New Music 2014 - Part 14 - Bridie Jackson and The Arbour

Something else to listen to...  is a feature I have decided to add to the side-bar of my blog. It will be just a picture and a link. Yours to explore or not...
It is about music that is new, but not necessarily new in time or place. It might be something old that is new to me and perchance others too.
It will be at the top of the side-bar, except when some other event is featured there, and I'm intending to update it approximately weekly. I might, as I am now doing, expand my comments on it into a post. 

The first to appear here was a four-piece from Newcastle-upon-Tyne - Bridie Jackson and The Arbour. I had heard some songs on Amazing Radio but this official video was bought to my attention only very recently.

It is taken from their second self-released album, 'New Skin'. I want to hear and see them live.

Whilst on the subject of gritty Tyneside artistes, I get the impression that Beth Jeans Houghton and her co-conspirators are cooking up some new music too... and that can't come too soon.
#TBT  Go listen to 'Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose' (2012) and see her live with her band. Here is an example of that.  Now that I think about it I may possibly add a little gallery of the various performances that I have had the pleasure to witness over the last few years.

Just five weeks today Glastonbury Festival 2014 will be revving up and therefore I might mention that Bridie and The Arbour was the winner of the 'Glastonbury 2013 New Emerging Talent' competition.  Here's how the resulting visit to Worthy Farm panned out. 


Something else to listen to... has now moved on to pastures new - the rule is that you cannot be in both places at the same time - and back across the Atlantic, therefore more transatlanticism I suppose. Never fear, it shall return to these shores sooner than you know.

High Level - Music from the past.

This is one album that I have wanted to find for at least two decades and finally I have done so. First released by Trailer records as LER 2030 in 1971 it has, as far as I can tell never had a full re-release on vinyl, cassette or CD and neither can I find a legal download. I might have missed something but now it doesn't matter any longer...

For much the same cost as a current vinyl release I have it now, an original in excellent condition. It is not absolutely mint and certainly not unplayed but that is a good thing as I fully intend to play it - indeed I already have - and I'm disappointed neither by the quality of my purchase nor (and I hardly expected this to be so) the quality of the content or its recording.
  
I'm still undecided about my favourite tracks on it: It is all of them currently.  The High Level Ranters was the first band I ever saw live at a real gig and it clearly made an impression on me. This about 35 years ago - and it was certainly after 'Ranting Lads' was released by Topic Records in 1976 as 12TS297. As it so happens I mentioned that album here three years ago tomorrow!
That this recording, let alone much of the original and traditional music, was recorded forty years ago has become relevant again. Good music sleeps but it never dies.

Lyrics again - Babelonia

Babelonia

she is the fractured one sewn
from sums of fractured time
her heart speaks a fractured tongue
her life a fractured design
she shares the weight of the sun
a love that burns alone
leaving their heart with no one
claiming no other their own

babelonia
it's a wonder
you can believe
in what you see
babelonia
divided love
childhood history
adult's mystery

she is her prophet and god
she is the comfort she seeks
she is a thousand wires sewn
through the outcome she receives
they share the cloak of the moon
under the darkened sky
they leave their secrets to roam
in the forgiveness of night

babelonia
it's a wonder
you can believe
in what you see
babelonia
divided love
childhood history
adult's mystery


I mentioned School of Seven Bells (SVIIB) as one of my highlights of Latitude 2010 and, now I have the album 'Disconnect From Desire', I am only reminded why that is and the music is only the start.
Amazon.co.uk will send it to you as mp3 for £7.90 (obviously including delivery).  No chance... for £8.24, including the rather pertinent issue of delivery, I was more than happy to patronize a UK independent music store.  That is not just a matter of loyalty or conscience, however, for that extra 34p ($0.50) resulted in a tangible item; something (it is actually spilt across two 12" slices) real, totally loveable and also easily damaged.  The moral of the tale is that new vinyl can be affordable it just takes a little effort and the support of the independent labels and retailers. In this case it was Reflex Records in Newcastle and the record is released in the UK by Full Time Hobby as FTH094LP.

 If £0.34/$0.50 in this regard becomes a matter of life or death then I'll quit.  

No Reservations

Yesterday (at work) we ended talking about traditional American blues-rock and its influence in the UK. My older colleague harks on about a 2008 casualty, the late Bo Diddley, which prompted me to mention that I saw Seasick Steve live @ Latitude 2008 and that he referenced the very same (and he uses bespoke guitars too). In addition to this is the fact that, particularly in the last six months, I've been making efforts to rediscover all the vinyl I bought about twenty years ago - much of it second hand even then - and for some reason I suddenly woke up the following morning thinking about a band called Blackfoot.

What followed is a first on this blog! I delved in the long disregarded boxes in the loft and luckily soon found what I was seeking. It was before I left for work and this is important because the only place I can still play cassettes is in my car!
This was recorded live in Newcastle-on-Tyne, hence the inclusion of 'Howay The Lads' at the end (!), and released in 1982. It also shows how much of the UK-styled interpretation of blues-rock Blackfoot had taken on board by this time. I have mentioned the 1970s and early 1980s as being, in my opinion, the heyday of live albums already this year and I'd like to add this to my 'best-of' list.

I then had an idea that I could do better on vinyl...

No Reservations was the first album, Antilles AN-7076, of 1975.

The opening track, Railroad Man is actually a cover of the Shorty Medlock song. Rickey Medlocke is the main man here, although the band has multiple vocalists and twin lead guitars, but he is the son of the aforementioned. This is an album much concerned with change and dislocation, which makes it seem relevant once again.

This was followed in 1976 by Flyin' High, which I also have on vinyl, and that perhaps shows even more European rock influences. The back cover of the LP (Epic PE 34378) has an interesting band biography dating from 1976 (click image to see it readable in a new window).