Thinking about festivals...

It is raining hard as I write this late Monday evening. In 72 hours time I shall be camping for the first of four nights and this time next week, all being well, I shall be back here at home in front of the computer writing about Green Man 2017.
It will be my fourth visit to Green Man in South Wales in successive years since 2014. All those so far have been accompanied by rain to a greater or lesser degree. This one looks like following the theme, yet it has not spoiled any of them thus far. I'm hoping that the same holds this time.
The thing is that, at least to some extent, I know what rain during Green Man involves when it comes because it did in both 2015 and 2016. Truck Festival 2017 was a surprise however, as I had never been to one (four actually) that were bothered by more than a few sharp showers. The deluge was survivable, I'm used to camping in less than ideal conditions, but I certainly don't wish to have to deal with mud like that twice in four weeks. 
I imagine that I would do so however.
There is a limit somewhere, cancellation of the festival being an obvious one, but I'm hoping not to discover it. The thing is, if one were to dwell on all this too much you'd never buy a ticket. These festivals are sold out, weeks if not months in advance, and there is a reason for that. 

So what am I looking forward to...

You might spot that I'm unlikely to be left short of choices. In fact the clashes are likely to many and various. I'll try and add some of my ideas over the next two evenings if only for the fact that it will help me decide some kind of priority. Any suggestions are of course most welcome and I know full well that, once I'm actually there, much of the planning will go out of the window because it always does!
What is not included here are artists appearing on the Green Man Rising stage; new artists that auditioned in a competition for a gig at Green Man, and if the previous years are anything to go by I shall be there on more than a few occasions.

Many are the artists that I have seen live before but would love to see again. There are plenty and then some that I have never seen live.
Several further options are available as there are a number of artists here that are also appearing at End Of The Road Festival 2017 a fortnight later. One of those, that I am absolutely determined to see (at least once), is Gaelynn Lea. She is without doubt one of the finest fiddle players of her generation, and there are plenty of challengers for that crown I'm happy to add.
The perfect description of what being at a festival is actually like was inadvertently provided by former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know."

OK. It is now the aforementioned tomorrow evening,  so what has changed?

I am cautiously optimistic concerning the developments in the meteorological prognostications, which is a pleasant change from the situation this time four weeks ago and a few days before Truck Festival.
Another consideration is what balance to strike between seeing acts that I have already seen live and enjoyed, those I am aware of but have never seen in a live setting and those that are essentially unknown. This is a re-working of Rumsfeld's Ruse in a festival setting. My response is, I suspect, much like his. I will spend much of the next two days thinking about all the options and how they might pan out.  Once I'm actually there and things are happening for real I suspect that will mostly go straight-outta-the-window; I'll do exactly what seems a good response to the circumstances of the moment. I'll come back to some specific acts of note shortly.

Last summer at End Of The Road I saw a number of acts that, had I not already been inside a tented stage when the rain came pouring down, I would never otherwise have done. I strongly suspect that several of them were actually rather more interesting than those that I sacrificed by staying put.

The other question, that of right now, is what to listen to at home in the two days before a festival? I should possibly do a little on-line homework regarding the unknown unknowns.  I will certainly not listen to anything by the artists that I know about whether or not I have seen them live before. I've tried that before and it is in my experience a complete waste of time; like revision just before an exam it sows confusion instead of clarity.
I will for the most part listen to things that are of no direct relevance to the forthcoming festival that are either entirely new to me (hello, Spotify!) or might possibly serve as a frame of reference during the weekend.
To finish this evening's thoughts (the lists are arranged alphabetically)...

Five artists to see live for the first time:
Aldous Harding
Cobalt Chapel
Michael Kiwanuka
PJ Harvey
Ryan Adams

Five artists to see live again:
Angel Olsen
Hurray For The Riff Raff
Pumarosa
Sunflower Bean
This Is The Kit

Here is the latest (no Rising stage listing here, that's all secret).  That's it until tomorrow evening and I have changed my mind again.

Wednesday evening thoughts:
It's pouring with rain just now (9:25pm), which is actually a good thing because it suggests that the weather systems are currently running to the predicted timetable.
In music, it is very tempting to go and see St. Etienne again, not least as this will be featuring songs from the latest LP 'The Home Counties', which is of course just lovely.
Also lurking somewhere in the line-up is Frome's very own Stevie Parker, promoting her 2017 début album 'The Cure'. 😉

Truck Festival 2017 - Part 1 - An Introduction

It is no secret that I go to Truck Festival in large part simply for The Saloon Bar stage. There will be much about that in due course. Every year is different and this year one striking feature was the all encompassing mud. I mention this because there was no getting away from it and therefore it impacts on most of the pictures in one way or another.

Did it spoil the weekend? Not in itself. On the other hand those whose tents did not withstand the torrential rain and thus suffered from the surprising chill of Friday night had a thoroughly demoralising weekend and, despite everyone's best efforts, some of them understandably decided to quit. Nobody wants to see a festival affected like that but the weather is what it is. It has to be said that thereafter a certain spirit was in evidence that involved carrying on as if nothing  had happened even though it clearly had...  Last year I included pictures of folks relaxing on the grass, taken from the porch of the Saloon Bar stage; this one, in contrast, is taken the other way around.

