Why do major labels vacillate?

If you think that a curious title for a post then I shall expound.
It is no secret that The Shires' début album 'Brave', dropping soon, has no known album artwork as of today. Or at least that is the catch-all position that amazon,com and amazon.co.uk is currently displaying. I have to say that, at this stage in the game, that is rather disappointing. The duo is signed to Decca in the UK and Universal Music Group Nashville in all other markets (the first ever UK act to be so). Be that as it may the labels still can't sort the album artwork such that amazon.co.uk or amazon.com can display it. This, in marketing terms alone, is really rather pathetic. No wonder that the independent labels, that can react fast, are running rings.
Be that as it may...

It is still likely an LP that will have an impact. It won't be the only one.

On the other hand apparently small and insignificant labels can insinuate themselves, and thus also their artists, into the consciousness of music fans seemingly without any fanfare at all. Sometimes emerging under the radar, and then staying there for a while, has advantages all of its own.

Particularly when pop - slightly old-style West-coast pop - is concerned.
Any influence and none, its just your ears that decide that in the end.

Betwixt the old year and New Year.

At this time every year I feel like writing; that inclines me to think I should be able to write either about the past year, the coming one or even both with some insight. The fact is, and this year is no different, that to a great extent I cannot and that is not for a shortage of content.
Be that as it may I still feel like writing and so I have settled on a suitably time-indeterminate solution. Here are a couple of LPs or suchlike that I have not mentioned in 2014.

This first, released as the end of 2014 approached is a good example of the fact that some of the best Americana comes out of Canada and it isn't that easy to find on physical format in the UK at the moment.

'Chasing The Sun' is the third LP from the female three-piece The Sweet Lowdown based in Victoria, British Colombia. The sound is entirely acoustic and based on traditional and Appalachian playing but many of the songs and tunes are self-written.

Little May is also a female three-piece, but in this case from Sydney, NSW, Australia., and again not that easy to find all that much music from except to say that which I have heard I like. More about this very soon.

To finish a post that has wandered the world more or less on the theme of Americana perhaps less well known I will finish with one from the USA. That is this release by Pennsylvania-based Caroline Reese and The Drifting Fifth.

Electric Year EP (2014).

This track is not from the above but from the 2013 album Slow Code.

I can't wait to see and hear any/all of these artists, and many more, live in 2015. Now that I have started listening, reading and writing after the welcome Christmas break who knows where this will go next? I'm not sure that I do but when I started I didn't know that either. 

My 2014 in Music - Albums - Part 2

I seem to have the bit between my teeth at the moment as regards remembering, researching and writing so it is my inclination to just go with it. This list of ten albums is in no way a second-tier one in comparision to the first. The emphasis is slightly different however. The first list, viewed simplistically, comprised six UK artists, three US ones and a Canadian one. This next regarded similarly consists of six US artists, three UK ones and again a single Canadian one. It is also less heavily biased towards acts that I have seen live, at least in 2014, and more heavily towards those that I wish to see live in 2015; quite how this might influence my festival choices in 2015 remains to be seen.

• Angaleena Presley - American Middle Class
• Barr Brothers - Sleeping Operator
• Chloë Warren - The Midnight Novel
• Hannah Aldridge - Razor Wire
• Hurray For The Riff Raff - Small Town Heroes (*READ THIS!)
• Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker - Nothing Can Bring Back The Hour
• Otis Gibbs - Souvenirs of a Misspent Youth
• Red Molly - The Red Album
• Samantha Crain - Kid Face
• The Willows - Amidst Fiery Skies

In this list I have seen six of the above live at least once. Of the other four one of them is UK based but I've got it covered. That band is The Willows and playing Behind The Castle Festival on 13 June 2015.
This is the sole Canadian act in this list and the second time that I have seen Barr Brothers live. They are playing seven UK dates at the end of January 2015.

Tipi stage, End of The Road Festival, 30 August 2014.

When I took this picture, at one of the smallest stages, I knew almost next to nothing about the artist. I did however implicitly trust the curators of the stage because I was familiar with it and them. I wasn't to be disappointed.

Otis Gibbs - Saloon stage, Truck Festival 2014.

