Friday 27 April 2012

Best Of York

Wednesday 25th April: A few weeks ago I was chatting to Rhys Bevan (bass-player with Dream Of Apollo) and, without any hard evidence to back up my statement, I put forth the argument that the music scene in York wasn’t in a particularly healthy state. By that I meant that the small local bands seemed to be few and far between, certainly on evening when I was being tempted out to gigs. Not that long ago Friday nights saw three or four locals playing Fibbers for a few quid on the door. We might not have heard of most of them (or heard again of half of them) but there were many gems and few that were bad enough that we wouldn’t consider seeing them again. Recently, at the two “major” live venues at least, local bands seem to have been replaced by larger touring ones (which I’m not complaining about) and locals seem to have been relegated to occasional supports slots. Again, I stress that the above is a general feeling on my part, with no researched evidence to back it up.

Tonight, my faith in the local talent was reinforced.

Last year, Connor Devine put out a call for artists who would be interested in appearing on an album that he was putting together as part of his music production course at York St John University. Not only would the album be a showcase for local musicians but would also raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support. The album – Best Of York - was launched tonight with a gig at the Basement Bar featuring four of the bands from the album.

My regular reader will, by now, have realised that I am a big fan of Boss Caine, who opened proceedings battling against a cold and the usual problem of gig-going talkers. (As an aside, I will probably never understand why people spend money to attend a gig, then talk all the way through it. It’s annoying. To actually stand directly in front of the person playing, right in their eye-line and to talk constantly throughout their set, isn’t just annoying. It’s both rude and disrespectful. One day I’ll be brave enough to say something, for now I’ll just hope that the idiots read this and somehow realise I’m talking about them…) Ahem, anyway… tonight Dan filled his too-short set with songs from his forthcoming second album, including three that I hadn’t heard before. Opening with the jaunty Kind Of Loving before being joined on stage by Vin North for the much more sombre Ghosts and Drunks (his track on Best Of York) and then the first new one which was about his friend and fellow song-writer, Mark Wynn and, I think, was called Song For Wynn. Dan is quick to acknowledge the talents of others and this song is just another way of him doing so. The next song was also new and if it was announced by title, I missed it. This one was in the more morose style that sometimes gets Dan labelled as “miserablist”, whereas the next – Left Hand Luke And Eleanor Louise – was more upbeat and showed that Dan can find lyrical inspiration in the strangest of places, in this case somebody who dropped into the regular open-mic night he hosts at York’s Dusk bar (Eleanor Louise was the guy’s guitar). The set finished in upbeat, if slightly morbid, style with Dead Man’s Suit. As I said, I’m a big fan and Dan never fails to entertain. Tonight was hardly going to be an exception.

It’s only a few weeks ago that I saw Suzy Bradley and the Morning After for the first time. The unique blend of Suzy on vocals and acoustic guitar, David Martin on electric guitar and Lucy Blakeson on cello was a breath of fresh air then and, if anything, their set tonight was even more entertaining. Starting with Stop Bothering Me, a Suzy-solo which showed what a quintessentially English-folk voice she has the set moved on with a second song in similar style but with the cello and some very Shadows-like guitar adding extra body and giving a much fuller sound. Until The Dawn, their track from the album, was followed by the rockier I Don’t Know Why, in which a small section of cello-string plucking provided a touch of near-funk. The set was building nicely and Bare was followed by Stay With Me which is more folk-rock and, itself, builds to a superb climax. Striving For Perfection was much slower and quieter while the second Suzy-solo, Something Blue, returned the set to it’s more traditional folk style before Suzy performed the final song, It Doesn’t Matter To Me, not only solo but a cappella and in a much deeper voice than used for the rest of the set. As with the last gig, Suzy’s pleasure at performing shone through in her expressions and the songs played tonight allowed each of the trio to show their worth to the whole.

