The Afterword

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Live in London? For once at least, you’re very lucky…

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Hattie Whitehead, about whom I have raved before on these pages, has just put out her debut album, and it is an absolute peach.

What’s more, she’s just embarked upon on her first solo tour (having already been the front person for the mightily successful tour under the name of Hejira, Pete Oxley’s jazzer powerhouse band doing Joni’s music from ‘Shadows And Light’).

I had tickets for the second gig in Hattie’s tour at Bristol’s St. Georges, but was unable to attend due to an unfortunately timed monster lurgy attack, but if you live in that London, you still have a chance to see and hear her play tomorrow night in Islington.

As I write, there are still a few tickets left for her gig at The Grace, London N5, and possibly a few more on the door.

Don’t miss this opportunity to amaze your offspring by regaling them of the tale that you were there before she broke through and became a superstar.

https://dice.fm/event/7ddo86-hattie-whitehead-10th-oct-the-grace-london-tickets?lng=en

This just in: World Ends Tonight!

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Finding it hard to sleep? Nailing those tranqs to get some zeds? Whatever you do, don’t watch tonight’s re-broadcast of Threads, the BBC’s dramadoc from 1984 about what happens when the big one drops; if you do, you won’t sleep properly for months. Either that or you’ll overdo the meds in your desperation and slip off the coil ahead of any anticipated mushroom clouds.

If, like me, you’re just curious to see what horrified folk when it first went out, it’s on BBC Four at 22:20.

Mary Spender gig at St Georges in Bristol, TOMORROW Sept 25th – 2 tickets available

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I’m laid up with a stinking cold, and not in a fit state to attend tomorrow’s gig by Mary Spender at St. Georges in central Bristol. It’s a bitter blow, as I’ve been looking forward to this gig for a long time – I bought the pair of tickets early last December. I bagged our favourite pair of row-end seats 4 rows from the front.

The gig’s nearly sold-out now, and I’d anticipate that it will be a great event, very early in her tour schedule. She has a lovely voice, great guitar chops, and a healthy non-conformist attitude to a lot of things.

The tickets are e-tickets, received via email, so I can pass them on to someone else easily. If you can use them, please drop me a line by a DM and I ‘ll send them across.

All I ask in return is that you promise to review the gig on here – no money needs to change hands. On that basis, the first to message me gets the pair of tickets gratis.

The lure of the wild Atlantic west.

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We’re thinking we would like to sell up and move to the west of Ireland, and we are just starting to idly look at estate agents ads covering the areas to the west of Galway, with which we’re most familiar.

We haven’t really got a clue yet about what the practical obstacles or hindrances might turn out to be, but on the simple basis of the property prices we’ve seen quoted, it looks at least feasible.

Ideally, I’d probably want to look for a part-time job once over there, at least for a year or three, though that’s not a complete necessity, and to be honest, other than that the biggest hurdle might be moving all the CDs and vinyl.

Does anyone here have experience of making the move from the UK to the Irish republic, or can anyone point me at some reliable, sensible advice about how to go about it?

Joni Archives volume 4 set is now available for pre-order

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This morning I’ve been alerted by email to the availability by pre-order of Joni Mitchell’s long awaited Archives Volume 4 – The Asylum Years (1976-1980).

This set (4 LP selection of tracks, 6 CD full set of tracks) covers the Hejira, Don Juan and subsequent period, and I’ve been looking forward to getting this since Volume 3 came out.

Here’s the marketing bumf:

Features Unreleased Studio Sessions, Alternate Versions, Live Recordings, Rarities, And 36-Page Book With New Photos & An Extensive Conversation Between Joni & Cameron Crowe

Sourced From Original Stereo Reels, Nagra Film Recordings, Multi-track Tapes, Radio Airchecks & Cassette Tapes

Throughout the latter half of the seventies, Joni continued to creatively break ground with her fearless and fluid exploration of jazz. Rather than tread the same path, she challenged and reinvented her style with a folk fusion like no other. Ascending to an unrivaled sonic peak, this innovative sound took shape across the gold-certified HEJIRA [1976], the gold-certified double-LP DON JUAN’S RECKLESS DAUGHTER [1977], her collaboration with Charles Mingus entitled MINGUS [1979], and live album SHADOWS AND LIGHT [1980]. Channeling the thrill and excitement of these records, she delves even further into this season on JONI MITCHELL ARCHIVES, » Continue Reading.

Back to the middle ages or earlier – drink beer!

