The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Aoife O’Donovan

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Venue:

The Barbican, London

Date: 18/06/2024

I’ve been very taken with Aoife’s latest album, All My Friends. It’s a continuous series of songs celebrating the centenary of womans suffrage in the USA and is a commissioned work featuring an orchestra and a girls choir. So when I saw that Aiofe was performing it with orchestra and choir at the Barbican I jumped at the chance to attend, particularly when it became clearly she was only doing it once on this UK tour. I was lucky to get very good seats in the second row of the stalls. It was a bit off-kilter as we were right in line with the drummer whereas the strings and in particular the girls choir were on the opposite side. I read someone on FB saying the vocal were lost but they sounded fine from where I was seated. At the peak there were probably 50 performers on stage, of whom 3 were male, namely bass guitarist Euan Burtin, kit drummer Dave Hamblett and the conductor Eric Jacobsen who Aoife introduced as her husband but pointed out he was a professional Conductor and not someone she’d told to stand there and wave his arms » Continue Reading.

Carla Bley

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Obituary

Several sources report that Carl Bley died yesterday aged 87 after complications from brain cancer. I have a few of her albums including the Duets album with Steve Swallow and one called Sextet that included Hiram Bullock on guitar. I liked her economical keyboard style very much and she had a knack of writing tunes that were quirky and catchy. I saw her just the once, 30 years ago when The Very Big Carla Bley Band played at RNCM, Manchester

Unthanks All-dayer

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I’m at The Sage Gateshead enjoying a set from Lucy Farrell, having just finished watching the Unthanks perform their 2007 album The Bairns. Tonight they’ll play Here’s the Tender Coming and Last. Then they get the overnight tour bus down to The Barbican and do it all again tomorrow. If you have a ticket then you’re in for a treat. I don’t often listen to The Bairns as I find it somewhat austere but I can tell you that their performance of it earlier this afternoon was absolutely gorgeous.

3 nights on board with Richard Thompson

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Venue:

The Amadeus Queen, Basel – Amsterdam

Date: 18/06/2022

About 3 years ago I was at Costa Del Folk in Portugal and chatting with a bloke I hsdn’t previously met. We did the standard “How many of these events have you been to” exchange and he told me this was his first but that he had been on the Show of Hands Rhine Cruise, organised by the same people who run Costa Del Folk. I expressed surprise and said it had struck me as being incredibly expensive. He said it had been ruinously expensive, absolutely bloody brilliant and he didn’t regret a penny of it. So fast forward 5 months and on my wedding anniversary in drops an email advertising a 7-day Rhine Cruise hosted by Fairport Convention. I saw this as God’s way of telling me to book. Along came Covid and it got postponed for a year. At some point they advertised a similar cruise hosted by Richard Thompson but it was even more expensive and I recognised that my GLW is not a major RT fan. I was thinking Fairport were big enough and could play in enough splinter groups to provide 6 nights of entertainment. » Continue Reading.

The Brother

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The recent demise of James Seals led me to the fab pop fact that his brother was the Dan in England Dan & John Ford Coley. Which set me thinking; there’s plenty of examples of brothers in the same successful band. Spencer Davis Group, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Creedence, Dire Staits, Spandau Ballet, The Beach Boys to name but a few. Often it doesn’t work out so well, our kid. But anyway, other than in jazz where I imagine Wynton and Branford Marsalis have their own combos, are there there any other examples of brothers playing separately in successful bands?