In the fleeting sunshine of Sunday afternoon. 23 July 2017.

As you can see I did occasionally venture out of The Saloon Bar, and not only for sustenance and the call of nature. I did however succeed in something that I had intended, but failed, to do at both Truck Festival 2015 and Truck Festival 2016.  On Saturday I was there for all of every set played on The Saloon Bar stage.

A short paddle across the bayou led to either the Nest stage or the Veterans and Virgins stage. This all-female three-piece opened the former stage on Sunday morning with a set that included much of their debut EP 'Are You Sure?' (Alcopop Records, 2017)

Peaness, The Nest stage, Sunday 23 July.

This next was something of a glorious cock-up. On Saturday, and between Saloon Bar stage sets, I had intended to go and see Goat Girl playing on the Market stage. Quite unintentionally, but very fortunately, I went to The Nest stage by mistake and saw a band that in all probability I would never have seen otherwise...

Vukovi - The Nest stage, Truck Festival, 21 July 2017.

This experimental rock four-piece is from Scotland and in Janine Shilstone it has one of the most astonishing vocal performers of the moment. I have now listened to début LP 'Vukovi' (Lab Records, 2017). Great though it is, I can only say that I was mighty fortunate to see Vukovi live. I don't think that, if truth be told, I actually saw anything more impressive all weekend. It was however run close on several occasions I am happy to report.

My Music in 2016 - Live albums

Ten years ago I mused about the resurgence of the EP and have never regretted that comment. Occasionally I have mentioned the interest that I have in live music recorded. I mentioned that my 2016 End-of-Year list would have a new category and this is it. Just two entries in this, at least for now.  I think it interesting not just for their obvious differences but, at least to me, because both are by artists that I have been following from the very first time that I heard about them. It is particularly appropriate because in both cases my first experience of both was actually seeing them play live!

I first came across Northumbrian band Lanterns On The Lake at End Of The Road Festival 2010 and I have seen them play live several times since.

Lanterns On The Lake - Truck Festival 2011.

The music is often almost subconscious in its beauty - bleak yet optimistic. This collaboration is a perfect match and in order to maintain the tension it had to be recorded live. This was the result.

Lanterns On The Lake with The Royal Northern Sinfonia - Live in Concert (Bella Union, 25 November 2016).

This next is a rather different beast. The Black Feathers is a duo comprising husband and wife Ray Hughes and Sian Chandler. I have written about them a few times before now; this was in anticipation of their début studio album Soaked To The Bone.
This next was, by popular request, recorded live at The Convent, South Woodchester, Gloucestershire earlier this year. 

The Black Feathers - Live at The Convent (Bird In The Hand Records, 2 December 2016).

It comprises eleven songs, most of them are original compositions but there are a few covers too. This isn't one of them nor is it actually featured on Live at The Convent! It is a live version of an original song from Soaked To The Bone.


'Down By The River, Under The Apple Tree session, 2016.

The map has been redrawn.

When I last wrote, just over two weeks ago, I suppose that I was doing one of those most-British-of-things that is hoping-for-the-best and that everything would work out fine. 

It didn't and it is all our own fault. All of us - not just the 52% that voted leave - for sleepwalking to this point over a period of approximately twenty-five years.

Reading now what I posted then only serves to make me think that, five days before the referendum, I had more grave reservations about the outcome than I was prepared to admit, even to myself. This isn't a blog about politics it is one about music, but conveniently the two are inextricably linked.
A new journey is starting and nobody can tell how it will play out or where it will lead...
The Leave campaign used the slogan...  'I Want My Country Back!' ...whatever that actually means. I just want to share my country with whoever from wherever can see the tolerance, diversity and virtues that it really has.

The UK has long been at the cross-roads of music; absorbing, assimilating, creating and exporting with the whole work-piece on repeat-play. I'm pretty sure that this situation isn't about to change at all. Indeed the sense of fracture and of political upheaval may well spawn new creative directions. Music, whether making or consuming, is a good use of anger and disaffection.
The question right here is what music do I choose to illuminate this and where to start?
It is US Independence Day, which event we didn't much like at the time, so that was one possibility. I'll return to that but have decided to start by looking across an narrower stretch of water to a country that we have screwed-over more times than any other. It's almost certain that, in ignorance, we've just done so once again.
Ireland.
About this time last summer I became aware of a couple of acts from Ireland that prompted me to pay more attention to what has been developing there over the last couple of years. This is where I shall start.

September Girls - Age Of Indignation (Fortuna Pop!, 15 April 2016).

This is the second LP from the Dublin five-piece, and the sequel to 2014 LP 'Cursing The Sea'. Their music combines a range of trends from 1980s guitar and synth rock to 1960s girl bands. It is on this album that they find their own recipe for that cocktail, musically and also in the subject matter of the songs. It concerns a number of the ills that have affected, or in some cases have simply continued to afflict, their home country since the financial meltdown of 2008. It isn't about "Brexit" or what might happen in coming months and years.

