Venue:

The Smokehouse, Ipswich.

Date: 03/05/2019

Robyn Hitchcock at the intimate and bijou The Smokehouse in the heart of swinging downtown Ipswich. A career-spanning ad-hoc set which climaxed with a stunning encore version of Visions of Johanna. A word, if I may, for the exemplary engineering – the guitar sounded like a twelve string at times, and the ‘tween song instructions regarding the effects (“A bit of rock n’ roll echo on this one”, “Like George Harrison being double-tracked in 1967”, “Like someone playing along with a Richard Thompson album in the next room”) were all adhered to strictly to the letter. “I’m going to count down from five to one, and then pan the stereo while ladling on a lot of echo and reverbing that in turn” led to a positively Roundhousian 1967 vibe at one point. (Ed. – please insert ‘Sonic Cathedrals’ reference here).

Kudos too, to opener Polly Preacher, whose effects-laden guitar and harmony-enabling bass player led us to an interval conversation about who is our favourite ‘Polly’.

The audience:

A bit Life of Brian “Are there any women here..?

It made me think..

I must look up Robyn Hitchcock’s cat’s Instagram profile. His account of » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Betsey Trotwood, EC1.

Date: 14/03/2019

And so to the heart of London’s swinging Clerkenwell, where former The Church, All About Eve, The Saints and current Anekdoten guitarist Marty Willson-Piper is paying for his Roy Harper ticket by initially doing an acoustic gig, which has blossomed into a short UK tour. Downstairs at The Betsey Trotwood is not a big room, and so lends itself ideally to the sort of intimate soiree we are about to experience. Accompanied by wife Olivia on vocals, fiddle and octave violin – who brings great depth, atmosphere and warmth to proceedings – Marty swaps between twelve string guitars (one of which appears to be principally gaffa tape) and brings us a wide ranging selection from his back catalogue of seventy-odd albums, collaborations, productions and guest spots including a handful from The Church’s Heyday and a very creditable Farewell Mr. Sorrow, in between rambles, reflections on mortality, a reading and the occasional impact rectification of a recalcitrant DI box. It is terrifically enjoyable, and it’s almost impossible not to be swept into MW-P’s intimate world of hand-crafted stage lighting, guitar geekdom and genuine affection for the form.

The audience:

Friendly, accomodating, the sort » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Dublin Castle, Camden.

Date: 03/10/2018

In pursuit of Dave and Derek Philpott’s “Dear Mr. Popstar” we alight at Camden Town tube station, grab a pint and a burger at The World’s End opposite (handy tip, they don’t do any alcohol-free beers) and make our way through the glittering streets of North London to the legendary Dublin Castle, Madness-centric home of The Rock and Roll Book Club, a regular event, this evening hosting not only The Philpotts but also one Bruce Thomas, late of The Attractions, who is here to talk about his new tome, Rough Notes.

Dave is up first, and after a couple of cursory questions regarding the hows, whys and wherefores he is joined by some game guests who recount their answers in occasionally halting tones, principally because the light isn’t so good and a couple of them haven’t brought their reading glasses.

Of these, Will Birch out of The Kursaal Flyers is a dapper raconteur, and Rupert Hine (it’s a lengthy discography, but I maintain that “A Girl Called Johnny” is his finest moment) has clearly been asked to pronounce Taumatawhakatangihangakoayauo-TamateaturipukakapikimaungahoroNukypokaiwhenuakitanatahu at parties a lot. Owen Paul manages to knock a glass of wine » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Regent, Ipswich.

Date: 21/06/2018

Anyone who tries to stir up an Ipswich audience with a stirring call to arms like “How ya doin’, Ipswich?” or “Are there any Travis fans in tonight?” has either massively over-estimated their perceived innate connection with their audience, or hasn’t been to Ipswich before. Thus Turin Brakes, with their affable brand of guitar-based power melancholy attempt to warm up The Ipswich Regent, nee Odeon, nee Gaumont, a task that The Beatles once attempted on behalf of Roy Orbison, something Fran Healey out of The Travis will mention later on. “It’s a good room” he will say “A good vibe”, which demonstrates a certain generosity of personality, if nothing else.

Travis are here to wheel out a performance of their classic, nineteen year-old album The Man Who – a record which, according to Q Magazine’s contemporaneous review “…loses momentum after its first four songs” – an issue which often intrudes on these anniversary recreations of halcyon periods in a band’s recorded output. That slightly weak track you buried half way through side two isn’t necessarily what you want to be building your live show toward a climax with.

Fran is initially non-communicative, leading » Continue Reading.

