Life Goes On (Don't Give Up An Inch)

This is not what I want to write about but little can we afford to lose another who, in his own individual way and with Poison, has proven genre-defining. Bret Michaels, who apparently suffered a brain haemorrhage earlier this week, may not be so very well known to younger listeners although he recently recorded a song with Miley Cyrus and so perhaps now is. On behalf of all, I would hope, we wish you a complete and rapid recovery. Music is not just about the here and now.

Returning. Retro. Revised - New Music 2010 - Part 10

That was then, this is now...

I recently mentioned that I had a few in mind - so here are two of them. They both have line-up changes in their new incarnations and both have a sixties-influenced perspective; however none of the members (current or former) were even born in the 1970s and that is part of why they matter so much. Members of both come from musical family backgrounds, that is true, but rather varied ones.

This album, by Los Angeles based trio 'The Like', appeared in 2006 and it comprised Tennessee Thomas (drums, vocals), Charlotte Froom (bass, vocals) and Z Berg (vocals, guitar). It is retro-styled rock and I like it as much now as I did then. Until very recently I thought that they had vanished without trace. That however is not so.

They are now a four-piece: Tennessee Thomas and Z Berg are joined by Laena Geronimo (bass) and Annie Monroe (electric organ). They have been busy in the studio and this is their first new single. The producer is hardly an unknown, particularly given the influences in the music.

The next is a throwback to the earlier days of 1960's music - a time when female artists did not play instruments.

The 2006 album 'We Are The Pipettes' was something of an anachronism from the start. They looked the part and had an all-male backing band, 'The Cassettes' (then mostly comprising of members of 'British Sea Power'), but they could never have got away with some of the lyrics way back then...

They are back however, now a two-piece as Rosay (Rose Elinor Dougall - who has also been working with Mark Ronson of late) and Riot Becki left to do other things, leaving Gwenno Saunders (centre, above) as the sole surviving member from the line up that recorded and toured the first album. That said even she was a last-minute replacement, recruited at an early 'Pipettes' gig in Cardiff and she has featured in this blog before, in a different guise.

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2007/01/never-judge-artists-from-album-cover.html

Her only co-Pipette is now her sister Ani Saunders. The new album is scheduled for release in June 2010. All, or any, of these acts would be welcome additions to the stages at the coming summer's festivals.

New Music I Want in 2010, part 9 - real new music

I was planning to write something about new albums by returning artists, lots of them indeed, including some very well known ones. I will do so soon but for now they can simply wait because this evening I was distracted by something much more immediate. New music and that by a band from Northern Ireland that has taken the choice, and the chance, to forge its own independent destiny...

www.myspace.com/littlesausagedisorder

http://littlesausagedisorder.blogspot.com

I think that, on balance, they have actually chosen a rather propitious time at which to do so.

Guess who, guess what? - Thoughts on celebrity.

He or she may be well known but it's at a festival and, like the nobodies that you and I are, they have simply decided to let their hair down and enjoy like everyone else. Without doubt you can name a few very recent victims of such things...

If I ever catch the likes of you, maybe a journalist, at a festival you had better be looking and behaving immaculately in every way. You won't see me coming though, because I'll be enjoying it too, without thinking much about how others may see me, just like almost everyone else there and I probably won't know you from Adam anyway.

That in all probability nobody will ever think twice about that is in itself a comforting thought. I prize my anonymity but that does not make me think any less of those who, by dint of their background, career or ambitions, can only forgo that little luxury. The idea of being at a major event and thinking that almost anyone might recognise me would simply petrify me and - if I were there with friends I wouldn't wish it on them for a moment either.

I'm lucky; it is not likely to happen to me any time soon. Yes, I might very well have had one more beer than logic dictates, and you might have had a sneaky fag back-stage, but because we are both unremarkable so is the occurrence. More than once this has resulted in rambling discussions, often with hitherto strangers, that have at the very least attempted to put the world and its music in perspective and I'm not aware that we have regretted any of them. That is, at least in part, what festivals are for...

Thoughts On Lyrics - Skinny Genes

Thanks to the various people who have arrived at 'Thoughts On Music' while looking for the lyric to this song. This has been garnering attention for Eliza Doolittle for some weeks now and, as such, certainly made me pay more attention to yet another improbably young and talented singer-songwriter and one I hope to get the chance to hear live at sometime over the forthcoming festival season. If you happen to be attending one of the UK tours by either Alphabeat or Jamie Cullum then you will probably hear her as the support to one of these rather different artists. That said her own music isn't that easy to pigeon-hole from what I have heard of it - the self-titled 12" EP.

