Joe Ely’s is not a name that gets a lot of Afterword coverage. He’s been around since the 1970s, shifting between a solo career and working with Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore in The Flatlanders, as well as touring with The Clash and singing on ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’. Received wisdom has it that his finest albums are the early ones – Honky Tonk Masquerade and Musta Notta Gotta Lotta among them. For my money he’s at his best on the trilogy of 90s albums, the Tex-Mex flavoured Letter to Laredo, Twistin’ in the Wind which blends Tex-Mex with rock’n’roll, and best of the lot the blistering Love and Danger, first of the three from 1992. It was released around the same time as Lucinda Williams’ Sweet Old World, and both CDs dropped on the mat on the same September day, courtesy of mail order from CDX (anyone remember them?) it’s one of those albums I have played regularly ever since, and I never grow tired of it. It’s ‘bursting with a crazed and dangerous sexual energy’ according to the Chicago Tribune, and who can argue with an accolade that inviting? It certainly rocks, with track » Continue Reading.
Do you air guitar?
So come on, be honest, when was the last time you played air guitar to one of your favourite songs? In the privacy of your own home, with or without the benefit of a mirror? Well, I’m 62 soon, but after a particularly trying phone conversation I thought to myself sod the neighbours, cranked the volume up and played my imaginary Fender to this fabulously groovesome and sleazy slice of southern rock. Okay, so I felt a bit light-headed half way through, needed to sit down at the end and ended up with indigestion, but hey – I was doing it for the art, and it felt really good.
Own up – you’re amongst friends – when was your last time, and what was your song of choice?
Phillip Schofield
Well, no one else has raised this so I’m going to, as it seems as much a part of popular culture as anything else we blather about on here. I’m not particularly a fan of Phillip Schofield or the kind of television he fronted, but I feel quite strongly that there are important issues here about where we are as a society in the third decade of the 21st century that shouldn’t be ignored.
At worst Schofield is guilty of grooming a young man for sexual purposes and participating in a cover-up about his actions; at best he has committed a series of grave errors of judgment that have ultimately cost him his career. Either way, those actions have impacted on many other people, not least the young man at the centre of the storm of publicity and moral outrage in the press and online. I make no judgment as I don’t know the facts. The truth may lie somewhere in between, or Schofield may be telling the truth. In the fullness of time no doubt we shall know, but as things stand he has committed no crime.
What has been particularly shocking in all of this however is the » Continue Reading.
This week I have been mostly reading Proust
43 years ago my friend Steve went on a cycling tour of Normandy. He left home shortly afterwards to read English at university, but newly armed with a sensibility for all things French he wrote to me to say that since arriving he had met lots of girls and had started reading Marcel Proust’s mammoth novel A la recherche du temps perdu. Whether the two things were connected he didn’t say, but though Steve and I lost touch half a lifetime ago, I always promised myself that one day I would follow in his footsteps. Having acquired a pristine secondhand 3-volume Penguin edition of the great work translated as Remembrance of Things Past, last week I finally took the plunge without any real expectation of making an impression on its 3000+ pages. 150 pages in and I am surprised at how much I am enjoying it. Yes, there’s no traditional plot or narrative to speak of, but as a reflection on the nature of memory and (so far) on childhood, there is something mesmeric and addictive in Proust’s magnificent prose that is compelling me to continue. It is, to state the bleedin’ obvious, exceptionally French.
So what cultural behemoths have » Continue Reading.
Sounds of the New West – Volume 6
What does it sound like?:
Uncut magazine has kept the faith with Americana despite the genre’s general unfashionableness these days. March’s issue sees the latest release in its long-standing cover-mount series, Sounds of the New West volume 6. (The other five are all pretty essential listening if Americana is your bag). Volume 6 focuses on female voices, and I reckon it’s one of the best so far. All of the artists are new to me, something which hasn’t been the case with previous issues in the series, and all of the fifteen tracks are pretty much on the money. Aside from this place, which has led me to the occasional discovery, the Sounds of the New West CDs have been heavy on the wallet, and this one is unlikely to be any different. Amongst the tracks sampled are songs from Nikki Lane, Collpasing Stars, Doug Paisley and Sunny War. Best of the lot are offerings from Plains, who sound more than a little like First Aid Kit, Margo Cilker, whose debut album Pohorylle is definitely worth a listen, and the shimmering Kassi Valazza. Her debut album Dear Dead Days has been around for a couple of years and is exceptionally » Continue Reading.
Which musician’s death has affected you the most, and why?
