2013 In Music - Albums - Part 3

In early December I said that I would do this. I always forget some albums that should be included and this year is no exception to the rule. There are in addition, several that I simply hadn't heard, or otherwise understood insufficiently, in time for them to be included in the first two lists. I have been busy with that and, while it might not be finalised for a week or so, this list might possibly run to another half-dozen. I will add them piecemeal as and I get the opportunity to do so.
They are in no particular order but this list will have images. It is again very much tied in with music I have seen live in 2013.
The first is Jo Harman and Company and the début album 'Dirt On My Tongue'. 

Albeit impressive at the first Frome Blues Festival in 2012; the return in 2013 was some triumph. She had it pretty much sewn up.
  

Only The Nimmo Brothers kept it from being the highlight of the day and, as they acknowledged, they have a fair few more years at the grindstone and under the belt. If you find the album is good then you need to see Jo Harman live. That actually applies to The Nimmo Brothers and also King King too - and I had the extreme good fortune to see all three acts in the space of six weeks.
   
The next is the début album by another band that I saw live for the first time at Truck Festival 2013, and another from the small Saloon stage that was curated by Clubhouse Records. This is one reason that I am very much minded to go to Truck Festival 2014 (19/20 July). That band is The Cedars and the album Little Copper Still.

Fermented in America, distilled in Britain.

This leads me to another festival that is tempting, and I thought about it last year. Maverick Festival 2014 (4 - 6 July 2014, nr. Woodbridge, Suffolk). There are no published artists for this yet but I have the feeling that it is unlikely to disappoint and I really like the idea of going to at least one weekend festival that I have never attended before.
   
I made and stated some rules concerning 'best of lists'. If this happens to breach them then, as they are my rules they are also mine to break. Fear not - I have no ambition in politics.
I didn't have this album in time to comment in the two previous lists but the EP 'The Weight Of The Globe' featured here and rightly so. This is about as good as it gets. EOTR 2014, are you listening?

It is also just one of a trio of releases that feature similar superimposed images as artwork... Warpaint - Warpaint is one of the other two that I have in mind. That is however a 2014 release.

    

[To be continued soon.]

Live and local - just part of one weekend in October.

The title says it all. This weekend just gone was a blast - right up there with anything else in my 2013 in music. It is true that on Saturday I ventured a full twenty miles away from my home town of Frome to a tiny hall in a village that, I guarantee, most people even round here are quite unaware of. Why would I do that?
We won't start there. On Friday evening I was less than a mile from home - Acoustic+, Cheese and Grain, Frome. Usual format: four bands, roughly half-hour set from each, all for a fiver. To be honest, can you go wrong with that? The answer is no. In this case it was more a matter of pinching oneself in order to check that this was indeed for real. That is not a trivial thing to say, but that I still feel the same in the light of that which I saw on Saturday says a very great deal.
Of the three acts that I had never seen live before I can't speak more highly. Blue Midnight is the exception, I have seen them live several times and so I hope that their omission from this post is excusable. This is Salisbury-based Arch Garrison, with acoustic tales of landscapes and the thoughts that they evoke. He was prescient: this would prove to be something of a theme throughout the weekend.

That the next chance to catch him live is at Union Chapel, Islington says a great deal about the artist and also the standard that Acoustic+ sets for itself.

  

The opening act was another that I had not seen live before - Kelly and Alana, so here they are.

First support was South Divide. I'd say that this was my highlight of a very good evening. It is not just about the music for all of that was excellent, nor raw ambition either, it is about the presentation of it as a coherent whole. On that basis this is why I think it the most impressive of the four acts that evening. Here are a couple of photos from the set.

Full band, in the usual Acoustc+ setting.

On lead vocals and keyboards - Chloë Warren.

As I have recently been commenting on the remarkable resurgence of the EP, both physical and digital, you will find it continues with this one.

If you missed the forgoing then all is not lost. On Saturday, November 9, South Divide is playing The Griffin, Frome.

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.

