End Of The Road Festival 2016 - Part 1 - The Tipi Stage

End Of The Road Festival may not have the physical rigours associated with the sheer size and the mud to be found at Glastonbury but it is without doubt, if one is to take full advantage of what is on offer, the most mentally demanding of festivals that I have been to. This was my eighth EOTR, so I know what to expect, but that doesn't actually make it less challenging.
In some ways it is akin to a residential course in that, as well as the supplied live content 12 noon - 02:15 daily and that included watching thirty-nine live sets in eighty hours, there is the interaction with fellow attendees to be considered. It is wise to assume that they know what they are talking about and will expect you to do likewise.
This is not a weekend break with some music included; it is far more intense than Green Man and yet I can't quite imagine exactly how this has come to be the case. It is certainly a festival that artists enjoy playing because they know that they really are being listened to. In general terms both festivals focus on a similar part of the musical spectrum - indeed there is some artist overlap each year - and this can be used to advantage in order to minimise clashes at any given one, if attending both.

On rare occasions it is an excuse to see the same act twice in quick succession, as I chose to do here.

Mothers, Tipi stage, Friday evening.

It was inevitable that I would spend a great deal of time at the Tipi stage. I was always thus and so this post will focus only on, but not all of, what I saw there last weekend. Some of this comes from the late night/early morning surprise shows. Some of it comes from the convenient truth that when it started to sheet with rain early Saturday afternoon I was already comfortably ensconced right in front of the Tipi stage. I decided to stay there and as a result I saw a couple of artists that I might have missed otherwise. Greta Kline's band and de facto alter ego Frankie Cosmos is one of them.

Frankie Cosmos, Tipi stage, Saturday afternoon.

Great off-kilter pop with electro-twists from, but not entirely typical of, New York. The recently released album, the band's second, is 'Next Thing' (Bayonet Records, 2016).
Nobody that I found could recollect another lilac guitar although surely it must have happened? This one is a Danelectro model.

Let's jump back two generations, relative to the above.
For many years Kath Bloom has very rarely played solo shows outside of her home state of Connecticut. EOTR 2016 was treated to one such and that was not something I was planning to miss.

Kath Bloom, Tipi stage, Sunday afternoon.

As far as I am concerned two of the best grabs on the Tipi stage are bands that I had earlier failed to see on larger stages as a result of the inevitable timetable clashes. This is every bit as off-kilter and genre-disregarding, though rather tending towards rock, as Frankie Cosmos. Weaves hails from Toronto, Canada. Indeed EOTR 2016 featured rather a lot of Canadian artists.

Jasmyn Burke of Weaves, Tipi stage,  2:08am Saturday.

The last of the group of five is another band that I failed to see on Saturday afternoon on The Woods stage (the main one).  It was raining cats-and-dogs then but rain aside this is a band much better suited to a night-time slot. Seratones, from Shreveport, Louisiana is difficult to categorise exactly - a very good thing I might add -  but certainly garage rock isn't too far adrift here and it is absolutely wonderful live. The band says that it formed because there was simply nothing else to do. If so then good-luck-to-us because début LP 'Get Gone' (Fat Possum Records, 2016) was a splendid use of time.

A.J. Haynes of Seratones, Tipi stage, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

New Music 2016 - Part 12 - Sunflower Bean - Human Ceremony

I have both an ear open for and an eye on artists that are playing festivals that I'm planning on attending in 2016.
Therefore this three-piece from Brooklyn, NY comes to my attention sooner rather than later. While their neighbourhood is famous for much musically, when thinking about recent years indie-rock possibly isn't the first thing that might have come to mind.
That, however, is what Jacob Faber (drums), Julia Cumming (bass and vocals) and Nick Kivlen (guitar and vocals) do. The last mentioned (front-centre below) looks so like 'Blonde on Blonde' era Dylan that it simply can't be a coincidence.

Human Ceremony is the début LP. Fat Possum Records, 5 February 2016.

To pigeon-hole their music in place or time is tricky but it might be dreamy rock to assuage worrying thoughts and, be that as it may, their reputation for live performance is growing rapidly.  Sunflower Bean is playing End Of The Road Festival 2016.

This is the official video for 'Wallwatcher'.

End Of The Road Festival is 10 in September.