This next artist is one in the above list that at the start of the 2014 UK Festival season might have been regarded as a very long shot for inclusion here. This is how live music plays such a huge part for me;  I saw her twice in three weeks. I was it would seem far from the only one to come away with a very favourable impression. I wonder if I will be able to take a photo quite like this again...

Samantha Crain - Tipi stage, 30 August, End Of The Road Festival 2014.

Her recent touring, supporting First Aid Kit in the US and beyond has been very well received indeed and I hope has propelled her to a new level. Be that as it may, the album Kid Face is certainly worthy of all the praise that it has gathered.

This next one may be a curiosity: Amazon UK will tell you it is to be released in 2015 and also offer it for near immediate delivery. 

That might matter but it is so good and legally available that it shouldn't; I don't much care for this apparent nonsense of geographic distribution.

She, nickname 'Holler Annie', is the least known member of the Pistol Annies and the last to release a solo album. Does this matter?

On the basis of this recording the answer is a resounding NO and that is exactly why it is here. 

My 2014 in Music - Albums - Part 1

With December, traditionally the start of the pre-Christmas hiatus in meaningful musical releases, just hours away it is time to start mentioning those releases of 2014 that have for whatever reason been highlights for me.
One change is that while the acts are grouped in alphabetical order the number of entries has been reduced to ten in this list. This is not due to a shortage of possibilities, far from it indeed, but rather to make compiling and writing each post more manageable.

• Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness
• Arc Iris - Arc Iris
• Clara Engel - Looking Glass Fire
• Jennifer Crook - Carnforth Station
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - The Dirty Truth
• The Moulettes - Constellations
• Ninebarrow - While The Blackthorn Burns
• The Rails - Fair Warning
• Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso
• Ward Thomas - From Where We Stand

One thing that changed not a jot is the influence that music I have seen live during 2014 has had on the outcome - eight of the ten above fall into that category and of those eight I have seen four live on at least two distinct occasions. Of the ten, five are LPs that I own on vinyl.

I just felt the need to get the ball rolling on this late autumn afternoon. It is easy to keep putting the start of such things off for another day for while it is certainly not a chore, a certain activation barrier has to be overcome nevertheless. Links - some might be my own and others to the artist or label - and probably some relevant photos will follow shortly.
I am happy if people would like to make comments and suggestions. I will be equally so if this leads anyone to find music of which they were previously either unaware of had forgotten about. If it tempts you to head out and see some live music then that is a real bonus. It is also, truth be told, quite simply the music that I really liked.

The alphabet is as it is; it starts this list with an artist that was a complete surprise, and a revelation, to me. I had heard it said that, as a performer, she is at best diffident and at worst obtuse. Be that as it may I can now go only with what I heard and observed myself. Those descriptions are quite harsh I believe; reserved and self-absorbed maybe, which means it admirably mirrors the album title 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness'. 

Angel Olsen - Green Man Festival 2014.

A bonus that accrued from starting a blog is that I really had to go out to see live music and soon armed with a camera. I often don't go far at all...

Ward Thomas, Cheese & Grain, Frome, 2 August 2014.  The opening date of their début headline tour.

The Moulettes are currently supporting Bellowhead on tour, but often playing as a four-piece and good though this is (dubbed the Moulllites by Hannah Miller) when I saw them thus live at Reading Hexagon just a couple of weeks ago you really do need to see them live as a six-piece playing a full set because that is in another league entirely. This was fresh on my mind as I had seen them thus just ten days previously at Marnhull Acoustic Sessions. You can do exactly that at Behind The Castle Festival on 13 June 2015.

One of the Reading absentees: Ruth Skipper, Marnhull Acoustic Session, 9 November 2014.

Looking forward... 2015 and all that.