Not that long ago Uncut magazine’s obituaries column, Not Fade Away, was tucked away at the back of the magazine and had maybe half a dozen entries each month. Now it’s generally a double-page spread, and even The Afterword has its own obituaries section. It’s a sad fact that our heroes who once seemed destined to live forever are now falling victim to mortality in ever increasing numbers. All of which maudlin thoughts had me musing over which popster’s passing has affected me the most.
The one that was the most shocking was, perhaps predictably, the shooting of John Lennon. I can recall exactly where I was when I heard the news – on a train to Exeter University for an admission interview, since you asked, and Lennon’s death was on the front page of the Daily Mail. It seemed unthinkable that such a thing could have happened, and is still sometimes hard to comprehend 42 years later, even though our senses have been dulled to such outrages by their greater frequency.
But the death that affected me most in recent years was Tom Petty’s. I’ve loved his music pretty much since the start; it’s been the soundtrack to » Continue Reading.
Cowboy Junkies
Venue:
The Anvil, Basingstoke
Date: 10/11/2022
I’ve been a Cowboy Junkies fan since The Caution Horses, but this was the first time I’d seen them play live. The Basingstoke Anvil is a medium sized location which gets a good cross-section of live acts, tribute bands, orchestras, musicals etc – coming soon, Cinderella starring the lovely Debbie McGee. The Junkies set was in two halves; the first featuring songs from their recent covers album, Songs of the Recollection, the second showcasing ‘the songs you’ve probably come to hear’, as Margo Timmins described it. The show clocked in at about 2 hours in total and was the first date on the band’s current UK tour – 10 dates in total culminating at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Best in the first half was a blistering version of Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Let it Bring You Down’, “better than the original” as somebody behind me shouted out. The second half of the set covered Junkies crowd-pleasers, and, being a Canadian band Margo said that they always felt obligated to sing a Neil Young song. Tonight there were two – a lovely version of ‘Tired Eyes’ rounded off a short acoustic section in » Continue Reading.
Fleetwood Mocha
Mick Fleetwood apparently takes his coffee just as seriously as he does his music. Quite an assertion from a man whose band haven’t brewed anything fresh (SWIDT) for the best part of 20 years. Nevertheless, Sir Mick of Fleetwood now has a coffee company, self-effacingly titled the Mick Fleetwood Coffee Company (or MFCC for short). It’s not the most obvious merchandise to move into – unlike, say, Madonna’s Truth or Dare perfume, or Neil Young’s ill-fated Pono music service, but it’s part of a long history of musicians branching out into creating and selling things other than music. So do share with us your stories of old rockers branching out into business ventures, whether they be successful, disastrous or simply best forgotten. The more amusing the better.
I’m off to nibble on Alex James’s cheese*
*Leave it, Moose.
Confessions of an Afterworder
Today I listened to Brothers in Arms. There, I’ve said it. I had to program out tracks 2 and 3* but otherwise I listened to the whole thing. And you know what? It was much better than I remembered it. Shorn of the gloss of contemporaneity (was it ever contemporary?) and with fading memories of Mark Knopfler’s headband, my truncated version of this 80s behemoth was quite an enjoyable listen. I’ve always liked Knopfler’s more low key solo albums but BIA fits into that transition quite well if you listen without prejudice.
I know we’ve trodden similar paths before, but what have you listened to recently expecting aural embarrassment only to be pleasanty surprised?
*The execrable Money for Nothing with its appalling vocal intro by Sting should have been enough to have him banned from making further records by Amnesty International. Walk of Life remains, as ever, completely unlistenable.
ATM – Builders
A niche question, granted, but I am tearing my hair out here…. I need a builder to advise me / carry out maintenance work on my house brickwork, which is in the process of crumbling quite badly. I’ve used Checkatrade to identify local trades and have contacted around a dozen builders. Of those, 5 have never got back to me after promising to do so, 3 just never answer the phone, 1 made an arrangement to look at my property and never turned up, 1 has asked me for photos so he can quote remotely (dodgy?) 1 promised me quotes for weeks on end but had an excuse every time I chased him, and 1 wasn’t interested as he had too much work on……
Does the hive mind of the AW have any suggestions? I know it’s a busy time of year in the building industry and the Covid backlog is still being felt, but what is the best way to find a reliable, honest and impartial builder?
New Sadies
Twangsome Canadian band The Sadies have a new album out in July from which this is the opening track. It’s five years since their last offering, but while the new album is most welcome, it’s also tinged with sadness as lead singer / guitarist Dallas Good passed away from heart failure in February at the ridiculously young age of 48. If you are a fan of the band you will know what to expect. Spooky and lonesome, like a punked up version of Lord Huron.