It may possibly prove to be something of a template. Either way it is a mighty fine piece of work and this is a band that is currently very near the top of my "need-to-see-live" list.

On the other hand we now have some very stark home-grown divisions within the UK, and not just between its constituent parts. I have wondered for the last ten days or so what new music might be being worked up in response to all of this. Whatever it is I'm looking forward to hearing it...
I am well aware that I am writing from the seat of my pants here, and that I might tweak a few raw nerves in so-doing but, after almost ten years and 1200 published posts, I feel that if I don't let go and air my thoughts right now then I probably never will. I may regret doing so; but the alternative is far worse.
This next LP is one that is about the rather numerous parts of England that are far less beautiful or glamorous than the paeans to cultural tourism such as Stonehenge, Stratford on Avon and York. Some of them are just as interesting, in so far as concerns the wider cultural situation, as well as being a whole lot more authentic and edgy.

Kate Jackson - British Road Movies (Hoo Ha Records, 20 May 2016).

Kate Jackson was once the lead vocalist of The Long Blondes, a Sheffield five-piece whose members had all attended university in that city. She is originally from Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. This LP has been a very long time in the making - Jackson and Bernard Butler (he plays guitar and co-produces) have been working on this sporadically since late 2008. It's time might be now.

I rather think that I should have started with the next track 'The End Of Reason' instead.

Aside from the music that I write about, what else am I listening to?

Inspired by a number of inquiries over time, this is a start on answering that question and perhaps it will also provide an insight (for I am not entirely sure about this myself) into the means by which this comes about. One thing that I am sure about is that I have no science, and certainly no formula, for this. The vagaries of each individual human mind are at least for now still way beyond that level of analysis - and indeed I hope they long remain so.

Curiosity, serendipity and sometimes (possibly skewed) memories are the watchwords here. Of course a modest physical music collection allied to the vast resources now available via streaming help with this.
Many of the artists below I have mentioned before; what lead me to choose them for this list and in this order is not remotely clear to me except to say that "it seemed to make sense". There is one thing that I do know and it is that the search for music, new or simply new to me, is addictive:



It is likely nothing other than the advantage of the perspective provided by middle-age, as applied to the teenage-pastime of compiling cassette mix-tapes, combined with the advances in technology that have made the creation and sharing such things possible in a way that at the former time we would never have believed would be possible in our own lifetime.

If you don't like my choices then that is just fine by me and I am always open to comment and criticism. If anyone finds something hereby that leads them into pastures new then that is everything that I could hope for. This is quite simply music I like at the moment and, starting point and a couple of others aside, of fairly recent vintage. I'm minded that 'An anthology of songs #3' will be a retrospective affair by comparison.

Playlists are like blogging in many ways in that they are is widely available (if you are in a 'free' country and that is a proviso that I much regret that I need to mention). If "shared" social media that has no trace of of that individual's user-generated content, or even their comments on material by others, riles (or roils) then you should do something about it.

Write, publish, use the Oxford comma, and be damned!

Goodbye 2015, and welcome to 2016.

Welcome to 2016 and the end of a drought in posts here. 2015 saw me writing more and more often than for some time and so a couple of weeks away seemed to be in order. One of the things I have discovered over time is the longer the time that I do not write for the harder it is to get started once again. The hardest post of all was the very first. I guess that is why I'm still here 1084 posts later and in the tenth year of 'Thoughts on music'.

Plenty of listening has been done however and some new thoughts are ready to be written down. That is after some unfinished business in regards of those lists of 2015.
It is true that 2015 was the year in which I embraced streaming in a big way. That is not to say that I have abandoned physical formats. This is now rather focussed on supporting new artists, often via crowd funding or otherwise buying music direct from the artist.

Not everything is available to stream although it might seem that way. Even if it were I think that I would still want this LP for real. This is one of my treasures of 2015. USPS took most of the money to get it from NYC to Frome!

Forty years ago - and the first LP from the first professional all-female bluegrass band.

New Music 2015 - Part 71 - Ange Hardy - Esteesee

This is the first of a pair that I prefigured here earlier this week. It is my first response to a variety of informal discussions, at festivals and elsewhere, about an apparent division in modern UK folk music.
I'm not going to make judgements for I will take as much time as is needed to assess both sides of the coin. This is not fence-sitting, for I like both for their respective virtues.
There are two fairly distinct kinds of tradition, in interpretation, and this represents one of them.

The title, pronounced as written, refers specifically to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 -1834).

This comprises new music on the theme of old words. In that sense it is the academic side of modern folk and I suspect that there are some that would say that this is not what folk music should be about. I beg to differ about that.
The nub of this lies with a conundrum that is at the heart of contemporary folk and one to which I have no answer and believe there is none to be found: does it reflect and seek solace in the values of the current time with regard to times past or attempt the mirror image of that situation, or indeed both?

It is without doubt a very fine album indeed. 

Why Sweden really matters...