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Despite sluicing the taxpayer to the tune of many billions in dividends, our* magnificent water and sewerage companies now want to increase their bills next year by between 24% and 91%, depending upon how well practised they are in keeping a straight face while they take the piss.

In recent months I have been off the sauce almost entirely, guzzling water by the gallon instead. I’ve lost 10 Kgs in weight, and if I look downwards past my stomach I can confirm that I am no longer in the early stages of obesity. All of this progress is however now in jeopardy, as it looks like the most sensible option from 2025 onwards is going to be to exclusively drink beer.

Should this result in inadvertent intoxication, I fear that I might rashly take to the streets with a few half bricks and head to the nearest water company’s offices to wreak revenge on the greedy thieving bastards.

* I say ‘our’ but a lot of them are owned by overseas interests these days. Market rules innit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce55vp78n40o

Hattie Whitehead’s imminent debut album – here’s the chance to help it get here

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Dear Afterworders, may I commend to you this artist, whose singing and playing is of the very highest quality; Hattie Whitehead.

I know there are several amongst us who have already seen her play either her own material – she’s done 3 EPs to date – or the Joni Mitchell material that she currently performs on tours with Pete Oxley’s group that calls itself Hejira.

The great news is that her first full album is on its way to us at last, and she has a crowdfunding effort afoot to take the project over the line. If you have a mind to secure yourself a copy on vinyl or CD, accompanied by a T-shirt perhaps, or even a personalised video performance or maybe a sourdough loaf (I kid you not), then hasten across to the following place and shake your wallet at an artist who should be encouraged to flourish:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hattie-whitehead-s-debut-album/x/37385807#/

New Statesman: Staggering incompetence in the subs department. Anyone else?

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I used to look forward to my weekly dose of The Staggers. My print copy of The New Stateman would drop into the mailbox each week, bringing me a mixture of hope, despair and thoughtful distraction. Along with the daily delights from this place, and the music monthlies, my time available for ploughing into my huge inbound paperback stack was heftily reduced, but happily so.

When the Staggers ceased to arrive here at the tail-end of ’23 (despite no emailed or posted reminder) on Jan 5th ’24 I paid to renew my recently lapsed print sub for another full year. But no New Statesman copies subsequently arrived. Braving their dire telephone ‘customer support’ service, I queried this, but they palmed me off by saying I’d subscribed via a 3rd party – I’d renewed via magazines.co.uk the big subcriptions accumulator site, and suggested I raise the issue there instead.

At first I assumed that things were just taking a long time and waited a couple more weeks, yet still no New Statesman copies arrived. So I queried things with the magazines.co.uk people – the third party.

They were super helpful – confirming with detailed evidence that my subscription renewal had » Continue Reading.

Great music? Small venue? Trendy dive in that Lahndahn? Ticks all boxes

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Fellow Afterworders who live within reach of hipster joints in that Lahndahn, despite my provincial location and my disdain for the alleged delights of our capital city, I feel it is my duty, nay privilege, to give you good news.

The attached link will take you to a place where you can book some tickets for what I reckon will be one of the most intimately satisfying musical events of your year.

I’ve seen Hattie sing and play. She is a part – the essential front-of-stage part – of the occasional band that calls itself Hejira. They tour a set built entirely from the Joni repertoire as represented within the double-LP called Shadows And Light. Their performances, and Hattie’s sensitive and confident delivery of Joni’s lines and chords, are a wonderful thing. In this gig she will be singing her own material and you will hear why she was invited to sing and play with Hejira.

I can’t recommend the opportunity to see this gig highly enough. I’d be there myself if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ll unavoidably be 125 miles away at the time.

Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

https://dice.fm/event/qdrp9-hattie-whitehead-22nd-may-servant-jazz-quarters-london-tickets

Your favourite mischievous LP title?

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Browsing the spines of my LPs this morning it occurred to me that when choosing an album title, artists can decide to serve a wide range of purposes. The artist’s previous experiences and level of success may play a part, they may choose a title designed to intrigue the casual buyer or to simply signal their artistic or political intent. They may be confident – or lazy – enough just to take the piss with a throwaway title a la Ship Arriving, or they may make a little more effort.

My favourite is in the comments – what’s yours?

I love the BBC, but…

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…how come, when they cover the huge public turnout for Shane McGowan’s funeral procession through the streets of Dublin, they focus on a bunch of street musicians playing a song about Salford written by a Scot – Ewan MacColl – and not a Shane original?