This is the current line-up (the four music stages only) and the day split-list. Please remember that the acts on different stages are staggered and run for different duration and with different lead times between acts. To put it more simply, acts on the same level in a list but on different stages will not necessarily clash, at least in toto. There will however, unless your desires are few, be myriad clashes. That is as just as it should be.
I know I'm going to have that problem big time. Saturday is quite simply a crisis just waiting to happen.

There are still some tickets left... see you there? I will come back to more specific ideas of that which I want to see later but, as anyone that has met me at a festival will know, I'm very prone to changing my mind and just flying by the seat of my pants once I'm actually there.
We'll see what happens; there are plenty of acts that I need to look into as well as the many that I already know I want to see. When it comes to the secrets and the pop-up acts, well that's another challenge entirely. That said, there are some candidates more likely than others...
Why am I not mentioning any acts or artists here?
It doesn't seem to me to be the place to show any kind of favouritism, or even opinion, of that kind. I'm sure that you can pick my mind by proxy, at least in part, by going back through earlier posts.
EOTR is a couple of months, and three other festivals, away. Maybe I need to put together a Spotify playlist, or two, particular concerning things perhaps less well known.

And now this... Gwenno remixes Stealing Sheep's 'Not Real'

Well. If you don't look then you don't find.  On the other hand sometimes things come to those simply willing to remain aware. This is the Gwenno remix of Stealing Sheep and their song 'Not Real'.

Stealing Sheep played End Of The Road 2014 twice. This is the second time and at about 1:30 on Monday morning.
In 2015 the band plays EOTR again with the new album Not Real (Heavenly Recordings) in tow. 

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.

New Music 2014 - Part 7- Hurray For The Riff Raff

Hurray For the Riff Raff has been around for a few years now, with once-itinerant Alynda Segarra at their steady helm. The third LP, Small Town Heroes, has recently been released by ATO Records in the US.

The UK release is the end of March but it is too good to wait for.

I'm expecting that I will see them at a festival in the UK at least once this summer and I can't wait...

Hurray For The Riff Raff live at End of The Road Festival 2012.
   

A track from the new album is 'Blue Ridge Mountain'.

This is another one to watch in 2014.

EOTR 2013 - more from the Garden Stage - Part 2

As the title might suggest this continues directly on from my previous post. One thing I should add is that, for all the wonderful things that go on at the other stages, the Garden Stage is probably my favourite and certainly so for photography.
Here, early on Saturday afternoon, is someone probably better known as a producer of other people's records - including Laura Marling's last three albums - 'I Speak Because I Can' (2010), 'A Creature I Don't Know' (2011) and 'Once I Was An Eagle' (2013) but the only time I had previously seen him play live was (twice) at Latitude 2010 as a guitarist in Sir Tom Jones' live band when the latter was performing the album 'Praise and Blame', which Ethan Johns also produced. In fact he produced much of The Staves début album 'Dead and Born and Grown' too (see previous post).

EOTR likes tying things in knots, which only adds to the fun!

Whilst clearly busy with all of that Ethan Johns is also a sometime songwriter, singer and (mostly) guitar player and his set on the Garden Stage was all about that and his recent album 'If Not Now Then When'. On the other hand some of the prickly critics of such reinvention failed to curl up in a ball and proved to be rather soft-centered; PopMatters was just one such and they did not stand alone.
This however did not give us real insight into Ethan Johns' own music, although logic surely suggested roughly where it might lie. It is true that this assumption was not confounded but - and this is a very important but - neither was it derivative or a pastiche of any of the aforementioned artists. This is important in the evolving relationship between UK and US music and I shall return to it later - probably towards the end of this year.

The next is another band I had not seen before, and they do hail from the US, but the story of how the band came to be is as remarkable as it is improbable.

The Barr Brothers.

    

In one way perhaps the biggest winner on this stage was Fossil Collective. The band unexpectedly opened proceedings at noon on Saturday because Jessica Pratt (not to be confused with the Australian classical soprano singer with the same name) was unable to play songs from her self-titled début LP. Fossil Collective also played their booked set on the Tipi Stage late the same evening of course. I saw all of both sets making them one of the few acts I have ever seen perform full live sets twice in the same calendar day. Many, but far from all, songs came from the album 'Tell Where I Lie' (2013). You could likely write reams on the influences this band may have but then so could I and you might not want that. The point is, if it sounds good, does it actually matter?