Sweden won Eurovision Song Contest 2015 - they have Måns Zelmerlöw and 'Heroes' to thank for that and for seeing off the strong competition from Russia;  Polina Gargarina and 'A Million Voices'. Sweden, even more so than the rest of Scandinavia, is astonishingly good at producing writers, artists and producers of pop - and indeed Eurovision success. The UK on the other hand is not, at least in recent Eurovision terms, but is very good indeed at exporting music more generally.
Sweden has given us in recent years the alt-country sounds of First Aid Kit, with which the Söderberg sisters have made themselves a fixture on both sides of the Atlantic.

That their songs sometimes, indeed rather often, have a melancholic bent leads nicely on to this...  If Sweden did snarly, gloomy --- a garage kind of sound --- but still with two female artists at the helm, what might that sound like?

Much like this...

 

Pale Honey is the work of Tuva Lodmark (vocals and guitar) and Nelly Daltrey (drums) from Göteborg. Their music has divided opinion - some say it is one dimensional - and that is an accusation often aimed at guitar/drum duos. Another is that it is melancholy (see above). Well it often is a bit that way, I suppose, but is that a fault? I'd say not - it has made my day better to be honest - and that is why I'm writing this. I'd wager that, seen live, Pale Honey would be astonishing.

New Music 2015 - Part 41 - Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think...

The title 'Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit.' refers, of course, to the great divider that the Eurovision Song Contest has become as it celebrates its 60th!
The archetypal dysfunctional 'family' is joined by Australia this year and I for one welcome that wholeheartedly. I can't imagine how anything but good can come of it. Think what the headlines would be if Guy Sebastian were to win with 'Tonight Again'?
Australia is "not allowed" to host the competition so where would it be held? I'd nominate Ireland, to be quite honest and not just because there is no danger of them winning it themselves in 2015 as they failed to make the final.

The foregoing is an unlikely scenario and whatever happens when Eurovision 2015 is gone and forgotten this next Australian, starting to take the UK by storm with an album that is as difficult to describe as it is clever and that extends to its duplicitous title - 'Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit.' - is extremely unlikely to suffer the same fâte.
What is more, her take on events chimes rather nicely with the way many of us in the UK view Eurovision and many other things.

There is a constituency that she is just born to inherit - those that like deliberately obtuse songs full of internal questioning and clever wordiness. I could listen to this LP over and over again and not get bored but, equally, I just know that it will have rabid haters for exactly the same reasons that make me a fan. It is like Marmite or more appropriately, and it appears in the lyric to one song, the antipodean equivalent Vegemite. Be that as it may I'm happy as she is playing Green Man Festival 2015. It has some references that I could mention, at least for me, but I don't think that I need to mention them. 
Astonishingly this is Courtney Barnett's début album but I recommend that you also listen to 'A Sea of Split Peas' (2013), which is a compilation of songs from her EPs.

New Music 2015 - Part 38 - Joanna Gruesome - Peanut Butter

More new music from Wales but that is just about where the comparisons with my last post end.
This music is not sung in Welsh and the nearest it gets to a harp is that the band's name is a parody of that of Californian alt-folk harpist Joanna Newsome; indeed one of the latter artist's songs could easily be as long as the whole ten-track LP 'Peanut Butter'.  Only one track on it reaches the three-minute mark.

The party-line, almost certainly an urban myth, is that the five-piece met as students in Cardiff at an anger-management meeting. Its truthfulness doesn't matter  - it something you want to believe and the music lends credence.
It also shows the remarkable diversity in music coming from Wales - and Joanna Gruesome won the 2014 Welsh Music Prize on the basis of début LP 'Twisted Sister'.
The most obvious comparison here, as it is also Cardiff based, is Los Campesinos. I would like to remind you of this, which I mentioned here way back in 2007. I believe that Laura Bryon is still active in the music of South Wales.

It also puts me much in mind of the C86 ethic adopted-and-adapted, from about 2004, by the late, lamented south-coast based Help She Can't Swim. They both share a tendency to music in short-message format - it may not be original, but hell it is fun.
This is the playlist for 'Peanut Butter':

1. Last Year 2:52
2. Jamie (Luvver) 1:41
3. Honestly Do Yr Worst 1:51
4. There Is No Function Stacy 1:58
5. Crayon 3:10
6. I Don't Wanna Relax 2:15
7. Jerome (Liar) 1:39
8. Separate Bedrooms 1:59
9. Psykick Espionage     2:08
10. Hey! I Wanna Be Yr Best Friend   2:01

It is already released on LP, CD and d/l on Fortuna POP! (UK), Slumberland (N. America).

Some bands take years agonising over a sprawling second LP. It has taken barely a year for this 22 minutes of condensed madness to arrive.
 'Last Year' is the introductory, and the second longest, track on the album.

Thoughts on music - is this really true?

This isn't a rant but the premise is something that made me think.
It doesn't annoy me in the slightest but made me consider how I now perceive music the way I do. And why that might be so.
This post on The Line of Best Fit got me started because it doesn't fit my experience at all. I will soon turn turn fifty and yet now I listen to not only more music but a wider variety of music, both new and old, than I ever did  - as a teenager or any time in between - and I estimate by an order of magnitude, so statistically significant. In part that is because I can but that does not mean that that I would do so if I did not wish to do so. Indeed I am rather proactive about finding new music rather than simply waiting for it to be served up to me by the industry and established media. Again this is something I rarely if ever attempted back when I was younger. Is this largely peer group pressure and the fact that as we get older, and in general terms more self-assured, it influences us less?

