"I Will Return I Promise" - Beth Jeans Houghton

It has been a couple of years since she first popped up on the scene with the EP 'Hot Toast - Volume 1'. I first heard (of) her, and then immediately bought the EP at the Rough Trade pop-up store, at End Of The Road 2009.
You might be forgiven for thinking that the toast is getting stale, and there certainly hasn't been a second round, but now things are moving fast. Here she is, in the then rather basic 'Local' tent, at EOTR 2009.

It is very easy to forget that this is actually not much more than eighteen months ago.

This may well have actually been her first festival performance but, due to The Horrors having to cancel due to illness, she did a slot on the very much larger Big Top stage later in the weekend, which I did not see, and again to much acclaim by all accounts. There is something very EOTR about all this (as Caitlin Rose proved in 2010)...

The début album has taken a while longer than anticipated, though it is now (May 2011) complete. Nevertheless she appeared again in the meantime with her band The Hooves of Destiny on the Lake Stage at Latitude 2010 on Sunday afternoon.

Both these photos do not however include an absolutely vital part of the live 'Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny' experience, so it is high time to put that right.

Rory Gibson on bass.
  

She is good on her promise too: on Monday it was confirmed that Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny are to appear at EOTR 2011 with, no doubt, the album to showcase.

Now signed to Mute Records the track Dodecahedron is available as a free, legal download in the meantime.

Stick No Bills! - a day for posting posters...

I just could not resist adding this one, the latest from a band that I first saw performing live at EOTR 2009 and who are currently in the US for their performances at SXSW 2011.

The best bit, apart from the music of course, is that in this space I can fly-post to my heart's content with near impunity and, yes, you do need the 'Fugitive EP'.

It is free and legal too (see link in poster)!
  
Staying with events taking place across the Atlantic...

Poster art is, happily, still alive and well in the 21st century.

 

New Music 2011 - Part 7 - Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo

OK, I was planning on doing more on new music this weekend.  It would certainly have been tomorrow, rather than just now, were it not for this.  In all probability you have already heard at least a snippet or two of the work of this artist even if you were quite unaware of it...

It is released (in the UK) on February 7, 2011 and Almanac is their third album.

This is the track list for Almanac:

• Billowing Sea
• Reckless
• Ropes (which was in the live set at EOTR 2009)
• Little Deaths (also in the live set at EOTR 2009)
• Dancers
• Pause
• Openings
• Calendar
• Light
• Witch of Pittenween
• Bones

Further posts on New Music 2011:
Part 1  ---  Esben and The Witch

Part 2  ---  Yuck

Part 3  ---  Duke Spirit

Part 4  ---  Low Anthem
Part 5  ---  Go!Team

Part 6  ---  Rhosyn
Part 8  ---  Those Dancing Days
Part 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.
Part 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.
Part 11  ---  New Heads On Old Shoulders?
Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop
Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

Not Least @ Latitude - Part 7 - Beth Jeans Houghton

You may perchance have thought that I had come to the end of my thoughts on Latitude 2010.  It is not so, I have simply been diverted by other things. Here are some more that I regarded as highlights.
I have mentioned Pete Paphides' praise of Beth Jeans Houghton at Field Day 2010.   I first saw her live at EOTR 2009 and again at Latitude 2010 and all this is still before the release of her début album; before the end of the year?   Yes, she was a star in the really rather basic, but also rather good, Live @ The Local tent at EOTR 2009 but the potential was quite obvious and I was there to watch and comment. Even so I would not then have suspected that she would headline the Lake Stage on Sunday at Latitude 2010.

The fact of the matter is this: even if her stage persona might have visibly changed as an artist she has not, except for becoming even better at what she does.  The new songs, along with one or two from the 2009 'Hot Toast - Volume 1 EP', destined for the forthcoming album were impressive.  The other point to note is this: when it comes to relating to a live audience she just has that skill so naturally - and it works both ways.  There were plenty there who had never seen her live, possibly never even heard of her before. She got the great majority of them on-board without them even noticing the trick - one that is worth its weight in gold - and you tend never to forget anything, or anyone, that can do that.

I went straight from her performance to see Vampire Weekend headline on the Obelisk Stage, so could she possibly get away with the comparison?

