Focusing On Good Music

Monday 5th April: What's this? Another trip to the Duchess? That's three in four days!!!

Tonight's first act is Geoff "Hurricane" Watson, a local(ish) singer/songwriter and man-with-a-guitar. His website says "high energy, deep reaching songs on a bedrock of driving original guitar work" and his live performance doesn't make a lie out of that statement. All but one of the songs were self-written, the only cover being the Stones' Paint It Black. Geoff plays the guitar with gusto, almost as though he's possessed, and it's easy to understand why parts of it show a high degree of wear and tear. The man himself, by the end of the set , was more than a little damp in the forehead area, after putting heart and soul into his performance. An entertaining and, I believe (from Roj's comments), technically excellent opening act.

We were really here, though, for Jan Akkerman, Dutch guitarist and former member of 70's (although still going strong) prog-rock group Focus. And I could have told you none of that a few weeks ago... A work-colleague, seeing me checking out the Duchess's What's On list almost jumped out of his chair when he saw Mr Akkerman was playing. "You've got to see him. He's brilliant!" he said and launched into one of his potted histories of groups that he knows I would like.

In this case, though, I can vaguely remember having a copy of Moving Waves, Focus' seminal 1971 album, on tape back when I was at school. I seem to think that a classmate had either given it to me or lent it to me because he didn't like the yodelling. That's all I can remember, though. Focus as a band had slipped from my musical memory some time ago.

But never one to pass on prog rock, I duly bought a ticket, on spec, for tonight's gig. And am I glad I did??

Back in the days when I started getting into music, the band members were quite a bit older than me. Obviously, after all I was about 14. Nowadays, the bands I tend to see all seem to be half as old as me. Tonight was different. Jan is 62, nearly half as old again as me, but has obviously kept himself in shape and has lost none of his dexterity, playing some tremendous tunes.

Only two tracks rang any bells with me - one was Hocus Pocus, from the Making Waves album (which, again, only vaguely rang any bells and maybe only because it had lodged itself in my subconscious so long ago). The other was the encore, Paul Weller's You Do Something To Me, which both Roj and I had, bizarrely, mistaken for a Clapton song. The rest were intricate, soaring, instrumental tracks with a distinct lack of vocals. Indeed Jan himself barely spoke throughout the whole two-hour set, making this one of the best value gigs (music-wise) I've ever been to. It's often said of good guitarists that they can make their guitars talk. I've often wondered why that makes them so good - surely it would be more impressive if they could make them sing. Jan certainly managed that.

The rest of the band were excellent as well. Coen Molenaar's relaxed air on keyboards belied the type of stuff he was playing, Wilbrand Meischke on bass guitar provided a solid base for the act and Marijn van den Berg played the drums like a demon, including possibly the best solo you are ever likely to see on just four drums and (I think) five cymbals...

Overall, an excellent evening and an early contender best original gig of the year.

Wuthering and Washing Machines

Saturday 4th April: ...and it's back to The Duchess for our second gig of what promises to be a busy Easter half-term.


First up tonight is Angela Gordon, who I have seen twice before - once as one-half of Odin Dragonfly and once as a guest vocalist/duelling flautist for Mostly Autumn. Tonight it's a solo outing - just Angela, a keyboard, a glass of red wine and, errm, an alarm clock - and we are treated to a selection of Angela's singer/songwriter compositions, including three tracks available on Offerings, the album released by Odin Dragonfly. Those are the only tracks I have previously heard, although the rest of the set are in a similar vein. As far as I can tell, only one was written by somebody else (we were told who had written it, but the name escapes me...)


With a crystal-clear voice and good keyboard playing, Angela proved to be a more than adequate warm-up for tonight's main act. The only remaining question is whether she plans to release any of the songs not available on Offerings.


It's just two acts tonight, with the headliners being The Hounds of Love Band. Named after arguably one of the best albums of the 1980's, this is a Kate Bush "tribute" act who don't necessarily go out to recreate the full sound of the original act, but do love and appreciate the music and aim to play it well.


At least, that's what the publicity says. To my mind, while the music may not be the same during all the songs, singer Josie Mills manages to sound uncannily like Kate. In fact, I would argue that it is hard to sing any of her songs without managing to sound like her.


The whole band - Sam Leggett on drums, Simon Horn on Bass, Richard Luck on keyboards, Glen Smith on guitar and martin Luklinski (the group's own fan-proclaimed Heathcliffe) - is an excellent package. They play well, as evidenced by individual solos during the band introductions, an instrumental section performed with Josie off stage as well as during the songs themselves. They also provided vocal harmonies and a too-small-to-be-intrusive amount of witty banter. Josie, herself, projects the same ethereal beauty and atmosphere that Kate had during her heyday and completes the package with a terrific voice which proves to be more than capable of handling even the most complex of the original vocals.


Tonight's set was comprised of pretty much every song that the general public would recognise as Kate's hits, from The Man With The Child In His Eyes and Wuthering Heights right through to Mrs Bartolozzi (the song about washing machines from Aerial). As far as I can remember, all albums except The Dreaming and Sensual World were represented and all the songs were performed well.


