Acoustic Moon 3 - Where were you when...?

If you were bemoaning the vile weather, thinking about the logistics of Christmas and being autumnal in all the wrong ways, together with the fact that it was still only Thursday, then here are three words:

YOU . MISSED . OUT
  

If that is so then you have only yourself to blame. You could have been in a cosy village pub, with great food - from three-course feast to bar snacks - and drink at very reasonable prices, listening to some of the finest and most varied acoustic music that the UK has to offer. That is Acoustic Moon and the admission charge for that aspect is £5 on-the-door.  Trading Standards Authority motto to the public is this: "If something seems too good to be true then it probably is."
It is indeed good advice but, then again, all rules need a few exceptions for validation and this is one of them. Yesterday's selection of music was nothing if not varied except in that it happened to include two very different artists playing one of the rarest of percussion instruments and one that is new in the 21st century...
One of the oldest tuned acoustic instruments of all is, in its various forms, dulcimer. It doesn't have to look or sound ancient and around here we know that. It has been hammered into us in the best way possible.

Opening the evening - Intricate.

Barbara J Hunt on guitar and lead vocals with Dizzie on a thoroughly modern hammered dulcimer and sometimes including theatrical interpretations. There are absolutely no warm-up acts here and very soon that 21st century creation - the hang. It combines mid-19th century physics of acoustics, courtesy of Helmholz, and late 20th century metallurgy in the form of ammonia-gas-nitriding in an instrument that both looks and sounds like it might have actually been around since forever.  The first example did not however make a public performance until 2001 and they are all still made by a "cottage industry" in Switzerland.

To see one hang player in an evening is good fortune, to see two is a miracle.
  

The second hang player was Venus Bushfires and I do not actually have any pictures of that. It is for a reason. I was borrowed for another duty. I was watching, listening and recording but have no pictures of the set. She played solo, sometimes actually acapella, and showed a completely different aspect of hang playing. It sat in her lap rather than on a stand and was in support of a quite different style of music.

This is the one photo I did take, just after her set had finished.
    

It is rare that I don't write about an evening such as this in a single post, rarer still that I don't stick to the order in which the artists or acts appeared. In this case I have decided to do both - the three acoustic guitar artists are to follow.

More Thoughts on Americana

We have been here before, readers new and old. Once I thought it was just a passing phase of mine but as 2009 has slowly moved on towards the end of 2011 I'm no longer so sure about that.  
It is time to start thinking about those 'Best Of 2011' lists and don't get me wrong for I am - but there is also the fact that UK folk - new or traditional, strictly original or not, acoustic or not, is hardly a new beat on my drum and yet a huge feature of 2011. All thought of that is not going to trouble me tonight. Predictions for 2012 are interesting but they too will have to wait.
  
I write things with the hope that people might perhaps think to look beyond that music they already know and love and therefore discover something new to them. I don't care if you like it, that you are opinionated and disagree, unless you are offensive. I would far rather deal with that than battle apathy, particularly my own.   
The first LP is something that should have been obvious to me for quite some while and that, until very recently, I did nothing about seeking.

This next album has a title that you might find almost strange but they chose it. It was mentioned, just in passing, by one of those whose likes in music are certainly not always the same as mine but whose opinions I respect.

It demonstrates exactly why I think I should do things this way. If you have an appreciation of the sheer variety of UK folk I now think it hard to see why you might not find this interesting. Neither of these albums are 2011 releases.

Acoustic+, Frome, October 14, 2011

OK. I have finally got round to starting this and that, more often than not, is the hardest part. In fact I'm currently accumulating items and topics to write about much faster than I'm doing the writing. Perhaps now the days are shorter and colder I will make a big effort to catch up and to that end will start with some notes from the most recent Acoustic+, and apparently the 77th such, last Friday.
One interesting change from the last few that I have been to is it included only acts and artists that I had never seen before; all but the last being (almost) entirely acoustic.
  