Live Music 2012 - Frome Blues Festival

This was always going to prove a tricky proposition for me to review. Firstly I have never been to a whole day of music dedicated to blues before and secondly because just nine days earlier I had seen Joanne Shaw Taylor live at Tavistock Wharf. That was amongst the most astonishing performances that I have seen in any genre this year - and well up in those of all time.

As a result of this I am not going to cover the six acts in order of appearance. I'm going to start with the one I found the most disappointing...

...Stan Webb's Chicken Shack, the headline artists.
  

A slightly clumsily chosen preamble at the start didn't go down too well with the audience assembled in Frome and I get the feeling that I was not the only one to think that. The impression increasingly became that it was a rattling experience, not least when Mr. Webb forgot the lyric to one song part way through. After that it was, I guess, just a case of getting it all over and done, which actually raised the bar considerably.
One thing that I must say is that he generously praised the foregoing acts, the organisers and crew on sound and stage duties and the audience and rightly so. It has actually crossed my mind that fulsomely could be used here but it seemed quite sincere and the audience greeted it as such.

Now I have another problem: in what order should I review the other acts?  If any other showed signs of nervousness then it was Oli Brown at the start of his set but that evaporated after the first few minutes. The remainder, increasingly confident and beguiling, was pretty much as good as I had imagined that it would be - he is signed to Ruf Records and in my opinion that is a good sign. As I have mentioned a couple of times recently I am much liking the re-emergence of  recording labels that one can rely on - in the sense that artists they choose to release are dependably good.

Oli Brown - Frome Blues Festival 2012.

Once he and his band had got into their stride there was no stopping them. If there was a problem with the audience it was a curious one - that it was too quiet, bordering on the obsequious, while the bands were setting up and sound-checking. Artists at End Of The Road Festival have also commented on this and the fact that it is actually rather unnerving.

Here is Oli Brown and his band in full flow.
  

Opening proceedings, something that I have always thought must be an unenviable task, was Laurence Jones. If he felt the weight on his shoulders he and his band didn't let it show.

They certainly got proceedings off on solid foundations.

  

The next act, Jo Harman & Company, was a quite different proposition but as, since Jo is hiding at the far left of this next picture, it is not immediately apparent why.

This is where the fault-lines started to appear.

   This was very much blues-rock, just for starters, but it seemed to go down well.

    

Eddie Martin isn't exactly prototypical blues either, as it has a rather prominent brass section, and they played next. Actually a six-piece but you can't see the Hammond organ and its player in this photo...

...but in this one you can. They were good --- very, very good indeed.

Therefore I am left with one artist to get a mention and, as I had been led to believe, when she is playing live her début album 'Like No Other' (2011) offers little clue what to expect...

There comes a point, however, when the game is finally up.

This is about that point.

Live & Local - some dates for the diary

It seems that I haven't written so much about musical things taking place in Frome lately, so it is time for an update on some future events. For another view of the town I recommend this blog highly - Frome With A View.
Here, however, are some musical happenings that I am really looking forward to:

• Acoustic+ returns after its customary summer recess on 28 September and this is with its 10th Anniversary edition that features all four of the acts that performed at the first! For more on that aspect see here. It is at the Cheese & Grain, as usual, but the ticket price is the £1 of the original (donations are much encouraged).
• Sunday 21 October - The first Frome Blues Festival, organised by Seahorse Productions that is behind the Frome Folk Festival (of which see below). This is also at the Cheese & Grain.
• Saturday 24 November - Sean Lakeman and Kathyrn Roberts. They were just amazing at Frome Folk Festival 2012 but this time are appearing at Rook Lane Chapel.
• Saturday/Sunday 17/18 February - Frome Folk Festival 2013, the second edition of this event. An announcement of the firsts acts and artists who will be appearing is coming very soon and tickets are already on sale both locally, from the Cheese and Grain Box Office, and also through well known on-line sellers; these latter tend, however, to add a booking fee. If you want, and of course only if you can sensibly do so, the cheapest way is almost always to pay in cash at the Cheese & Grain box office. It offers real-time on-line ticketing, so there is no waiting and wondering if and when they will turn up in the mail. There is no booking fee either, for cash purchases. On the other hand it is up to you not to misplace them!