This is the lyric for 'Skinny Genes' as best I can discern, but the usual proviso concerning accuracy applies and if you have any alterations or suggestions please get in touch. Some might say that her approach is quirky, which is I suppose a place to start but as with many such a rather simplistic point of view.

Eliza Doolittle - Skinny Genes

I really don’t like your point of view
I know you’ll never change
Stinging me with your attitude
I've got the mind to walk away

I really don't like your arrogance
Or your policies
You're ninety-nine percent an embarrassment
With just one quality

Chorus:

I don't mind it when you *whistles*
Brings out the best in me when you *whistles*
Show your expertise
When the night always ends with a fight
I'm excited that you wind up next to me

I like it when you *whistles*
Can I have some please of that *whistles*
Satisfy my needs
Sometimes I fake that I hate you and make up
So you wind up next to me

I really don't like your skinny jeans
So take them off for me
Show me what you've got underneath
So we can do this properly

I really don't like the way you smile
When you think you're right
But I will forgive you, the yoke is in the middle
And we're chewing through the wire

Chorus:

I dreamt that you were on a train
And you were leaving, you were leaving
You made me think of what I'd miss
You were leavin', you were leavin'

I don't mind it when you *whistles*
Brings out the best in me when you *whistles*
Show your expertise
When the night always ends with a fight I'm excited
That you wind up next to me

I like it when you *whistles*
Can I have some please of that
Take off your skinny jeans
Sometimes I fake that I hate you and make up
So you wind up next to me

I dreamed that you were on a train
And you were leaving, you were leaving

2009 Festivals - revisited - Part 2

By request here is a larger version of the side-bar image that I posted a week or so ago. It was, perhaps quite obviously, an incomplete post. That was not the original plan but, as it happened, it is now going to be an incremental one...

Well, finally, I have got round to adding another artist but this is one less well known.

Jess Elva and band live at EOTR 2009, in the Tipi Tent, early Saturday afternoon.
Watch out for more from the Swiss/Australian, and her band, very soon.

And you never did learn to let the little things go.

And you never did learn to let me be.

And you never did learn to let little people grow.

And you never did learn to see.

And I am lower now and lower still

And you did always say that one day I would suffer.

You did say that people get their pay.

You did always say that I was going places

And that you wouldn't have it any other way.

But I couldn't turn my back

On a world for what I lack wouldn't let me

But I couldn't turn my back

On a world for what I like I need it.

Lyrics from 'Blackberry Stone' by Laura Marling, an artist now confirmed for Latitude 2010.

Icons lost.

It is with much sadness that I heard that a second icon of pop music has passed away in as many months. Today it was Malcolm McClaren, most famous for managing 'The Sex Pistols' in their ascendency to ultimate disaster.

Last month it was Charlie Gillett, best known for his championing of world music on the wider stage and using his BBC radio profile to take it to a whole new audience. The strange thing is that, by happenstance quite different operators, they both championed diversity and 'world music'. McClaren was championing hip-hop before we knew what it was while, during the aftershocks of the punk earthquake, Gillett was championing and then managing Dire Straits.

It seems strange now, thirty-something years later, to imagine just how profoundly music has changed. It has never been the same again and Pete Doherty is still alive unless you know otherwise: neither is a bad thing.

The Optimist - the difficult second album...

I've wondered about this for a long while and the wait turned out to be longer than perhaps anyone intended, as circumstances conspired to make it more difficult than perhaps it might have been.

The thing is that I still love 'Fantastic Playroom' as it has so many memories for me too [see here] and I thought that, without reason and not for lack of talent, its successor could fail to live up to the expectations that I would have of it.

Many circumstances mean that the exuberant pop, and sometimes nu-trance influenced sound of 2007, probably wasn't going to work quite so well in 2010 and for more than a few reasons; not all of them down to the music-buying public.

First single 'Chaos' is just about sufficiently familiar and comforting to remind why NYPC were so impressive the first time out. If you want my reference points on 'Fantastic Playroom' it reminds me slightly of 'The Get Go' or, perhaps more so, 'Talking, Talking', which was the most soul-searching song on the first album.
The bulk of the second album is however more uniformly reflective but also very accomplished in its repositioned mood - and the title mirrors this sentiment - without becoming either maudlin or self-indulgent.