Let's look more closely at what the primary research implies. I will start with this graph:

On the face of it the indication is that I am just an exception to the rule. Another is that I  and many others are listening to "cool" (contemporary) music but also a whole lot more other "uncool" music as well?  This chart does not tell us that, and conveniently stops at age 48. I assume that means that I am regarded as a "dead" listener now.
Strange then that I am writing this. The rest of the survey is interesting not least because it seems to indicate that females' taste in music ages much less quickly than that of males. Interesting though it is I suggest that it might be influenced by factors that are not the headlines - the data is based on US Spotify streaming. What if females are more inclined to use Spotify more often than males, and possibly at different ages, as just one example?
There could well be very legitimate reasons for that to be true; this study tells us absolutely nothing about them.
The certainty is that a lot of money depends on divining the real trends in music consumption and the demographics of it. Importantly, and this must be true given long-standing trends, that it will vary dramatically from country to country, which is something else that the above survey, quite transparently, makes no attempt to address.

Kelly Richey - Live at The Thirsty Ear --- one of the best live recordings I have.

Anyone except newbies here, and you are indeed most welcome to my curious world, will probably realise that I like much music, new and not-so-new, live music and especially music on physical formats, including vinyl. You may also notice that I'm certainly not averse to availing myself of legal on-line sources, especially for increasing my exposure to and therefore knowledge of, new music. I have indeed mentioned that I have been using Spotify to just that end for some months now.
Whilst doing this over the last few days, primarily thinking about artists at festivals that I am attending this summer, it has come to my attention that such sources do not find all things, even some recent ones. 
Then it is time to dig deeper, sometimes digitally or alternatively into my collection of physical recordings. This is a good example of a live CD that, although less than a decade old is not that easy to track down though if you can it is not actually particularly expensive. It is also one of the very finest live albums I have. Kelly Richey - Live at The Thirsty Ear (Columbus, OH, recorded 2006, released 2007).

I have no real expectation to see Kelly Richey live. She rarely tours outside the US and then only fitfully and in a fairly limited geographic range. LPs are distributed on her own label, Sweet Lucy Records. This live set consists of only eight tracks:

• Tears Like Rain
• Red House (Jimi Hendrix)
• I Don't Feel So Good
• The Longest Road
• Nobody's Fault (Nina Simone)
• Hey Joe (Billy Roberts)
• Is There Any Reason
• Crossroads (Robert Johnson)

That might seem short change, indeed four of them are covers, but it really isn't so. The covers are quite something but then so are the originals and it isn't a short CD either - only the third and fourth tracks are less than nine minutes long. Much guitar is indeed shredded, but not at the expense of the overall mood and the more reflective aspects in particular. 

I have several of her studio LPs, which are easier to source, of them  Sweet Spirit (2013) is the most recent and at least in my view slightly underwhelming. Taken in counterpoint to the live album that is perhaps not surprising. If I might recommend another studio album to try in particularly because it is stronger and more plangent, even political, than Sweet Spirit that would be Carry The Light (2008). It is easy to source physically (CD) and also available to stream on Spotify and elsewhere.

Interesting conversations... sometimes overheard.

More than once quite recently it has been mentioned to me that my blog, which unsurprisingly reflects my interest in music more widely, tends to feature more female artists than male ones.
As an observation that is true but my reply is always this or a close variation on it;
"Do I have a problem with this, do you have a problem with this or do you think that they [the artists] have a problem with this?"
I have never received a cogent answer. I like what I like and, to a great extent, that is what I go to see, hear and also write about. I have certainly never been given a response that goes any way to explaining the reason behind the original question. The result has for the most part been an embarrassed silence, but not one that has embarrassed me. I just wonder what they anticipated I might have said as some kind of apologia...
Life is not long enough to worry about nonsense like that. US commercial radio is, I am told, seemingly still almost entirely dominated by male presenters playing male artists...
A similar debate has recently surfaced in the UK, specifically concerning the line-up recently announced for Leeds/Reading Festival 2015.

Tomorrow is International Women's Day 2015.
I am going to listen to nothing other than female (fronted) music following the lead by Amazing Radio today. That is a given.
What should I listen to?
I might just post a play list after the fact. Please keep this serious in intent, but light hearted in tone, if possible. We should all give and take when it comes to poking fun at each other...

To get things started here is a little-known gem, 'Britney', from Tasha Taylor Johnson and her 2013 début album 'Feed Your Ego'.

Democracy, debate, voting, and also music awards...

The disagreement over televised debates between political leaders is fascinating, up to a point, and mostly for the divisions and therefore the possible motives, on behalf of both politicians and broadcasters, that it has bought to public attention and a wider audience. I'm not going to enter the debate on UK politics here but this very public fiasco has focussed my attention on a long-standing case of double-standards that applies on all sides of the argument.
The distinctions between democracy, enfranchisement and transparency tend to be forgotten here: Without the last, the first is a poor guide to those that enjoy the latter and quite useless to those that don't. The broadcasters, including the BBC, are not entirely on the moral high-ground either.

