Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Not As Good As Bellowhead
Blackbeard's Tea Party
The Croft, Bristol
26 Nov 2011
Blackbeard's Tea Party are not as good as
Bellowhead.
On the other hand, Bellowhead do not play in
the back rooms of pubs at the bottom of my street (while young people play
speedcore in the front bar). Although, come to think of it, I did hear Mr
Spiers and Mr Boden perform on this very stage back in 2007. And Mr Carthy.
Still, it's the least folkie venue ever. All the young people were in black. I
was in my floral waistcoat. The pub was smashed up during the pretend riots last July. I
think they thought I was a hippy bouncer.
As I was saying: Blackbeard's Tea Party are not
as good as Bellowhead. But they generate an energy, a physicality, a sense of
musical theatre (completely improvised, I think) and a spontaneous response
from the audience which I have never seen any folk band apart from Bellowhead
come within a hundred miles of.
They do, in pretty much every conceivable
respect, rock.
They came onto the stage at 9.40, after the
usual local support who we will tactfully pass over. Stu the singer –
not the singer on the albums, a new singer who has joined the band in the last
month -- asks if there are any miners in
the audience. Someone is related to one. He launches into "I can hew"
. ("And when I die boys know full well / I’m not bound for heaven, I am bound for hell /
My pick and shovel Old Nick he will admire / and he’ll
setting be hewing coal for his hell-fire”). There is a thumping drumbeat and an electric
guitar which, I shouldn’t wonder goes up to 11. And Stu, I swear,
doesn't stop moving for the rest of the evening. He encourages the audience to
pogo dance by leaping three feet off the ground. He gesticulates in the
narrative bits. He nips back stage at one point and re-emerges in sun glasses
and pink tie-dye shirt. The whole band follows him into the physical
space. Yom Hardy the cajun drummer bangs his head in time with the rhythm so
his long black hair flaps up and down like a muppet. When Martin Coumbe the
guitarist does a solo, the band get down on their knees to worship him.
The sound mix, I have to say, is perfect: too
often in this kind of thing I have said "I believe that there may have
been a folk song going on somewhere, but all I could hear was the drum".
Tonight you could hear every one of Stu's words. The songs are stories or jokes
played with a camp twinkle in his eye. Folk rock with the emphasis firmly on
the folk.
Oh, and there was rappa dancing. In a pub. At the bottom of my street.
Oh, and there was rappa dancing. In a pub. At the bottom of my street.
I now need to tread carefully. One of the many
excellences about the Tea Party's first E.P (Heavens To Betsy) was the nuanced
vocals of Paul Young. Young credits his Barrack Street (version # 94 of the story
about the sailor being robbed by the prostitute) to the singing of Nic Jones,
and it was a close match in vocal style. If you are going to swipe, swipe from
the best, said I. Paul Young appears on the new album and he remains excellent.
The album version of Stan Rogers Barrat's Privateers (sadly not in the live
set) is quite stunning. He tones down the "roar" from the original
recording, plays it as a ballad, not a shanty, tells the story, while the group
weave in and out and all round the tune, even interjecting hornpipes a couple of
times. But I note that Paul claims to have learned two of the lighter and more
raucous pieces on the album from Stuart
and there is a perhaps a sense that Paul isn’t
fully comfortable with them. Not as loud and mad as Stuart is on stage at any
rate. But that may just be me being wise after the event.
Landlord Fill the Flowing Glass is a venerable
English drinking song with lyrics that get progressively filthier in each stanza.“I wish I had another brick to build my chimney
higher /Stop the neighbours pussy cat from pissing in the fire”.
It’s
quite lovely how Blackbeard’s Tea Party stay close to the basic beauty of
the melody and then put the heavy stuff behind it without the one swamping out
the other. Too often this kind of thing is done with a nod and a wink; isn’t
it funny that we’re singing “thee”
and “thou” while the electric guitar is drowning us out?
But this just seemed to just be a song. The drunken Landlord is followed by the
endlessly sobering Chicken On Raft, possibly my favourite song about egg on
toast. ("I sing "woo-woo" and you sing "chicken on a
raft": and then I sing "aaa-aa" and you sing "chicken on a
raft" and then I sing "woo-woo" and you sing...")
I never saw the original line up live and it may be
that their stage act was always this extreme. It may be that audiences in York are holding placards saying "Bring back Paul". When I first heard the album I
said that their musical arrangements were reminiscent of Mawkin and it strikes me that Stuart’s
manner is not a million miles away from Jim Causley. (Actually he's like the the bastard offspring
of Jim Causley and Jon Boden.)
I wish Paul Young all the best; I hope he left to pursue a brilliant solo career and not (say) because of a quarrel about who took the last slice of cheesecake. And it would be reckless to start saying "gig of the year" in a year which has included Alisdair Roberts and Show of Hands. And that old American man who sings Bob Dylan songs. But it looks to me that the addition of Stuart has propelled a band I was already very excited about into orbit.