Catching the zeitgeist once may have been just good fortune; to do it twice takes time and patience.

2009 Festivals - revisited - Part 1

Having written about a few of the acts that I would like to see at Festivals in 2010 it made me think more about some that I saw in 2009 that to all intents and purposes were quite unknown to me but mattered a great deal, adding considerably to my enjoyment.

Leeds' 'Bear Driver', on the Tipi Stage Sunday lunchtime at EOTR 2009.

This band was very good indeed.

They were far from being one of the best known bands there but were certainly well worthy of the spot. Only four of them are in this picture but they are, in fact, a six-piece and one we deserve to hear much more of in 2010.

Recording pains - Beth Jeans Houghton

I've never recorded anything original myself, let alone an album, so here are some thoughts by one - who I saw live at EOTR 2009 - about the process of recording her soon-to-be-released first album. The album from, should you have forgotten, the artist who claims she appeared from the depths of Buttermere, simply has to have been worth the wait. Recording it has however not been without some trials and tribulations...

"Frantically finishing recording for the forthcoming album with Ben Hillier.

On Thursday we invited a lot of my friends down to be recorded as a BIG BAD CHOIR on 'Golden' and 'I Will Return, I Promise'. Twenty three people came, including the Hooves, half of Stornoway, Mike Lindsay from Tunng, the boy who sells me coffee in the morning, Dr. S. Tud Luvcub, Jessica Rabbit and Kola, a man I met on the street that morning. The punk song we recorded is called 'Prick AKA Sean' and it's about a drunk Glaswegian man who had a fight with our tour manager in a Travel Lodge in Coventry when we were on tour with Stornoway. The prize line being 'Goodnight, sweet dreams and f**k off'. He [Kola] was lovely, he really was."

If you think that the foregoing sounds improbable in the extreme consider this, the text on the inner sleeve of 2009 EP 'Hot Toast - Volume 1'.

Festival wish list - New Music 2010 - Part 8

To finish what has, aside from music and a great weekend in North Wales, been a rather lack-lustre month I thought I would add some things that have caught my attention in the last few weeks. When I started about two hours ago I had a pretty clear plan in mind; that it became well and truly wrecked on the rocks of new discoveries is just one of those things and also for the longer term good...

These are just some of the acts I originally intended to mention. I've mentioned some of these artists, if only in the side-bar, already so here are a few of them. In truth the list of those still to mention is actually now longer than it was when I started!

Esben and The Witch, Brighton, UK.

Exquisite, romantically inclined, comfortingly gothic (and occasionally electro-acoustic) new-traditional: I recommend any song you can find and they are confirmed as playing Truck Festival 2010. Last year's 'Marching Band' served as a shot across the bows of the competition, and my God has the competition become formidable on all fronts, but the one track that sticks in my mind just now is the more recent 'Lucia At The Precipice'.

The Ruby Suns, New Zealand.
Their album 'Fight Softly' is already available (released by UK label Memphis Industries) and they are confirmed to appear at End Of The Road 2010.

Ones that I have not mentioned before, and that I'd like to see live, are:

Beach Fossils, Brooklyn, NY.
I have heard a few songs and 'Day Dream' is not atypical.

Islands Lost At Sea, Bolton, UK.

The début album is 'are having a lovely time' and to be released in the UK on 26 April.

I could, and soon will, add more but it is past that time tonight. A few throw-away suggestions including, perhaps, some returning acts less well known:

Operator Please! - Australian five-piece in support of their second album 'Logic', due shortly.

New Young Pony Club - new album 'The Optimist' represents a distinct realignment by Ty Bulmer and the crew following 'Fantastic Playroom', which was their 2007 début. For more on this album see here:

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/04/optimist-difficult-second-album.html

Mythology revisited - New Music 2010 - Part 7

It may seem that I have posted much about new music from major labels in 2010. That is true but here is something very different.

If I were to start to mention an album that tells a story - in the sense of a drama - you might reasonably think that at best I have come over all 1970's prog-rock.

Hadestown is a rather different proposition.