We jump to music in the sense that this applies to the BBC Radio2 Folk Awards:
Emma Hartley has been on the case for a long time now and, despite her knowledge and persistence, it is like digging a tunnel with a candle and a toothpick. This link is not the start nor the end of the matter to date, but a good point to start on the stalling and frustrations that it has and likely will continue to provide:

http://theglamourcave.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/a-bbc-briefing-for-john-whittingdale-mp.html

This is neither open Government nor an example of the much-vaunted transparency promised by the BBC after a spate of revelations in recent years.

That is not to say that the short lists are flawed, nor the selection panels - any such venture needs some group of people that create a long list - for that is not so. That which is suspect is the undeclared voting members and, possibly, their commercial interests. There are actually many very splendid artists on the list of BBC Radio2 Folk Award nominations and this is that for 2015:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/Rdcvm12ST6lY2vctrhK8k5/folk-awards-2015-the-nominees

Another matter is that in the BBC Radio2 Folk Awards only one category is determined by a public vote, hence the issue with enfranchisement. You cannot vote for something or someone when you have a no vote at all.

On the other hand, just announced, are the Spiral Earth Award nominations 2015: http://www.spiralearth.co.uk/spirals-2015/.  I don't know how these lists were chosen either and you will find that some of the same artists feature here, which is as it should likely be. There is one major difference and that is between now and noon BST (UTC+1) on Wednesday, 14 April you can vote on all eleven categories, each comprising a short list of four acts or artists.

I know that I might attract some flak here but so be it. As a matter of transparency I have posted all links fully and visibly, so that you can see what they are before you choose whether or not explore them. 
You should explore the music regardless.

Added 7 March 2015:
Timely as it is, here is a post regarding the approach that Glastonbury Festival takes in selecting the act or artist for its 'Emerging Talent' competition:
http://breakingmorewaves.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/glastonbury-emerging-talent-competition.html
Included within the above article is a link to the 120 artists that comprise the long-list. That is still a long list, in any sense of the phrase, but consider the fact that this represents less than 2% of the total entries. 

Folk, Roots, Americana - whatever you want to label it.

It seems that my music theme for 2015 is to be set to folk/roots/Americana in all its many varied guises. I should probably mention here that the "new to me" festival for this summer is in fact one of the longest running of the kind - Cambridge Folk Festival. Conjured up in the autumn of 1964 it made its first appearance in the summer of 1965. I've had it in mind as one to try for a while now and this coincidence seemed to be the perfect excuse. I have my ticket.
I don't know if this is generally true or not but I think that my liking of such genres may be down to the music I was exposed to as a child. In particular, and I was reminded of this just yesterday evening, live music.

I saw Leveret at Rook Lane Arts, Frome yesterday evening and I'm happy to say that the event was very well attended. It was lengthy set that consisted of tunes (not songs) mostly traditional but a scattering of new compositions in the style. It served to remind me that despite a very rudimentary knowledge of music theory I can spot a slip-jig when I hear one.
More interesting was the commentary by the trio about something I had never considered. Many of the traditional tunes, and there are thousands of them, are now known only from manuscripts and some dating from the mid 17th Century. For the most part all they contain is the basic melody. To make the tune truly fly again the harmony, ornamentation and speed is all pretty much a case of reverse engineering. That, needless to say, takes a great deal of time, patience and skill.
It was an issue that had never really occurred to me before if I am honest.
The trio comprises Andy Cutting (diatonic button accordion, also known in some countries as melodeon), Rob Harbron (English concertina) and Sam Sweeney (fiddle) and the set was astonishing. I do wonder if had I been new to such music this might actually have proven an overwhelmingly intense experience. It could have felt like a lecture, albeit light heartedly-given, in an esoteric subject.
I wasn't the youngest member of the audience, that's for sure, but I reckon that I was well below the median age. On the other hand I am older than all the members of the band.

My next post will likely serve to illustrate the obvious - such as night follows day. It also reminds me of something I was told at one of the first festivals I went to.
I guess I must have mentioned that I didn't know anything about the majority of artists. It all seemed too much to get my head around and therefore what I went to see play was something of a lottery - fortunately, as it turned out, one with damn fine odds...  What I was told was roughly this: keep listening, remembering and making notes and in time it will become second nature. I only remembered this last night and I can't remember if I was awake or dreaming but it was a real conversation in origin.
Seven or so years after the origin of this I have realised that this is in fact entirely true. In a sense that is why photography plays a part for me - it is a kind of note-taking. There are two strands. One is that I can now find new music that I like almost on a whim and especially that in categories that back then I would have been rather dubious about. I still dislike pigeon-holing music by genre but had you suggested alt-country to me back then I would have probably thought you were trying to lead me on a wild goose chase. The second is that now the music quite often finds me instead. This year I am for the first time attempting to listen to music by many of the festival artists in advance. I know lots of people that do this but, until now, it has just seemed like a whole lot of effort and what is more I really like the surprise factor of festivals.
I know that I won't be able to do that for all acts in advance, so I won't really spoil that aspect for myself. If I were in danger of doing that at least the reason is simple - I'm hoping that it will allow more informed choices about which acts to see when there are the inevitable clashes.
If it does then the reality is rather prosaic.  It is to go to more festivals.

