes things better'

'Waiting for Warpaint'

'Watching Joe Gideon and The Shark'

You can add your own thoughts too [all comments to this blog are moderated by me - so at the very least you know I have read them] and start a cloud-thesis...

Trust - the mark of a true Festival

It is, more or less, the end of the outdoor festival season in northern Europe.
Here's a thought: such festivals are more about trust, in the organizers and their ability to select and book acts, than about the headline acts. 
This is why I already have a ticket for EOTR 2014 and why I'm going to mention anything other than the three headline acts.
You know me, maybe. I'll be heading off to see the first acts to perform at any opportunity and End of The Road provided five such on the Tipi Stage on Thursday afternoon and evening.
Annie Eve was one of those...  and I wonder how many of us were aware of her then because I certainly wasn't, but this only serves to underline my point, and I am now so here she is.

That scrap of paper, just beyond the bottles of water at the far right of the picture, is her set list. If you are wondering now, then a week ago so was I.
Here is that very same piece of paper.

You can just about see the imprint of her boot on it too!

End of The Road - A Festival Sunset

I'm just starting to get to grips with EOTR 2013 and I've caught up with some of the lost sleep too. So was it worth it?
You bet it was and then some. Indeed I have already booked my ticket for EOTR 2014, and the 'early-bird' ones are selling like hot cakes so I am told. I am not at all surprised.

This is what happens when taking photos, whilst wandering around between sets and maybe via the Somerset Cider Bus.

This next one is from the first act on Saturday - Brooklyn duo Widowspeak playing in the tented 'Big Top' stage.

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.

OMG --- End Of The Road 2013

The scale of this challenge, both on decision making when it comes to clashes and also stamina, is only just dawning on me.
The problem is not "Who do I want to see?" but neither is it "Who do I care not to see?". The additional problem is all the acts /artists that I simply don't know if I want to see or not. The default position, which is listening to all of them, is simply not an option.
It is true that I have seen both Sigur Rós and Belle and Sebastian live before but that is not to say that I don't want to see them again.
Oh dear!

New Music 2013 - Part 2 - The Stand-In

February 25, 2013 (UK and Europe, Names Records) and March 5, 2013 (US & Canada, ATO Records) sees the release of the second LP from Caitlin Rose, 'The Stand-In', and the follow up to the 2009/2010 début 'Own Side Now'. I shall be disappointed to a huge extent if this new album does not feature on the lists that I will be writing this time next year... that is a measure of the weight of expectation I attach to the twelve tracks on this release.  Is that unreasonable? In the circumstances I believe not.
More to follow soon - in the meantime here is a picture of the artist in question that I took on the smallest stage at End of The Road Festival 2010.

  Caitlin Rose, The Local stage, End of The Road Festival 2010.

  

The lead song is 'No One To Call'.  Here, if I've got the code embedded correctly, is a link to a stream of it:

Here is a thought: she is playing Bristol 'Fleece' on February 26.

Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

The début album, which also has one of the most astonishingly curious titles of recent times, is finally released on Mute Records on January 24, 2012. If you were not lucky enough to be at EOTR watching this set then let me say something: I had long ago worked out that she was good at what she does but then this was quite something.

Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny....

  

Live on the Garden Stage at End Of The Road Festival 2011, Saturday 3 September.  This is the third time I have seen the whole band live and it just gets better and better. For 2009/2010 coverage of Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny see 'I Will Return, I Promise'.
It is strange, in a very good kind of way, and I trust Mute Records with that.

If you wonder why that is, go listen to Polly Scattergood's 2009 self-titled début album that was also released by Mute. And, by the way, she's busy with the next one and I can't wait for that either.

EOTR 2011 - O Canada! (Part 2)

This was the most amazing thing - the band I thought least likely to... Slow Down, Molasses is one I have known about for some time. 'I'm An Old Believer' but that wasn't going to mean that I might get to see them live unless I went to Canada which, expense aside, I would be quite happy to do. Thanks to EOTR I saw them twice. Here they are playing for the second time on the Tipi Stage at, so my camera tells me, 01:50 on Monday morning.

