This blog is intended to do "exactly what it says on the tin" so below are some of my 'Thoughts on Music'. They predominantly concern recent matters but will not always do so. I'll also happily turn to matters of the music industry more generally if and when I feel so inclined. So there!
If you don't agree with something please feel free to add a comment. They are moderated by me (so I'll get to read it) and I might even reply. Above all however just enjoy whatever music you like!
Richard
Showing posts with label End Of The Road. Show all posts
Showing posts with label End Of The Road. Show all posts
I have been thinking about 2018 festivals of late and that has, in part, been responsible for reminding me about all the artists that I saw in 2017 that, at least in some cases, I have never mentioned before. This is a case of 'Live With No Comment'. I have added the act/artist and the stage to each photo but that is as much as you get. All of them were taken by me at End Of The Road Festival 2017 and I own the copyright in these pictures. Feel free to share away but please give credit to the artists. These pictures are in no particular order, by date or any other criterion. I flicked through the photos I took in an haphazard way and simply chose the ones I wanted as and when I found them. Even more importantly please listen to artists, buy their music, go and see them live.
I had so much fun putting the first of these together that I was looking for any excuse to do something similar. A cold, wet day spent doing household chores and backing up the computer prompted me to look at more of the pictures of music that I have taken over the last decade or so. In turn this has inclined me to think about some festival plans for 2018. There is no obvious place to start this but it has reminded me of several artists that I have seen live but not thought about more recently.
Cate Le Bon, Garden stage, End Of The Road 2014.
There is no obvious end to this either. Festivals became something I was curious about. Therefore I had to go and see why there was so much fuss made about them. That finally happened in July 2007 with a trip to Latitude. Photography was something that came with that because it seemed a convenient way to remind me what I had seen live. It was thus but it only partly served to overcome my lack of note-taking and the fact that the great majority of acts that I saw were ones that I had never even heard-of, let alone heard live or otherwise at the start of the respective set. Rather importantly I had a great time that weekend despite more than a few misgivings about the venture of solo festival attendance the nearer I got to actually having to deal with it.
In time it, both festivals and photography, turned out to be a greater deal than that. It is certain that the Garden stage at End Of The Road Festival is extremely influential in this.
The same stage three years later...
Julia Jacklin returned. She had played the Tipi stage at End Of The Road 2016. 3 September 2017.
What was this all about? There's nothing like a band going off on a whim. Particularly if the result is leaving your drummer lost, head-in-hands. It's even better when it unfolds in front of you.
Hinds, Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.
Welcome to live music. This is why it is so much fun. Sometimes I scare myself, if only retrospectively. I made a complete dog's breakfast of taking pictures of Holly Macve when she played the Sunday opening slot on The Garden stage at End Of The Road 2016. I got another chance... and possibly I did a little better this time.
Holly Macve - Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, 20 August 2017.
I'm sure that there will be some more trips back down memory lane as I consider festival options for 2018.
Early last year when I first got to hear Courtney Marie Andrews' latest LP 'Honest Life' I knew that not only was it destined to be on my list of albums of 2017 (which it is, here) I realised that I needed to see her play live too. I did that and so here she is.
Garden stage, End Of The Road Festival, Dorset, UK. 2 September 2017.
During the set she introduced several new songs and hinted that another LP might not be too far away. It was so, as confirmed today. This is it.
To break up the infernal list-making, much as it appeals to me, I have decided to have a bit of fun. The artists that make it on to the lists aren't necessarily those that I have had the most fun watching live. Nor, for that matter, are the artists that are not featured in lists any less deserving of attention. I have posted a couple of "road trips" in the last year or so. They were virtual and very rewarding to compile but also hard work. This one, and I'll be compiling it over the next couple of days, is put together from a very different perspective. It is what I saw; vitally it is what I pointed my camera at. It is sometimes possible to catch acts sound-checking; rarer still to capture the rituals that accompany this and so that is where we shall start. I have to say that if there is a theme here then you are probably going to have to identify it yourself.
Hinds - Far Out stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.
Two long delays, both on Sunday evenings, provided the material for these photos of acts very late on stage. This first was due to the total failure of the sound board for the stage monitors.
Marika Hackman - Tipi stage, End Of The Road Festival, 3 September 2017.
Owing to the set being delayed by six hours because of extremely adverse weather this next gig became virtually a private show for the couple of dozen of us that turned up to see it. By this time most of the potential audience had thrown in the towel and gone home wet, muddy and dispirited. I had no real reason to leave early. It also had the advantage that it no longer clashed with anything else that I wanted to see. This is amongst the very best live sets that I have witnessed in 2017 and that now numbers over 150.