Only yesterday evening, while writing my little piece on forthcoming lists and then touching on festivals in 2015, did the bigger picture start to coalesce in my mind. I must have kept thinking about it too as I woke up whilst dreaming about it  --- and so I never did get to find out what the denouement of this really very curious "festival" was. That the whole thing was devoid of real-world viability was beyond any doubt.
It has however made me turn my attention to some more of those 2014 festivals that I attended and the ones I might be anticipating a visit to in 2015.  I shall start with the upcoming announcement of (almost all) the line-up for the second edition of Behind the Castle Festival, Sherborne, Dorset, 13 June 2015.  It is to be announced on 27 November and, while currently embargoed, I'm quite certain that it will not disappoint. It will also be featured in an article in The Western Gazette.
Tickets go on sale on Monday 1 December. It is also one of the first festivals to declare any, yet alone the majority of, acts for 2015. Ticket prices remain essentially as last year but various new options are available.
Yesterday I mentioned the poll of 'UK Blogsound 2015'. It coincides with the BBC 'Sound of 2015' list, with which it often shares a degree of commonality - George Ezra and Royal Blood, two acts that arguably share little other than popularity in common, appeared in both lists in 2014 -  and both long lists will appear at the start of December with the top five in each announced in early January.
Here is an artist that featured on the 'UK Blogsound 2014' that I subsequently saw live in 2014. Only after this did I decide to seek out the LP 'Mirrors the Sky' (Sub Pop, 17 March 2014).

Lyla Foy - Garden Stage - End of The Road Festival - 31 August 2014.

It is also just one example of why, once again, my lists of 2014 will be dominated by artists that I have seen live or those that I am determined to ensure that I see (for the first time or once again) in 2015. The surprise factor, both artists and audience, that festivals provide is one of the aspects that most appeals to me. That said you might regard this next as just thirty years of wilful ignorance on my part. I'd never real bothered to engage with Pavement and so Stephen Malkmus' post Pavement career had also largely passed me by until, for a reason that was not pre-planned and I can no longer recall what provoked it, I suddenly decided to make amends. I discovered that I enjoyed it a whole lot and I totally appreciate their stance, which is to not to dwell on the past at all and eschew the playing of any Pavement material whatsoever.

Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks - Woods Stage - End of The Road Festival 2014.

Before that, in early February, I have a ticket to a gig that requires just a brisk ten minute walk from home to attend. Fairport Convention. Cheese & Grain. Frome.

What happens at festivals can change the course of bands too, as this very recent review indicates of Saskatoon-based 'Slow Down Molasses'. The revelation, or so the band would have it, was playing at End of The Road 2011. I'll tell you something about that too - it was awesome.

Not all band members are in the picture. Slow Down Molasses, Tipi Stage, End of The Road Festival 2011.

Carpe diem quod tempus fugit.

To put it simply - December beckons and it is soon to be time for those ubiquitous lists. I have already made a contribution to one that concerns bloggers' 'Artists To Watch 2015', about which more to follow. All talk of this is currently subject to embargo.
It is also time to start seriously considering the festival options in 2015 - though some seven months out that seems a strange thing to relate - and indeed I am actively doing so.

First, however, come the lists of 2014 of which I shall contribute my own as I have done every year since 2006. I'm not planning to make many changes to the format of the last few years but, as I promised at the start of the year, and it is one of the few New Year resolutions I have ever kept, I have listened to more new music - be that live, recorded, via radio, streaming or suchlike - than ever before. I set myself a weekly target that seemed ambitious at the time. I have comfortably exceeded that. This has however caused new problems all of its own making!
Once-upon-a-time the category of EPs was a niche concern and I used to start with that list as it was easy and self-contained. It is now a huge issue. I am going to choose six, at least that is my current thinking, and that's going to involve some pretty harsh choices.
A more recent development, and I might start with this on November 30, is the rise of albums that are recorded live...  It is a genre the zenith of which was between the early 1970s and early 1980s. Its return is in part a result of the revival in popularity of live music in general but also, and in practical terms most importantly, the available and affordable options to record live in almost any venue.
Occasionally I have wondered whyever it was that I started writing; this year I think it is true that I have never done so.

New Music 2014 - Part 40 - Lynne Hanson - River of Sand

'River of Sand', released in September 2014, is actually the fourth LP from Canadian folk-roots artist Lynne Hanson but the first that I became aware of. What took me so long is the obvious question. My weak excuse is that is the first she has released in four years.

