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.

New Music 2016 - Part 22 - Cale Tyson - Careless Soul

While this is about a forthcoming LP, Careless Soul is the first full-length by American artist Cale Tyson, it is also a very appropriate vehicle for the continuation of a number of themes concerning the music industry that I have espoused over a period of a few years.

Cale Tyson - Careless Soul (Clubhouse Records, 8 April 2016).

Cale Tyson, born and bought up in Texas, now calls Nashville his adopted home.  Both these facts, perhaps unsurprisingly, have had a considerable bearing on his music but in ways that are either not immediately apparent to the mainstream Nashville music industry of the major labels or not to its liking for artistic (and by implication audience) control...
There is a great deal of tradition involved here - this is country soul - but very little pastiche. It was recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL, at Fame Studios and with top-drawer acoustic musicians. This is part of a wider revival and indeed re-invention of traditional country subject material. Careless Soul comprises twelve songs:

• Staying Kind
• Somebody Save Me
• Careless Soul
• Easy
• Traveling Man
• Pain in My Heart
• Railroad Blues
• Dark Dark
• High Lonesome Hill
• Gonna Love a Woman
• Pain Reprise
• Ain't It Strange

A fact perhaps more surprising is that it will be released in the UK before its North American release. In the last decade the change in attitude in the UK towards this kind of music - let's group it under the broad church of folk, roots and Americana just for the purposes of the here and now - has been nothing short of seismic. The traffic in artists has been bi-directional. A look at festival line-ups either side of the Atlantic, for 2016 or in the previous few years, will soon show that to be true.

Why has this happened?
Well I certainly don't know that, but it appears not to be a result simply of a single generation. Both artists producing such music and the audiences attracted by them have been becoming younger without, unusual historically-speaking, alienating older listeners; it pains me to feel I ought to count myself amongst the older listeners. The most encouraging thing is the egalitarian nature of the younger ones and the everyone-has-something-to-bring attitude to all this.

Cale Tyson came to the wider attention of UK audiences in 2015 when Clubhouse records released Introducing Cale Tyson, which is a complete synthesis of his previous two EPs/mini-albums High On Lonesome (2013) and Cheater's Wine (2014) that had only had official US releases.
As a taster, because I like it and it displays some of the old-time flavour, I have chosen this original song:


'Old Time Blues', the song later appeared on the High On Lonesome EP, live in Nashville, 26 March 2013.

Should you be wondering who the backing vocalist is, on the left as viewed here, it is Erin Rae and she releases her début album Soon Enough together with her band, as Erin Rae and The Meanwhiles and again through Clubhouse Records in the UK on 3 June 2016. I mentioned it here a couple of months ago. The pedal steel player in the above video, Brett Resnick, is also one of 'The Meanwhiles'.
I think it important that music is starting to rediscover that there is real value to be found in simple links like this. Music as a space to be shared by all those involved, from musicians to audience, rather than dog-eat-dog, short-sighted exploitation. That is another reason why learning to trust artists, independent labels, festivals and one's own instinct is coming to the fore again as a community aspiration after far too many years under the patriarchal hegemony of the major label system.

Added April 7, 2016:


Cale Tyson and the making of Careless Soul.
Another example of the change that all this represents are the possibilities provided by crowd funding. My next post is likely to be about an album made possible that way.

New Music 2016 - Part 10 - Erin Rae and The Meanwhiles - Soon Enough

More music from across the Atlantic...

The good people at Clubhouse Records here in the UK have announced that their latest signing is Erin Rae and The Meanwhiles and that the début LP 'Soon Enough' will be released in the UK on 3 June.
Having been told this I felt it incumbent on me to see what I could find out about the artist, band and music. One of the first reviews that I read opined that it was perfect listening for a Sunday afternoon. I also discovered that as it was self-released as a download, as well as vinyl and CD, in the US in September 2015 I was able to listen to it.
I am inclined to agree with that review, which is why I am writing this one grey and windy Sunday afternoon here in southern England.
The first thing that struck me is that Erin Rae has a soothing voice; she doesn't push its boundaries or resort to the histrionic, but that is not to say that it lacks weight or purpose. The songs talk of a variety of themes both dark and light and, while instrumentation associated with "country" such as pedal-steel loom large, it is hard to categorize the music.

The whole LP was recorded live over two days in West Tennessee and it maintains that essence of existing in its own three-dimensional space --- where modern folk, roots and country mingle and in so-doing may become beyond place and time.
That is possibly the greatest achievement of all, and some of the songs do just this.

From that LP this is 'Clean Slate', live in Nashville, August 2015.

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.

New Music 2015 - Part 66 - The Rosellys - The Granary Sessions

I mentioned the then forthcoming release of 'The Granary Sessions' a couple of months back, when I saw The Rosellys live at Truck Festival 2015. Time flies - it was released a week ago now, at least in the UK, by Clubhouse Records.