The evening started with two shorter-than-usual sets of which the first was by Maisie Robinson solo. With an audience that I estimate was just the right side of one hundred it must have been pretty daunting. 

The first song almost immediately put me in mind of Illinois singer-songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield, with its careworn yet stoic theme and accompaniment to match, but that is no bad thing at all in my book. That is not to say that there was anything at all wrong with the other songs; rather that it is unusual that I find myself thinking something like that so quickly particularly because I don't want to pigeon-hole by using such comparisons -  just go listen. As soon as you get the chance.
  
Next up was another short set by Josh & Ethan White. They are brothers but I'd like to know what they thought about some factions in both audience and management that decided on a vote to re-name them 'The White Brothers'. I'm not sure whether they were consulted so it is perhaps just as well that the vote, a TUC-style show of hands, was quite convincingly inconclusive giving them a mandate to call themselves whatever they want. Frome is a haven of grass-roots democracy, right down to matters such as this.

One admission that I shall make, and it should matter to them, is that they were far better than my attempts at photography. We have now worked up from solo artist to a two-piece and that is in fact an electronic drum kit, hence my proviso above.
The next act, another two-piece, was a different challenge entirely. Soundgarden doesn't come from Frome. Xenophobia has no place here either and Soundgarden comes from Bradford-on-Avon, although originally clearly even further away than that. This probably explains why one song was sung in Finnish.

Soundgarden - Acoustic Plus - October 14, 2011.  

  
Joining the phalanx employing once almost forgotten acoustic instruments that have seen a huge resurgence, and therefore I have seen played live on many occasions, in the last couple of years it saw employment of the 'portable' harmonium.  It is however the first time that I've seen one played predominantly as a lead instrument. Awesome. Some of the other songs they played had so much Roma influence that it sent me off in search of some vinyl (in my archive) from long, long ago...
  
Then this... and very different to all that had come before. Al O'Kane and Richard Kennedy have, so they say, only recently started playing as a duo.

Be scared. This is Americana territory - dust, rust and things more visceral. The next hobos, they might even have left for good on the next freight train out of town as it passed by the back of the Cheese and Grain, but who knows? I rather hope not.

Last to play was a very new-formed band, also all young, Haters. Yes, they are not acoustic, in fact quite the opposite, but I don't hold that against them not least because I like much electric and electronic music too. They were last to play and also suffered an electric guitar failure that upset their first track and were thus indubitably flustered. Such things happen. That can happen to any act at any venue, it was quite probably no fault of their own. I do, however, think that it might have been better if they had opened the event with all the others, in the same order and with the same time-slots, following.  The other issue, and perhaps a more generally important one, is that if the drummer and guitarists are going to take to stages, ones as far apart as is obvious here, there will likely be a problem even if it is one only perceived by the audience.

Behold The Machine - Vernian Process

Just to demonstrate that I scour the corners of as much as I can of that on offer, here is a free slice of Steampunk music for you.  The artwork is very reminiscent to my mind of that of Hawkwind, Magnum (the earlier albums especially) and many other bands from that era. If I did not like it it would not be here.

Click image to stream the track (free, for now) or download the album.

New to me... music I found and more that I want.

I'm not sure where to start this.  It has some aspects of things I saw and heard at festivals this summer and more than a bit that also comes from almost all things Americana, which comes from the last four years of festivals and then just trying to find what else is out there. It will be a strange mixture - rent by contradictions - of genre and style. It think I'll start with two artists who are in fact English. Most of us can be snobby about the music we like and I'm no exception but ultimately I don't mind if I hear about something I really like via obscure recommendation or daytime commercial radio.  If you find something that catches your attention here, that you then discover you like, then that is a bonus for me.
I have decided to start with the gentler option first.
The music is soft and ballad-heavy delta blues recorded in Nashville, with the vocal tropes that go with that, but then again 'Delta Maid' comes from Wavertree and while Merseyside has a long and glorious music heritage it is hardly on the scale of the Mississippi. Equally surprising, and perhaps a reflection of the change in UK music taste and the situation of the industry, it is a major label release (Geffen/Polydor).  The two album tracks that also appeared on the 2010 vinyl Broken Branches EP are less raw and conventionally produced, which might be a reflection of this.