Billed as Michele Stodart but The Magic Numbers in all but name. Nest stage, Truck Festival, 23 July 2017.
There is also a situation, and I guess artists feel this too, where the question is 'can it work like a dream?' I had exactly that issue with 'Hurray For The Riff Raff' at Green Man. On one hand I wanted thousands to come watch. On the other hand I wanted to be right at the front of the Mountain stage come what may. Even given the positive reception of 'The Navigator', Alynda Segarra took a big risk and played a full-on, politically-liberal set. It could have gone horribly wrong. It was another of the highlights of 2017 for me because it was beyond what, even in my wildest imagination I had thought it could be. The crowd swelled to a surprising size. Then the crowd started singing to her un-encouraged. It was a wonderful place to be and the sun came out. This is the point at which she couldn't really hear her own vocals any longer. Priceless.
Hurray For The Riff Raff, Mountain stage, Green Man Festival, 18 August 2017.
So why have I written nothing since I returned from End Of The Road 2017 a week ago? Well I've been busy at work for a start, catching up on my sleep too and thinking about all the things I saw that weekend. Assisted by, and whilst working through, all the pictures that I took. I've also been listening to a whole lot of new, some even forthcoming, music and started thinking about those many great albums already released in 2017; equally those still anticipated. Over the next couple of weeks I hope to intertwine my memories of EOTR 2017 with some of these forthcoming things and, also, a few releases the first nine months of 2017 that I have not mentioned up to now for whatever reason. That this will keep me more than busy is something of an understatement.
Le's start with something from last weekend and an artist that I have wished to see live for some years now.
This stage is unsurpassed in atmosphere in so many ways so I shall stick with it, and a diet of artists from the US, for this post. Of the four artists here this is the only one that I had seen live before at EOTR 2015 but on the Woods stage then. The picture above was taken after nightfall.
When the greatest stage light of all, the sun, is in play the Garden stage is unimpeachable. It was to be so again for much of Saturday.
Courtney Marie Andrews, Garden stage, 2 September.
Opening the same stage at lunchtime the same day was an artist from Oklahoma whose recent albums astound me only slightly more than the lack of appreciation that he garners. Yes there was a fair gathering here, certainly a very appreciative and dedicated one as the songs-sung-back attested. It caught a few others by surprise; some of these songs are devastatingly bleak but curiously hopeful rather than depressing.
It's time to start thinking about festivals again except of course for Glastonbury 2017; that sold out months ago and I had no desire to even consider it! I have tickets for a few, no secrets there, and now that the first artist announcements are revealed it has reminded me that these things have - as well as so many options to see acts that are new, or just new to me - a rather likeable sense of continuity and even community. This is Green Man 2017, as currently revealed.
Of course I want to see PJ Harvey and Ryan Adams headline. I must say that Future Islands is unknown by comparison in my experience, but the forthcoming album 'The Far Field' is getting great previews and I guess that, at least from their perspective, Green Man would count as exactly 'A Far Field' to them! Of extreme interest are those a little lower down in this list.
Angel Olsen was astonishing on The Mountain stage at Green Man 2014.
I have never seen Micheal Kiwanuka live, and I very much want to. There are others that I have seen live and that I very much wish to see again. Here is one that for some reason I haven't mentioned before and I can't imagine why. She opened the Tipi stage, the smallest regular one, on the Saturday of End Of The Road 2016. It isn't that I failed to pay attention, because I did.
Julia Jacklin. Tipi stage, End Of The Road Festival, 3 September 2016.
Another fine artist hailing from Australia. In 2014 Green Man served up Courtney Barnett and in 2015 End Of The Road bought us Tame Impala. Julia Jacklin isn't much like either of them. She is another one-off; Australia has strength in depth.
Her début album passed me by at the time of release. That annoys me. Clearly I had lost the plot here because it was released only a few weeks after I saw her play live. There is no excuse for that. Note added 8 February 2017: Julia Jacklin is now confirmed to play End Of The Road Festival 2017.
Two three-day music festivals in quick succession, as I recently attended, do two things. The minor one concerns sleep patterns. That is no revelation, it lasts just a few days and is basically tiredness compounded by a lack of routine. The less obviously explicable one, and it doesn't kick in for about a week, is that it totally messes with all idea of what recorded music I wish to listen to.
