New Music 2017 - Part 25 - Paul McClure and the Local Heroes EP

It is with much pleasure, having seen him play live at Truck Festival just three weeks ago, that I come to review the latest EP from the self-styled Rutland troubadour and that is named for both himself and the collection of artists with whom he tours this beautiful land of ours come rain or shine --- with an abundance of the former and a paucity of the latter at Truck 2017!
Following two great albums 'Smiling From The Floor Up' (2014) and 'Songs for Anyone' and vast amounts of playing live across the UK with myriad of local heroes often different ones in different places.
The idea here was to get a band of Local Heroes in a studio and record some songs, playing together as if it were live.  This EP is what resulted from that.

Paul McClure and the Local Heroes, paulmccluremusic.com, Clubhouse Records (2017).

Paul McClure and the Local Heroes EP

• Million Dollar Smile
• Baby That's You
• The Good And The Bad Of It
• Weight In Time
• Troubadour's Lament

The Local Heroes on this recording are:
Rhiannon Payne - vocals
Mike Monaghan - drums/percussion
Neil Segrott - bass
Joel Payne - keyboards/vocals
Paul McClure - guitar/lead vocals

All of this body of work is worth your listening time. Three of the five tracks on the EP were on the playlist that afternoon (see below). Even more important, and this is actually how I first became aware of Paul McClure, is to see him play live. It matters not if he is solo or with any number of Local Heroes that can be mustered for the occasion. You will not be disappointed.

Paul McClure, Saloon Bar stage, Truck Festival, 22 July 2017.

A picture is no substitute for being there listening live.  This is the play list that you missed.

What is more Paul appeared time and again over the three days, both supporting other artists and as part of the collective performances that are a great feature of the late evenings on this stage.

Truck Festival - Part 2 - The Saloon Bar Beckons

It is with sadness that I must mention that Truck Festival's bigger companion, Y Not Festival, was terminated this weekend not long after it had started due to both the mud and, perhaps more importantly, the dangerous electrical problems that the rain caused on the various stages. I'll say something that is actually very important. The festival support staff at Truck Festival last weekend went beyond what might reasonably have been expected in order to mitigate the problems and so did so many others on the campsite. Awesome is not an inappropriate word in the circumstances and yet I suspect that they didn't really get the credit that was due to them.
Thank-you!
We must regard ourselves fortunate for what we were able to see and hear last weekend.
Here then is some stuff from that most important of stages. Of course it is almost all about the music but without the audience festivals would be nothing. The vitality of this interaction is so very important; a challenge to all. Keeping an exact count of the artists that played supporting roles throughout the whole weekend certainly got the better of me. You'll probably start to see familiar faces however.

There is no better place to start than with a stalwart of The Saloon Bar stage in recent years; Paul McClure promoting his latest EP 'Paul McClure and The Local Heroes'.

The Saloon Bar stage, Saturday afternoon, 22 July 2017.

Included in this photo, along with Paul, is another of the many heroes of this stage last weekend - Tom Collison on keyboards.
No better way to continue with, all the way from St. Antonio, Texas and a second year on this stage, Rachel Laven.

Saloon Bar stage, Saturday 22 July, with Simon Kelly and Rebecca Rosewell.

Also returning to this stage, and I have to say that I much admire this sense of continuity, was Hannah Rose Platt with new songs.

Lunchtime, Saturday 22 July 2017.

There is of course an element of competition in all of this and I suspect that I'm mostly on the losing side, but the challenge is good.

If you want me I'll be in the bar...

Another attempt to write a post about a road-trip through music has just been cunningly subverted, this time by a festival announcement. As for the title, it's just a case of me with apologies to Joni.
For all that I shall start with the artists and the LP that I was intending to start with anyway.

This album has been out in the US for a while now but is released in the UK very shortly and there is a tour in the offing too. It should be clear that we are on a trip and that we are starting in California. Or at least this outfit is.

Speedbuggy USA - South of Bakersfield (Wagon Wheel Records, 2015).

The four-piece are purveying the Bakersfield sound of Californian country rock that grew up in counterpoint to the increasingly highly polished and produced sounds emanating from Nashville in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This music is definitely the concern of ordinary, blue-collar folk.  They are coming to a small festival that takes place on a farm in Oxfordshire, England in July. It is rather appropriately called Truck Festival. Those trucks may run on rails as in this, taken from 'South of Bakersfield'. Speedbuggy USA plays Truck Festival on Sunday 17 July.

In fact this trip through music is defined only by the end-point of the various journeys and that is a single small stage - The Great Western Saloon Bar - at the above mentioned gathering. The starting points vary wildly and indeed some of the artists have already been mentioned in these pages. Here is the full schedule.

Applewood Road headline on Friday. Top of the bill on Saturday is BJ Barham, perhaps better known as the on-going lead singer and songwriter for American Aquarium. This is his solo side project that includes the soon-to-be-released LP 'Rockingham'. Robert Chaney, whom I mentioned with regard to his album 'Cracked Picture Frame' early last year, is a must-see as far as I am concerned. In fact there is nothing that I don't want to see, whether I have seen that act or artist live before or have not! Indeed, and as well as the above, at the very least these six have already been mentioned by me specifically in regards to LP releases: The Black Feathers, Danni Nicholls, Delta Bell, Redlands Palomino Company, The Rosellys, Paul McClure. I know quite a bit about them. I have seen Stevie Ray Latham live too, I think, but I need to look into that.
What interests me now is all the rest of the artists on the above list; many of which I know little or nothing about. There is no point whatsoever in going to festivals just to see acts that one is already well aware of.
What I dig up about this will form the second part of this post.