The aforementioned EP is also well worth having. The version of 'Any Way I Want To' on it is for my money the best thing that she has done so far; it is world weary and yet perfectly resigned to the fact. If you can find the promo CD version of the EP it includes two very good cover versions too.
If it however leaves you thinking that it is all a bit soppy and easy listening then try this instead.  It is way more rattling and certainly not something to attempt if you are feeling the worse for wear - unless of course kill or cure is what you are after, in which case its just the job.
  
Ten all original songs from an artist in her early twenties when this, her début album, was released in 2009.

I had a listen to the songs on her myspace page but there was no easy way to be sure if it was representative of the album. It is released by German-based independent label Ruf Records and so I ordered it there and then. What a good idea that was!
It is quite a long album, at over 51 minutes, and I can't actually decide on my favourites on it despite a week of listening. One thing I can say for sure is that it doesn't suffer from the tendency of some such albums wherein either one or both of the artist and listener flags rather before the end.  Indeed it finishes with the longest track on the album  - Blackest Day - and despite its 8¼ minutes it is absolutely awesome.
It hardly needs to be said that her 2010 follow-up, Diamonds In The Dust, is next on my wants list and then to see her perform live.


I think I'll continue the theme with some genuine US artists that, although not new on the scene, have come in to the foreground of my conscience in the last couple of months.

Blackest day; brightest stars

This is part thoughts on music for Halloween, part reflections on autumn and on music in general. There is nothing like economic uncertainty to inspire music. You can say that I am maudlin, if you wish to do so, but be aware that I might attempt to do more than merely defend myself against the accusation. I shall start with a frank admission: I never liked Morrissey's music much. I still don't to be quite honest but I do have to concede that he was spot on when it came to observation. He wins and I lose. Nothing changes much; Marr still plays guitar - I've seen and heard him doing it live - and he is still f***ing good at it. That is a point, but not my point here...
  
That all happened a quarter of a century ago. I can remember it, sort of I think, but it is no longer of today. I can certainly understand that too. What is surprising is the influence it still has and, more surprisingly, what is happening now. Try telling me in 1989 that we would be where we are in 2011 and I would have just laughed at the improbability of it all. Suggesting that I'd be writing this would have been a rather bad place to start.  That is without the fact that, back then, we had no concept whatsoever of the revolution that Steve Jobs had in mind...
Steve Jobs did more for music in his lifetime than Michael Jackson could ever have hoped to do. Sorry.

What You Just Missed... Acoustic Moon 2

It's still pretty new and it certainly hasn't settled in to any comfortable slot yet, but that is not to say that Acoustic Moon is anything other than remarkable.   It is now harder than one might imagine to find an evening when there is not at least one live, often acoustic, event taking place within a few miles of Frome. In a local live-music milieu that is currently firing on all cylinders live, and in particular finding an audience, is not always easy however good the event and reasonable the admission.
Spoilt for choice, you might say, but you'd surely miss it if it were to disappear. This is just a flavour of what you missed last Thursday evening. It is not, in any sense, a rarefied or exclusive event. However little or much you know about the acoustic music scene is quite unimportant - all that matters is the enjoyment of live music whether it is familiar or not.
  
The first to play was an act, Cadencia, that I had not seen before. Original compositions played in Spanish guitar style, this was both acoustic and entirely instrumental.

Following that came Frome-based guitar duo Leonardo's Bicycle - it takes its name from a relatively obscure cover version that, of course, they played. Part of their special appeal is the irreverent and rather varied banter that intersperses the songs some of which, including the splendid 'Cley Hill' that is about a local landmark, are their own compositions.