Venue:

UEA, Norwich

Date: 06/06/2018

“Everyone here is so old!” stage whispers a woman to her queuemate outside the UEA. “How dare you?” I gently mock back, however she is not wrong. We are as far from the formation of Public Image tonight as they were from Hitler being named as Time Magazine’s Man of the Year, and the mohicans have all grown longer overnight. The impression that there is a well of middle-aged politeness to proceedings is little dissipated once inside by the gentleman perched on the steps down into the central auditorium’s well passing the hour until show time (nine o’clock sharp!) by reading a hefty hardback volume, and the number of extra chairs laid out around the venue. A pointless onstage DJ plays vintage ska records.

There is a saying that one should judge a person by their actions, not their looks, but as PiL take the stage there is an overwhelming temptation to assign the roles immediately. On drums and bass, imagine Kermode and Mayo having bulked up considerable in order to play the lead roles in a remake of The Krays. Stage right, one of Geoffrey Bayldon’s more outre characters is being workshopped, » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Lexington, London N1

Date: 30/04/2018

I’ve been watching MORATOSO (which, incidentally, no-one ever calls them) since they were makeweights on a roots and bluegrass tour some years ago, and they’ve always been fun, entertaining and a guranteed Wolf-ish night (or afternoon, or extraordinarily early morning) out. I mean, what’s not to like about a plangent guitar/vocalist, a wilding violin casting shadow and texture and a good, solid bass fiddle player backing the whle thing up? Last night however – and without wishing to go too Marty Di Bergi about the whole thing – I got more, a whole lot more.

The band’s new album Stereoscope – and it is, indisputably, the whole band’s LP – has taken a darker, more experimental turn, and whereas their take on Smokestack Lightninghas always veered more toward the fever dream sweatings of a genuine incarcerate rather than an excuse for jam-night style excesses, that approach seems to have been extended to encompass the rest of the set too. Imagine Radiohead playing a John Martyn tribute night.

There’s a healthy dig through the new material, and with Chris Lynch on fiddle and Ben Berry on upright bass both taking both a » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Palladium, London.

Date: 21/10/2017

I’ll start by saying I had my doubts about the new album and the new line up, both of which were completely blown away by the show I’ve just seen. The vast majority of the set was made up of the former, and the latter proved what a mistake it is to try and second guess Mike Scott. The new material was given wings by the addition of a second drummer/percussionist two extra vocalists, and a sublime guitarist, who gave Scott the opportunity on some numbers to throw some Jaggeresque shapes, unencumbered by having to play guitar at the same time, and from beneath a magnificent Stetson.

Seasoned Waterboys watchers shouldn’t expect a greatest hits set by any stretch of the imagination, but new songs like ‘You Married the Wrong Guy, Rosalyn’ (including a chorus of what I suspect was the original title all along – “You elected the wrong guy President”) are given a makeover from the album versions akin to that you might experience by watching a film on your laptop and then going to see it again in a fully Dolby-powered big screen state of the art cinema (the » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Waterfront, Norwich.

Date: 20/10/2017

It’s difficult to think of another singer whose voice has neither matured or declined with age, but has remained exactly the same for the last thirty years or so, but if you were to pursue such an arcane pursuit ( this is TheAfterword, after all) Justin Currie would undoubtedly come top of the list. His delivery remains an earthy, soulful croon, able to swoop into a falsetto as the occasion demands before landing back on earth and dragging you with it.

His songwriting scope is not inexhaustible – essentially, boy meets girl, boy is unable to avoid fucking things up, boy reflects that he’s fucked things up again – but Currie’s skill in putting together these saloon bar-opera vignettes (this is, after all, the man who reduced master lyricists Chris Difford to tears during a BBC Songwriter’s Circle) is such that he can get a room full of people singing lustily along to an unashamed tale of misanthropy without any cajoling on his part at all. “Don’t be bullied into changing your behaviour by the performer” he instructs us (paradoxically) at one point. “If I ask if you’re having a good time, I » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich.

Date: 18/10/2017

And so to The New Wolsey, for the debut of a new piece of musical theatre written, in part, by Mike Peters out of The Alarm. The concept is the familiar “We’re getting the band back together…” trope, based around the idea that Andy – the titular Oxy – has been contacted by a boutique label who want to finally release that demo tape from 1978, and want a launch gig to go with it. Andy has to round up his estranged brother, his ex-wife, and a drummer who has turned to chiropractice in order to make the show happen. Oh, and has also just been diagnosed with leukaemia.

The first half of the show features the original, young version of the band performing on an ingenious pop-up stage while the present-day version deal with the acting, the second half reverses the roles, and so we see what brought the burgeoning career of The Morons to a shuddering halt. It’s a small cast, and so there are wigs involved in fleshing out the incidental roles, including a none-more cliched record company exec (with a zeitgeistedly Weinsteinian bent) and a drunken » Continue Reading.