Katie And The Questions are usually Claire and Katie with a backing band. Tonight, however, there was only one female singer and I don’t know which it was (although, I’m going to assume it was Katie). Even the band makeup was, from memory, different to that listed on the Facebook page – that line-up includes one keyboard-player and a bass-player, but I’m fairly certain that there were two sets of keyboards and no bass tonight. Although they list influences from the sixties to the noughties, tonight’s performance seemed to me to be heavily influenced by the former. Everything from the retro-pop sound to Katie’s look and understated performance seemed, to me, to come from the decade of my birth and wasn’t something I thought I’d enjoy that much. I was wrong – from You’re Not Here, through the slightly rockier but still pop-edged Elizabeth Jones and Don’t Talk, with its increased use of keyboards, I found my feet tapping along to the music. The slightly darker Strangers Dub Remix (currently available as a free download from their Soundcloud site) was followed by something which I think was called The Picture Remains The Same, then Katie’s favourite track, a more disco-like track whose title wasn’t announced. The set finished with Perfect Life, the band’s song from the album, which is so new that Katie had to refer to the lyrics throughout. This was a new band to me and I enjoyed them more than I thought I would. Overall the songs were bright and catchy and even guitarist Alex’s occasional slight dalliances into something more akin to rock solos seemed to enhance the pop sound rather than detract from it.

What The Cat Dragged In are another new band to me and little did I know how impressed I was going to be by them. Few of their songs were introduced by title, even though there was no small amount of between-song talking amongst the band, the confusion of which somehow ended up being more endearing than annoying. The opener was atmospheric while Emily Lies, this band’s album song, had a quirkiness that couldn’t help but bring The Cure to mind. The third, much faster song, saw lead singer Emily and backing singer Alice (sisters. I think) almost sparring against each other in a vocal sense. By now Emily had pointed out that tonight’s drummer was a stand-in who normally played guitar (presumably not for this band) – he did a superb job, throwing rhythmic curveballs throughout the set (I’m sure they were deliberate). Next up was a new song, with much merriment before it as Alice remembered what Emily had told her it was about. Shame they didn’t share the explanation with us, apart from “it’s the most political song I’ve written”. In this case, “written” meant wrapping her own words through the Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme, ending with “Here comes the candle to light you to bed; Here comes the statement, it's written in red; Here comes the taxman to collect your debt; Here comes the hangman to chop off your head”. Not only political but deliciously dark and twisted and the whole thing sung in a delightfully angry style. It was back to the quirky, clipped vocals for the next song while Emily left the stage area and weaved seductively through the audience while singing the next and then the set ended, all too soon, with one of those songs which, rather than a recognisable tune, is comprised of slightly chaotic noise (think the end of Springsteen’s Thunder Road). In my experience almost totally original, fresh, exciting and entertaining, What The Cat Dragged In impressed me in much the same way that Dream Of Apollo did a couple of years ago, with a very assured an unexpectedly good performance. I’m hoping to catch them again soon.

Overall, this was an extremely good gig and one I would have been happy to attend even if it hadn’t been the album launch, or for charity. And it certainly went a long way to proving that York still does have talented musicians. You might just have to look a little bit harder to find them. But what was it with (or without) shoes tonight? Of the four lead singers, only Dan kept his on. But Suzy and Katie performed barefoot, while Emily performed in stocking feet. Must be a girl thing…

As to the Best Of York album itself… I’m hoping to find time to review that soon.

Friday 20 April 2012

Ash ‘n’ Earth

Saturday 14th April: I nearly didn’t make it to tonight’s gig. While making my way home from that afternoon’s Leeds match I had my first ever car breakdown. Luckily, apparently due to some sort of premonition, I had taken out breakdown cover just that morning. Therefore, thanks to a quick response from the RAC (who didn’t know that I was planning to go out) and a lift from Andy (who did), I managed to get there with minutes to spare. Sadly, in the rush I forgot to pick up anything that I could use to take meaningful notes, so this review is more or less from memory.

Tonight’s support came from Stolen Earth - who are now just a matter of weeks away from releasing their debut album – whose set has been described to me as their “rockier” one. Short though it may have been, it certainly had enough content to allow most, if not all, the band members their time in the spotlight. The near improvisational opening to I Live and the always excellent swansong of Perfect Wave allow Adam Dawson to show off his superb guitar playing, with the latter also giving Paul Teasdale a chance to pluck his stuff during its bass-heavy opening. Bitterness Fades allows the keyboards of John Sykes a more prominent role in proceedings and the light relief of the opening to Tuscany Sun showcases Heidi Widdop’s acoustic guitar. All through the set Barry Cassell’s drums provide a solid background to the songs. It was almost certainly due to the slightly different set that, even though we had only seen the band perform a few weeks ago, tonight sounded completely fresh and even managed to surprise, with the almost space-rock mid-section of Unnatural Disaster being something that I don’t remember hearing before. Unfortunately, despite the usual high standard of music, Heidi’s vocals were a little swamped tonight, which slightly took the edge of the overall performance. Hopefully, the sound will be better-handled at the album launch gig in June as we already know that, in the right circumstances, this band can sound superb.

