If you love music, I don’t really think Glastonbury is for you. At least, I now know it isn’t for me. It reminds me, in a way, of a decent pub, cosy and convenient, with a good choice of attractive features. BUT on New Years Eve. So rammed with incomers/amateurs, intent on doing the pub experience as “large” (sic) as they can, making sure also everyone knows it. Thousands of the fuckers. Disclaimer, this wasn’t my first time, if certainly my last. I went a couple of times in the early 90’s, when it was a much smaller event, altogether more contained and less corporate. Feral and edgy even, with peace and love mixing freely with drugs and threat. Loved it, I think, but the change between 93 and 94 was already apparent, the size seeming to double overyear (and that wasn’t the fence jumpers!) This time I had blagged a press pass, saving me a wedge I am glad to have saved, along with certain “advantages” in the camping and, um, facilities, for which, at 66, I am grateful. “Don’t like music?” But there is so much on offer. For sure, and that is the rub, with a 100 » Continue Reading.

Well it’s coming up again soon, wondering if anyone can be arsed/can afford to go. Me, I am, after bagging a press pass, go me, making it 29 years since I darkened their fields. Can’t say the line up is all that appealing, at least to an old folker like me; Cambridge and Shrewsbury looking a lot better. But hey, any recommendations around what/who not to miss? And, anyone up for a mini-mingle?

https://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/line-up/line-up-2023/?stage

The logical next step! If we can only have 8 albums, how about some compilation/greatest hits. Clearly, some may be doubles and are allowed…. Richard Thompson/Guitar, Vocal Byrds/History of REM/Best of (the IRS version) Robert Plant/Digging Deep: Subterranea Rolling Stones/Forty Licks Flying Burrito Bros/Close Up the Honky Tonks Teenage Fanclub/4766 Seconds Massive Attack/Collected

‘Pon my oath, as they say. Not my king.

Or, as in well I never. I like Bandcamp me, it seeming a decent business ethic and has become my preferred marketplace for new material, assuming the artist uses it. Plus, on Bandcamp Fridays, the first of the month, the platform waive their fees, in favour of more for the struggling artisan. One such recent purchase was by the band, The Lost Trades, who sound more like vintage C,S& N than any West Country trio ought to be able to, especially when, instead of Nash, they have a woman. Anyhoo, their album, Petrichor, has been duly if lately purchased; it came out last year. Inside came a note that asked me to download the album as well as covet the shiny disc. For the physical purchase doesn’t count to the chart, the folk chart in their case. Who knew such nonsense? OK, Bandcamp routinely allow you to download the requisite files of cds or records you buy, but it seems odd. Enjoy the music.

With an hour to spare before they release me from hospital post gallbagectomy*, I am taking the opportunity to browse, happening on to the Whispering Bob Broadcast Company, a veritable treasure trove for those who love a slice of Americana and folk. Me, I love covers (who knew?) Highly commended.

*Very wee; thanks for asking.

The programme, not the people, a 6 part slow burn on Prime, the BC being part responsible. Anyone baffled by episodes 1, 2 or even 3, hang on in there, it delivers. Made by Hugo ‘The Honourable Woman’ and ‘Black Earth Rising’ Blick, it is a western, by way of equal parts Sergio Leone, Quentin Tarantino and Oscar Wilde. A terrific mix of history, fantasy and nonsense, the cast is a fabulous mix of can you see who it is nows: Stephen Rea, Rafe Spall, Ciaran Hinds. Blood, guts, unrequited love and huge landscapes full of clouds and poppies. Get yer BAFTAs here!

With the rush of nostalgia-fests in the posts of late, here’s one that may tax the massive, at least apropos honesty, the first amendment and, indeed, memory residuals. Happy thus for any blissed out anecdote to be “experiences of a friend”…… I’m intrigued really, by the relation between narcotics, music and popular culture. Let’s face it, drugs have often been portrayed as “cool”, whether all the nodding out junkies of the 60s, the weedy all-pervasiveness of marijuana, the addled freaks of psychedelia, the coke hoover years of Berlin and everywhere else, pills on your tongue, all recurring, repeating and attractive to the innocent. And, however much we know the downside, nobody ever thinks, it seems, it will happen to them. One a wuss, always a wuss, my DOI is that I was and always have been terrified of the idea. Sure, I have drunk my body weight time over in licit liquid, but have always said no to anything much else. Perhaps as never a smoker, I was not in the right company to jazz up my tobacco. I have tried it, perhaps a handful of times, a spliff to fit in at Glastonbury and, a few years later as » Continue Reading.

Funny old world, innit, as I lie, fevered in my sickbed, musing on how times change. When I was a nipper, all the “best” music journalism was spiky and sardonic, if not downright rude, certainly if the writer wished to make a name for themselves. (As in, sod the band, look at me.) That mood has, probably rightly, mellowed, all the tall poppies being either not that tall, or oblivious anyway to opinion. And what opinion, at that, with a music press, such as it is, down to po-faced table top magazines, obsessed with the past, breaking only their stride for the next great white (usually) hope. Dull, if still essential, if only to see exactly what has come out. I naively thought that the myriad blogs out there, amateur Shaar Murrays and Kents apiece, would offer the solution to the humdrum. However I wonder… Having now been dipping my toes into the tepid pond water of writing online reviews, I have learnt there is a fear of anything other than a good review. Bad reviews, however well(?!) written, attract the ire of the new makers and breakers, the PR companies, who often represent vast stables of artistes. Offend the » Continue Reading.

You can have yer americana, but sometimes something a bit more organic is what the Dr ordered. As our minds turn to mud, sleeping bags and cider, what gets your gristle gurning?

Stravinsky, eh? BA-DOOM OW OW

How a bit of good old light-hearted passive aggressive opinion based inflammatory comment? It’s the season, after all. This is the moment where you get to comment on the emperor’s tailor? The ‘record of the year’ that gives you most gas. Bile and phlegm also welcome, especially if bought in good faith or expectation, bonus points if on recommendations of AW’s finest cognoscenti. See below for example.

Surprised nobody has put up the top 50s from the satirical music sites, Quietplease and Pitchcloth, for us to chuckle over our total unawareness of much the product. However, I begin to feel the same about the Mojo and Uncut listings. (Or rather, am familiar but wouldn’t touch half those mentioned with bargepole’s bargepole.) Or am I just an old and out of touch Daddio? (Probably……)

Someone recently made the point around nearly everything is xxxx feat. yyyy, a mine ol’ Devadip Carlos excavates with relish, ruining many a favoured song along the way. Like this, Winwood ought if to know better. Execrable tripe.

For some inexplicable, I have been sent duplicate copies of 3 albums, all initially via Bandcamp, namely the excellent Jackie Leven tribute, the excellent Will Pound one extolled by @thecheshirecat recently, and the awful, IMHO, Edward II West Indian children’s songs one. Will send, first come first served, to anyone. No charge beyond, maybe, something you have surplus, by return. DM me.

At his home and peacefully. Magnificent guitarist. Lucky enough to have seen him a couple of times.

https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/11/michael-chapman-british-folk-musician-dies-aged-80

We have all heard of Helen and the Neighbourhood Dogs, and I am delighted to confirm they actually exist, opening the Barn stage at the Maverick Festival in the 52nd state, Suffolk’s Easton Farm Park. You can keep yer Abbatards.

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