This doesn't particularly predispose it towards or away from artists that I heard live; rather it induces some kind of restive state that requires me to jump from one artist or genre to another. This is handy in some ways as it helps with listening to new releases as well as old things. Streaming services are a boon here with almost limitless instant access to all kinds of music at the standard monthly charge. Equally likely however is that I will dive into my collection of vinyl and CDs for something that I had long forgotten (but was reminded about by hook or by crook) or something by an artist that I have just heard. In some cases it is actually that I want to play it for real - from a physical thing - simplybecause I can and that is illustrated perfectly by this, an artist who certainly wasn't one of the stand-out acts when originally announced, unless one happened to know otherwise for she was then only about to release her début album. All credit to the EOTR team for this.
Margo Price, Woods stage, Friday afternoon.
That LP is Midwest Farmer's Daughter (Third Man Records, 2016). I'm making no secret that it will be up there amongst my albums of 2016. Now it is mid-September it is time to start thinking about such things and not least because there are so many to consider (some of which may not yet have even been released)!
One thing that I certainly have is a very poor record of watching main-stage headline acts at festivals. In that regard I was really rather diligent at EOTR 2016. There is a specific reason for that, at least in part. The genesis of this blog is inextricably linked with the Saturday headline act at End Of The Road and that is Bat For Lashes. To find that, ten years later, I am writing this today... well what happened there? Before Saturday evening came around several people whose thoughts and integrity I very much respect had said that they were surprised that Bat For Lashes had been chosen to headline the main Woods stage when Ezra Furman was playing the Garden stage. Luckily I had at least seen that potential clash coming and headed it off at the pass by catching Ezra Furman play at Green Man a fortnight earlier. One thing I could reliably inform them that he was absolutely on-fire then. I was told a couple of hours later, when we reconvened in the Tipi tent, that he still was. So was Natasha Khan.
Bat For Lashes, Woods stage, Saturday evening, End Of The Road Festival 2016.
There is another thing about all of this. It is not at all uncommon to that I come across an act that quite unknown or not blows me away playing live. I'm pleased to report that it has happened a number of times this summer. What is truly rare is an artist and song (both absolutely new to me) that do that simultaneously. It happened at Green Man 2016. A topic of discussion in recent times is that, taken together, festivals apparently favour male artists over female ones and especially near the top of the bill, on any given stage. End Of The Road has certainly never been this way and this year only served to underline that. I just mention this because having written and included pictures of seven EOTR 2016 acts, so far, all of them female fronted. Is that therefore an indication that I am guilty of sexism in my photography?
Time to get on with the music that I went to see and hear. Where better to start than a band whose career playing festivals almost exactly matches in time that of going to them myself? The correlation goes further - from Latitude 2007 to Green Man 2016, via No Direction Home 2012 and others, it always rains when I see Sheffield's Slow Club play. They have come a long way since first I saw Charles and Rebecca on the 'BBC Introducing stage' at Latitude Festival back in 2008. It involved wooden chairs and empty bottles as percussion. I will have to go back in time and find some pictures of that...
"You look so colourful in your cagoules". Rebecca's comment was true Yorkshire wit.
This post, I've just decided, is going to cover artists and acts that I have seen live at a festival at least once before. This is, I think, the fifth time that I have seen Slow Club play a full set at a festival. That's not a record, in fact it is not even close.
This next band is something of a nightmare to categorise: alt/indie country-rock but (with the exception of a judicious cover in their set this time) all sung in Welsh. This was the only picture that I managed to take that included all six members of the band!
Rhos Botwnnog is a village in the Llŷn peninsular, North Wales from which the band hails. I guess you can translate cowbois yourself. This is only the second time I have seen the band live; the first was also at the ill-fated No Direction Home Festival in 2012.
Thursday aside when it was almost the only place anything was happening, my forays into the vast tented gloom of the Far Out stage were then limited to Sunday. Of all those only one falls into the category of artists that I have seen live before. That is this one and it was a tremendous set. I first saw him play the Tipi stage on the Thursday evening at End Of The Road Festival 2014 and I wrote about that here.
Ezra Furman, Far Out stage, Sunday evening.
All these artists have new releases in tow, which they wish to promote and of course that is just how it should be. That is also true of this next, a four-piece from California that I saw live at End Of The Road Festival 2013. Rather than focus on the front line this time I took this for it is the rhythm section that keeps the whole show on the rails. Warpaint was first support on the Mountain stage on Sunday evening, which Belle and Sebastian headlined.