That I hot-footed it from the Garden Stage to the Tipi Stage, making it just in time for their first set, made the perfect start to Sunday. Why the need to do this? Well I just had to see fellow Canadians Lightning Dust too, also for the first time.
  

  Amber Webber and Joshua Wells are the heart of Lightning Dust.
They are also half of Black Mountain.

New Music 2011 - Part 14 - and festivals - Part 1

What a remarkable week. While my computer seems, to all intents and purposes, to be working normally someone seems to have installed spy-ware in my mind!
So many acts recently announced - for both Latitude and End of The Road festivals - that were on my must-see-live list.  The next problem, I just know it, is what to do when more than one of them are performing on different stages at the same time. It is however one of the more pleasing problems to have...
  
So where to start?  Well... The big names you will probably know about already and so I'll leave those amongst them that particularly excite me for later. They can wait. While many of the acts on smaller stages are yet to be revealed, I'm going to start with one of those that already has been confirmed for EOTR 2011.
She released her self-titled first album in 2007, having sent the demo to Bob Dylan, and it is still available but currently costly on CD at least in the UK.  EOTR have announced that Sarabeth Tucek will be appearing and her début was one good album:

I've never had the opportunity to hear her perform live but the album is still just as impressive as it was almost four years ago. It is gently reflective in mood and therefore should suit the EOTR surroundings well but that is not all.

Her sophomore release 'Get Well Soon' is released in the UK on April 4, 2011 on vinyl, CD and d/l (label: Sonic Cathedral) and, curiously, the cover artwork could very easily be a view across the lake at Henham Park (home of Latitude); I'm thinking looking across towards the reeds (that one passes on the path to the Sunrise stage) from the area to the right of the bridge when looking across the lake from the main part of the arena.
This is not 'sudden impact' music but if you like the insidious liquidity of much Americana - and I for one certainly do and it is part of a canon that is becoming increasingly important - it and much more too is well worth investigating.
Incidentally there will be two bridges across said lake at Latitude this year, to relieve the overcrowding, and apparently also an improved entrance to the arena for much the same reasons. The latter in particular is overdue - as it was an issue in 2009 also - as would trying to stick to the advertised open-gate time. If there is a real issue then fine, in which case a bit more in the way of effective communication would be appreciated by all.
Things inevitably do go awry sometimes and most people can appreciate and accept that. It would also make life more pleasant for the festival staff too; I know that, if I were one of them, I'd be pretty frazzled if I was repeatedly asked 'WTF is happening?' when the fact of the matter was that I didn't even know myself.

The Low Anthem - EOTR 2010 - Part 5

As it was at the End Of The Road 2009, so it was at the End Of The Road 2010.
While they hail from Providence RI, the band seems to have adopted Larmer Tree Gardens as their second home and they are seemingly busier, and certainly better, than ever. They appeared, often in part and/or with others, in many places and many guises.

These pictures are simply The Low Anthem using instruments as is their voluble wont.

A particularly notable other was former Low Anthem band-member Daniel Lefkowitz, who also performed his own live material in a separate set: there is clearly no hard feeling on either side and that is amply attested by the production credits on his forthcoming début solo album.

In addition to such obvious favourites as 'Charlie Darwin', 'Ticket Taker' and 'To The Ghosts Who Write History Books', they performed a rousing version of  'This God Damn House', a song that he wrote when he was a member of the band.
Equally interesting were the songs-as-yet-unreleased. In part at least, and this is no secret it would seem, destined for the forthcoming third album. I thought that they sounded good.
Far be it from me to even try and second-guess what the album might sound like - The Low Anthem is far too talented and unpredictable for that - but on the other hand I'd wager that whatever it turns out to be I'll like it nonetheless.