End Of The Road and all that...

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.

 Lucinda Williams, Garden stage, Friday 1 September.

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.

Ryley Walker, Garden stage, Friday lunchtime, 1 September.

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.

John Moreland, Garden stage, 2 September.

New Music 2014 - Part 16 - Ethan Johns - The Reckoning

I first saw Ethan Johns live as a solo artist at End Of The Road Festival (EOTR) 2013, shortly after the release of his first solo album 'If Not Now Then When?' Here he is on the Saturday afternoon, playing the Garden Stage.

As I mentioned then I was already much acquainted with him as a producer of other people's music. I was amazed that he had found much time for his own work, good though it indubitably is.
It would seem that he has made time for more, and in a time scale that is astonishing.

It is released, on vinyl, CD and d/l by Three Crows Music on June 2, 2014.
   

What he certainly has done is to walk away from producing it. It was a deliberate volte-face. Ryan Adams, with whom he has long worked as producer, takes on the desk duties here. This article, about the reasons and the reckoning, is well worth sharing I think.

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.

EOTR 2013 - more from the Garden Stage - Part 1

The Garden Stage was, until 2011, the main stage at End of The Road Festival, by when its audience capacity was becoming a serious issue and therefore the larger and more open Woods Stage was added too. The Garden Stage however remains the most beautifully atmospheric stage, surrounded as it is by Victorian follies, one of the most remarkable of which is in fact almost invisible behind it.
This is a picture across the Garden Stage audience on Saturday evening.

   
On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of watching Serafina Steer, who I had never seen live before, perform on the same stage.

The majority of this set was devoted to songs from her recent album The Moths Are Real.
Not before I saw Joanna Newsom live did I really consider the concert harp and its place in modern music but rather in the context of a sepia tinted throwback - more fool me!  As this was my first day using a new camera for music photography the fact that harpists can't move very far or fast was much appreciated! This evening I have been listing to the album Week of Pines by Georgia Ruth, and that is often led by her harp and vocals too.
   
Back then I never suspected how my liking of, and interest in, Americana and roots music would develop to parallel my long-standing liking of UK and Celtic folk music.
Earlier still, Friday lunch time, Diana Jones had performed solo and took the sun-drenched Garden Stage audience for a trip courtesy of much of her very recent LP Museum of Appalachia Recordings.

I was already aware that it is garnering excellent reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and here it was quite obvious to see why - you could have heard a pin drop during the quiet moments of her set.
   
This is indeed Part 1 - I shall return to the Garden Stage soon with amongst others, Ethan Johns and The Barr Brothers. In the meantime here is another from Daughter's set just after dark on Saturday evening.

Why wasn't If You Leave nominated for the Mercury Music Prize?

EOTR 2012 - Thoughts on new music...

One thing that really appeals to me about End of The Road Festival is the chances it offers to see new music. I mean that - new - in a variety of senses; some of it simply entirely new to me, some new to me live and some about which I am aware (or was aware of) but have subsequently forgotten to follow up.
I really haven't any preconceptions about how this post will unfold, hence this preamble!  I'm not even sure how or where to start. Indeed I have only written this in order to commit myself to actually writing it...
I'm going to have my dinner first and then, somehow or other, get going on this. One thing that is quite certain is that it simply won't work in any festival time-line way.
This is what I decided to start with and for a rather strange reason - listening to a 2010 UK modern-folk album 'One Light Is Gone' by Josienne Clarke.  The reason being that when I heard Hurray For The Riff Raff (live, it so happened) for the first time it had the same impact that hearing the aforementioned album did: that is the admonition-to-self  - "WTF?  Why didn't I already know about this?"

  

Hurray For The Riff Raff, Woods Stage, EOTR 2012 at 12:00, Sunday.

Suffice to say it was 'one of those moments' and that this is another band that I saw twice at EOTR 2012. I promptly purchased the 2012 album 'Look Out Mama', to which I am listening while writing. On reflection there are not many times that I have consciously found myself trying to work out lyrics to songs that I'm listening to live and hearing for the first time. When it happens three times, pertaining to totally different acts in the space of three days, it is becoming something of an addiction! It is likely to define the rest of this post.
It became no secret that Alynda Lee Segarra and her band much prefer playing small venues in the early hours but the pictures above were both taken on the outdoor main stage just after mid-day...

OK folks. Fourteen hours later, on the Tipi Stage, 2am Monday!

  

If you think the story of the evolution of Hurray For The Riff Raff is convoluted than it is easily exceeded by that of the next...

Kai Welch and Abigail Washburn opening The Garden Stage on Saturday.

Bluegrass tunes, but sometimes ones with Mandarin Chinese lyrics.

  

This one was a case in point.

Whilst she explained the bones of how this apparently odd but actually extremely likeable combination, at least to my ears, came about there is a fuller history to be found here.

The article finishes like this...

" [She played] a recently written murder ballad, her delicate frame dwarfed by the surreal dimensions of the cello banjo.

"It's a cut that didn't make the album [City of Refuge] because the producer thought it was too morbid," she explains. "But all the old-time tunes have a female victim. I thought 'How about writing a song which gives the girl a gun for a change?' "

  

She did not have the 'cello banjo at EOTR but she played the song nevertheless, with Kai Welch on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, and the whole set was a highlight of the weekend - if only one amongst many. That only goes to show just how strong and yet diverse End Of The Road Festival actually is.

New Music 2012 - welcome to the New Year...

Just a few things to think about...

New music will come from somewhere. Americana will, almost certainly, not let you down. This, Aunt Martha - Norway, ME is well worth a listen.
Furthermore, if you like Dylan LeBlanc's first album Pauper's Field (2010) his soon to be released sophomore album might actually be even better and there is no more apposite time than early January to dig out some new pictures of live music in the English summer.
  

Dylan LeBlanc -  Garden Stage, End Of The Road 2010.