Quite probably she could and Vampire Weekend has it too: it is not just about the music, however good that may be, it is about the presence.  Artists that don't have it are, at least to me, underwhelming when live almost regardless of any other relevant considerations.

 It was a well deserved vote of confidence I believe.

The closing song was one from the aforementioned CD-EP  and it was 'I Will Return, I Promise' - and against that assertion it is now very hard to argue.  It might, however, be on a rather larger stage.
Vampire Weekend certainly didn't disappoint either.

Alela & Alina - Matty Groves... live

This is why festivals matter.  It has taken me nine months to finally track down a physical release, which is rather tardy on my part.  To hear it live first is just awesome compensation and so, simply because I can, here are Alela Diane and Alina Hardin performing 'Matty Groves' live at EOTR 2009.

2009 Festivals - revisited - Part 2

By request here is a larger version of the side-bar image that I posted a week or so ago. It was, perhaps quite obviously, an incomplete post. That was not the original plan but, as it happened, it is now going to be an incremental one...

Well, finally, I have got round to adding another artist but this is one less well known.

Jess Elva and band live at EOTR 2009, in the Tipi Tent, early Saturday afternoon.
Watch out for more from the Swiss/Australian, and her band, very soon.

And you never did learn to let the little things go.

And you never did learn to let me be.

And you never did learn to let little people grow.

And you never did learn to see.

And I am lower now and lower still

And you did always say that one day I would suffer.

You did say that people get their pay.

You did always say that I was going places

And that you wouldn't have it any other way.

But I couldn't turn my back

On a world for what I lack wouldn't let me

But I couldn't turn my back

On a world for what I like I need it.

Lyrics from 'Blackberry Stone' by Laura Marling, an artist now confirmed for Latitude 2010.

2009 Festivals - revisited - Part 1

Having written about a few of the acts that I would like to see at Festivals in 2010 it made me think more about some that I saw in 2009 that to all intents and purposes were quite unknown to me but mattered a great deal, adding considerably to my enjoyment.

Leeds' 'Bear Driver', on the Tipi Stage Sunday lunchtime at EOTR 2009.

This band was very good indeed.

They were far from being one of the best known bands there but were certainly well worthy of the spot. Only four of them are in this picture but they are, in fact, a six-piece and one we deserve to hear much more of in 2010.

Recording pains - Beth Jeans Houghton

I've never recorded anything original myself, let alone an album, so here are some thoughts by one - who I saw live at EOTR 2009 - about the process of recording her soon-to-be-released first album. The album from, should you have forgotten, the artist who claims she appeared from the depths of Buttermere, simply has to have been worth the wait. Recording it has however not been without some trials and tribulations...

"Frantically finishing recording for the forthcoming album with Ben Hillier.

On Thursday we invited a lot of my friends down to be recorded as a BIG BAD CHOIR on 'Golden' and 'I Will Return, I Promise'. Twenty three people came, including the Hooves, half of Stornoway, Mike Lindsay from Tunng, the boy who sells me coffee in the morning, Dr. S. Tud Luvcub, Jessica Rabbit and Kola, a man I met on the street that morning. The punk song we recorded is called 'Prick AKA Sean' and it's about a drunk Glaswegian man who had a fight with our tour manager in a Travel Lodge in Coventry when we were on tour with Stornoway. The prize line being 'Goodnight, sweet dreams and f**k off'. He [Kola] was lovely, he really was."

If you think that the foregoing sounds improbable in the extreme consider this, the text on the inner sleeve of 2009 EP 'Hot Toast - Volume 1'.

Beacons, Black Ice and crossed-wires

It is autumn here now even though the weather is still remarkably good generally. This evening when driving from work I took the back-route home, which is through some woods, and while there was the faintest drizzle in the air you didn't need that or the slowly changing colours of the leaves to indicate it because you could just smell that it was now autumn. The UK is not a country of great climatic extremes, or indeed climate at all, which is probably why we are obsessed with the random variability of our weather instead.

Now why have I mentioned that you might ask? Well, much music has associations in as much to say it goes better with some seasons or weather or other associations (even if the they actually have to be experienced in foreign climes). If that were not true then surely the attractions of Ibiza would be no more than those of the Isle of Wight. (The latter does, to be fair, however host two major festivals and is thus trying very hard indeed and the sun shone at Bestival 2009, I am told.) I also think that opening a festival is an unenviable task...

