The Afterword

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Maria McKee Klaxon

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The wonderful Maria McKee rarely breaks cover these days so I’m delighted to see a solo show announced for the end of March at Earth in Hackney to promote her first album in a decade.

Reading her words in the link and on Twitter it sounds like she’s been through a bit of a journey and has spilled it all out into the songs. Much as I hope she’s OK this is good news, as for my money angsty, howling, Life is Sweet Maria is the best Maria.

(Her Twitter feed originally announced e date as 30 March, but now confirms the venue’s date of 31 March.)

https://earthackney.co.uk/events/maria-mckee-31-03-2020/

How are we all spending New Years Eve?

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If my Facebook and Twitter timelines are anything to go by most people plan to go to bed early and ignore it, but not before making sure that everyone else knows. I don’t really understand this antipathy to NYE (or Hogmanay if I’m being true to my birthplace). I like the idea of rounding off the festive season with a booze spent with friends rather than family which, and this is the other crucial distinction from Christmas, is all over and done with in one night.

This year however I’ll be with the curmudgeons, not through lack of willing or lack of a party to go to but because I will be at home nursing a stinker of a cold. I should be at work right now, but instead I’m catching up on some excellent films on iPlayer (The Apartment earlier, and I’ll go back to bed with a paracetamol when The Ipcress File has finished). I’m ill as often as not at New Year, something I put down to years retail when I would almost always fall sick at Christmas because I had been too busy to get ill before.

Happily my other half isn’t too bothered about going » Continue Reading.

Neil Innes RIP

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The incredibly sad news is spreading that Neil Innes has left us. I was a little too young for the heyday of the Bonzo Dog Band and Rutland Weekend Television, but made up for it since. The Rutles at Colchester Arts Centre was one of the best gigs I went saw all 2019, and he was in such good shape that I had high hopes of seeing him next time round.

https://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/8160/neil-innes-dies

Happy 70th Tom Waits!

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Tom Waits is 70 today, a fact which would probably have surprised everyone including him a few decades ago.

I bloody love Tom Waits, whether he playing the lovelorn gin soaked hobo, crooning to his piano in the small hours, or sounding like Captain Birdseye has been at the cough syrup again, to the accompaniment percussion which sounds like a Victorian wardrobe being dropped down a lift shaft.

Rain Dogs is probably my favourite album of all time, so here’s a track from that magnificent record.

https://youtu.be/IgMP9O-cIV8

Well, there’s a combination I wasn’t expecting …

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Yes, It’s the Jethro Cell / Soft Tull collaboration the world has been crying out for, as Ian Anderson and Marc Almond combine on Lord of Misrule. It does sound rather like they recorded it in different rooms, possibly without reference to what the other one was bringing to the party, but YouTube also boasts a video of Almond joining Ian Anderson’s Jethro Tull onstage at the Royal Albert Hall in 2013 for a rattle through Locomotive Breath, so it could well be that they’re old pals.

You’re unlikely recording partners are of course more than welcome in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTVrBN7JvPQ&feature=push-fr&attr_tag=hBTtFVl3ye3devUl%3A6

And now Clive James

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What a sad day. In ascending order of how much they meant to me today has seen the loss of Gary Rhodes, Jonathan Miller and Clive James.

James’ Observer TV reviews and memoirs were a key part of my first forays into adult literature, and the earlier memoirs are still hilarious now. His Philip Larkin book is on my Christmas list. Here’s a lyric he wrote for Pete Atkin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Butt2hVdyzg

Am I the only one …

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… who has a quick look at the bottom of the page every time I log on to see if the site motto has been changed to ‘OK boomer’ yet?

Richard Thompson’s 70th birthday bash

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Venue:

The Royal Albert Hall, Kensington

Date: 30/09/2019

What a night. What a phenomenal night! How to celebrate this extraordinary man who has spent more than 50 of his 70 years writing extraordinary songs of apolalypse and redemption, and coupling them with unmistakable guitar playing to the acclaim and adulation of far too few? Stick on a big gig at a prestigious venue and bring along a bunch of family, friends and acolytes to help out, that’s how.

From the get go we were promised an evening of song, friendship and nepotism by our MC Jack Thompson (Richard’s youngest, you see what he means?) and that’s what we got in spades. It is in the nature of a guest list show, with every performer getting one or two songs before making way for the next, that you hope for a collection of highlights rather than a consistent narrative, so I’m going to lean heavily on the setlist which someone stuck up on Setlist.fm with admirable speed and comment on each one, rattling through the songs and guests off the top of my head rather than tackle the evening in themes. The result is far too long and barely edited » Continue Reading.