Have they no soul? Are they that slack at their reporting that they didn’t know who the song they featured had been written by? Couldn’t they be bothered to find some guys playing one of his own, rather than a song the Pogues could only be said to have perhaps latterly made their own for casual listeners? Where’s the Reithian rigour when you need it? Sloppy sods.

Harrumph

https://www.irishpost.com/entertainment/dirty-old-town-is-about-england-not-ireland-as-secrets-about-famous-pogues-and-dubliners-song-are-revealed-209720

ATM – anyone here invested in some of Rick Beato’s training material?

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I know there are a lot of musicians here, most of them far more accomplished than my clumsy C,F and G strumming. Oh, and D as well. And A minor. I wonder if any of them have previously invested in any of Rick Beato’s training materials, or have any insight into its suitability for an old fart who wishes he knew more than that he just has a good pair of ears and pretty good pitch.

I ask because Rick is currently, at the time of writing, offering a humungous bundle of his interactive material for $99, which on the face of it is a huge discount.

Any observations are welcome: I’m tempted, really I’m tempted, but even heavily discounted, it’s still a chunk of moolah that I could otherwise spaff on a Dylan boxed set…

…so what’s the verdict?

All things of ancient wonder, all things that brought us here.

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If you have any fondness for the old things, the rare things, the strange ways in which we came to this place, the wisdoms and foolishnesses we have partly forgotten, you may already know of Doc Rowe.

For six decades he has been documenting the folklore of these islands, gathering up arcana in scatterings of film, video, photographs and sound recordings, traipsing from one end of the isles to the other, tirelessly capturing culture that has, miraculously, persisted to the 20th century and beyond from much older places deep in the wild wood, hidden in dark, narrow, cobbled streets, on windswept beaches and high on the blasted damp of the bleakest moors.

There is a move affoot to digitise this huge archive, to make it more secure for those that follow us to be able to see, to wonder and to marvel at and to learn from. If you have a few bob you can spare, perhaps you can dip into your pocket and help things along. It’s not a huge amount of money that’s needed, but more than is currently available without a collective sub. Can you help to make it happen? The link to chip in » Continue Reading.

ATM – the hand luggage challenge for weekend CD shopping in New York.

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A pal of mine is off to Noo Yawk shortly for a 4-day weekend. He’s there to meet up with a fellow comedian, go to his show, and check out some comic book stores. He’s also kindly asked me if there is any CD I’d like him to pick up for me while he’s there – something not easily available, or only available at extortionate prices over here in Blighty.

Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of an example, but surely there must be something of that description that I can ask him to get for me?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a single CD, it could be a double, a triple, a small boxed set even, as long as it fits into his hand luggage, and the genre doesn’t matter all that much. Just the cheeky fun of getting a copy for a regular price in the US rather than a small fortune in the UK, and the avoidance of any import duties would be a small thrill. Sticking it to the man, in a ridiculously tiny way. I guess vinyl is out of the question, but a shiny silver disc or three would » Continue Reading.

Vox, Select, etc. free cassettes – worth hearing again? I need some triage here.

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Back in the nineties and noughties, the monthly non-Word music rags, mostly also now extinct, used to regularly sellotape little cassettes to their covers, often from single label sources, and often containing otherwise unavailable tracks or alternate mixes. I know this because I have a box of the darn things in my loft.

I also know that tape print-through is starting to make itself heard on these cassettes, particularly those that used el cheapo tape in the first place. That’s most of ’em.

With that in mind I’m setting out on a mammoth digitisation exercise using the ace NevaDuo USB gizmo that our friend @fentonsteve recommended some months back for those of us keen to turn our analogue tape stuff into ones and zeroes before it’s too late to retrieve it all.

So, as I won’t live long enough to get around to actually playing all of those little freebies again, I’m calling out to you lot to suggest the one that you found most excellent back in the day, so that I can concentrate on those to start with. The one that really had tracks worth hearing again, the one you’d maybe like » Continue Reading.

The Pocket WOMAD anyone? Has it ever been bettered?

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Reflecting on the recent WOMAD Festival just up the road from me outside Malmesbury, and the interest shown on another thread here in the mellifluous choons of Remmy Ongala, I wondered whether any other Afterworders were aware of the splendid 90-minute Chrome cassette release (WOMBIP C1) put out by WOMAD/Bop Cassettes in 1987?

The tracklisting is in the comments – it’s a monster!

Talk about eclectic and well-chosen; has there ever been a better ‘world music’ compo?