Back in 2010 I was nowhere as inquisitive about new music as now I am - no doubt about that - but also with that change the range of music that I like and, at least to some extent understand, has burgeoned. I have not yet listened to this LP enough times to make stable comments on individual tracks but my inclination is that I never will. It is certainly not the polished 'Nashville product' and quite deliberately so. Suffice to say that if you like an album with a lot of meaning and a good dose of darkness and light then this as good as any I have found this year.

Hope is a just four-letter word when the feeling just ain't there.

'This Too Shall Pass'.

These are songs lived-in; well worn through good and bad, scruffy in places and threadbare in others, therefore now totally comfortable. This is music for the season, as winter approaches, to be appreciated seated near a real fire and with a glass raised to the passing of such times.

'This Too Shall Pass'. The Guitar Bar, Nottingham, September 2014.

Thoughts on Music 2014; what it means to me.

This weekend, as the weather finally turned autumnal, my mind strayed to the topic of the music - artists, LPs, gigs, festivals and all - that has made an impression on me in 2014. I know the end of the year, and the inevitable lists that go with it, are both still a long way off. I learned long ago, however, that leaving it all to the last week or two is not the way to do it. I accept that at least some items that make my final lists have not even been released yet - indeed I can think of several contenders that fall into that category. That does not however invalidate starting to consider those that have already been released or indeed that I already have to listen to. It is a sizeable task but a wholly enjoyable one and not least because it requires a degree of comparison with things that I chose in the last couple of years; if only to remind myself why that was and what may have changed since then. I also have the comforting knowledge that nobody can now try to tell me that I should go to Glastonbury 2015.
Yesterday evening, with the rain falling steadily in the darkness outside, I started that quest. I made sure that I was in front of an open fire with home-made pizza, garlic bread and a glass of wine to hand. I do this for my own pleasure, lest you forget, and that is where I have a problem with Glastonbury. It is an institution - and still a wildly popular one as the very recent sales statistics show - but it is not for me. I would implode. Before I even got inside.

I have a pretty good idea of which festivals I shall go to in 2015 and have a ticket for one of them already. I'm planning, as is customary, to go to one that I have never been to before and I know that which I intend it to be. It has been on my list for a couple of years and, thanks to a chance meeting of music and minds at EOTR 2014 it is going to happen.
That said, I have no intention of spending the rest of 2014 merely in contemplation of recorded music, released or forthcoming. Live music matters, whether it is ten minutes walk from home or not.
The next question, and it came quickly, was 'do I listen to the old ones any more?' The answer is, more or less often, yes I do. This is one of the first albums I ever mentioned in 'Thoughts on Music' back in 2006 - and it was Americana albeit that the artist is from Canada...

Honey From The Tombs - Amy Millan (2006). The picture was taken about twenty minutes ago. This album did something that no such other had quite done before. It made sense [to me].

New Music 2014 - Part 33 - Caitlin Rose - Gemini Moon

I certainly wasn't planning on writing a post this evening. Then again you never know what might happen. Some things, many things indeed, I could happily have just left to my current mañana instinct. This simply isn't one of them. It is exactly what I needed to hear.

If I haven't worked out the lyric before I go to bed then I shall be somewhat disappointed with myself.

This is supposedly just a demo recording. If that is true, or even if not quite so given the premise of the song and the tease that she is, then the third album should be quite something.
It is now revealed that this song was written with Justin Hayward-Young of The Vaccines. On reflection that makes a lot of sense.

New Music 2014 - Part 31 - Jennifer Crook - Carnforth Station

Two thoughts immediately come to mind as I write this and neither is directly about the LP itself, so here it is. It is released in the UK tomorrow, 15 September 2014.

The first of them is that I'm not especially given to siding with  The Daily Telegraph but in this case I must do so, and wholeheartedly. I too have been bowled over; I have had the album for a couple of months now and it is not going anywhere far away from my playlist. The second is that it is, indeed, probably better suited to the lengthening nights and cooler days of autumn.
She has said that she was unaware of the Noël Coward 'Brief Encounter' connection with Carnforth. To be fair the lyric makes no direct reference to that story whatsoever - it is more about the locomotives and stock stranded adjacent, seemingly in limbo, and the passengers that they might have carried. I'd like to think that this is true - it seems better that way.
Be that as it may it is an astonishing album and, with the time of list-making getting ever closer, I very much doubt that that of the aforementioned newspaper will be the only one on which it appears.