Someone has let the intern loose on the Brown Eyed Girl hit-maker

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Van Morrison has just announced a short series of dates at the London Palladium in spring, and from the blurb on the Palladium website I strongly suspect that whoever was given the job of writing the advance notice said ‘Who?’ before gathering the barest information they could from Wikipedia to paste onto the page. Wouldn’t his management have provided a press release with prose less desperate than this?

The legendary Van Morrison, one of the finest singer-songwriters and hardest working live performers of his era, is coming to The London Palladium for five very special shows next year.

Fans may know him from some of his biggest hits, including Brown Eyed Girl, Have I Told You Lately, Moondance and Into the Mystic.

To date, Van Morrison has released a whopping 40 albums and with new material and projects in the pipeline, he’s showing no signs of slowing down.

https://lwtheatres.co.uk/van-morrison-to-play-a-run-of-shows-at-the-london-palladium/

If I live that long ….

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I’ve just bought tickets for Ross Noble’s next tour. The London Palladium show to be precise. That’s the London Palladium show on 3 May 2020, 11 months away.

Is this a record?

Two Nights Out with Thea Gilmore

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Venue:

Open, Norwich, and Union Chapel, London

Date: 21/05/2019

What a difference a lighting rig can make.

I have loved Thea Gilmore’s music for most of the couple of decades that she has been releasing superb, occasionally dipping to merely very good, albums and always catch a gig on each tour as well as buying every album in the week of release. This time The Light and I plumped for a train and Travelodge trip to Norwich rather a school night visit to London and the chosen show, at Open, fell on the day of release of Small World Turning.

Matt Owens, formerly of Noah and the Whale, played a short but amiable opening set before reappearing on electric bass with Thea’s band, along side Katriona Gilmore, no relation, on a variety of stringed instruments (right handed fiddle but left handed mandolin oddly enough) and Thea’s musical and life partner Nigel Stonier. At times the bass dominated the acoustic guitars, and I wondered about the lack of drums.

The performance was highly enjoyable with plenty of songs from the new record and a smattering of old favourites, notably a couple from 2001s Rules for Jokers, but … It » Continue Reading.

Rock City documentary klaxon

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Rock City is a 1973 rockumentary which I confess I have never seen, but with input from various Stones, Floyds, and Whos and footage of Hendrix, Otis, Ike and Tina and so it has to be worth a look. ‘Vintage film footage from the hey-day of the London’s rock and roll scene. Interviews with rock artists and London’s hippies and flower children.’ says IMDB.

Friday evening, 10pm, Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 81).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191483/

Happy 70th Richard Thompson!

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If the Afterword has a patron act it must surely be Richard Thompson. Even the fact that there are cloth-eared fools among us who dispute his brilliance fosters discussion and so is in keeping with the ethos of the site.

Today he reaches 70 years of age, and as anyone who has seen the trio format band recently will attest he can still rip up a stage with the best of them. I like to think that some people who haven’t been keeping up think that buying a ticket for an elderly ex-Fairporter will guarantee an evening of mellow acoustic folkiness. Those same people presumably stumble out two hours later with fixed, glazed expressions and whistling ears. He can deliver masterful mellow acoustic folkiness too of course, and I would be hard pressed to pick which version of his show to see if I was given a straight choice.

We spend a lot of time here celebrating the greats once they have gone, but here’s the chance to share your favourites from one of the all time best while he is still giving superb performances on record and stage.

» Continue Reading.

Dead Capital – Louis Brennan

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What does it sound like?:

I have already written rather gushingly about the Heartworn Highways gig at the Betsey Trotwood last weekend, and one of the highlights of a gig full of great moments was discovering Louis Brennan, an Irish, London based songwriter.

I ordered his album from his Bandcamp page (on CD, because I’m old fashioned like that) straight afterwards and have had it on repeat play every since. I honestly can’t remember the last time an album made such an instant impression on me to the extent that nothing else musical is quite hitting the spot at the moment. There is no justice when someone of Brennan’s skills is so obscure when others of no noticeable talent draw a huge audience (what scientists refer to as the Sheeran Paradox).

The first thing which will strike first-time listeners is the voice, a deep baritone which sweeps lower to huge dramatic effect when necessary. It put me in mind of Johnny Cash or Lee Hazelwood, and the video I posted under the Heartworn Highways review drew a comparison to Jake Thackray, throw in a hint of John Grant too with a suggestion of Leonard Cohen and you’ll be » Continue Reading.