Ian Noe – River Fools and Mountain Saints
What does it sound like?:
Ian Noe’s first album released in 2019, Between the Country, was a fine debut, a piece of modern Appalachian folk consisting of strong tunes and bleak lyrics about America’s dispossessed. Kentucky born Noe has the kind of mournful voice ideally suited to songs about poverty and crystal meth addicts. His follow-up album, released recently, lightens the mood a little, but not by much. Aside from a couple of songs that rock out, it consists mainly of softly strummed acoustic guitar with splashes of pedal steel that bring the lyrics and Noe’s voice to centre stage. To some extent this is its undoing. By the third listen it becomes apparent that the melodies to tracks 4, 5, 6 and 11 are essentially the same, with the same musical phrase repeated endlessly throughout each song. When the last track, ‘Road May Flood’ kicks in there is a strange familiarity about it which soon becomes revealed when Noe slips into singing Bonnie Tyler’s ‘It’s a Heartache’, which is pretty much the same tune, albeit fully credited on the album sleeve. All this is very disconcerting; it’s as if Ian Noe has allowed the tunes to play second » Continue Reading.
Bank Holiday vibes
Calexico could sing the phone book and I would probably still listen to it. Their new album is rather good – review to follow unless someone else beats me to it. This is a bonus track from their The Thread That Keeps Us album from a few years back, and I can’t stop playing it. Smooth, mellow, hooky and melancholy – just great. Posted for no reason other than it sounds lovely on this sunny Easter bank holiday.
The Builders (Stubbs vs O’Reilly)
I probably shouldn’t post this on here, but need to get it off my chest, and am genuinely interested if other people have experienced anything similar.
Builders started work next door to us 6 months ago. Their task was to triple the size of a modest semi by building substantial side and rear extensions. The story goes back 7 years with multiple planning applications that my neighbours and I have fought against, ultimately to no avail.
Due to the way both houses were constructed, the builders needed access to my garden to sort out issues with drains, access which I freely gave. This involved them drilling up part of my rear patio and laying new drains. So far so good, but it took them over a month to fill in the holes and re-lay the slabs on my patio, and when they did the work my slabs had mysteriously disappeared and were replaced by some that were salvaged from the neighbouring garden. They didn’t match, but at least the holes were filled in, so I didn’t make a fuss.
In January work started inside to join the old part of the house to the new. This involved demolition » Continue Reading.
Cowboy Junkies – Songs of the Recollection
What does it sound like?:
If you were to ask me who my favourite bands or artists were I would probably reel off a list of a dozen or so that have been the soundtrack to my life and that I have kept coming back to over the years. Chief among them, but often overlooked, would be Cowboy Junkies, a band that have been quietly doing what they do for 35 years, with 19 or 20 albums to their credit, without a duff one among them and with a quality threshold that never seems to falter. If they ever had their five minutes of fame in the UK it would have been in the early 90s when Margo Timmins’ hushed vocals and the band’s lo-fi melodies made the songs on The Trinity Sessions and The Caution Horses such an antidote to everything else happening at the time.
Following those early albums the Junkies developed a raw and grungey guitar sound that still underpins their best work. They have always worn their influences on their sleeves through recording tribute songs or covers of songs by their favourite artists – Townes van Zandt, Neil Young, Vic Chesnutt among them. This latest » Continue Reading.
Do you Wordle?
It’s the word game de nos jours. Highly addictive, an enjoyable 5 minutes of fun every day. I love the fact that it’s not trying to sell me anything, it’s a very simple construct, and it is necessary to wait 24 hours for the next puzzle. It’s also very Afterword in its concept – does exactly what it says on the tin.
In case you’re wondering, I’ve solved 14 words in 14 days, one after two attempts (luck, not skill), 3 after 3 attempts, and the majority after 4.
Farewell Ronnie Spector
Ronnie Spector has died. If she had never made another song her place in musical history would have been assured by Be My Baby, one of the true greats. Rest easy Ronnie.
It had to happen…..
Grizzled rockers Bruce Mellensteen and John Springcamp have finally been and gone and done it….. a duet on the forthcoming Mellensteen album. Actually, it’s a decent enough mellow reflection on old age, Wasted Days. For ever in the shadow of Sir Bruce, Mellencamp has a pretty decent back catalogue behind him. His new album is out on January 21st.