Cory Wong // The Paisley Park Session

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I watched the Neneh Cherry – Natural Skin Deep (Glastonbury 2019) as linked in the Murkey’s Marvellous Mixtape 2020 post. The next vid automatically played on youtube was this one, less than 2 weeks old – 75 minutes of Cory Wong and his fantastic band recording a live album at Paisley Park. Some serious funkateering going on here. The whole band are brilliant but in particular marvel at Prince’s former bassist Sonny T who plays a right-handed 5-string bass upsidedown. A good trick if you can do it

Chuck Berry on Belgian TV in 1965

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A musician friend of mine posted this on FB yesterday. Great sound and camerwork. Worth a watch just for the shot of the Presenter dashing off stage before the Start Turn comes on. Chuck had been a big name for a good while by this stage so I suppose it’s no surprise that he makes good show. The band (Belgian jazzers I imagine) do a commendable job too

Regina McCrary talks about singing with Bob Dylan

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This is a really interesting interview. I’ve seen Regina McCrary a few times, either with sister Anne as part of Buddy Miller’s Band or with her 3 sisters as The McCrary Sisters. I had no idea she’d been such a big part of Bob Dylan’s Christian period. He comes out of this article very well. Particularly interesting is her talking about being on the payroll for some time afterwards

The Youtube clip was fillumed by me in July 2013 at the Summertyne American Festival

https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/regina-mccrary-talks-about-singing

New Pencilsqueezer

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We had some work done on the house over the lockdown and redecorated throughout. It was in fact Mrs Vince Black who suggested a new Pencilsqueezer would be a nice finishing touch. This one wasn’t a commission. We both looked separately at the pictures for sale on his website and Five Blue Moths appeared in both lists. I ordered it a while back but the pesky virus lockdown measures meant that it didn’t get framed until about a week ago. It arrived yesterday and it looks lovely. It’s currently in the same room as its 2013 predecessor Red Trane. These are beautiful and unique pieces of art and if you have not bought one of Peter’s works I think you might be surprised at how reasonably priced they are. Check out his website why doncha!

View post on imgur.com

https://pencilsqueezerartwork.weebly.com/%20

Del Yeah!!

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I am greatly enjoying this stream from last years Delfest, normally held over this weekend in Cumberland, Maryland.

That’s Del as in Del McCoury Band. I watched the whole set by Sierra Hull and her pals, very impressive. And I’m now loving Leftover Salmon playing the whole of Harvest by Neil Young. I’m more listening than watching but I looked up to see who was playing the steaming slide solo in “Are you ready for the country/” and was surprised to see it was being played on a bluegrass mandolin

Del is now 81, and for the last 10 or so years has greatly limited his touring. His band, including his 2 songs got round that problem by taking on a guy of their own age and going out as The Travellin’ McCoury’s. I’ve never seen that lineup but I think I’d like to. At the end of this stream they’ll be playing a set of Grateful Dead songs

Gifts that keep on giving …..

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like writing and recording a song 45 years ago and seeing it remodelled for a whole new audience. If you’re the writer it must bring a lump to your wallet. I love this song and I’m quite taken with this version, and its video.

https://youtu.be/lRysND5-Kj0

Merlefest 2012 livestream

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I was lucky enough to attend Merlefest 6 times between 2005 and 2012, always with my my best mate who has since passed on. Our last year was 2012 and it was a corker. As Merlefest was cancelled this year, and is always held in the last weekend of May they are rerunning Mainstage footage from 2012 on a youtube live stream. It looks like you can only go back 12 hours so you’ve probably missed Sam Bush bringing on Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi to play spendid versions of Bell Blottom Blues and Gimme Shelter. If you’re quick you can see his last number which is a romp through Up on Cripple creek and a blast through the banjo tune Cripple Creek and a ridiculous tempo. Not long after that is a good set by Los Lobos. Their encore is a stonking version of Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKfoPUero0s

On bass – Tina Weymouth! BBC4

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Did anyone else watch this? Shown last Friday on BBC4 as part of a Guitar, Bass & Drums series. It was lovely, and I thought the previous week’s episode with Stewart Copeland was very good too. Both presenters showed a real passion for their instrument. My favourite bit of Tina’s show was watching the current bass player of Chic, who has been in the band a long time I think, attempting to demonstrate Bernard Edwards technique on the breakdown riff for Everybody Dance and finding it distinctly tricky. To be fair he said he’d never seen anyone else play like Bernard, either before or since. These episodes should be on the iplayer for a few weeks. Each one is well worth an hour of your time