End Of The Road 2014 - more highlights

Over the last day or two I have pondered whether to try and theme my further thoughts on End Of The Road 2014 by genre, chronology or stage. In the end I concluded that such divisions were largely immaterial. What really matters is this - more of the acts that I really liked. There are plenty of them and therefore this might cover two posts in time.
To start with is Lau, whose members I have all seen playing live at least once but never together as such. The link above reads like a textbook exercise in hyperbole until, that is, you see it happen live. Here they are, Garden stage, Saturday afternoon.

This is of course one reason that, in the ten years Lau has existed, it has taken away the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for 'Best Band' four times, most recently in 2013.
Whilst on the subject of quality, another thing to note is that of the printed EOTR festival programme; it is absolutely worth the price (£6) and that is nothing new. The writing, the editorial style and the layout are top notch. The only mistake I noticed was that it said that Cate Le Bon's performance, again on the Garden stage on Saturday, was her EOTR début: it wasn't, she played the same stage in 2010 but no matter.
That was before the release of her first full LP 'Me Oh My' and she was clearly someone to watch. 'Cyrk' was then followed by her latest, 'Mug Museum', and she just gets better and better. More importantly people both here and in the US (she now divides her time between Wales and California) are starting to take notice.

Someone very accustomed to both the Garden and Tipi stages at EOTR is Jocie Adams. That was however with Rhode Island indie stalwarts The Low Anthem. This was her first EOTR outing fronting her own band Arc Iris here as a four-piece and which, as her tradition dictates, played both stages on Friday.

Lunch time, Friday, on a rather breezy Garden stage.

All four in the frame. Tipi stage at the very end of Friday evening.

On the basis of this you might be thinking that I never even visited the Big Top stage. It is true that in comparison with previous years I spent very little time there but one of the few occasions was to catch part of the Pink Mountaintops set.

It is probably true that I spent less time at the Woods stage than in previous years, though I have already mentioned Jenny Lewis playing there. For all my pre-planning I always end up reinventing much of my schedule on-the-hoof and I will continue to do so. This next band was not, pre-festival, particularly on my radar. It just goes to show how very wrong I can be...

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Woods stage, Friday evening.

Three to see twice - Green Man and End Of The Road 2014

I mentioned this earlier in the week. Now, having caught up with sleep and the pictures, I'm no longer in la la land. Well mostly I'm not; to be quite honest a part of me is still at EOTR 2014!
I made a deliberate policy of seeing three acts that I saw at Green Man all over again, just a fortnight later, at EOTR. The three are Samantha Crain, The Rails and Alice Boman. The curious thing is that all appeared on the Walled Garden Stage at Green Man and on The Tipi Stage at EOTR but, in the latter case one each day. I intend to illustrate this post with pictures I took at both festivals.
When it comes to the stage the Walled Garden wins over the Tipi for its outdoor ambience, but when it comes down to the bottom line it is the band that really matters. I had high expectations of The Rails before I saw them live for the first time at Green Man. They blew me away then --- and then they did it all over again, only more so, last Sunday afternoon. 'Fair Warning' (2014) is the début album and it more than delivers on the promise.

'The Rails' Tipi stage, Sunday afternoon, End Of The Road 2014.

As regards photography, well for all that I am learning faster than I thought I might, it is very much a case of simply handling the cards one is dealt as best one can: everything changes, every time.
One thing that few people seemed to disagree about, at either festival, is the perfection of Alice Boman's vocals. She may not yet be an artist that people buy festival tickets on the strength of but either that time will come or perhaps equally importantly, the strength in depth of the offering will.

Alice Boman, Walled Garden Stage, Green Man 2014, Friday afternoon, squinting into the sun.

Alice Boman, Tipi Stage, EOTR 2014, 10:40 pm Friday.

Here she is selling and signing CDs thereafter. She got through most of that box come the end of the line.

Last but certainly not least, and with more released recordings than either of the aforementioned, this is Samantha Crain from Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Tipi Stage, End of The Road 2014, early Sunday evening.

Samantha Crain, Walled Garden Stage,  Sunday afternoon, Green Man 2014.

