The rogue's gallery - and thinking about 2018 festivals

I had so much fun putting the first of these together that I was looking for any excuse to do something similar. A cold, wet day spent doing household chores and backing up the computer prompted me to look at more of the pictures of music that I have taken over the last decade or so. In turn this has inclined me to think about some festival plans for 2018.

There is no obvious place to start this but it has reminded me of several artists that I have seen live but not thought about more recently.

Cate Le Bon, Garden stage, End Of The Road 2014.

There is no obvious end to this either. Festivals became something I was curious about.  Therefore I had to go and see why there was so much fuss made about them. That finally happened in July 2007 with a trip to Latitude.
Photography was something that came with that because it seemed a convenient way to remind me what I had seen live. It was thus but it only partly served to overcome my lack of note-taking and the fact that the great majority of acts that I saw were ones that I had never even heard-of, let alone heard live or otherwise at the start of the respective set. Rather importantly I had a great time that weekend despite more than a few misgivings about the venture of solo festival attendance the nearer I got to actually having to deal with it.

In time it, both festivals and photography, turned out to be a greater deal than that. It is certain that the Garden stage at End Of The Road Festival is extremely influential in this.

The same stage three years later...

Julia Jacklin returned. She had played the Tipi stage at End Of The Road 2016. 3 September 2017.

What was this all about?  There's nothing like a band going off on a whim. Particularly if the result is leaving your drummer lost, head-in-hands. It's even better when it unfolds in front of you.

Hinds, Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.

Welcome to live music. This is why it is so much fun. Sometimes I scare myself, if only retrospectively. I made a complete dog's breakfast of taking pictures of Holly Macve when she played the Sunday opening slot on The Garden stage at End Of The Road 2016. I got another chance... and possibly I did a little better this time.

Holly Macve - Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, 20 August 2017.

I'm sure that there will be some more trips back down memory lane as I consider festival options for 2018.

My Music in 2017 - Albums - Part 1

Right then, the time for year-end lists is with us once again. This led me to consider that it is my twelfth year of doing such things. The first was posted on 10 December 2006 and that was just three months after starting this blog. It was also before I started attending music festivals. It was to be the driving force for that, and attempts at music photography soon followed.
That list of ten albums from 2006 is here.

The rules have changed little since: there will be several lists of albums as well as other categories. All entries in each list are alphabetical by artist and inclusion in a first list does not imply that I regard these releases to be superior to those in a later list of the same category.
Why do I do this? The answer to this question, which I have been asked surprisingly often, is that it serves to crystallise my thoughts on all the music that I have heard in the past year. That is more important than ever. I don't have exact numbers but I am in no doubt that in 2017 I have listened to more music than in any previous year. That includes approximately 150 live acts.
Music by artists that I have seen live at some time or another continues to have a profound effect on my listening habits. To make that point this list consists only of albums released in 2017 by artists that I have also seen live in 2017.
The reverse is also holds true; I have made an effort to see a number of artists in 2017 as a result of falling for their music in recorded format. John Moreland is a very good example of that. His LP 'High On Tulsa Heat' was on this list last year. The follow-up 'Big Bad Luv' is on this one and therefore here he is...

John Moreland, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.

• Angel Olsen - Phases
• Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life
• Holly Macve - Golden Eagle
• Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Navigator
• John Moreland - Big Bad Luv
• John Smith - Headlong
• Otis Gibbs - Mount Renraw
• Pumarosa - The Witch
• Rosie Hood - The Beautiful and The Actual
• Stevie Parker - Blue

Less than an hour later...

Courtney Marie Andrews, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.

I guess it is fair to say that I have rather indie-traditional leanings in the music I favour but in fact I have listened to a surprising amount of pop and electronic music this year too. I'm neither proud nor embarrassed about that.
The highlight is possibly that the last few years of political turmoil have re-energised the whole gamut of narrative music based on protest, hardship and (voluntary or otherwise) displacement.