ATM – password managers

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I’m pretty sure the subject of password managers has cropped up before but I did a site search and couldn’t find anything

I watched the BBC online item from last week, mainly because I had received a similar scam message myself. It quoted my password from my old tescomail account, the one I used to access The Afterword until about April of this year. Since tescomail ceased a few months ago I wasn’t too bothered, but still intrigued as how someone got to know my password. The BBC article alerted me to the Have I been pwned? website from which I could see that, between them, my 2 former tesco.net addresses were breached 6 times. It says my new address hasn’t been breached, but I guess it’s only a matter of time. The BBC article recommends using a password manager, which common sense would tell me is the way to go. Can anyone recommend one?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-46323625/what-happened-when-sextortion-scammers-targeted-a-bbc-trending-reporter

The Transports

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Quick Review. I went to see this show at a packed Bury Met last night. It was very good indeed. 9 well known folkies, plus Matthew Crampton as narrator and scriptwriter. Original songs from the original Transports ballad opera by Peter Bellamy. New arrangements by Paul Sartin. The other folkies, who all played a part in the drama were The Young ‘Uns, Saul Rose, Benji Kirkpatrick, Nancy Kerr, Greg Russell and Rachael McShane. The latter, ex-Bellowhead cellist played the female lead and surprised the house by having an excellent singing voice. Who knew? Someone who presumably knew is her former bandleader Jon Boden who was present along with Fay Hield. The show was a clever mix of original story, some localised history from that period, and local modern history of refugees. It was made more pertinent by getting home to discover all the stuff going on at JFK. It was a minimal stage setting, with crates, stools and a few planks. The second half started off with a full cast version of Dark Water Carry Me which, although unannounced, I know to be a fairly recent Young ‘Uns composition as I saw them introduce and perform it at Costa Del » Continue Reading.

Hello Baton Rouge……. er, Oxford

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A Steely touch in yesterday’s episode of Endeavour which centred on dodgy goings on in Cowley General Hospital. In the opening sequence it became clear that we were listening to The Nightfly on Cowley Hospital Radio. The DJ then signed off as “Lester Fagen”

Well it made me chuckle. Please yourselves

Bap Kennedy

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I saw Bap Kennedy at Summertyne in Gateshead last year, playing a very enjoyable set with a splendid guitarist called Gordy McAllister. Bap seemed relaxed and happy, and had clearly been in the game long enough to have built a decent body of work and to know how to present it

I saw this BBC article today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37262777 about how Brian Kennedy was undergoing treatment for rectal cancer but was expecting to recover. Towards the end of the article it says he had met up with his brother Bap, after years of estrangement, and that Bap was receiving palliative care after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I had a look at Bap’s website and his health blog is an inspiring read. It’s grim news though, as he can only be about 54. I hope his road goes easy for him http://www.bapkennedy.com/health-blog

Ron Block & Sierra Hull

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Most years I spend a weekend in Newcastle / Gateshead enjoying the Summertyne Americana Festival at The Sage. This year was no exception. It was busier than I’ve seen before, and it remains a splendid event because so much of it is free. This year I didn’t see too much free stuff as I’d booked a few gigs, and specifically I’d booked to see Ron Block (him out of Alison Krauss & Union Station) making a rare appearance, and with the added incentive of being in concert with the fabulous Sierra Hull on mandolin, mandola and vocals. I first saw Sierra at Merlefest in North Carolina in 2006 when she was 14. She was ridiculously accomplished back then. Yesterday at The Sage Hall 2 she was spectacularly good, culminating with a solo party piece where she played a lovely melodic arrangement of The Tennessee Waltz before launching into After You’ve Gone played in the style of Django Rheinhardt, which she absolutely nailed. There might be better mandolinists on the planet, but I can’t think of many

Ron seemed relaxed, in contrast with the rather stern manner he tends to portray in Union Station. His guitar and banjo playing was delightful » Continue Reading.