They were one of the guests on the monthly 'Live Lounge' on Frome FM in September and that is worth a listen (which you can do right here and right now).
  
The second half was given over to two artists who had come up-country from distant South Devon especially for this.  Nicky Swann previewed several songs from her forthcoming album, which has as its theme stories of the sea and seafaring.

This one is 'Newfoundland' and is about the fishermen who, from the 16th century onward, set sail from the ports of Devon and Cornwall to catch cod on the far-off Newfoundland Banks. There is an awful lot of very impressive new folk coming from the south west at the moment and this album is destined to add more to it.
She returns to Acoustic Moon for a second time on November 25, and I expect we shall hear more from this project then.
Last to play was Katie Marie, also from South Devon, and someone I have have heard and also mentioned in these posts before who also accompanied Nicky during some of the aforementioned set.

This was taken during the song 'Rostock', about touring in Germany.

  

Why not come along and join us for the next Acoustic Moon on October 27?  If you can't wait that long then just sidle into Acoustic+, at the Cheese and Grain, Frome, on Friday 14 October - doors 8pm and admission £5 - for a slightly different take on acoustic.

Live music is not scary - all ages can enjoy it and are welcome...

A young audience and Lady Nade, live at Frome Festival - 9 July 2011.

Thoughts of Festivals - Latitude 2011 again.

I decided to continue the theme. Almost as soon as I posted the previous one I was already half hoping that someone will convince me to change my mind.
Here are some more photos from Latitude 2011, starting on the main Obelisk Stage again and then working through the others.
  

Wanda Jackson covering Amy Winehouse's 'You Know I'm No Good'.

That it has a clock in it as rather strange: in her introduction to the song Jackson spoke of her concern for Ms. Winehouse's health.  Almost exactly a week later it was announced that she was dead.
  

Isobel Campbell again, on the same stage that her former band Belle and Sebastian had headlined on the Saturday in 2010.

A highlight for me this year, and not just because it is tented and out of the rain, was the Word Arena; they had done a pretty good job of picking the acts for this and they were very varied, which formed the basis of the post about Festival Variety in late July. Here are a couple more pictures from the Saturday.

I have only ever seen a few acts that come from New Zealand performing live. Ladyhawke (second album eagerly awaited) and Otago's Ruby Suns being two that come to mind. This is the lead vocalist of the third one...
  

Alisa Xayalith of The Naked and Famous during a volcanic set.

  

As the rain continued to fall some good old-fashioned party spirit was needed and what better to conjure that than Bellowhead?  Complete with a fiddle-duel.

  

That is the two larger stages done, at least for now, with the Lake Stage and Sunrise Arena to follow soon.

Thoughts on Festivals, 2011 and onwards

Going to festivals is in fact an unexpected bonus that accrued from deciding to start this blog. Put simply it finally gave me the impetus to do something I had long wanted to do, which was to see and hear much more live music. In that time I have spent the equivalent of a month camping and experiencing outdoor festivals and I am in no mind to give it up now, indeed I already have tickets for two such in 2012. It all started with Latitude in 2007 and, after five years I will, more likely than not, give it a miss next year in order to try something else instead.  Here are a few more photos from the Obelisk Stage that I took at Latitude this July and in this case of artists that are well established.

KT Tunstall 

  

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

    

I thought that both these sets were astonishing, so that is not an issue that I have with Latitude, but I do think that they are in danger of letting the music suffer in the pursuit of the big picture.  This is going to become ever harder on the smaller stages where the bespoke, often more nimble, festivals are able to compete very successfully indeed.

Lykke Li, on The Word Stage at Latitude 2011.