I wish Paul Young all the best; I hope he left to pursue a brilliant solo career and not (say) because of a quarrel about who took the last slice of cheesecake. And it would be reckless to start saying "gig of the year" in a year which has included Alisdair Roberts and Show of Hands. And that old American man who sings Bob Dylan songs. But it looks to me that the addition of Stuart has propelled a band I was already very excited about into orbit.
That's not a metaphor. He really does jump that
high.
Blackbeard's Tea Party. Not as good as Bellowhead. Yet.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
More Sea Men Than I Could Cope With
Port Isaac's Fisherman's Friends
Colston Hall, Bristol 25 Nov 2011
Fisherman's Friends do what Fisherman's Friends
do very well indeed. But that really is all they do. The trouble with seeing
them headlining their own gig (as opposed to doing a set at a festival) is that
you get twice as much Fisherman's Friends for your money. And it turns out that
there are only so many rollicking bollocking buggering shuggering however it
goes songs of the high sea a man can cope with in a single sitting.
There are some attempts to change the tempo. In
between the shanties, we get a medley of Methodist hymns. From Sankey's Hymnal:
"We used to find that name funny when we were kids....we still do,
apparently." The trouble is that what Fisherman's Friend's are doing is
basically chapel singing (er, "a capella") and the chosen song is a
spiritual with a nautical theme. (“Row for shore sailor, row for the shore, heed
not the rolling waves but lean to the oar”) So it
isn't really that much of a change of tempo. "The Cornish Methodists were like
the Taliban, only without the sense of bonhomie and good fun".
When you go to hear the same bands more than
once, you naturally expect to hear the same jokes as well as the same songs. (I
probably know Robin Williamson’s story about putting his harp in the lift as well as
he does.) But Jon's patter has become an elephants graveyard of double
entendre. "We asked if we could appear on the Parkinson show. He wrote
back and said 'No, you can't.' I didn't know he was dyslexic." Despite
being famous, they haven't acquired any groupies. There are application forms
for us to fill out in the foyer "And for the ladies as well." To the
least tall member of the group: "Are you happy?" "Not really,
no." "Well, which one are you then?" And, every time someone
coughs "Do you want to suck a Fisherman's Friend?....That joke always
leaves a nasty taste in the mouth."
The role call at the end of the show pointedly
tells us what the boys day jobs are – fisherman, ex-fisherman, ship builder,
potter... Now, I don't know what songs Cornish Fishermen
really sing at work, but I'm guessing not ones about South Australia or Mexico.
I imagine they listen to Radio 1. These are songs from the British and American
navies that have become standards. There aren’t
about fishing. There is a song about whaling, but it's a modern thing showing
sympathy for the poor ickle cephalapod cetacean. (“Last night I heard the cry of my companion /
the roar of the harpoon gun and then I was alone.") Any melancholy mood is
immediately dispersed by Jon: "It's all right, it's only a big lump of
sushi.” His schtick is to apologise that some of the
songs are too depressing. The sad ones are actually welcome relief from all the
rollicking and bollocking.
Jackie "Jim's Brother" Oates opened
with a nice trad folkie set, including a Cornish version of the sublime The
Trees They Grow So High – "my pretty lad is young, but he's
growing". It sounded exactly as if someone had heard "my bonny
boy" once and reproduced it from memory, not quite getting the point. You
can really imagine some fishwives singing it while working on their lad's nets.
There is more authenticity here than in any number of roared out choruses of
What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? The Captain's Daughter was a whip:
"Give him a taste of the Captain's daughter." Not "Throw him
into bed with the Captain's Daughter". (Have you seen the Captain's
daughter? Ha-ha.)
But anything they lack in authenticity the make
up for in volume. When they get going on Bound For South Australia or A
Sailor's Ain’t A Sailor Ain’t
A Sailor Any More it would be churlish not to say "Arrr" and join in
the actions. ("Don't haul up the rope, don't climb up the mast, if you see a sailing ship it might be your
last.") Or Pay Me My Money Down. Or Woo Woo Bully In the Alley. Or the
penultimate encore, Sloop John B. ("The Beach Boys sang this, and now we've
immortalized it.") Last time, I mentioned that Les Barker once raised a
question which has always troubled me: what happened to the Sloop John A? But
it now occurs to me that this was Nassau, and it was probably actually the
Sloop Jumbie. A Jumbie being a corpse that a witch doctor has brought to life.
Prone to dancing back to back belly to belly. Serves you right for paying
attention to me.
There is a big Cornish Flag over the stage. They
play up to Cornish stereotypes straight out of central casting. It's not
surprising they ended up advertising fish fingers: Cleave’s
stage persona is basically Captain Bird’s Eye. So, they are staunch local people who
want us to laugh with them at they grokles and turrists and Americans who visit
their village in the summer. "Tin-taggle? Can you imagine King Arthur riding out of Tin-taggle?
That's where a fairy would come from. It's Tin-taj-il" "Yes dear. But
put the fish knife down." (A pedant would point out that King Arthur
didn't ride out of Tintagil, although in the most militantly Welsh version of
the story, he was conceived there, so I have.)
On the other hand, they play up to all the nasty jokes that the rest of
England makes about Wesk Untry. Port Isaac has just been made a world heritage
site for inbreeding. High six!