I knew already that I really liked their previous records, 'One Way St.' (2008) and 'Two Much Like Trouble' (2011) and the new material that they show-cased was every bit as strong and varied.
It was the first time I had heard them live. They performed live with a full band; this new LP differs from the aforementioned records in that it is the first recorded with a full band. Simon and Rebecca are joined by Allan Kelly (pedal steel/resonator), Drew Bridges (percussion) and Matt Kirby (bass). It was recorded in Gloucestershire, England and produced by Alex Elton-Wall, a leading light of UK alt-country act Redlands Palomino Company.

This is the track listing:
1. A Thousand Miles
2. Not That Old (But I'm Not Eighteen)
3. Maryland
4. Asheville 1784
5. Made A Choice
6. Red, White And Blue
7. James' Song
8. It's Not Me It's You
9. Number One
10. Rose Tinted Glasses
11. Memories Of Me And You

One comment that I might make is that almost all reviews and comments on the album are from America, rather than the UK, and also that almost all of them are distinctly positive.

Here is Maryland from the album, live at The Golden Lion, Gloucester Road, Bristol, UK.

They are coming for you too - the US tour is still adding dates - so watch out for them in October.

The Rosellys, Saloon Bar Stage, Truck Festival 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.

Thoughts on... how many festivals?

It is only possible to do so much...
I'm rather regretting the fact that, after much consideration, I decided not to head off to deepest Suffolk for Maverick Festival last weekend. There is however an excellent review of it - that attempts the impossible and almost succeeds - by Three Chords and The Truth. To some extent that makes up for not being there but more importantly it does put it firmly in my sights for 2016. A lot of temptation was indeed put in my direction when I was a EOTR 2014 I have to say. There is an argument to be made that I should have yielded to it. 
Lots of great artists there, including some of whom I was not aware of until this review (this is always a good thing in my opinion) but also some that I was.
One that the author of the above was not able to see (because of the inevitable clashes that we all know about) was The Rosellys, newly signed to The Clubhouse Records family. I hope that I've got this band covered - as I mentioned here they are playing The Great Western Saloon Bar at Truck Festival 2015. I'm set on seeing that and for good reason. Their new album 'The Granary Sessions' will be released on 7 September. It is their first record with a full band.
Here is a taster (somewhat hazard strewn) from that.

The Rosellys - Two Much Like Trouble (2011).
That said, while it has been a very close run thing, in the last fortnight this has been listened to as much as any other LP here; that is actually saying something.

It is Priddy Folk Festival this coming weekend and I am not going to that either albeit that it is just ten miles away. Outcider Festival is not much further away and is the following weekend (and therefore clashes entirely with Cambridge Folk Festival). 

There are only so many things that I can do and I have to make choices as best I see fit. 

New Music 2015 - Part 47 - Don Gallardo - Hickory

I can't promise that he is appearing here but unless I'm wrong he will be one of the artists at Truck Festival that I most look forward to seeing live.  This is the follow-up to 2012 LP 'Art of Troublesome Times'.

It was released in the UK by Clubhouse Records today.

It has its roots in Americana and indeed country but it spreads its wings rather more than that simplistic diagnosis might imply. I can see that having listened to it right through several times already, I'll be doing that plenty more over the coming weeks. I can honestly say that there isn't a track that I dislike on this - that there are keyboards and brass on some songs only shows evidence of a deft touch at work and are only there for the benefit that they bring at any particular moment.
As an interesting comparison I have also been listening to another album released today (in the UK by Sub Pop Records) and that is 'Carnation' and the latest release by Daughn Gibson; I have chosen to link the label's artist notes here quite deliberately. I haven't listened to the album or indeed his earlier ones enough as yet to venture more than to say that I rather like that which I have heard. There may well be more from me on this subject before too long.

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.

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...

Truck Festival 2014

This weekend gone I headed off into the Oxfordshire countryside for two days of music at Truck Festival 2014. Now I have had a little time to reflect on it and also look at the pictures it is time to start writing. First of all a picture that I didn't take myself, and some thanks to the weather gods...

It was a weekend in which much of the UK experienced some unusually violent summer storms. Viewed over the camper-van area and car park on Saturday afternoon this one just missed us but visited hailstones 2cm in diameter on Oxford, which is barely ten miles away. For the most part however, it was hot and sunny.
I'm always keen to catch the opening acts on as many stages as I can and this was no exception. I will add a link as soon as I can (there are many bands called Heavy Heart worldwide) but this one from South London, with its New Wave echoes, was a good first act to see.
Note added 29 July:
Heavy Heart can be found here - many thanks to the band for providing confirmation of this.

The Veterans and Virgins Stage, early Friday afternoon.

I visited all five stages at some time or other but little from the Barn Stage will feature as I spent almost no time there for one reason or another.