It is often like this. There is always an amazing feeling when I come across an album that is show-stopping, which I was quite unacquainted with, but this is it seems even better if it happens live and that is why I waited ten days to order the album. [It arrived today, hence the comment.]

To hear a full set by a band live in such circumstances, and then twice in one day, was something quite new to me and I wondered if the album would then prove a disappointment in some way. Not a bit of it... it is a wonderful album and while much of it has ostensibly weather related themes, predominantly winter ones, they are as much metaphorical as literal.

In fact the album could equally well have been called 'Crossed Wires'. This is the interior artwork on the CD (Bella Union - BELLACD199) but the front cover has a clue to this even though the wires are barely above the snow.

It is very difficult to chose any favourite tracks but Black Ice is an obvious contender.

Black Ice

I took the bus down Bathurst Street and saw where,
all the lonely people meet down there.
I sat on a pile of cigarettes and blew,
icicles with one sharp breath towards you.

There's black ice, no sign.

Temper me and temper this I've tried,
to fit in everything in a small time.
The winter brings a heaviness, this weight,
is a hand over the things I shouldn't say.

There's black ice, no sign.

They are a seven-piece, much given to changing and swapping instruments, so even their festival-opening set on the 'The Big Top Stage' Friday lunchtime was a fairly complicated affair. It was however as nothing when compared to their 'surprise session' appearance at 2am Saturday on the tiny stage in the Tipi Tent, not least because for some of it they were joined by fellow Torontans 'The Acorn'.

That made eleven of them on a tiny stage and it was another blistering performance.

Now try to sort out the out all the wires.

What next?

More musings from EOTR 2009 which, it has to be said, was a very difficult festival to describe and all the better for that. There were so many great sets that I'll probably never mention them all but Alela Diane, on the Garden Stage Saturday afternoon, should be mentioned (it was also an amazing set) just for this alone and if you want the lyric for this song then just ask... It's better known than I ever dared suspect and plenty of us were singing along!

'Matty Groves' live and acoustic.

The song appears, very much like this, on Fairport Convention's 'In Real Time - Live 1987' and yes I have that on vinyl. It was such a surprise and, when the first chords played my first thought was 'surely it is not, it simply can't be' but I was wrong again.

For the lyric to the song, and some discussion, see:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2009/10/matty-groves-lyric-alela-diane.html

The end of one thing is just the start of another.

This time last week I was in North Dorset at 'End of The Road 2009' and it has taken me rest of the week to really come to terms with what that actually meant to me. Lots of awesome acts, that is for sure, but also rather more than that and so I've already bought a ticket for EOTR 2010.

I've long thought that to be the first act on stage at a festival must be an invidious task and at EOTR 2009 that fell to Toronto-based Ohbijou on the 'Big Top Stage' shortly after mid-day on Friday.

This was my introduction to EOTR and "holey-moley this is just amazing" is merely to quote lead vocalist Casey Mecija at some point mid-set; and it could very easily have gone downhill from there but it didn't, there is no doubt about that.

In fact, in the early hours of Saturday morning, Ohbijou became only the second act I have ever seen perform a full live set twice within 24 hours!
There was no shortage of amazing acts...

At 11:15 pm on Friday night Beth Jeans Houghton conspired to take an absolutely packed 'The Local' stage by storm.
She has received good reviews but this was a truly awesome set. When 'The Horrors' were unavailable due to illness on the Big Top Stage Saturday evening she was game for a bigger venue and, while I didn't catch that performance, she was by all accounts more than equal to filling that stage too.

The one act that defaulted at Latitude 2009 I was able to see at EOTR 2009, on the Tipi Stage, and that was Sweden's 'First Aid Kit'. They were amazing, as I had been led to believe they would be, but I didn't expect them to play even one song with such a surprising pair of instruments.

Autoharp, six-string banjo and a judiciously updated cover of 'Universal Soldier' - written and originally recorded by Toronto's Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1964.

If these had been the only highlights, but they most certainly weren't, it would still have been a pretty good weekend.