It is Anaïs Mitchell's fourth album and by leagues the most ambitious: it tells the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice but is set in depression-era New Orleans. It is an Americana opera in which Mitchell sings the part of Eurydice while that of Orpheus is played by Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver renown).
The record is released (on 26 April in the UK) by Righteous Babe Records and its founder, Ani DiFranco, sings the part of Persephone while veteran Iowan folk singer/songwriter Greg Brown takes that of the careworn Hades. Ben Knox Miller (The Low Anthem) also plays a part...
This is a fine 'cast' but what makes it work the way it does is the song writing and the arrangements. That is all down to Mitchell.

Interwoven threads. Or just a tangled mess?

This is a fundamental question, one that long predates this blog, and it is a multipartite one. Each is a simple question, at least in isolation and on the face of it, that I have asked myself but as a whole the answer certainly is not remotely clear to me...

Here are some of the questions:

Why do I like music?
Why do I like the music I do, but not that which I don't?
Why has my taste in music changed, particular in the medium - long term?
How are these things related, if indeed they are, in any logical sociological, psychological or even physiological way?

They are not easy to answer, although I would like to try and do so and happily share my answers. Now ask those, and many other such related questions, in combinations and permutations, and the whole thing suddenly becomes almost infinitely complex.

My first comment is blindingly obvious; that I do not know the answer.
That actually matters more for perhaps we are not supposed to know the answer as, regardless of all the huge progress that has been made on our collective science and psychological understanding of the human brain that which we now know, or think we do, still does not register on the scale of that which there is to know.

Two albums, one evening, and I just don't see a problem with it.

Who is to say that I should not listen to bombastic Canadian pyschedelic rock and then immediately follow it with an album of lo-fi acoustic melancholia, if that is what I wish to do?

End Of The Road 2010

'New Pornographers' will swap the ice-hockey rink for Larmer Tree Gardens in September 2010.

They will be joined, inter alia, by the following confirmed acts:

The Mountain Goats, The Low Anthem, Iron & Wine, Black Mountain, Wilco

Dengue Fever -- Felice Brothers -- The Unthanks

AA Bondy, The Antlers, Elliott Brood, Cate Le Bon, Citay, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Daredevil Christopher Wright, Deer Tick, Diane Cluck with Anders Griffen, Django Django, DON’T MOVE!, Frank Fairfield, Forest Fire, Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell, Ladyhawke, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Mountain Man, Nurses, Papercuts, Phosphorescent, Joe Pug, The Ruby Suns, Snowman, The Fresh & Onlys, Timber Timbre, The Wilderness Of Manitoba...

...and a whole lot more yet to be revealed. Tickets are on sale now:
http://www.endoftheroadfestival.com/tickets/

It is all looking pretty good... I'm going to add links to the artists when and where I can, not least because I enjoyed and appreciated reading them myself. They are not intended to be definitive, and certainly not comprehensive, rather a guide to how I understand the chosen artists might relate one to another.

One of the many outstanding performances of EOTR 2009 was that by 'The Low Anthem' on the Garden Stage on a glorious, sunny Saturday afternoon and they are to return in 2010.

For those who are still doubters...

Charlie Darwin

Set the sails I feel the winds a'stirring

Toward the bright horizon set the way

Cast your wreckless dreams upon our Mayflower

Haven from the world and her decay

And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin

Fighting for a system built to fail

Spooning water from their broken vessels

As far as I can see there is no land

Oh my god, the water's all around us

Oh my god, it's all around

And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin

The lords of war just profit from decay

And trade their children's promise for the jingle

The way we trade our hard earned time for pay

Oh my god, the water's cold and shapeless

Oh my god, it's all around

Oh my god, life is cold and formless

Oh my god, it's all around.

That is just the first track of many but do you yet know (2007 album) What The Crow

Brings?

Cover versions and the potential dangers thereof...

Cover versions and the dangers thereof... This is something that I have thought long and hard about for some time. I'm sure that we can all suggest some that would have been better left alone, either because the original was uninspiring (though that is not of necessity a disaster) or that the cover was in itself a travesty of the original. Not so long ago I thought that one or other of these scenarios was the normal outcome but now I'm not so sure... The resurgence of live music has made me think this for several reasons but only sporadically have I mentioned it because it has mainly occurred to me when I have seen live bands...

It is in effect off-record, should it not work out as planned, although very often it does, and the more well known the original the greater the danger. That difficult second album then, so why not? I can think of many who will not like this, some on a matter of principle, but it is very sound indeed and I like it. My opinion is not to be bought whatever anyone, and the likes of NME, might like to believe.