Wishbone Ash are one of the older prog-rock bands that I have only just come across. I only own one album by them – the much-admired Argus – and have only listened to it a couple of times. Martin Turner was a founding member of the band, playing bass and providing vocals for it for the first decade, before leaving in 1980. In 2004 he formed Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash as a touring band to perform classic material (although they have also re-recorded Argus as their sole studio album) and it is this incarnation that we are seeing tonight. Despite being in his mid-sixties, Turner is still energetic and, let’s say, slightly full of himself (in a good way) on stage and this was the most energetic performance of the “older” bands that we have seen recently. The set’s opening song, The King Will Come, was the only song that I at least vaguely recognised, despite two tracks from Argus (Warrior and Sometime World) being included. After the first song, Turner promised that the band – Dave Wagstaffe on drums and Ray Hatfield and Danny Wilson on guitars – would be playing us “some hippy music from the 70’s”, but we got so much more than that. In a varied and entertaining (although, I am informed, shorter than usual) set, we got a slice of old style folk (Lady Jane), something that could almost be described as jaunty (Sometime World), something much rockier (No Easy Road), a touch of the Blues (You Turned A Blind Eye) and even something more akin to melodic AOR (Living Proof). There was also a stunning instrumental section which, despite starting out in a more simple manner than most modern prog, managed to get more complex, louder and somehow bolder as it went along. This may be the closest I ever get to seeing the original Wishbone Ash, and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. As, apparently, did the musicians, especially the front-line who spent much of the set flashing smiles and pulling faces at the audience and even resorted to a bit of showboating during the final song of the encore. Definitely worth checking out if you like classic 70’s rock.

  

Friday 6 April 2012

Playing Musical Instruments

Saturday 31st March: Sometime over the last few days I saw Jessie J being interviewed about the BBC’s awful new “talent” show, The Voice. (Don’t get me started on it. In my opinion there is so much wrong with the format that I could fill a whole post talking about them.) One thing she said that made sense was that she didn’t like being called a “judge” because, to paraphrase, even though she might not like one of the acts, it wasn’t for her to criticise because it was likely that somebody else would like it. I hope that anything I write about bands I don’t like is seen the same way – as non-critical and certainly not as personal attacks on the act in question.

I mention this because I didn’t really like tonight’s opening act. There’s not a great deal of info about Joseph & David, despite them having both MySpace and Facebook pages, the latter with over 1,000 likes, perhaps proving that my opinion shouldn’t really be counted. A folk duo, if I had heard the vocals before seeing the performance I would have guessed (correctly) that the singer would have his eyes closed and face turned upwards. Some of the music was pleasantly relaxing to listen to but I’m afraid there wasn’t anything catchy enough to grab my interest. The addition of Simon Goff on violin and, later, James Hamilton on trumpet, added extra interest but while the final song of the set -  Rising Sun, performed off-stage in the middle of the crowd, sans keyboard and with Joseph providing just backing vocals – was listenable, I’m afraid the rest did little for me.

Hope&Social on the other hand are, as I’m sure my regular reader will have realised by now, firm favourites. The thing is, you never quite know what to expect from a Hope&Social gig and I certainly wasn’t expecting The Duchess to have been decked out with tables and candles. That’s usually reserved for folk or acoustic acts, not a band that have been described as a Yorkshire E-Street Band. I should have realised, really – with a new album of acoustic versions of songs from the previous three just released, of course this was going to be an acoustic tour. Now, for most bands, that would mean leaving most of the members behind and performing with a couple of guitars and, maybe, a shaker or two. But not for Hope&Social, ohhhh no. An acoustic tour from them involves leaving two of the brass section behind and filling whatever space is available in whatever transport they are using with practically every non-electric instrument they can find. And not only that…