My first attempt at seeing Pumarosa live, at Truck Festival 2016, was entirely successful. Taking photos was not however, thanks to a tetchy memory card. With a new memory card and as it happens a different camera I fared somewhat better in 2017.

Pumarosa's Isabel Munoz-Newsome, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.

John Smith, Tipi stage, End Of The Road Festival, 2 September 2017.

If there is a curve-ball it is the inclusion of 'Phases' by Angel Olsen because it is in a sense a compilation. My reason is this. I first saw her live at Green Man 2014, knowing next to nothing of her or her work, and was blown away. In great part by the music but also by her faintly diffident approach. Three years on, and after the release of 'My Woman' in 2016, she returned to Green Man in 2017. I was interested to see what might have changed. Quite a lot to tell the truth and much as I expected to be honest. Totally amazing and still playing that 1979 Gibson S-1.

Angel Olsen, Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.

Dyn Gwrydd :: 2017 :: Green Man - Part 2 - Three to see (again)

Festivals are a chance to see new music as I mention often and it is a subject that I will come back to soon. After a while they also become a way to catch up and see acts again. This post is predicated on that theme. Three acts that I have seen before at three different festivals between 2012 and 2016 revisited at Green Man 2017 each playing on a different stage and on a different day.
I shall start with the one that I first saw at live Green Man 2014 and playing the Mountain stage that year. Back then she was touring her  2014 album 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness' and was one of the most impressive artists but also one that I knew rather little about at that time. This time she is touring on the back of the 2017 LP 'My Woman'.
She is also an artist never known to make the photographer's task easy. Once you know that it counts in your favour.

Angel Olsen & her '79 Gibson S-1, Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, Friday 18 August.

This next artist is someone that first saw live at End Of The Road Festival at the end of last summer. She opened the beautiful Garden stage on Sunday and I messed up almost all of the pictures that I took then but the music was great. I had to try and do something to redeem myself this time... and as luck would have it maybe I did. What is beyond question is that the artist has grown into her rôle too. In the time between these festivals Holly Macve released her début album 'Golden Eagle' on Bella Union Records.
That is a great record but this song isn't on it because it is a brand new one. It is also the only song in the set on which she played electric guitar.

'Iris', Holly Macve, Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, Sunday 20 August 2017.

Last but not least is a band from Scotland and one that I have not seen live since the one-and-only No Direction Home Festival in 2012. Their latest release is 'Wide Majestic Aire' (2016); tongue-in-cheek the title may be but the band goes from strength to strength. A broken guitar string only added to the spectacle, but I'll come back to what happened then sometime later. All I will say is that it made me even more in awe.

Trembling Bells, Walled Garden stage, Green Man Festival, Saturday 19 August 2017.

Two of these acts also share a single person as a musical collaborator in their canon of work.

New Music 2017 - Part 1 - Holly Macve - Golden Eagle

A break from lists and an opportunity to start looking forward to 2017 releases.
I actually started to write this about a fortnight ago when the schedule became clear but I soon ran into a problem. I saw Holly Macve live during the summer but could I find the photos? No!
I knew they were not amongst a few lost to a faulty memory card because the issue was resolved by that time. Just now I had an idea - by this time I was using two cameras interchangeably, one much more than the other and it was the first time that I had such luxury. It turned out that these pictures had been taken with 'the other one' and I hadn't looked for them where they were to be found even though I had downloaded all the images from both devices. Mea culpa.
With that little mystery solved here she is. As I said ten years ago, when this blog project commenced, I don't have the time or the inclination to review things that I don't care for. My listening tastes may have changed over time but that is a completely different matter. 

Holly Macve, Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, 4 September 2016.

Her début album 'Golden Eagle' is released by Bella Union on 3 March 2017 and this is the track-listing.

White Bridge
Corner of My Mind
Heartbreak Blues
Shell
All of Its Glory
Timbuktu
Fear
No One Has the Answers
Golden Eagle
Sycamore Tree

Taken from the album, this is 'No One Has The Answers'.