End of The Road 2015 - The Big Top

After a rather soggy, but quite wonderful, Green Man 2015 I am happy to report that apart from a short shower at an unimportant time on Saturday morning End Of The Road 2015 was blessed with dry and, as time went on, increasingly sunny weather.
By Saturday afternoon it was pretty much sunny so, having visited it hardly at all in 2014, I decided to spend much of the afternoon inside the tented Big Top stage! The first act that I saw there was actually one that had impressed me a fortnight earlier at Green Man - The Drink. This was just the start of what turned out to be a run of female-led acts on this stage.

Dearbhla Minogue of The Drink, Big Top Stage, End Of The Road Festival, early Saturday afternoon.

This next is Beth Jeans Houghton and an artist I have seen live a number of times before, not least several times at EOTR. This was the first time I have seen her with her new band project Du Blonde.

I could write a full post about this. Had it been the the culmination of an afternoon in the Big Top I would not have been disappointed. It turned out to be the end of the start. The backing bands for both the above are all male.

When I first heard the song 'Jane' last year it made me take note of its perpetrators - female duo Girlpool from Los Angeles. I can honestly say that at that time what it might sound like live never even crossed my mind. In fact I still don't know for, following the prudent idea of not playing live the song(s) that first garnered attention, they didn't play it.

Without the slightest pretence Harmony Tividad (bass and vocals) and Cleo Tucker (guitar and vocals) set about dismantling a whole raft of preconceptions about modern music in the space of forty minutes. I'm not at all convinced that I have seen a more affecting live set this year.

New Music 2015 - Part 28 - Du Blonde - Welcome Back To Milk

This artist has featured in these pages a few times before but not as Du Blonde. The new LP 'Welcome Back To Milk' is released on Mute Records on 18 May 2015 in the UK. It was always extremely unlikely that she, so therefore the album or its artwork, would become bland. Her pop-art illustrations and often black and white photography are quite something. She makes her own stage costumes too.

The music is heavier than heretofore but the artist Beth Jeans Houghton remains unmistakably herself, which is nothing but a good thing.
Here she is with 'The Hooves of Destiny' at End Of The Road 2011. Du Blonde is confirmed for End Of The Road 2015.
The first track released from the new LP is 'Black Flag'. 

  Du Blonde - Black Flag (Official Audio) from Mute on Vimeo.

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.

Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

The début album, which also has one of the most astonishingly curious titles of recent times, is finally released on Mute Records on January 24, 2012. If you were not lucky enough to be at EOTR watching this set then let me say something: I had long ago worked out that she was good at what she does but then this was quite something.

Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny....

  

Live on the Garden Stage at End Of The Road Festival 2011, Saturday 3 September.  This is the third time I have seen the whole band live and it just gets better and better. For 2009/2010 coverage of Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny see 'I Will Return, I Promise'.
It is strange, in a very good kind of way, and I trust Mute Records with that.

If you wonder why that is, go listen to Polly Scattergood's 2009 self-titled début album that was also released by Mute. And, by the way, she's busy with the next one and I can't wait for that either.

New Music 2011 - Forthcoming album releases

I'll start with three - and all of them by artists appearing at EOTR 2011 - so the possibility of  hearing at leasts parts of them played live sooner rather than later is very real and all are also by artists that I have previously seen live at least once, which adds weight to my comment in the previous post.
  
Lanterns On The Lake - Gracious Tide, Take Me Home
This, the début album, is released by Bella Union Records on September 19, 2011.

The album track 'You're Almost There' is available as a free download.  The three self-released CD EPs are all sold out now but you can purchase them as downloads from the band's website. At least some of the songs will no doubt appear on the album in some form too. As well as Truck Festival and EOTR 2011 the band is playing  at Deershed 2011 [pre-booked tickets only - there are none available on the day this year] and, if you fancy a visit to the UK's highest pub and regular live music venue, LOTL is hosting a night with special guests at Tan Hill Inn on August 27 - £10 with camping included and no grumpy neighbours except sheep, one or two of which you might well find in the bar and likely in front of the fire (vying for prime space with the cats and dogs), and nothing else other than native wildlife and your fellow campers to disturb!
The band also played at EOTR 2010 - subject to a minor misfortune and ultimately a major victory.
  
Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know
September 12, 2011 is the release date for this, her third LP.

  
There is to be a limited version that will include 12" LP, CD and other goodies. You have been warned.  I can't wait to hear this live.  This is the track list:

• The Muse
• I Was Just A Card
• Don't Ask Me Why
• Salinas
• The Beast
• Night After Night
• My Friends
• Rest In The Bed
• Sophia
• All My Rage

Beth Jeans Houghton - [title as yet unknown to me]
An album some time in the making. Dodecahedron is promising and again another dab hand (and band) when it comes to live performance.
  
I'll add this one too, although it is an album already released, while I'm working in the genre of folk-influenced music. Much is written about regional folk music within the UK and Ireland but, in my recall at least, little of it specifically concerns that of Devon. I came across this and have now ordered it unheard, which is something that I like doing as you may well know.

The artists involved suggest goodness. Jim Causley is prime mover here but it also includes others unlikely to risk their well earned reputations on a dubious project. It was released by Wild Goose Records in March of this year.

"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.

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.

My 2009 in music: EPs and mini-albums

It is that time of year again; the season for making lists. This is not however my Christmas wish list but rather the first part of the music that I have heard in 2009 that I particularly liked.
It, like all the other parts to follow, is obviously a personal selection so if you agree with some and disagree with others then it is well worth doing; should you discover anything from it that had either not caught your attention or merely forgotten then all the better and, as usual, all comments, positive or negative, are welcome.
As I did last year I started with one of the categories that I find it easier to get my head around. It is better this year even though 'EPs and mini-albums' has become a whole lot more complicated than it was in 2008. As usual I'm not going to attempt to rank them, not least because that depends on my mood at the time. These have however proved enduring favourites and so here they are, in alphabetical order and by arist:

• Amy LaVere - Died of Love
• Beth Jeans Houghton - Hot Toast Volume 1
• First Aid Kit - Drunken Trees
• Le B - Good Fortune Sounds
• Marina and the Diamonds - The Crown Jewels EP
• Smoke Fairies - Frozen Heart
• Stars of Sunday League - The Boy's Got Prospects

A major departure from the selection I made last year is that as well as owning said items I have actually seen five of the seven acts live in 2009. The exceptions being Amy LaVere and Le B because I didn't get the opportunity to do so. Of these seven acts/artists only one has released a full album to date and that is Amy LaVere, who has released two, and the second of them, 'Anchors and Anvils', was in my list of 2008 albums.

There are also a few EPs that overlap with 2009 artists and albums that I think worthy of note, but probably need no introduction, simply for the remixes:

• Florence and The Machine - A Lot Of Love, A Lot Of Blood
• Little Boots - Arecibo

The nine items above are, at least in my collection, represented equally on CD, 7" vinyl and 12" vinyl --- so not even dead on physical format! The artwork of many of these items has already appeared in my posts in 2009 but not all of it so here is some more...

There is more (including links from this post) to follow soon...