Monday, January 23, 2012

NAUTICAL BUT NICE AWARD



THE NOMINATIONS FOR THE MONTPELIER STATION AWARD FOR BEST NEW CD WITH SOME CONNECTION TO THE SEA ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Hold Fast 
by the Sail Pattern



The Sail Pattern are on the rockier end of folk rock compared with what I usually like, but when your first album is as good as this, you are welcome to be at which ever end of anything you choose.They have attitude They can play. They have their own voice. If they decide to sing Farewell And Adieu To Your Spanish Ladies then by god, you know you're listening to a Sail Pattern version of Farewell And Adie To You Spanish Ladies. There's a convincing machismo to the vocals offset by the merest hint of immaturity. (They look all of about 17.) They show every sign of caring about the folk tradition, and every sign of having grabbed it by the throat and thrown it overboard. Hard to know where their lyrics start and Anon's lyrics end. ("A puppet's on the throne of Spain and Bonaparte's in Cairo / With Nelson's ship we sailed away and fought him on the Nile-oh.") Their signature track, Hold Fast, wot they wrote themselves, oozes naval atmosphere; it isn't a shanty, it isn't a ballad, but it's fundamentally itself.

Port of Escape
by Chris Ricketts


Chris Ricketts claims to sing sea shanties with a twist. I am not quite sure what the twist is. I think it may be "good singing". He ooozes authenticity and sincerity. He sings Hanging Johnny (a relatively meaningless work song) with a mixture of melancholy and menace. ("I'd hang the holy family...'cos hanging is so bloody funny.") He sings Bound For South Australia with straightforward honesty and a didgereedoo, which mysteriously causes you to forget that such a band as Fisherman's Friends ever existed. He sings the full dress version of Spanish Ladies with guitars and seagulls and no lyrical concessions to landlubbers ("till we strike the soundings in the channels of old England"). He sings North West Passage, which might actually be a step too far. I heard him open for Martin Simpson, which is something no guitarist should ever have to do. There's something modest and warm and real in his voice; as if a  hundred year old sea dog has somehow got stuck in the body of a hobbit.

 Tomorrow We'll Be Sober 
 by Blackbeard's Tea Party



Last years EP, Heavens to Betsy blew me away. This year's follow up is even better. The choice of songs is impeccable: you can't not love an album which includes Barret's Privateers, Chicken on a Raft and Landlord Fill the Flowing Glass. The latter may be a rollicking bollocking drinking song with dirty words (which may owe more to the reenactment circuit than to Cecil Sharp) but it bears repeated listenings because of the wit of the arrangements (the musicians finding increasingly silly things to accompany each verse with). The finest, and least subtle moment on this, or perhaps any, album comes at the end of the colliers song I Can Hew. (Sweetly and mournfully): "And when I die, I know full well, I'm not bound for heaven I am bound for..." (rock-out explosion) "HELL!"

WINNER
HOLD FAST
It was a dem close run thing, but the judge awarded the prize to Sail Pattern so he could claim to have liked them before they went mainstream.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

THE MONTYS

Welcome to this years Montpelier Station Music Awards (affectionately know as The Montys) in which a panel of judge, chosen from a short list of blogger living in big pink houses right near Montpelier Station selects its favourite musical moments of 2011.

And now without further ado: please pass me the plain brown envelope. 

That appears to be letter from the gas company, threatening to take the tenant who left in 2005 without leaving a forwarding address to court. 

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Is Tolkien Actually Any Good?

Did Gandalf Torture Gollum? 

Did Susan Pevensie Go To Hell? 

Who Wrote The Poems of C.S. Lewis?

Do Balrogs have wings?

Andrew Rilstone answers thirteen important questions about C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien -- their lives, their books and their worlds. 

Reviews and critiques of books, plays and those god-awful movies

Every Inklings-related word that Andrew has published since 1999. 

Never-before published material, including

* a detailed response to Planet Narnia
* thoughts on Jack's Life and Lenten Lands
* a new, definitive essay on the trillemma
* a commentary on the internet furore which engulfed my essay Is Tolkien Actually Any Good

Lost Usenet essays and other rare fragments of Rilstonia.  

Thirteen or so years in the making
About 300 pages
Around 100,000 words

Available from Amazon and in E-Book format in due course.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Public service anouncement

To the person who googled "Woody Guthrie one eyed banker story" and landed on this page, it goes like this:

There was once a one eyed banker, who went to the finest optometrist in the country, and paid him a small fortune to make the best glass eye money could buy. He was incredibly pleased with it. The next day, a poor farmer came to the bank to ask for an extension on his loan. Before getting down to business, the one eyed banker said "I bet you a dollar you can't tell which is my glass eye". 

"The left one" says the farmer. 

"How could you tell" said the banker, very disapointed. 

"Because that's the one with a tiny glint of human compassion in it" replied the farmer.

To the person who googled "Cuddling your father's willy" and ended up on this page: please go somewhere else. 

Personally I prefer the one about the two rabbits.