It doesn't. Here is Fossil Collective, Garden Stage, End of The Road 2013.

End of The Road - A Festival Sunset

I'm just starting to get to grips with EOTR 2013 and I've caught up with some of the lost sleep too. So was it worth it?
You bet it was and then some. Indeed I have already booked my ticket for EOTR 2014, and the 'early-bird' ones are selling like hot cakes so I am told. I am not at all surprised.

This is what happens when taking photos, whilst wandering around between sets and maybe via the Somerset Cider Bus.

This next one is from the first act on Saturday - Brooklyn duo Widowspeak playing in the tented 'Big Top' stage.

Summer madness - and why it makes sense.

So I haven't written much these last couple of months. That is true. What is certainly not true is that I haven't been both listening to and reading about music! Indeed the fact that I have been doing so is in part the reason for the lack of writing. That is likely to remain the case until early September but for a variety of reasons.
It is less than a fortnight until my last outdoor festival of this summer. It is going to take some planning to maximize those acts that I wish to see and hear. I wouldn't want it to be any other way...

  

I haven't really thought about the detail and, more than likely I will not do so until I am there on the Thursday afternoon: there is a distinct boundary between general preparation and detailed battle-planning.
Here, as a slant on my current thinking, is an (alphabetical) list of just five of the acts that I have never before seen live but really want to:

• Daughter
• Deptford Goth
• Golden Fable
• Warpaint
• Widowspeak

The other thing about this time of year is that I become focussed on the music, live and recorded, that I have already heard and that which I anticipate to do so during the next four months. More about that soon. I am also thinking about the many festivals that might warrant my attention in 2014...

EOTR (almost certainly), No Dirction Home (if it happens), Maverick, Wilderness, Truck... who knows?
I have a far better knowledge base on which to draw than I did when I first embarked on this in the early summer of 2007. This, most importantly, is not only based on the festivals that I have attended in the last six years but also those that I have been given first hand reviews of from others in the festival community which, although it sounds like some hippy cliché, is on occasion as blunt an object as it needs to be.

So eight months without live music, then?
Not likely! Here is an example...

• 25 September  ---  Acoustic+  (Cheese & Grain, Frome)
• 26 September  ---  North Dorset Folk Festival  (Marnhull Village Hall)
• 27 September  ---  Frome Blues Festival (Cheese & Grain, Frome)

The events at the Cheese & Grain, and many more too, are taking place while the venue is early in the throes of a £500k overhaul to make it not only more fit-for-current-purpose, with better public facilities - toilets, café, and box-office all included - but also the artist-facing facilities that are sorely needed in order to propel it to the status of a major player in the league of regional arts and community venues.

These are exciting times indeed.

OMG --- End Of The Road 2013

The scale of this challenge, both on decision making when it comes to clashes and also stamina, is only just dawning on me.
The problem is not "Who do I want to see?" but neither is it "Who do I care not to see?". The additional problem is all the acts /artists that I simply don't know if I want to see or not. The default position, which is listening to all of them, is simply not an option.
It is true that I have seen both Sigur Rós and Belle and Sebastian live before but that is not to say that I don't want to see them again.
Oh dear!

New Music - Part 17 - The Graphite Set - These Streets EP

This is a rare case indeed.

I know I want this on vinyl, because I can and therefore it is already on pre-order, but that is not just because I want the music with the tone that 12" vinyl affords. I want it as much for the artwork that the 12" EP has and the download will either not have or will at best only have bundled as a pale imitation. That is not, however, to slight the music for a single moment. One of the best things that happened yesterday is that, as part of the final artist announcements for End of The Road Festival 2013, The Graphite Set was amongst them. The release date is June 3 (vinyl) or, if you can't wait, June 2 on download.
To help you wait, here is 'In Your Eyes' from said EP.

New Music 2013 - Part 2 - The Stand-In

February 25, 2013 (UK and Europe, Names Records) and March 5, 2013 (US & Canada, ATO Records) sees the release of the second LP from Caitlin Rose, 'The Stand-In', and the follow up to the 2009/2010 début 'Own Side Now'. I shall be disappointed to a huge extent if this new album does not feature on the lists that I will be writing this time next year... that is a measure of the weight of expectation I attach to the twelve tracks on this release.  Is that unreasonable? In the circumstances I believe not.
More to follow soon - in the meantime here is a picture of the artist in question that I took on the smallest stage at End of The Road Festival 2010.