Stella Mozgawa, Warpaint, Mountain stage, 21 August 2016.
The first I heard about what is to follow was just a song. Three things struck me about it all at once:
The vocals - my first thoughts were Melanie and Lindi Ortega.
The lyric and attitude - reminiscent of those of Loretta Lynn, not to mention the above.
The falling-scale slide guitar arpeggio.
'Desperate and Depressed', for that was clearly its title, is not perhaps the most welcoming of introductions but that wasn't going to evince anything other than an immediate need to find who was singing and what is going on here. A fourth thing and an assumption, which turned out to be correct, was that it wasn't a cover of a song that I simply hadn't heard before. If it had been such then it was certainly due some time in the sun anyway... Let us start with the lyric, if only because I haven't featured them so much of late.
Desperate and Depressed
I'm pissed off at the number of people that I meet
Who go to shake my hand with a viper up their sleeve.
They freeze me out in winter, burn me up all summer.
Try to take my money when I'm desperate and depressed.
Ain't it a mess.
I've played for free and paid for the miles on my truck.
Got no sleep in motels cause the worry keeps me up.
It almost drives me crazy thinking about my baby
And how he's gonna love me if I'm desperate and depressed
Can't get no rest.
Momma never told me that things would be this way.
Daddy tried to warn me that there'd be hell to pay.
If I can't find the money then I can't buy the time.
I'm stuck here making someone else's dime.
We busked in Sarasota. I made twenty-seven bucks.
I wept for Richard Manuel thinking I might have his luck.
You talked behind my back but only stabbed me in the front.
But don't think you can hurt me cause I'm desperate and depressed.
Ain't it a mess.
Please, somebody tell me how to make it stop
This world feels like a roller coaster I just can't get off
Tried rehab and probation, tried self-medication
But none of that can cure you when you're desperate and depressed
Ain't it a mess
Momma never told me that things would be this way.
Daddy tried to warn me that there'd be hell to pay.
But if I can't find the money then I can't buy the lie.
Oh, ten percent of nothing ain't a dime.
So don't you try to sell me back what's mine
I'll be desperate and depressed until I die
This song is the b-side of a vinyl 7".
You can give it a virtual spin here...
...but this track didn't make it on to the LP.*
The a-side is Hurtin' On The Bottle (a co-write with Caitlin Rose and others) and the single was released in late 2015 to promote the soon-to-be-released début LP, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, by East Nashville's Margo Price.
A point that is worthy of note is that this LP was recorded, mixed and mastered before it was presented, fait accompli, to would-be labels. Most of them simply said "no" or, if not exactly that, wished to mould it to the sensibility of their perceived market; in other words suck all the originality out it. This is the track-listing: Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter
Note added 15 April 2016: * Desperate and Depressed was, in the event, added to the UK release of Midwest Farmer's Daughter. At least on Spotify about five minutes after it's release there.
The snowdrops are out and therefore spring is only a month, or maybe two, away! It is that time of year once again - time to think about festivals this coming summer. That is not to say that the weather will play nice but what's not to like?
Three pictures from Green Man Festival 2015 and not a programme artist performing!
I've pretty much finalised my festival-going ideas for 2016 but confirmation of the detail remains, as does the vast majority of the artists appearing at all of them. That is something I can take on trust; the ambience is also an important consideration too. One thing that is already decided is that, despite having a wonderful time at Cambridge Folk Festival 2015, I shall not be returning in 2016.
After a week away from reminiscing over the festivals of the summer just gone I return to the last one I visited once again. I mentioned the release of the LP 'Sprinter', the second by Torres from Athens GA, right back near the start of the year. When it was announced that she was playing EOTR 2015 she went straight on my list of must-see live acts and therefore here she is.
Mackenzie Scott and her band played The Woods Stage on Friday afternoon.
Opening The Woods Stage that is the main, as in largest, one on Friday lunchtime was another artist I have already mentioned in connection with his album 'All These Dreams'.
Andrew Combs and his supporting band.
Over to the tented Big Top Stage and something that, owing to the unavailability of another act, was a late switch to this stage from the much smaller Tipi Stage. This was fortunate for two reasons: the new venue was better suited to the music and, given the turnout, the Tipi Stage would have proven too small (this is an increasing problem more generally).
Jane Weaver, Big Top Stage, Friday evening.