On the other hand this is brave beyond belief. She got away with it too methinks.

Radiohead, David Bowie, Lily Allen Blast BBC Over 6 Music Closure Threat

Radiohead, David Bowie, Lily Allen Blast BBC Over 6 Music Closure Threat

A battle we should not have to have ...

The BBC is, I would unreservedly contend, a bastion of public service broadcasting across all formats. It is also, in many of them, available at no cost to those in much of the free world on radio (including the World Service in many languages) or via internet.
It now needs your input and support, wherever you may be and whatever you like about it, more than ever before. Becoming insular, in the modern world, is the last thing anyone needs...

http://twitter.com/rpgreenhalgh

I was determined to say at least something right now. Idealism is a virtue; if only an seemingly unattainable one.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS!

In a year that will see the UK voting for a government here is the chance to practise and, with good fortune, make a real difference. If you think that broadcasting matters then so does politics; more than ever one cannot now have one without the other and this applies whatever political opinion you may, or may not, hold. The important thing is to have an opinion whether or not others agree with it.

If you don't act on it by voting, or otherwise participating, you can hardly then claim that the outcome was a travesty. The time to act is now and it has never been easier to do something.

http://www.petition.fm/petitions/6musicasiannet/1000/

If all this seems a bit direct, perhaps because you have not campaigned on such an issue before, let me assure you that this is not going to put you on some 'list' of traitors and terrorist suspects.

It most certainly won't. What it will do is show that you care about democracy and that you are are actually prepared to put it in to words and that need not be a scary prospect. Here is a link that explains how to go about it in a persuasive, professional way...

http://www.jrhunt.co.uk/2010/03/02/how-to-save-6music/

This advice also applies to BBC Asian Net too, of course, and indeed any other service on a far wider plane that is also threatened. We have become too used to grumbling in private while contributing little that is focussed on the wider, often political, debate.

It is a typically British fault, in many respects, and accordingly I'm not advocating revolution for one moment or even suggesting other less drastic direct action, such as strikes or boycotts.

Popular revelation, even revulsion, can be the most powerful force for change.

Burnin' For You... Thoughts on Music 2010

Things are looking interesting on the music front once again.

The big UK festivals have for the most part announced their headline acts, and they are a hard-hitting collection, but as is customary 'Festival Republic' has not. This means that those for Leeds/Reading and Latitude 2010 are as yet unknown. The same, as far as I am aware, also goes for the 2010 'V Festivals'. The why and when of this does not overly concern me; the main stage headliners for Latitude 2010 will no doubt be revealed on the day that the tickets go on sale - 9 March 2010. I went last year and had a fantastic time but I didn't bother with any of them... The acts on other stages, and those lower on the main stage playing order, held plenty of promise and that was of more interest to me.

It is the 'Award Season': the NME awards are taking place in London as I write and they are in general messier than events such as last week's 'Brits' but no less worthy. I have found it tempting to start a 'wants lists' of bands I would like to see this summer and needless to say it is already a long one that includes all manner of currently less well known acts. That is what interests me and it has served me well this last two years...

The really interesting thing that takes place in the forthcoming weeks is SXSW and it can have a considerable influence.

I'm not making predictions; who am I to do that? I do however have some ideas about the artists, or genre of artists, I expect to see.

I like it like this.

'Brits 2010' - Some first thoughts

Well, a few days later, I have to say that the 'Brits 2010' was in my opinion much better than for some time. I say that for two reasons: firstly it was well presented and an all-round good production but more importantly, and even if I don't like them, the winners were the deserving ones.

I'm not really of the JLS generation but they deserved a 'Brit'. Lady GaGa got what she got, not just to remind the UK that it isn't the centre of the world and music is no exception, simply on merit. In the same category of merit were Florence and The Machine and Dizzee Rascal so it is not that Britain lacks talent, far from it, and their duet was quite something. That brings me on to N'Dubz - who could have imagined this of UK hip-hop just a couple of years ago?

Summary: brilliant.

It all reminded me of this album from 2001 in some ways...

New York, white, female, hip-hop and, like Madonna and GaGa of Italian heritage, Concetta Kirschner is recognisable as an icon of the genre and she is still busy, with a new album soon. In the meantime 'Life Is But A Dream' is available on 7" now...

Forecast: expect more surprises in 2010. The nominees for the 2011 'Brits' could be very interesting indeed.