Ukraine
With World War III just around the corner, Putin says of the US and UK, “we didn’t come to their borders, they came to ours”. Hard to argue with that, and with the West stuck in its post-Cold War position of winding up Russia by expanding NATO eastwards it seems like this is all destined to end in tears. So, as Putin ramps up the ‘diplomacy’ designed to paint the West into a corner of its own making, and justify invading Ukraine, who will blink first?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59766810
Afterlight (Thea Gilmore) – Afterlight
What does it sound like?:
Let me start by saying that I am Thea Gilmore’s biggest fan, and have followed her career for years, so this review may not be entirely objective. I have seen her play live 5 or 6 times. I was at one of her Christmas concerts after the release of the Strange Communion album some years ago, and had shivers up my spine and tears in my eyes when she played ‘Cold Coming’, it was that good. Fan that I am, I’ve not entirely lost my critical faculties. I thought The Counterweight was suffocated by over-production, and her last album, Small World Turning, was patchy to say the least.
A recent thread on here referred to the circumstances of Thea’s rebranding of herself under a new name, Afterlight. The outcome of the disintegration of her marriage to producer Nigel Stonier, 23 years her senior, it has clearly been an acrimonious break-up of a marriage tainted by years of coercive control that she has now revealed through a series of online statements and interviews, though Thea has been careful never to mention Nigel by name. The result is this, the mother of all break-up albums, as » Continue Reading.
More Barn?
Oh dear. New Neil Young & Crazy Horse album coming soon. On the strength of this lacklustre first single it’s more evidence of a steep decline lyrically, vocally and musically. Time to call it a day Neil and focus on polishing up some more lost albums and live sets for archive release.
Neil Young – Carnegie Hall 1970
What does it sound like?:
This latest NY archive release is the first in the Official Bootleg Series, although it covers much of the same ground as a number of previous Performance Series releases – Fillmore, Massey Hall, Cellar Door and Young Shakespeare among them. It’s a generous 2-disc collection amounting to 90 minutes of music comprising 23 songs culled from Young’s early solo years, with the usual smattering of Buffalo Springfield tracks, Crazy Horse favourites and rarities like Bad Fog of Loneliness and See the Sky About to Rain, which have by now appeared on other archive releases. Given that the package contains 2 discs, it’s not particularly cheap. So why should you bother investing yet again in 23 songs that you have probably heard many times over umpteen previous releases?
Well for starters, despite its purported bootleg status, the sound quality is clear as a mountain stream. And despite a couple of remarks between one or two songs, Young focuses entirely on playing. And it’s the playing and singing here that is particularly good, exquisitely so in fact. The word that kept springing to mind while listening was Afterword word of the week – nuanced. The tempo » Continue Reading.
9/11
Perhaps not his greatest performance ever, or even his greatest song, but there’s no doubting the sincerity of Bruce performing at the 9/11 20th anniversary ceremony. For many I suspect the simple lyrics will resonate far more than the words of politicians. A sombre ceremony on a sad day. Notable that this is the first major anniversary for a new generation not yet born when 9/11 happened. None of those here on the AW I suspect. I was at work when the news broke, and like millions of others watched transfixed with horror as events unfolded on television.
Legends of the Canyon
Interest in Laurel Canyon as a sound, a place and a state of mind seems undiminished by the passage of time. For me, it’s like a river running through my taste in music, a sound and a feel I always come back to even though I was still a child when the artists who lived there, or associated with those that did, were at the height of their creativity. Two recent documentaries have explored the history of the place from different perspectives – the excellent two-part Laurel Canyon, and Echo in the Canyon fronted by Jakob Dylan and other younger artists captivated by the sound.
There are other documentaries available for those like me with more than a passing interest. Legends of the Canyon narrated by Henry Diltz, photographer to the stars, came out in 2010 but never got a UK release – it’s very good, by the way. Troubadours: the Rise of the Singer-Songwriter focuses on Carole King, James Taylor and the Troubadour club but covers a lot of the same ground and artists. There are inevitably numerous rock docs on individuals, of which the recent Remember My Name (David Crosby) and The Byrd Who Flew Alone (Gene » Continue Reading.
ABBA still have faith in you – but is it any good?
So, after 40 years it has finally happened. ABBA have done what they said they would never do, and a new album and all sorts of virtual shenanigans are on the way. The much touted and delayed announcement has been made with a great deal of hoopla, and there is new music to be enjoyed / reviled depending on your perspective. I’ll be honest – I love ABBA. They form such an indelible part of my younger days that I find hard to be objective about them. The fact that all four of them are still here, still talking to each other, and now making new music together has to be a cause for some celebration.
So are the new songs any good? Is the legacy intact? On the first couple of listens I’d say so. Lead single I Still Have Faith in You starts slowly and builds to a crescendo of sheer ABBA-ness. It’s kitsch, it’s corny, it’s bloody great!
Other opinions are, I believe, available.