  

This was very good too but, while I didn't see it owing to a clash, I was reliably informed by others, who saw both this and also her subsequent performance at EOTR 2011, that the latter was even better. One might argue that after six years Latitude is maturing with its core audience. I started late in this, at least in the age game, and new music still excites me more than ever. EOTR was also on its sixth edition in 2011 and it just got better.
You can probably see my line of thought here and, with no Glastonbury in 2012 either, it will be interesting to see how the whole dynamic alters.

Sleepless nights and new music...

The perhaps strange title of this post is less so to me. I have so much to write about and have listened to so much at festivals over the summer that it is now almost an inevitability. Some of this struck me whilst I was listening to the radio this last week: all full of students off to university for the first time and pondering the possibilities and pitfalls of Freshers' Week.
It made me think: that seems like a different life now. I tried to think what music I was listening to then. Not much I suspect, and even less that bears remembering let alone sharing with you. That was just short of 28 years ago!
More interesting perhaps is what, now twice-as-old-plus-a-decade-for-good-measure, I then imagined I might be listening to now. I don't think it ever crossed my mind...
One thing that I CERTAINLY never imagined is that I would be here, just now, writing this! Look at it another way - this was the time when CD players were as rare as rocking-horse shit and, once one had invested that money (and we are looking at near £1000 in actual cash then), there was precious little available to play on it and that which there was was mostly classical music.
Since then a great deal has happened, in music as in everything else. In these uncertain times it bears repeating that music has remained a steady companion. Of course it has changed but that is why it endures. I have changed too.
I still hate the person who lived above me in my first-year halls and went away for the weekend leaving Culture Club's 'Colour By Numbers' on continuous-play on their cassette player (remember those?). Even now, if I hear Karma Chameleon, I get flashbacks...
Forgiven but not forgotten. Musically things, mostly, got better after that and it might be time for some reminiscences. There is something about autumn and music for me. They just seem to go well together.

Acoustic+, Frome, September 16, 2011

After a summer recess, following the Frome Festival, the event returned to the Cheese & Grain Friday last.  The turn out was very encouraging and the audience was to hear some great music.

Four acts, as usual all very good, and the first to play was Ali George. Great guitar song-writing and largely unaccompanied.

The second is one that I have somehow managed to miss on more than one occasion previously. They come from Bristol and are Poppy and Friends.

  

There is a new EP - Flagged and Born To Be, just released to d/l (and also as a limited CD)...

  

...almost all of which are not however prone to fraying around the edges.

Next up was Dirk Landish. The album 'Blissful Drunken Blues' should be added to my suggestions for autumnal/fall music (see preceding post) and in this case it is harder to tell from which side of the Atlantic it draws the most inspiration. 

Excellent I thought and seemingly I was far from the only one to think so, at an event that was very well attended. You can listen to much of the album on his site and also buy the album direct from there too.

  

Last, and thus headlining, were Bakudan. Combining African rhythm with other influences they are fusion beyond pigeon-holing. I saw a bit of Tinariwen (at End Of The Road Festival) a couple of weeks back and I didn't really get that. Perhaps it was just a case of live music overload but, whatever the matter, I found this much more accessible and appealing.

  

So much so that, rather than choose between these pictures, here are both of them.

  

All of this for £5.  The next Acoustic+ takes place in the same venue, Cheese & Grain, Frome on October 14, 2011.

Of course you can't wait that long but then you don't have to because Acoustic Moon 2  is barely a week away and also promises a full evening of music for £5.

Not writing much but still listening...

OK. You are probably thinking that after three three-day festivals in six weeks I would, or perhaps should, be posting almost every day. Well. Let's just say it rarely works out quite like that.
It is not that I don't have plenty to write about; quite the opposite as I have heard so much live music that it takes a while for me to think about it all what it meant to me, and how it relates together or doesn't.  I've also been listening to more than a little new music too in the last two months - often just tracks posted as tasters on the internet etc. and while that might further complicate matters in terms of quantity it sometimes provides help in terms of inter-relation. A few of these things will have cropped up as un-linked items on the 'I've Just Listened To...' section on the side-bar, which I have recently moved to near the top as part of an ongoing rearrangement.
I hope to start to get my thoughts on the summer now gone and forthcoming releases trickling out soon but I shall be busy a couple of weekends.
  