“We’re even more unprepared for this than was usually are,” announced Simon Wainwright as the band took to the stage. “We did rehearse at a gig in London last night, though…” As they launched into Family Man it became obvious that something was afoot. Rich Huxley was playing a glockenspiel while Ed Waring and Simon Goff were standing behind what looked like a magician’s card table which was ultimately shown to contain a variety of hand bells, what looked like an old-style car hooter and one of those whistles that you play by pushing in a plunger. April saw Rich move to double bass (complete with tape marks to show where he should be putting his fingers), Gary Stewart playing guitar behind his drum kit and James back on violin. Both Rich and Gary were on ukuleles while Ed and James shared a keyboard for Pitching Far Too High while Cotton Wool saw Gary and Simon W on guitar and Rich on keys. You get the idea? Between every song, the band more or less played musical instruments (in the “chairs” sense), switching around and yet still not appearing to waste time and string things out. Just about the only song which received its normal treatment was Looking For Answers, with Simon performing it off-stage without the aid of a microphone, but even then the packed audience managed to change that one, singing the full chorus instead of the usual backing. There was, of course, the usual between song banter. During one song Rich wandered over to re-tune Simon’s guitar mid-intro, prompting Simon to declare that “some people would call that being a smart-arse.” “A smart-arse would have made sure it was tuned first,” retorted Rich, to the amusement of everybody. Simon also explained the band’s new rule, introduced the previous night, “anybody talking during a quiet song gets our sound engineer’s thumb up their bottom. It worked. We had a very quiet room and one very happy lady…”, which then led on to stories about his past “bottom problems”. You need to have a certain sense of humour to attend Hope&Social gigs.

The instrument free-for-all continued all through the set. Ed played the three or four notes that he knew on the euphonium during Rolling Sideways, which also included folk(ish) versions of You’re The One That I Want and House Of The Rising Son. Living A Lie was performed with just a variety of percussion while Red Red Rose saw a lady from the audience invited onto the stage to play one of the hand bells (while dressed as a leprechaun – I bet she didn’t see that coming…) The set ended with the band’s only “love” song You’re The Lighter Side Of Life. The inevitable encore started, unusually, with a cover of Yazoo’s Only You, complete with Flying Pickets backing vocals before Knotted Wood, the only new song from the latest album and then audience favourite You Can Call Me Al and A Darkness Now Is Coming. Finally, there was a second encore consisting of Eurospin, which eventually saw both Simons, Rich and Ed parading around the audience playing a number of brass instruments. Some of the notes may even have been correct.

As I said, you never quite know what you are going to get from Hope&Social. You can guarantee a few things, though – good music, laughs, and entertainment. Definitely one of the best value live bands you could see. The new album, Cotton Wool And Knotted Wood, is available along with the three excellent previous releases on the usual pay-what-you-want basis from the band’s website.

Sunday 1 April 2012

Touched By Genius

Friday 30th March: …and rarely have I been looking forward so much to a gig by a band that I have heard just two tracks from.

According to the Duchess website, tonight’s support comes from the Heather Findlay Duo. I’m not sure how Chris Johnson, the other half of the duo, is meant to take that, especially given that he write half the songs played during tonight’s set (and two of those originally had no connection to Heather) but I guess somebody maybe has to be in the ascendancy. Most of the songs played tonight came from the Live At The Cafe 68 album that the duo, billed as Heather Findlay & Chris Johnson on the cover, officially release in the next few days, but which has been available for purchase since shortly after that gig. It was my favourite live album of last year and I’m pleased to say that, despite tonight’s being a shorter set, a lot of my favourite tracks are still featured. It’s a nice mix of songs from Heather’s Phoenix Suite EP (Phoenix and Running Man) and Odin Dragonfly album (Magpie), Chris’s bands The Evernauts (Out Of Season) and Parade/Halo Blind (The Dogs) and Mostly Autumn (Yellow Time, Blue Light and Silver Glass) all of which are simply accompanied by Chris on guitar and Heather on a variety of shakers and, for Silver Glass, a handheld xylophone. Heather’s voice is crystal-clear and there is an easy camaraderie between the two of them. Best song of the set is The Dogs, which retains it’s evilness even as a stripped-down acoustic track, but the whole set is entertainingly pleasant, if not with quite the intimacy that comes across from the live album.