Three acts from different countries, UK, Sweden and the US respectively, that exemplify the increasing strength in depth of the folk-roots revival in recent times.

End Of The Road 2014 - Part 2

Shortly before I headed off to the idyll that is Larmer Tree Gardens and the venue for End of The Road I posted a "must see" list of eight acts that does not include any of the three, mentioned in my post yesterday, that I saw at both Green Man 2014 and EOTR 2014. This is how I got on with that. I saw the complete sets of seven out of eight; the exception was Pink Mountaintops and largely because of a time (and day!) scheduling change, but I still saw a few songs in the Big Top tent on Friday.
Lily and Madeleine opened proceedings on The Garden stage on Saturday morning.

They played songs from the forthcoming second LP 'Fumes' and, from what I was able to tell when talking to people during the weekend, gained a whole load of new fans too.

On Saturday evening Marissa Nadler took to the Tipi stage, the smallest of the four main music stages. She has been on my list of "ones to see" for an age, or so it seems, and never more so than since the release of her most recent LP 'July' in February 2014.

This is her seventh studio album in a run that started with 'Ballads of Living and Dying' in 2004. It is the first to have a UK release on Bella Union. Regular readers will be well aware of the importance that I attach to this.

Much the same could be said of Liverpool trio Stealing Sheep since the 2012 début LP 'Into The Diamond Sun'. I mentioned the dragon yesterday.

Stealing Sheep playing The Garden Stage on a gloriously sunny Sunday afternoon. The songs are short, sharply conceived and based for the most part around a percussive format. In the moment it was hard to imagine anything more perfect.  

Stealing Sheep, Tipi Stage, early Monday morning.

Until that is Stealing Sheep became one of very few acts I have seen play two live sets within twelve hours. It is things like this and, more than one might realise, the people you meet that make festivals very special.

End Of The Road 2014

I'm back home and, unlike yesterday, no longer dog-tired. I have started to think about it all with some clarity and also, this helps with the foregoing, view it through the perspective of the pictures that I took throughout the weekend.

Was my sixth consecutive EOTR adventure up to the standards of the previous five?
Well. Let's put it this way; I am clearly not alone in my opinion. I have my 'Early Bird' ticket for EOTR 2015 (4 - 6 September). They went on sale this morning (2 September) at 9am BST and by 6pm BST more than two-thirds of those available had already sold! It will be some months before we know the identity of a single act to play then but my view is that if I can't trust the EOTR team to deliver then there is no longer any trust to be found.

It is going to take me much of the rest of this week to complete this self-debrief process. Here are a couple of pictures to kick things off. 

Jenny Lewis, Woods stage, late Friday afternoon.

The Stealing Sheep dragon, Tipi stage, 1am Monday.

Yes it was this glorious; endless blue sky on Sunday afternoon. This is the Woods stage about 16:45. Deer Tick was still playing but I was on a mission. The Tipi stage and a little project that had only occurred to me after I had got back from Green Man Festival. 

What if... ?
Two festivals a fortnight apart, the same three acts, all playing on the same stage at each festival. It was technically possible, that much I had worked out. The rest was down to fâte and my ability to harness it. I have only myself to blame.

Green Man 2014 (again) and an End Of The Road preview...

Right. Just over 36 hours until it is time to head out again for another long weekend of festival fun at End of The Road 2014. At the moment the weather is looking reasonable, and importantly the remnants of Hurricane Cristobel shouldn't play a part in the proceedings. I'm hoping for more of the same meteorological good fortune that accompanied my trip to Green Man 2014 the weekend before last. We shall see.
I shall start with a picture of the band that were first support on the Mountain Stage on Friday evening and that I first saw live on the Garden Stage at EOTR 2013.

Daughter, or here just Elena Tonra thereof, Mountain Stage, Green Man Festival 2014.

So then, what's cooking at End of The Road 2014 and what do I particularly want to see?

Let's start with just eight of them that I want to see live for the very first time. Here listed alphabetically:

• Arc Iris
• Jenny Lewis
• Lau
• Lily and Madeleine
• Marissa Nadler
• Pink Mountaintops
• Richard Thompson
• Stealing Sheep

I chose the particular links to each above based on those that I feel best explain my reason for wanting to see the act or artist live.