Ten years of writing - and some thoughts on music

Having finally got something of the festive feeling, and also read the suggestion from one of my fellow bloggers that writing a blog displays a certain vanity, I thought I might indulge myself a little.
First things first and a very simple luxury - make a tartiflette and sit in front of a real fire to eat it, accompanied by some wine and recorded music.
This specific idea for this post actually came about as the result of a Spotify advertising link - “What did your 2014 sound like?”
My thought was "Why did my 2014 sound like it did?"

One thing I must say about 2014 is that without doubt I have listened to more music, both live and recorded, than in any previous year. I can't put numbers to that but, trust me, it is true and by some considerable margin. I'm not sure that eight years of writing a blog has done much, whether positive or negative, for my vanity. What it has certainly done is provide me with huge satisfaction and at times a sanctuary from the everyday and the mundane. Not just the writing that is, although it has; the live and recorded music that I have heard and all the people that I have met along the way and the ones that I anticipate meeting in the future. One thing is certain; it is both absorbing and time-consuming. It is also absolutely fascinating. I have spent a great deal of time mulling (perhaps I should have done that with the wine too) over the music of 2014 this last month or so. I suppose with good reason that my 2014 has been dominated by acoustic-folk-Americana-roots. I can see that trend continuing in 2015 but that's not all that I like by any means.

The first time I wrote about music in the public domain was some amazon.co.uk reviews in 2005. I was reminded of this the other day while reading reviews and suddenly finding myself confronted by one of my own - that for the LP 'Old World Underground Where Are You Now?' (2003) by Metric.
That I suppose, and then the desire for freedom to write just what I wanted, led to this blog starting in September 2006 if only by accident rather than design. In 2007 this led to my going to festivals although it had been on my mind for a while. This was hastened by the new-found need to have original material to write about. Then came photography to go with it because festivals are as much about watching as listening. This bare-bones timeline says nothing at all about the music that accompanied it .
This got me thinking about how my current tastes in music have evolved to the point at which they are now. That is proving a tricky thing to do and harder to explain, not least because of the self-analysis that it predicates.

This evening I decided to listen to absolutely any LPs that I thought inspired my, or the purchase of which was inspired by my, decision to start (and then continue) going to festivals back in 2007. Whilst my liking for acoustic folk goes way further back it would seem, on reflection, to have had nothing to do with this particular decision. It seems to have been largely indie-driven; my choice of Latitude Festival 2007 as a starting point was specifically because Arcade Fire was headlining the Sunday. One thing yesterday's playlist demonstrated was that I still like much of what attracted me then and not all of this indie in the period 2007-9 was indie-rock; that appellation doesn't apply to New Young Pony Club or Polly Scattergood, both of which I first became aware of by seeing them play live at Latitude Festivals. I then bought the LPs and indeed have continued to do so. Both have disco as a pulsing heart - the twisted nature of 'Bunny Club' (Polly Scattergood) and 'Ice Cream' (NYPC) have both stood the test of time I think. 

To use a geological analogy, the growth of my music collection in the last ten years has been a largely sedimentary (rather than volcanic) epoch. It does, however, include a couple of fault planes within it. The most obvious of these is connected with my decision to go to End Of The Road Festival for the first time in 2009. This decision was certainly responsible for stirring my interest in Americana and roots and (while I don't much care for the descriptor) 'alt-country' too.
This fed-back into a revived interest in UK folk music (both traditional and new) that served to fill the gaps in live music between festivals.  That is when things became really interesting. It gave me the idea to go looking for new music myself, be that local in origin or further afield, rather than just wait for it to come to a venue that I was at.

How humans attempt to label and list music (and enjoy arguing about it)...

This became a topic, off-line, yesterday evening.
How are 'folk', 'roots' 'bluegrass' and others actually defined? Indeed are there any clear boundaries at all, when it comes to what may, or may not be included? This is a topic that I just know could run forever.
It came back to mind just now as I am thinking about, and  listening to, the 2014 recorded music I have acquired. Here's a picture of the first tranche (and yes, that is an Island 'pink label' on a 2014 vinyl release)...

It has also made me consider that which I wish to listen to or more problematically regret having missed live, which is a matter of self-questioning.
Above all this, however, it throws up a wider metaphysical question. Why do we tend to favour the process of 'classification' and why is such comfort gained by associating the very diversity (which we also tend to like) of things with a rather small number of 'boxes' in which we aim to 'put' them?
Digital devices are all very good for making and storing lists, assuming we are organised enough to store the stuff on them. Digital devices don't argue about the lists we chose to inflict on them and as an example I can find no reliable report of a digital device that has unilaterally declared that it can't abide U2.
Amazon's algorithm is quite good at suggesting things that I might like but not because it knows me and how I think. It simply knows about other people and what they have purchased or browsed and therefore, indirectly, how they think. What digital networks are not yet any good at is what humans are innately good at. That is spotting apparently curious connections or comparisons that are not within any logically associated domain but which very often our fellow humans can relate to. We humans do so endlessly, much to our mutual delight and annoyance.