Heartworn Highways

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Venue:

The Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon, London

Date: 23/02/2019

I may already have seen my favourite gig of the year and it’s only February.

A night filled with song, musicianship and love saw 12 musicians crammed into the tiny upstairs room of the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon, as well as the lucky 30 or so paying audience members they managed to squeeze in as well. I say paying, but at a tenner a ticket I reckon the entrance fee must just have covered the cost of the room, mics and camera. I can’t believe the singers were doing this for anything other than the love of the music, and the couple of bottles of Jack Daniels which circulated freely among them.

The musicians involved were [deep breath] Partick Ralla, Michele Stodart, Louis Brennan, Felix Holt, Zak Hobbs (Richard Thompson’s grandson, fact fans), Ren Harvieu, Romeo Stodart, Laura Tenschert, Angie Gannon (making three out of four Magic Numbers on the bill) Robert Chaney, Naomi Larsson and Joe Harvey-White (the evening’s organiser). Before the event I had wondered how they were going to get that many people on and off stage, even allowing for the 3 hours scheduled. In the event » Continue Reading.

The sudden WHAT of WHAT!?!

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David Hepworth posted this in his Twitter feed earlier to mark the 51st anniversary of the release of Astral Weeks (Yes, I know. I was surprised too.)

God knows why but the decision was taken to allow the release to written by an overexcited schoolboy virgin who is incapapable of writing a sentence without including a mention of what he imagines sex to be, and tempts the lucky potential buyer with the promise that it will ‘attack your senses like the sudden sniff of a whore’s knickers.’

There’s more …but … but … no! Go now! I must rest and I would be alone.

(Release, in more senses than one, in the comments.)

What will you drop everything to watch?

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A Matter of Life and Death was on BBC2 this afternoon, so of course I watched it. That makes perfect sense because it is the best film ever made, but less sense considering I already own 3 (maybe more) copies, I must have seen it at least 10 times, and last time I looked it was on YouTube and I could have watched it any time I wanted to even if I didn’t have a hard copy.

Is there anything that you will watch when it was broadcast even when you don’t need to wait? A film that will stop you in your tracks as you channel hop despite having a copy on a shelf a few feet away?

Let’s BRRR…Randomise!

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It’s a chilly morning here in the UK and I couldn’t decide what to play to put a spring in my step on the walk to work. I put the iPod classic on shuffle and up popped Jackie Leven, subject of much admiration here this week. I wasn’t really surprised. iPods are psychic like that.

This made me think that we haven’t had a randomiser thread for a while, so here we go. Usual rules apply – set your device of choice to play tracks in a random order and let us know what the first 5 are. No cheeky editing to make your playlist look cool or we’ll know.

Mine took it’s lead from Jackie Leven and delivered an exclusively male list of tracks in a singer-writer vein, all very Mojo.

1) Gomez – Devil Will Ride 2) Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve – Why Can’t a Man Stand Alone? 3) Roger McGuinn – Lover of the Bayou 4) Richard Thompson – Dad’s Gonna Kill Me (NPR live session) 5) Pulp – Help the Aged

LP Frame Bargain Alert

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I was in a local Poundland today, rummaging through the end of season mulled-wine-scented candles, tinsel door decorations and so on when I found a stack of LP cover frames (black plastic frame with glass). Not a pound, not 50p, but just 25 of your puny human pence each. Fill your boots.

Bros: When the Screaming Stops

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Year: 2018 Director: David Soutar

I don’t suppose that many of the Massive were Brosettes in their youth, which is a shame. Not because of the music, mercifully little of which appears in this jaw-dropping programme, but because it might mean that you have missed out on one of the TV highlights of the year. Fear not, it’s on iPlayer, which is where I saw it during the dire Christmas Day TV schedules after seeing what a stir it was creating on Twitter.

For those of you who have managed to suppress the memory, twin brothers Luke (drums) and Matt (vocals) were the heart of one of the biggest boy bands of the 80s. They went their separate ways, and although they have adapted to the ageing process in very different styles they are of course still twins. To help you tell which is which it might be useful to remember that Matt is the one with the rug. Now they are to reunite for a show at the O2 and the cameras are in tow, presenting documentary footage without narration nor captions, leaving the brothers’ words and actions to tell the story.

These days both live in California. » Continue Reading.