New Music 2016 - Part 3 - Paul McClure - Songs for Anyone

'Songs for Anyone', which will be released on the estimable Clubhouse Records in January, is the second solo LP released by Paul McClure, the self-styled Rutland Troubadour. This is a rather appropriate moniker for, while the UK as a whole is small in comparison to some US states, I'd wager that a large part of the UK population couldn't describe with any certainty where Rutland lies in our little island.

The Clubhouse stable encompasses Americana-related artists from both sides of the ocean and the songs on this album have universal themes rather than specifically American or British ones. It continues the thread from his previous release 'Smiling From The Floor Up' in being for the greater part man-and-song-and-guitar. All songs on this LP are self-written but there are subtle textural changes, including the use of harmonica from time to time and backing vocals from Hannah Elton-Wall (Redlands Palomino Company), lap steel, piano and other instruments, as well as skilfully discrete production duties, all by Joe Bennett (The Dreaming Spires). The track listing is as follows, despite the fact this is a CD:

Side 1:

1. Gentleman's Agreement
2. Unremarkable Me
3. I Could Be A Happy Man
4. Don't Take Me Under
5. Everyday Is Mine To Spend
6. Holding A Ten Ton Load

Side 2:

1. So Long
2. My Big Head Hat Of Dreams
3. Yesterday's Lies
4. My Little Ray Of Sunshine
5. A Song For Anyone
6. Lady Flossington

The best way to enjoy this music is of course live. In my opinion there is no place better to do that than The Saloon stage at Truck Festival. It is as far from the seething masses of some festivals as one could possibly imagine.

Paul McClure, Saloon stage, Truck Festival, 18 July 2015.

Truck Festival 2015 - Part 4

This is no secret; I've been working up to it all week. The real reason that I go to Truck Festival time and again is the Saloon Bar stage. It is a microcosm of a festival in its own right; and all in a space of about 8 x 16 metres. This is what it looks like from outside.

That fuzzy blob is a rain drop on the lens filter, not some alien thing...

This is the view from the front porch, with the Market Stage on the left. Let's go inside.

You will find an audience of all ages and the music will be Americana or some such in its many guises.

I'm not sure what Paul McClure (who hails from the back-woods of Rutland) would make of this but, as previously at Truck, he was wonderful. He played solo and also played a few songs with band backing - mostly members of other acts performing that day.

This is very much a trend on this stage and is definitely to be applauded.

Don Gallardo does hail from the USA, and he has his latest and very arresting LP 'Hickory' in tow.

Don Gallardo and friends.  Just the drummer and bassist for company here. As it turned out that didn't last long...

In almost no time this swelled to six-piece backing. OMG this was good.

That folks is probably not even the half of the goodness on this little stage last weekend. You have been warned.

Truck Festival 2014 - life, live in The Saloon

This time last Friday evening I was exactly in the place I'm about to write about. By the end of a festival weekend there is often something of a desire to spend a weekend at home (writing about it). To be honest, however, I'd quite happily be back there or somewhere similar right now.
Almost all of the time that I wasn't watching electric guitar bands on the main stage, or the equivalent delights of the Barn stage, this is likely where I was to be found instead. It has already featured in my posts about Truck Festival 2014 and certainly did so heavily in those of Truck Festival 2013. It was a new feature then. I know what I like when I come across it and my only concern was whether it could live up to my memories of it last year.
I'm not one to be shy of seeking out new music, especially in genres that I like - and so very much including folk, roots and Americana - yet last year it served up several acts the knowledge of which I was quite naïve. It was certainly no less so this year but I made it something of a mission to explore and, if possible, photograph. I'm not sure how well I succeeded in the latter but I thoroughly enjoyed trying. The music was amazing. All of it.

The action started a couple of hours after that on the other stages: at 2:20pm Friday with Delta Mainline. A big sound on a small stage, and a guitar band (vide infra) to boot, that hails from Edinburgh.
Three things to note here:

• The Saloon is just a tin shed (as many of the prototypes no doubt were) but sheds and music have a certain affinity - particularly this one!
• It is one stage on which a wide-angle lens is as useful as a telephoto one, and I'm still missing a band member here.
• The Dreaming Spires' drum-kit is generic, for all to use, although the band did perform there twice over the weekend too.

This is one from the outside, looking in. The Saloon has doors that open both ways and that, for important reasons, one can see both over and under.

Otis Gibbs - Saturday afternoon.

   

By mid-afternoon I felt like I was part of the furniture, often sat on the floor, and either nobody seemed to notice or they didn't care. That is a good place in which to be.

The August List. The duo have yet to release an album, but it is in the works. Watch this space!

After this I wandered back out into the summer sunlight for a few hours, only to return without remembering to change my camera settings for the evening gloom back in The Saloon. As luck would have it the next act was 'Rutland troubadour' Paul McClure. My bacon was saved because his tales between songs are as long as, if maybe not actually longer than, the songs themselves. As for the song and what it is about, Lord only knows. 

We are up to early Friday evening now.

Putting this supposed précis together is actually taking longer than listening to the original performance. Do I regret starting this - post or even festival-going? Hell no.
Maybe I shall split the post into a Saturday portion and a Sunday one but, either way, I'm not going to finish it on Friday.
And not to be finished on Saturday either, but for different reasons. Riding the iron horses...