Just a little later:
For the several people who have ended up here looking for 'music for Autumn' and/or 'music for Fall' (something I posted about at the start of summer last year) try this.

I love my house but were it to become detached from its terrace and dragged into the woods I think it might look much like this. I could live with that.
  
You can currently stream the whole album on Stereogum. It is released on vinyl and CD on October 17, 2011 by, as if I needed to say so, Bella Union.

EOTR 2011 - Friday from America

Of course there was a wealth of acts from the US appearing over all three days of End Of The Road 2011 but Friday threw up a particularly interesting selection of ones that I really wanted to see performing live representing both coasts and much that comes between. I really enjoyed all of these sets. Here are two of them:

Tipi Stage, early Saturday afternoon - Sarabeth Tucek.

Her second album 'Get Well Soon' was released earlier this summer. I have had her self-titled début since it appeared in 2007 but I have no idea quite how I came to hear of this in the first place. Suffice it to say that it has been listened to consistently ever since. Neither album is really to be described as feel-good music at all, because the tone is too introspective and self-analytical for that. It is however very comforting and, while this might seen an odd thing to say when commenting on a festival performance, perhaps best listened to alone even if alone as part of a crowd and being in a crowd can be a particularly alienating kind of loneliness.
  

The contrast with the next act could hardly have been more pronounced. In a couple of minutes I walked from the indoor intimacy of the Tipi stage to the glorious afternoon sunshine of the Wood Stage and in doing so I travelled from the preoccupations of the Atlantic north-east to those of the beaches of California.

This was feel-good, beach party music. I swear I could hear the sound of surf by the end of the set.

This is Best Coast. Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno. Wood Stage, Saturday afternoon.

  

I couldn't convince the others that this was the way forward so I went along regardless. The whole point of music such as this, as I see it, is that it is frivolous and inconsequential fun. The whole set followed this approach, and it was great. In between the songs random chat involving such things as Snacks' thoughts on life - Snacks is Bethany Cosentino's cat, who appears on the 'Crazy For You' album cover and also in numerous band publicity shots, in case you were wondering!

This could all lead to a diffuse, rambling performance. It took me a few songs to work out why it was not so. One person, and only one person, was in charge of this live show and that was the drummer, Ali Koehler.

Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

The début album, which also has one of the most astonishingly curious titles of recent times, is finally released on Mute Records on January 24, 2012. If you were not lucky enough to be at EOTR watching this set then let me say something: I had long ago worked out that she was good at what she does but then this was quite something.

Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny....

  

Live on the Garden Stage at End Of The Road Festival 2011, Saturday 3 September.  This is the third time I have seen the whole band live and it just gets better and better. For 2009/2010 coverage of Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves of Destiny see 'I Will Return, I Promise'.
It is strange, in a very good kind of way, and I trust Mute Records with that.

If you wonder why that is, go listen to Polly Scattergood's 2009 self-titled début album that was also released by Mute. And, by the way, she's busy with the next one and I can't wait for that either.

EOTR 2011 - O Canada! (Part 2)

This was the most amazing thing - the band I thought least likely to... Slow Down, Molasses is one I have known about for some time. 'I'm An Old Believer' but that wasn't going to mean that I might get to see them live unless I went to Canada which, expense aside, I would be quite happy to do. Thanks to EOTR I saw them twice. Here they are playing for the second time on the Tipi Stage at, so my camera tells me, 01:50 on Monday morning.

That I hot-footed it from the Garden Stage to the Tipi Stage, making it just in time for their first set, made the perfect start to Sunday. Why the need to do this? Well I just had to see fellow Canadians Lightning Dust too, also for the first time.
  