  Caitlin Rose, The Local stage, End of The Road Festival 2010.

  

The lead song is 'No One To Call'.  Here, if I've got the code embedded correctly, is a link to a stream of it:

Here is a thought: she is playing Bristol 'Fleece' on February 26.

Live Music 2012 - North Dorset Folk Festival (Part 2)

I told you that I wasn't finished with this, for there was too much goodness for one post. 
Here is the first glimpse into the rest of the acts that I had the good fortune to see last Saturday.

The Moulettes

I saw the last two songs of their set at End of The Road Festival, on the TiPi stage, after I had decamped from watching another on the Garden Stage. They were both remarkable acts - so I deemed it necessary to seek out The Moulettes sooner rather than later.  The 2012 album 'The Bear's Revenge' is excellent, but live they are quite something else.
Bassoon is not an instrument that is used throughout a set or always even just a song. It was, from time to time, supplanted by autoharp.

Why hug it, when not playing it, you might ask.

  

Now, returning to the Studio Stage, here is an artist that I have had the good fortune to witness live several times before and, whilst originally from North Dorset, is now resident further east on the south coast of England.

Emily Baker: singing and playing with vocals unamplified. This new song is 'Tennessee'.
Her second full-length album, All At Sea, is due for release early in 2013.
  

Owing to issues, mainly to do with half-term traffic, Tom James from Falmouth, Cornwall, became the first solo artist and only the second act to perform at NDFF when switching sets with Flatland Wolf.

EOTR 2012 - Thoughts on new music 2

The reformed Grandaddy and Grizzly Bear were both awesome and some of my friends might have regarded one or other as their own particular highlight of the festival but were I forced to do so, and somebody just posed this question, the highlight of End of The Road Festival 2012 for me was Alabama Shakes. This is, in some ways, a justification for buying an 'early bird' ticket. Just like trusting labels it is a convenient opt in - I know that I can trust the EOTR organizers to put on more bands that I want to see/hear than will actually be possible - and so I already have a ticket for EOTR 2013 (and NDH 2013, too). This means that as the booked artists become known, over the ensuing months, the excitement is purely that of anticipation. When I came to know that EOTR 2012 had Alabama Shakes on the list anticipation started to take full control. I had pre-ordered the début album 'Boys and Girls' on vinyl and at the first opportunity, so I already knew the songs quite well, and then this happened...

Alabama Shakes, the Woods Stage, at about 19:45 on Saturday.
Songs that do not appear on the album were awesome too.

  

This is soul-blues of the of the highest order and they are generous with it too appearing for a second time, on the Big Top Stage on Sunday evening and also various other unadvertised performances. This is another picture from the Woods Stage on Saturday.

Simply astonishing. 

Brittany Howard does have a phenomenal voice on the recording and yet still chooses to wear glasses while performing live, simply out of choice.  It is quite the statement of who she is and this authenticity is at the heart of Alabama Shakes. When heard live that voice makes the vinyl recording sound rather ordinary and, good-as-she-is with guitar and there is no doubt about that either, live the band is tight as hell.
Live music probably doesn't get much better than this but please feel free to prove me wrong.

End of the Road Festival 2012

Before I comment further on my trip to North Yorkshire for Deer Shed Festival 3 last weekend here is a little shout-out for the next festival that I shall be attending (unless that is I add another in the intervening five weeks). I mention it because tickets are fast running out, indeed those in some categories already have done so.

I'll comment on my desires, and the possible conflicts between them, soon.

  

This does not even mention the unmentionable - the secret performances for which EOTR is rightly famous and those of you who were at NDH 2012 might also have discovered.

New Music 2012 - Part 16

This first is something that I mentioned as up-coming a while back. It is 'Europe', the second album by Anglo-Australians Allo Darlin'.

It is released on Slumberland Records on May 7, 2012 - LP, CD & d/l

I saw Allo Darlin' live at EOTR 2011 and it was a wonderful set; that they could hold a candle to any other act there was certainly no mean feat. This album is a demonstration of that; there is no question about it in my mind.