Normally, I have a (perhaps unhealthy) disdain of tributes bands and I suspect that if Angela Gordon hadn't been tonight's support we probably wouldn't have gone to this gig. However, it was an excellent evening. All of Kate Bush's albums reside in my CD collection, although it's fair to say that they don't exactly get played as much as a lot of my other albums. Tonight's performance, however, has inspired me to play them more often.

A Very E.....ic Evening

Friday 3rd April: Circumstances have kept me away from the York music scene for the last couple of weekends. I even managed to miss the launch of Imperial Measures, the second album from the Yards. Luckily, Roy picked me up a copy and I can happily report that it is a superb album. Gone is the raw, fast-paced, almost-heavy music of the eponymously-titled first album, to be replaced by a much more sophisticated, melodic and thoughtful collection of tunes. Some of the songs are familiar from more recent live gigs, others are brand new. All are good, some are bordering on excellent and the whole thing makes the wait between albums well worth it.

Tonight, however, we've managed to convince Andy to attend The Duchess, despite the headline act not being one of his favourites (to say the least...)

I arrived slightly later than usual due to the bus breaking down. Well, I say "breaking down", it actually wouldn't move for a few minutes after letting some passengers off at one of the stops. The driver turned off the engine (and all the lights) and restarted it (I wonder if he ever worked on an IT Helpdesk...), but still nothing happened when he pressed the accelerator, so he radioed back to base. I couldn't hear the full conversation but did, at one point, hear the female voice on the radio say, "So, the engine's running and in gear, but the bus isn't moving, is that right?" "Yes," replied the driver. There was a mumbled response and then the bus moved away from the spot. "Yes, it was that," reported the driver.

I really hope the lady hadn't asked him whether the handbrake was still on...

Anyway, I digress. As I entered the Duchess York-based foursome Undergrass were about halfway into their set. I wandered over to order a beer, thinking to myself that lead singer Phil Goodrick's voice was going to annoy me and that I wasn't going to enjoy this band. How wrong could I have been??? Very soon, Roj arrived and, after supplying him with alcohol, we moved away from the unusually crowded bar area, into the centre of the venue. A new song was being played and, at the end of it, we looked at each other and, pretty simultaneously, proclaimed, "we like these!" Blues-inspired rock, somewhat akin to Whitesnake but with Lemmy-like vocals, is the genre and well played it is. Guitarist Rob Lumby was excellent and included a really nice solo in one song, as well as country-fying the last song slightly with his use of a slide guitar. Bassist Danny Lee and drummer Dave Chitty provided a solid base to the songs and the vocals got better as the set went on. Apparently there is/has been an EP available and a second one is being worked on, but there didn't seem to be any recorded material available to purchase tonight. Shame really. Definitely a band to look out for.

Second up were 98Pages, a threesome that we only saw a few weeks back, for the launch of their debut album, Broken Homes and the Halfway House, another very good album but, frankly, not a patch on their live performances. Obviously, not being the headline act, this set was a bit shorter than the last one but they were still excellent. This is a band with a very good stage presence, a relaxed almost self-deprecating style of playing (despite the type of music being played) and some excellent songs about drinking and the dangers of "playing away from home". They seem to have a dedicated following - I noticed a few faces in the crowd - and I am more than happy to include myself in that. It appears, from comments made during the set, that they are already working on a second album. Another one for me to look out for.

Finally, it was Hijak Oscar, a vudu-blues band from York who received national acclaim after appearing on Channel 4's Mobileact Unsigned programme. I've managed to completely avoid them as this is the band that Andy isn't normally too keen on seeing perform. How to describe them?? "Esoteric" would cover the performance - I'm not sure how reading prayers out added to the music, especially since we could barely hear them, and the music wasn't exactly mainstream. "Eclectic" and "exotic" would cover the band - there isn't a single, uniform style in evidence on the stage and barely anybody in the band would be recognised as a musician while walking down the street. Keyboards and guitarist Carl Hetherington is all curls, teeth and sharp angles; vocalist Gaby Milner mixes 60's chic with rock chick (rock chic or 60's chick, anybody?); Mark Meilack on bass, bowler-hatted and bespectacled, could be mistaken for a city banker, if it wasn't for the long hair, bare chest and tattoos. I could go on - this is a very mixed bag of styles, but it seems to work.

As to the music, I suspect that, for some reason, we didn't get the best in the way of performances tonight. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the set, just that I have a sneaky feeling that they could be a whole lot better than they were tonight. There's obviously another hard-core fanbase out there. Some people seemed to anticipate parts of the act (although, I guess, if somebody holds up a book of prayers it isn't that difficult to work out that he's going to read out a prayer) and know most of the songs. This was another album launch, with second release BlackSheepMoneyBox being available tonight. I wasn't tempted enough to spend any cash this time but I would definitely be interested in seeing the band live again.

I even saw Andy dancing and clapping a couple of times.