I must admit that this is a case where, until she was announced in the line up for EOTR, Jane Weaver was an artist of who I was aware but little more despite the release of several albums. I listened to her latest release 'Silver Globe' then in fact two, with the arrival of 'The Amber Light', and decided that she should be on my list of things to see live. It was a good choice, albeit rather different to the majority of the music I tend to favour, as well as being the only non-American artist featured in this narrative.
To return to type, this is an artist who I have seen before and would quite happily see again and again. Even Sufjan Stevens, headlining The Woods Stage on what was his first ever UK festival performance, couldn't keep me away for very long...
Mark Lanegan headlined the Garden Stage on Saturday evening.
Last but certainly not least, also on The Garden Stage but on Sunday afternoon in the glorious sunshine, was another US band that are blazing a trial through UK consciousness in 2015 due in large part to the 2014 LP 'Colfax'.
They played a number of new songs and these were at least as good as any that have come before in my opinion.
I interpreted that to be a statement of intent.
I shall be back with more about festivals soon, I'm quite sure. In the meantime it is time to catch up on new music and start considering all the music from 2015 that I have already listened to and await some choice releases that will appear over the next few weeks.
Here is an interestingly useless statistic. EOTR 2015 saw me break my own records for both the longest and the shortest time to see two
complete sets by the same band (comprising the same band members
with no additions or deletions) ever. Three of the four sets
happened last Saturday.
This is US trio Ex Hex playing the Big Top stage late on Saturday afternoon. It was just 5hr 8 min between the start of the first set and the finish of the second set, on The Tipi Stage, of which more later. The other is London five-piece The Duke Spirit.
I somehow missed seeing them play at Latitude 2010 but not on
the (main) Woods Stage at EOTR 2015.
The first time was one of my first ever
trips away to see a live band since my student days: on 21 May 2005 I ventured to The
Astoria, London to see The Duke Spirit play [I took no pictures of that].
That is also fifteen months before the first EOTR took place!
The Astoria is no more - it was demolished in 2010 and the site
is now part of the soon-to-be-opened Tottenham Court Road CrossRail
station. I guess you might say that I got the live-music bug. Other than that very little has changed except to say
that, 3758 days later, their music is rather back in fashion...
Liela Moss, The Duke Spirit, EOTR, 5 September 2015.
The band finished the set with 'Love Is An Unfamiliar Name' from the 2005 album Cuts Across The Land.
I have long held The Garden Stage to be the most beautiful festival venue and I'm not about to change my mind now. Headlining it on the Sunday evening is an artist whom I have seen live a number of times but, again, not for longer than I might have wished. To be fair this was a pairing of artist and stage made in Heaven and she had enough time to showcase songs both new and from way back, including 'My Manic and I' from the originally vinyl-only 2007 EP of that name.
Laura Marling - The Garden Stage - Sunday evening.
The question in the title has been on my mind for some weeks now. There were already two given results here, as I have had a ticket for Behind The Castle and End Of The Road for months now. Last year I went to south Wales and Green Man Festival for the first time. I had a wonderful time despite driving most of the way there through the impressive remnants of Hurricane Bertha! In fact it was so good that last week I committed to going again this year. Much as Glastonbury does, Green Man holds an emerging talent competition 'Green Man Rising' and the winner gets to open the Mountain Stage (the main one) on Friday. I was reminded of that this evening - in 2014 it was London three-piece Wyldest - this is what 'The Telegraph' had to say quite recently and I wouldn't disagree. I came to much the same conclusion about five minutes into their set and here they are that day.
The band's first proper release, an EP, is imminent. This track taken from it is why I got back on to this today.
I'm interested to see what both Wyldest and the Green Man new music panel come up with in 2015. Its Glastonbury counterpart too for that matter but you can take it as read that Glastonbury is one 2015 festival that I am not, and never had any intention of, going to. Added 7 March 2015: Wyldest is included on the long list of 120 artists for the 2015 Glastonbury 'Emerging Talent Award'.
I wasn't planning on this but then, at least in my world, it is as well to go with the flow when writing about new music is involved. It is little more than a week since I mentioned that Torres was one of the artists confirmed in the first tranche of revelations for End Of The Road Festival 2015, and now this happens. Her first LP was self released and I commented on that too. Things only get better. Her second LP 'Sprinter' was recorded in both Dorset and North Somerset with recording and production from Adrian Utley (Portishead). This is the album artwork for it. The supposed release date in the UK/EU is 18 May 2015. The US release is by Partisan Records on 5 May 2015.
The first track, of the nine on it, to be revealed to the wider world is 'Strange Hellos'. Here it is.
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