There are plenty that I would be delighted to hear again, including two or three from just two weeks back, and many more besides. As my recent post about First Aid Kit mentioned it is interesting to see just how artists develop of the space of a few years. This is another example of that. It is third time I have seen her live and while she was good then she has really grown in stature and confidence. I was blown away the second time, at EOTR .

Anna Calvi - Mountain Stage late Sunday afternoon, Green Man 2014.

Sometimes it takes a lot longer for me to to catch up live. Blue Roses - Blue Roses was one of my favourite albums of 2009. I even wrote about it in January of that year. It has taken more than five years to see her play live, now under her own name, Laura Groves. She played the Walled Garden Stage and it was a perfect foil on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Luck had it that conveniently scheduled not to clash with the above.

Laura Groves, Walled Garden Stage, Sunday, Green Man 2014.

Astonishing though the Mountain Stage is, the Walled Garden Stage is as good as any with the possible exception of The Garden Stage at EOTR. If you know me then you will realise that this is high praise indeed.
This consideration has made me decide that, if I get around to it [before this coming weekend], then the next post will be about Green Man other than the music - the ambience, facilities and all other things that make a festival more than just the line-up. If I don't write it before I return from End of The Road 2014 then maybe my detention homework will be a compare and contrast assignment!

Once upon a time...

With this blog fast approaching its eighth birthday, which is old for such things and solo-written ones in particular, it has set me thinking.
I started to attend festivals because of it. I needed stuff to write about. At that point I realised that I needed pictures too, and I wasn't going to rely on promotional ones, so I therefore I needed to take my own. I bought a Fuji F20 compact - I still have it and I still use it - and off we both went to Latitude Festival 2007.  To be quite honest, while the camping and stuff was well in hand, I hadn't quite thought out the music side of things properly. I didn't keep track of what I had seen and it proved very difficult to piece it together afterwards. OK - you learn from mistakes like that. You also learn a lot more from just being there, trying to do what you want to do, and talking to people. The best thing about going to a festival alone is that it forces you to talk to strangers; they are the only friends you have. On the other hand you have no obligation to pander their particular agenda or they to yours for that matter.

By 2008 I had basic control of most of that and, in 2009, made my first foray to End Of The Road Festival in Dorset. This became a favourite and not just because it is only 35 miles drive from home. It was love at first sight. By this time I had started to do advance planning, almost military style, of what I wanted to see and how to go about it. As usual there are plenty of last-minute changes and even SNAFU events.
The result of one of them turned out like this. I got to see an act I had never heard of and hadn't planned to see. Afterwards I said they could be big. My interlocutor said that that they would be forgotten within a year.

Klara (R) and Johanna Söderberg, First Aid Kit, on the Tipi Stage, End of The Road 2009. Five years (and three albums) later this is the first time I have used this photograph. There were perhaps 150 people watching them play then. Here they are last Sunday - playing to ten thousand, maybe even more than that, at Green Man Festival 2014.

Any which way it was comfortably the biggest crowd of the festival. Tickets for the UK dates of the forthcoming autumn headline tour are all but gone too. Less than fifty remain for the gig at The Royal Albert Hall, London, on 24 September. By the time you read this they will probably all be gone.
That applies to End Of The Road Festival 2014 too - the final tickets went this afternoon.

Green Man 2014 - expect the unexpected

So here I am. Back home and finally awake again.
My first trip to Green Man Festival is replete with memories, thoughts and photos. I haven't even looked through all of the pictures that I took but here are a few, of very different aspects, that I have...

Don't bet against kids. Martha Tilston sound checking. Chai Wallahs stage Sunday morning.

The last time that I saw her play live was at the early 18th century Rook Lane Chapel here in Frome. The folk that invested in that would certainly not have approved of mysticism...

...or pagan imagery for that matter. There is a remedy for all of this.

First Aid Kit. Mountain Stage, Sunday.

This was a world away from the first time that I saw First Aid Kit live - that was in the (then particularly) tiny Tipi stage at End Of The Road Festival 2009.

Green Man 2014 - a preview.