The smallest is The Saloon Stage and I spent a great deal of time there, as I did last year. On Friday the artist list was curated by Clubhouse Records and on the Saturday by At The Helm Records and was home to more great acoustic, roots and Americana music, both home grown and imported, than you could shake a stick at. As often as not it was packed to bursting. Very much from across 'The Pond' comes this artist.

Otis Gibbs - Saloon Stage, Friday afternoon.

2013 In Music - Albums - Part 3

In early December I said that I would do this. I always forget some albums that should be included and this year is no exception to the rule. There are in addition, several that I simply hadn't heard, or otherwise understood insufficiently, in time for them to be included in the first two lists. I have been busy with that and, while it might not be finalised for a week or so, this list might possibly run to another half-dozen. I will add them piecemeal as and I get the opportunity to do so.
They are in no particular order but this list will have images. It is again very much tied in with music I have seen live in 2013.
The first is Jo Harman and Company and the début album 'Dirt On My Tongue'. 

Albeit impressive at the first Frome Blues Festival in 2012; the return in 2013 was some triumph. She had it pretty much sewn up.
  

Only The Nimmo Brothers kept it from being the highlight of the day and, as they acknowledged, they have a fair few more years at the grindstone and under the belt. If you find the album is good then you need to see Jo Harman live. That actually applies to The Nimmo Brothers and also King King too - and I had the extreme good fortune to see all three acts in the space of six weeks.
   
The next is the début album by another band that I saw live for the first time at Truck Festival 2013, and another from the small Saloon stage that was curated by Clubhouse Records. This is one reason that I am very much minded to go to Truck Festival 2014 (19/20 July). That band is The Cedars and the album Little Copper Still.

Fermented in America, distilled in Britain.

This leads me to another festival that is tempting, and I thought about it last year. Maverick Festival 2014 (4 - 6 July 2014, nr. Woodbridge, Suffolk). There are no published artists for this yet but I have the feeling that it is unlikely to disappoint and I really like the idea of going to at least one weekend festival that I have never attended before.
   
I made and stated some rules concerning 'best of lists'. If this happens to breach them then, as they are my rules they are also mine to break. Fear not - I have no ambition in politics.
I didn't have this album in time to comment in the two previous lists but the EP 'The Weight Of The Globe' featured here and rightly so. This is about as good as it gets. EOTR 2014, are you listening?

It is also just one of a trio of releases that feature similar superimposed images as artwork... Warpaint - Warpaint is one of the other two that I have in mind. That is however a 2014 release.

    

[To be continued soon.]

New Music 2013 - Part 28 - three forthcoming albums

I was intending to continue with my commentary on EOTR 2013 this evening but have decided that, with the tidal wave of forthcoming new releases, I would look at a few that have caught my attention. In many cases the artists involved first came to my attention at one festival or another.

The first album is Until The Colours Run - Lanterns on The Lake (Bella Union, 7 October).

This is the follow up to the 2011 début Gracious Tide, Take Me Home and is, as the artwork attests, likely to be ideal music to accompany the long, dark evenings of autumn. The lead single for this second LP was Another Tale From Another English Town. It is currently available as a free download from amazon.co.uk here.

The next is Find An Arrow - Troubador Rose, a band that I saw live at Truck Festival 2013 and mentioned here.

This is released by Clubhouse Records on October 16.

Last but not least in this frequently largely acoustic trio is the second EP from north Somerset based three-piece Wolfhound. 

Tales of Truth & Lies is released by Jelli Records on September 21.

The next selection is likely to be much more oriented towards the electric-influenced end of the music space that I routinely inhabit.

Truck Festival 2013 - The Saloon

Until last weekend I had only been to Truck Festival once before, in 2011. I had a good time there then but this time I fell in love with it. This is one of the reasons why.
  
Most festivals lack a venue quite as fit-for-purpose as the 'Great Western Whisky Saloon and Soul Blues Kitchen', otherwise known as 'The Saloon', and I know I am not the only one to feel this way. I know that I will not finish this post this evening... It will have to await my return to blogging sometime on Saturday afternoon after venturing to see one of the acts, which I saw there last Saturday, tomorrow evening!
It was always intimate, sometimes it was packed to bursting point, but it was always worth the effort to be there and it was underwritten by independent label Clubhouse Records. Here are a few pictures that might explain why that is so:

Pete Greenwood (early on Saturday evening).

  

Troubadour Rose, late Saturday afternoon.

Don't even dare bet against the forthcoming album - Find An Arrow (2 September).

Swindlestock, live in 'The Saloon' @ Truck Festival 2013. You need 'Pilgrim Blues'. Really.
Probably these too.

Stevie Ray Latham, same stage but on Friday afternoon.

  

This one, however, pretty much sums it all up...

Redlands Palomino Company and ad hoc guests performing on Saturday evening.