  Amber Webber and Joshua Wells are the heart of Lightning Dust.
They are also half of Black Mountain.

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.

Acoustic Moon - 25 August 2011

Yesterday evening was the inaugural edition of a new acoustic event - Acoustic Moon - and I was delighted to be there. The venue is The Full Moon pub in the village of Rudge, just a few miles from Frome and within the same orbit lie Warminster, Westbury and Trowbridge. The nearest planet providing all means of life-support is generally perceived to be Bath.

The next question is where to start. I don't want to make enemies and since the long dead can't Twitter, or I least I hope not, I shall follow the advice of the court: start at the beginning, continue to the end and then stop.
I've never envied the position of an opening act or artist; head-liners may disappoint, spectacularly and in front of a tens-of-thousands of fans at a festival, but the few can be worse than the masses. If you have ever seen a pub band suffer that fâte, and you probably have, then you know exactly what I mean.  My photography was rubbish. You must make an exception for that. My report said that, if I tried harder, I might do better next time.

Please don't let that make you think any less of the artists, or their music, for they were all amazing. The unenviable task of launching Acoustic Moon, just weeks after the final Space Shuttle flight and in the week that saw the abject failure of a multi-million-costing unmanned Russian space mission that launched nothing at all, fell to Saravian.

Mission accomplished. Acoustic Moon is now in earth orbit.
  

There are some things that I have an uncanny knack of doing and one of them is managing to miss Mark Abis when he is is playing live in, or around, Frome. He does so often and yesterday I finally failed to do this too.

Mark Abis - Acoustic Moon 25 August 2011.
  

I don't know if he'd agree with me about this but, in the week that the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary finally included Americana as a noun describing a specific genre of music, he is an extremely good UK purveyor of it.  He might not like this either - one of the songs he played reminded me so much of Jack Johnson that, had I heard it played unannounced on the radio, I would have simply assumed by default that it was.
  
The next to feature were special guests Linda and Mark and, while following the lead, this was in no way Americana; rather five songs from the combined songbook of the great US female vocalists of the mid-twentieth century and should you think that the set-up violates the 'acoustic' moniker then I can reassure you that the Nord keyboard was firmly in piano mode. 

It was certainly dangerous vocal territory carefully navigated.

     

Next to perform was Brighton-based, but Dorset bred, Emily Baker.
There is something that immediately defines but does not confine her and many others, and to an extent her self-written songs too, which has nothing to describe it adequately that appears in the dictionary (Concise Oxford English, of course): There has been much soul-searching for a 'label' for some time and, while I only first heard it a month or so ago, Anglicana will have to do for now and it is certainly a whole lot better than most of the others that have been attached to such things. This music is not entirely traditional, nor is it obviously Celtic inspired, and she is very good at it indeed.

Emily Baker - Acoustic Moon - 25 August 2011.

Just don't ask about the Sturminster mutants... it was all part of the patter, and audience banter, between songs and that genuine and unforced connection is something that very many artists lack.  If you haven't heard the 2011 album 'House Of Cards' then you need to. If you have then you need this, her 2009 début EP, too...

This and the album are available, in real physical format (CD), direct from her website.

  
The evening was completed by duo Jacquelyn Hynes and J Eoin. This was certainly celtic music at its most inventive and yet also often very traditional. The tunes from the ongoing 'Lost in...' project were particularly interesting.

This one was taken when they returned for an encore.

  

There was not a great deal of light to take pictures but, and this is my personal opinion, using a flash would have ruined the atmosphere.  On the other hand can you believe that this much amazing live music is available to you for just £5?
The next Acoustic Moon is at the same venue on Thursday, 29 September and at the same price and I believe that now includes tickets purchased on the door too.
You can now just decide to go on a whim and not pay a premium.  I have actually seen most of the acts appearing at the next event - I'm certain to be going and I don't think that you will be disappointed.

See you there.