Green Man 2014 is now sold out. I am in anticipation of my first ever visit and to be quite honest the line up looks as though it might present one of the most clashes between stages that I have ever tried to square.
I can even get a readable image of the list into a single screen-full that you can read but still be prepared to scroll and/or zoom.

I'll be busy.

Would I like to chose a pre-festival must see list? Quite frankly, no!

I wouldn't want to do it for just one stage let alone the combination of them. One thing that makes things easier in some ways is that there are quite a few acts that I have seen before. That of course doesn't mean I don't want to see them again, because for the most part I do, but they are something of a known quantity live. On the other hand there is almost no overlap with Truck Festival 2014, which I went to last month or End of the Road 2014 in a fortnight's time

Here as a compromise is a short list, in alphabetical order, of eight acts that I have never seen live before but are on my "list of ones to see". None are appearing at EOTR 2014 unless I'm mistaken. It covers all stages and many of them have appeared in these posts before:

• Angel Olsen
• Fat White Family
• Georgia Ruth
• Joanna Gruesome
• Laura Groves
• O'Hooley & Tidow
• Samaris
• Wildest Dreams

The links were chosen on the basis of what attracted me to seeing them live although this is likely not where I first got that information. I deliberately have not included amongst them anything that I have written. In the case of Joanna Gruesome the link was chosen on the basis of its explanation of the bands formation. It maybe quite the urban myth but who wants the truth to get in the way of a good tale?
There's some variety of music in the list, I think.

Truck Festival 2014 - settled in The Saloon

It happens that this last weekend I ended up too busy to complete the post about my time spent in The Saloon at Truck Festival the previous one.  I wasn't even involved with music, though plenty more has now come my way, by hook and by crook. I'm always on the lookout for new music but I am certainly never going to complain when it comes to me from its author (so more for later in the week).
It is a hard life but by Friday evening at Truck Festival I was comfortable in the saloon. I returned later Friday evening to see a band that, until I was in The Saloon last year, I was completely unaware of:

The Redlands Palomino Company and now the 2014 LP 'Carelessly Broken'.

I had heard the album, it was released in April and I purchased it, but live it is something else. In this case I will serve my blog with pictures taken live and refer you to this review of the album; we don't need to trample on each others feet, there is plenty of music to go round. It was probably just Saturday but whatever; it was time to catch The Dreaming Spires on the small stage.

I find it next to impossible to tear myself away any time pedal steel is involved.

Right. We are now into Saturday proper and that was to provide surprises all of its own.  I can't be two places at once and saw Italian duo M+A on the main stage instead, so the first Saloon act I saw was  the second to play and that was The Buffalo Skinners.

More a Truck-typical guitar band than most on this smallest of stages is, however, not a half-hearted compliment. It was good, very good, and beyond that it is the variety, across any and all stages, that is one of the strongest points of Truck Festival. It may not be huge, might not have the biggest of head-liners but ultimately it is the strength in depth and the values that matter.

After this, I have to admit, I took a sizeable time-out to visit the other stages and have something to eat. Before returning in the evening I headed back to see another artist of whom I was hitherto quite unaware - Nova Scotian Gabriel Minnikin - and that decision was repaid many times over. In the space of a half-hour set.

Takamine 12-string backed only by pedal steel and occasional harmonica. Guitar porn.

In the evening I headed back in good time to see My Darling Clementine as I had heard many good reports. I made sure to arrive in time in order to get a good spot and hopefully some pictures.

 I accomplished that mission and caught The Saloon at the quietest I saw it all weekend.

    

Every band needs a tour manager and front-of-house presence and My Darling Clementine certainly has one.  I was sitting by the bar, making sure my camera settings were good before the set (I had made that mistake earlier in the afternoon) when she introduced herself - she is their daughter and is not yet in her teens.  This might have caught me off guard had I not, a couple of years ago and also at a festival, met Ned The Kids' Dylan for the first time in somewhat similar circumstances although in this case he was the artist and his parents tour managers and all the rest.

The set was top drawer. Music and asides combined beautifully.

Next up was Hans Chew and while I was aware of his music I wasn't quite expecting this.

If I had to select one picture that I took in The Saloon, that really sums the whole stage up...

This is it.