This is where we get to the arguing part of it. Folk/roots music does not work by rules - it evolves and it does so unpredictably. That is important because if that were not so then it would be a dinosaur. There would be nothing new, original and incisive about it.
When Bob Dylan was pilloried for going electric others such as Fairport Convention took the idea and ran with it. It was ever thus. One other important point is that until quite recently folk/roots music was seen at best to be a minor genre managing decline as best it could.
In a few years, and due to changing technology as much as changing taste, that concept has altered quite remarkably. It is now possible to record and release music without the expenditure, in equipment, facilities or even travel and other sundries such as it recently was. It is true that many fine labels - Topic Records and Fellside Recordings being just two that spring to mind - had continued to release such music and while it is most certainly still not easy to make even a modest living from it, the balance of power has shifted and also in another very important way - the traffic in folk/roots/Americana has also become fully fledged two-way traffic as the often perceived insularity has broken down.

There are some instruments that have evolved to belong, even though until quite recently they did not. Bouzouki is an instrument from Asia Minor. By the early 20th century it had migrated and evolved and was found in music of the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece. One of the first, and the best known to introduce it to Celtic folk music was Dónal Lunny of Planxty. The band spent time behind the Iron Curtain in the early 1970s and this is reflected in several tracks on the 1974 album 'Cold Blow and The Rainy Night', to which I am listening as I write. Also on the album are several other songs that do not come directly from the UK or Irish folk canon - The Lakes of Pontchartrain and The Green Fields of Canada being two of them.
There are several others that are not native to UK folk but I'd find to argue that they are no longer assimilated, to all intents and purposes.
Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin are at the top of their game, winning best duo at the BBC Folk Awards 2014, and they headline North Dorset Folk Festival this coming Saturday. They extensively play two instruments that do not feature in the traditional folk canon. Hannah, as well as playing awesome fiddle, is a mean banjo player. Quite when it arrived in UK folk I don't know but it is an essential of bluegrass and also Appalachian 'old time' music, especially when played clawhammer (that is with the back of the fingernails rather than traditionally plucked) in the latter case. Phillip is an amazing resonator guitar player and this instrument although probably of Hawaiian origin entered popular music in the early 1920s via Jazz as it was loud enough to compete (unamplified) with the brass section. Often simply known as dobro this is a brand - it is exactly like calling all generic vacuum cleaners hoovers. Any which way the instrument quickly became a feature of both blues and bluegrass too, as they spread north up the Mississippi. Another Hawaiian instrument to gain traction, because of its general versatility is the ukulele. In all cases these instruments were readily adopted because they were very usable within the existing structure but also bought with them new possibilities. Not everyone welcomed these developments, that much is certain, but this is what a living tradition needs to do to flourish. The fast changing USA absorbed and developed all these influences, including those that came from Africa, whether via the Carribean, south and central America or simply directly and new dimensions took shape.
Inevitably the result was exported once again. There would have been no British blues, in the mould of Free and early Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, had that not happened. An interesting corollary to this is 'Black Magic Woman' - the Carlos Santana version (1970) is so well known that it is often forgotten that it is a cover of a 1968 Peter Green original (but only a single and then only released in the UK). It appeared on the Santana album 'Abraxas' by which time it had acquired new parts influenced by traditional eastern European Roma music and also Latin american rhythm. Plenty of the eastern European tradition had also made its way west across the Atlantic and that is evident in much bluegrass and Appalachian fiddle music.

So where does this find us? In a whirlpool that none of us had imagined, I rather think!
I shall continue in a new post if only because Blogger tells me that I can't add any more 'labels' to this one!
What is more, come this weekend I will also have a whole lot of live music to write about and, if I have my way, plenty of photos to go with that. I can't wait.

Thoughts on Music 2014; what it means to me.

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

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

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

Record Store Day 2014 - A Prelude

It is now just a couple of months until Record Store Day 2014, an event that seems to be gathering momentum with each passing year. To set your mind thinking about the changes, in both the music industry and the marketing strategies involved, here is an inner sleeve from forty-six years ago and of which I took a photograph just now.

It is interesting to consider what were the perceived threats back in 1968.
Equally so, what the marketing people would have thought about vinyl in 2014.

My 2013 in music

You might think that my posts during the year should sum the title of this post. In a sense that is true but, in another it is not so. If I knew of another year that I enjoyed music as much as I did in 2013 then I would tell you about that. The fact is I can't.

It took in all sorts of music and in many places...

Jon Spiers and Bellowhead. Cheese & Grain, Frome, 19 November.

Bellowhead is a band with which I am well acquainted but it is no less a thrill to see them live once again and that could be said of many others too.
Not least though is the new...
I see no reason to think that 2014 can't be at least as good. On the other hand I doubt that any blog can start with a post more astonishing than this.