Here is an image from that performance in the 'Big Top' at End Of The Road Festival 2011.

The second act is one I have been meaning to seek out for some while but only a chance reminder, Amazing Radio playing one of their songs, prompted me to do so at last. That band is a five-piece from Leeds, Ellen and The Escapades, which has only recently released its début LP 'All The Crooked Scenes' on Branch Out Records.

It is an album of beautifully poised contemporary summer folk. The album is available on LP, CD and d/l and Ellen & The Escapades is high on my list of bands to see live this summer.

New Music 2012 - Part 10 - Trailer Trash Tracys

Just as a starter, what an awesome band name. It tells of something and nothing in equal measure - leaving you to contemplate the beauty that it promises in complete isolation.

It could be all-out metal, for the band name would suit that, but in fact it isn't. It is actually so 2012 that it hurts in the very best way imaginable. I'm wary of saying what I think is comparable, or indeed influential, except to say this.
I like it. You know what I like in music. The album 'Ester' has it all. It is available on vinyl (Double Six Records) and how could you not want that album artwork on 12"?
When it comes to individual tracks that is just something that will have to wait for now. It is too much to take in one go.
  
Note added February 21, 2012:
Trailer Trash Tracys was today confirmed to be appearing at End Of The Road 2012. 

New Music 2012 - Part 9 - The Graphite Set

It is something of a return to Thoughts on Festivals 2011 but for a good reason I believe. This band, a rarity in featuring a trumpet player as a key member, is here seen playing an opening set on the Tipi Stage at End Of The Road 2011 (EOTR 2011).

They were, back then, known as 'Lily and The Hackabouts' and they were very good.  A recent name change has seen them become 'The Graphite Set'. The songs are dependably good - the most recent ones particularly so.  Check out Genova, Chelsea Boots and (most recently revealed) Golden Ship.
Influences? Indie and arty, yes, but never to excess. I could write a list, but not one that would be a criticism of what they do, therefore I won't waste my time doing it. 
And they are very good live too, they gig regularly in North London in particular, but deserve a wider audience.
The Graphite Set is a band to watch in 2012 - and a priority to go-see live.

EOTR 2011 - O Canada! (Part 1)

I have a soft spot for a great deal of music that comes out of Canada, in case you haven't already noticed, and I posted to this effect recently.
This last weekend I was spoilt rotten. Here are just two of my highlights in no particular order and more will follow on this topic.
I shall start with Timber Timbre. Their world is one of mist and shadows. They shun publicity and certainly would not be found signing CDs in the Rough Trade pop-up shop. This extends to the live show too so luckily, on a glorious sunny Saturday afternoon, they were ensconced in the perpetual twilight of the Big Top Stage.

It was easy for the lighting guys but the unchanging red glow well suited the music too.

I need the album 'Creep On Creeping On'.

Immediately following them on the same stage was a band whose recent album 'Feel It Break' I have been listening to quite often in the last month or two. The prospect of seeing them live therefore excited me but, from experience, such expectation can prove to be a double-edged sword. This time it was not. The band is Austra, its front-woman Katie Stelmanis.
  

Rather electro, rather noir in a slightly Gothic but not-at-all-depressing kind of way and utterly spellbinding. If these had been the only memorable performances by Canadian artists that I saw over the weekend I'd have been just fine about it.
It wasn't quite like that.

End Of The Road 2011

OK. I'm back home, have caught up on some of my accumulated sleep deficit, and so it is time to write something.  Just how good was EOTR 2011?
Well, for once, words fail me. Actions speak louder and so I have just bought my ticket for End Of The Road 2012. See you there? This year it was bigger than before, that is certainly true.  I and most of the people that I spoke to that had also attended in previous years concurred that it was actually even better than before.

In the gardens, just before the start of play on Friday.

A few minutes later...  Secret Sisters on the Garden Stage. What's not to like?

   

Until this year the Garden Stage was the main one, but the new format required a larger one too and that is the Wood Stage.

Much more to come over the next couple of weeks as I'm intending to link this in with more comments about and pictures from the other festivals that I have been to this summer. I also want to overhaul and refresh the contents of the side bar but it all takes time.