As an aside, there were a lot of familiar faces in the crowd which wasn’t quite as large as I expected it to be tonight. While it’s nice to see a core group of prog-rock fans who seem, like me, to try to attend all York prog gig, I can’t help but think that some of these bands deserve bigger attendances. Tonight’s gig was, for the headliners, just one of three that they are playing in the near future and was billed by Classic Rock magazine as the gig of the week. (There was even at least one of the magazine’s staff in attendance, which might help deflect recent criticism that gig reviews in sister magazine, Prog, are too London-focussed.) Even so, I wonder if it would have received that acclaim and how many of those who travelled would have done so if Heather hadn’t been supporting.

The headliners were, in fact, Touchstone a five-piece “Progressive(ish) Rock” band from Hertfordshire and this was their first visit to York. They had already released two studio and one live albums, as well as an EP before signing to Steamhammer / SPV for last year’s The City Sleeps (and reissues of all but the live album released just this week). Despite that reasonably large back catalogue, the only exposure I had had to the band was a couple of track released on CDs issued free with Prog magazine. Still, I know what there’s a good chance I’ll like and so had no hesitation in attending tonight’s gig.

Initial impressions were that the music was quite a bit heavier than I expected but without the darkness that can sometimes encroach into heavy-prog. It also seemed that Kim Seviour’s vocals and Rob Cottingham’s backing vocals were being swamped by the music, but that was almost certainly due to my unfamiliarity of the material, especially given that the vocals during Joker In The Pack (one of the two tracks that I had heard) sounded lot clearer. Having said that, the much quieter introduction to the first song of the encore also allowed the vocals to come through a lot more. However, live music isn’t always about the vocals and I was really enjoying the music. Few songs were granted introductions, although there was still a bit of chat between songs, and I doubt my memory is good enough to work out which they were by listening to the full back catalogue I bought on the night (which, even as a bundle package, broke my record for amount spent on CDs at a gig..) so you will have to forgive my vagueness. One of the things that struck me was how drummer Henry Rogers managed to convey power without being overpowering but, at the same, time, seemed to be playing with inordinate ease and working with Moo (bass) to provide much more than just a rhythm backing to the set. The band’s progressive leanings became more than evident during the third song which started with an incredibly heavy introduction which was counterpointed by Kim’s lighter vocals. It was short, sharp and punchy and, if I’m honest, I have no idea whether it continued or segued into a new song after a solo keyboard section. Whatever happened, it was very effective and gave us a song (or songs) which was powerful enough to end the set of a lesser band. But by now, we were only half an hour in and the band had really seemed to warm up and Kim was owning the stage, wandering about and interacting with the musicians as well, as dancing and posing around the stage. More progressiveness followed with another heavy start leading into a sublimely light and stunning instrumental section, with Kim leaving the stage for a short while. Guitarist Adam Hodgson apparently brings the heavy influence to Touchstone, having previously being in hard-rock bands, but When Shadows Fall, one of the few songs to be introduced, reminded me a lot of Rush, especially in the guitar work. “This song is about people who aren’t very nice and what I’d like to say to them,” said Kim, with a kind of feisty innocence, peering out  from beneath her striking red fringe. The set ended with the epic The City Sleeps before the band returned for a two song encore, which included the previously mentioned quieter track before ending the evening with the anthemic rock of Look Me In The Eyes.

I’ve seen a lot of the prog-bands that have visited York in recent years, including most of the bigger femme-fronted ones, but I have to say that tonight has jumped straight into the top five of all gigs I have seen in our fair city. To put that into context, I see somewhere between thirty and forty gigs a year and have done for somewhere in the region of five years. That’s somewhere near one hundred and seventy-five gigs. Admittedly, touring bands are a bit more prevalent in my gig-going than local bands are at the moment but it is rare that a new discovery has the intensity and complexity of music that grabs me as much as Touchstone did tonight. I was expecting to like them, I wasn’t expecting to be totally blown away. I can only hope that the band return soon.