Boat Race Coverage; w and indeed tf?

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Awesome sporting prowess, determination and courage on display at the Boat Race today in horrendous conditions. In particular the Cambridge Women being up to their oxters in water but declining to be rescued and rowing the last 1000m in a cause that was as lost as lost can be

But wtf were the BBC doing with Helen Skelton and some half-wit comedian doing some riverside coverage? Is this some recent BBC charter that says any display of excellence has to be reduced to a nadir of inanity? I wonder if, after the 100m final in Rio they’ll cut to some dumb & dumber duo saying “I don’t know anything about running. But I like his shorts. And look, they’ve got metal spiky things sticking out of their shoes” Why oh why BBC etc etc

McCusker, McGoldrick & Doyle – go on, go, GO ON!!!

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Venue:

Bury Met

Date: 13/02/2016

I got a late offer to take over a spare ticket for this which has been sold out for a while. I’ve seen John McCusker and Mike McGoldrick loads of times, starting when they were in Kate Rusby’s band. But I’ve only seen John Doyle in the Transatlantic Sessions band where he keeps a low profile, whilst quietly leading the back line. My goodness the boy can play! A rhythm monster on both guitar and guitar-shaped bouzouki, but the occasional unleashing of some blinding single note runs shows he has the full deck at his disposal. He sings well too, and his 6 or so songs broke up the instrumentals (or chuns as we folkies like to call them) nicely. I wasn’t familiar with the Dublin sea shanty tradition so had never heard “Fall down Billy O’Shea” before. For an encore he sang a “when first I came to this country” stylee ballad to the tune of “Be thou my vision”. On this, and on his opener he played an electric hollow body (possibly a Godin?) with sustain effects which sounded lovely. The three of them are fabulous players, all very modest in their » Continue Reading.

Aoife O’Donovan Band

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Venue:

Bury Met

Date: 31/01/2016

I first saw Aoife at Merlefest in North Carolina in 2005 when she was one of 3 featured singers in the Wayfaring Strangers, a 10 piece band including tutors, pupils and alumni from various Boston music schools. Since then I’ve seen her in Sometymes Why, the excellent Crooked Still, as a guest with The Transatlantic Sessions band, and memorably last year as part of the I’m With Her trio alongside Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz. At some point her writing took off and she got a song on an Alison Krauss album, which presumably is enough of an earner to allow the writer to take time off the road and pursue new ideas

I’ve never seen Aoife solo but I know she toured the UK at least once, entirely on her own, with a guitar on her back and travelling by public transport. I think anyone who’d gone to see her last night based on her solo tour (and I think there were quite a few last night in that category) would have been in for a surprise. What we got was a soundscape experience, showcasing her new album In The Magic Hour, with » Continue Reading.

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit

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Venue:

O2 Ritz, Manchester

Date: 23/01/2016

As good a gig as I’ve seen for a long time. My mate got me a ticket for this 6 months ago and it’s kind of crept up on me. I knew Southeastern pretty well but hadn’t really checked out his latest Something More Than Free until a few weeks ago when I had it on heavy rotation. What a fantastic lyricist! Blue collar themes of work hard / play hard, love & loss, dreams and harsh reality. The sound was great, perfectly clear and never too loud. The band are all a singer-songwriter could ask for, and could all sing back-up when required. Jason sang his heart out, and played acoustic and electric guitar very well. In a 1:45 set we got a little bit of twin guitar southern rock, some Crazy Horse stylee epic jam, but mostly just top notch Americana singer songwriting

The audience:

A sell out. Lots of 50 plus, with a high percentage of spectacles wearers. During Elephant the audience were completely silent

It made me think..

I’ve seen a lot of gigs over the years, maybe over 800. But I haven’t seen many better than this. It » Continue Reading.