This makes their rendering of Cousin Jack a
little uncomfortable. Steve' Knightley's a serious singer; he's allowed to drag
you through dark places in his songs. Fisherman's Friends are a novelty band,
and arguably shouldn’t. Steve imagines a 19th century emigre seeing modern Cornwall and
despairing "I see the English....living on our house...I see the
Spanish....fishing in our seas...." (Although he often now changes it to
"these seas".) The Fishyfriends put it back into the main singalong verse
"the English they live in our houses / the Spanish they fish in our
seas". If anyone is allowed to be annoyed about international fishing
regulations, its a working fishermen. Peter Roe, the oldest member of the group
(he's 78, as we keep being told) does a song he wrote himself about how the
fishing trade ain't what it used to be due to European regulations. It's no
Tiny Fish For Japan, but it comes from the heart. But in the context of
rollicking, bollocking, swuggering and buggering, it feels a little
uncomfortable for Cleave to put his hand over his heart when he get to
"the Spanish they fish in our seas" and very uncomfortable for another member of
the group to make what seems to be a clenched fist salute.
I assume you all all saw Jamie Oliver doing his
chirpy cockney thing from St Pauls last week? The lady with the stew sells me my
coffee in the library canteen, so she does, and sometimes banana cake as well.
There's only so many times you can say "vibrant" and
"multicultural" in one cookery show; but I did think he was spot on.
Saffron doesn’t grow anywhere in England. Think of a famous
story set in Cornwall: Jamaica Inn. Think of a typical Jamaican street food:
patties. St Piran's flag seems to be an invention of 19th century Cornish
language revivalists.
There comes a point where irony gives out.
After seventeen or eighteen jokes, you start to think "That's not part of
a jolly jack tar persona; that's simply a dirty joke." And then you start
asking yourself to what extent the audience are in on the irony. They are
certainly enthusiastic. A lot of them stood up at the end. I didn't stand up
for Chris Wood. I'm certainly not going to stand up for what is basically a
quite good male voice choir.
As a 45 minute festival band, there's no-one to
touch them.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Also, this:
Carmina
Colston Hall
12 Nov 2011
Not my cup of tea at all. They were Celtic folk jazz fusion. There were moments of perfectly nice songs. It's hard to do Lord Franklin's Lament badly, after all. But I don't get jazz. Pippa Marland does a perfectly good rendering of the song: bit too much shutting of eyes and having Emotions for my taste, but that's her style, fair enough. (Proper folk singers are dead-pan and let the song do all the work.) But then somewhere in between verse four and verse five, the violinist (she seemed to be doing long classical violin bow strokes not short stibbly fiddle player ones) starts making some long up and downy noises which don't seem to relate to the song and go on for several hours, after which the audience claps. In the middle of the song. The man next to me particularly claps the pianist, who seems to tinkle tinkle tinkle from one end of the keyboard to the other at the least provocation. (Chico: I can't-a think of the end of this-a song." Groucho: That's funny, I can't think of anything else.) The opening number was about birds of paradise. It seemed over lush, over sweet, over done. Dan was selling BOGOF tickets as if he was fearing an empty hall, but in fact, it seemed full of fans who had seen many permutations of the group and seemed to like them very much. I enjoyed the support act. His name was Mike Scott. He sang oldest-swinger-in-town observational lyrics with strong narratives and clever rhymes. (She sings bad falsetto on the number 14 bus / 'Rock of ages cleft for me', though she sings 'Cleft for us'.) I do not generally review acts I haven't especially enjoyed: not playing or singing myself, I could not begin to explain coherently what someone was doing wrong. It is demonstrably clear that people who like this sort of thing found that this was the sort of thing that they liked, since they clapped and demanded an encore. The forgoing is as much as to say "Andrew doesn't get jazz." Or possibly "Avoid anything that involves the word Celtic" (as opposed to say, "Breton" or "Cornish".) And possibly also "Avoid like the plague anything that involves the word Fusion."
Hodmadoddery
Canteen, Stokes Croft
13 Nov 2011
Hodmadoddery, once described by Bristol's leading folk blogger (i.e me) as "two men with guitars who sing folksongs" presented a set guaranteed to please all the traddy folkies in the bar (i.e me). When First I Came To Caledonia; John Barleycorn; that one which starts out as King George Commands and We Obey and end up as Spanish Ladies; a really powerful Shoals of Herring. (But then you can hardly get Shoals of Herring wrong, can you?) The loud hairy one strums while the quieter balder one plucks, but there is clever, even witty stuff not drawing attention to itself. Tony goes all Spanish Guitar in Spanish Ladies. Steve introduces Fair Annie (surely the most beautiful song ever written about father-daughter incest) as "copied from Martin Simpson copying from Peter Bellamy" and sure enough Tony's fretwork ([C] Folkbuddy) really is lovingly copied from Martin Simpson. Particularly notable was a very decent Black Waterside, with creditable tinkly guitar that genuinely evoked the ghost of Pentangle.
As well as any ghost can be evoked on a Sunday afternoon in a bar on Stokes Croft where no-one is actually listening.
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