Tom House. Winding Down The Road.

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Much as Blabber’n’Smoke digs all sorts of Americana related music there’s a special corner reserved for those artists who , mindless of fashions or tends, have a connection to the mother lode, the feel , the spirit and the essence of what has been called old weird Americana. Essentially cult artists they may be lone pickers or surround themselves with all sorts of stringed and banged instruments but their one common factor is generally their invisibility, at least to the general public. The mavericks, the misfits, hiding under a stone, it’s a joy to discover yet another one. I’m sure that this hidden status is not their preferred choice (at least for some, others will scurry away from the spotlight) and a few more dollars in their pockets wouldn’t go amiss so it’s almost a public service announcement to try and wise up folk to the likes of Michael Hurley, Peter Stampfel, Baby Gramps and others we’ve mentioned on Blabber’n’Smoke.
Tom House strikes us as mining the same vein as the above trio. Despite being championed by the likes of Greil Marcus he has flown under our radar until Winding Down The Road opened our eyes and ears. A sixty something Nashville musician House’s first recordings were on a Bloodshot Records compilation called “Nashville, The other Side of the Alley Insurgent Country Vol. 3” (which actually resides on the Blabber’n’Smoke shelves) released back in 1996 before releasing seven albums of what Marcus has called “folk music made for ordinary people by devils, a cruel recasting of country music as an extraordinary collection of warnings and threats.” However, as a creative force he has been going at it since the seventies, composing songs and writing poetry while holding down a day job and apparently fighting his battles with the bottle.
Somehow, House has fallen in with the good folk at Mud Records, in particular Brock Zeman who produces and plays all over the album along with a very simpatico band providing an authentic sounding dirt trodden and at times spooky backdrop for House’s song poems which he delivers in a gnarled and wizened voice. The band can be spare and old timey minstrel sounding or deliver a stone solid groove but ultimately Zeman has set up a magnificent canvas for House to paint his words on. And what words. His battle with the booze and his poetic past might lead to comparisons with the likes of Bukowksi and strangely enough some of this album recalls Tom Russell’s album Hotwalker which paid tribute in part to the old postman. Another lost soul recalled is Vic Chesnutt particularly in the gloriously unhinged title song which closes the album, a wracked solo delivery eventually metamorphoses into a brief guitar laden epiphany. It’s not all doom and gloom as House occasionally comes across like Roger Miller’s sly contributions to the Disney cartoon of Robin Hood. However even when he deceptively commences a song with Miller’s laid back country scat as on the jaunty Pappy Closed the Book the content is bloody as a psychopathic cop shrugs off the death of his squeeze. Throughout the album House casts a spotlight on a dark and dank underbelly, forensically and poetically examining the state of the nation. The spoken word Paradox With Suitcase is elliptic and sounds fantastic. Willie MacBroom crackles like a pre-war song as House tells the tale of a drifter who casually kills but for the most part House eschews stories and paints impressionistic pictures of folk lost, seeking a meaning to life, salvation. Jericho touches on the religious wars being waged currently and could be seen as a plea from the damaged men and women with post traumatic stress disorder retuning from foreign field, nevertheless it’s a tour de force, like an ancient blues holler it shivers with dread and gloom as Zeman recreates the past perfectly. All of the songs here are worth hearing and hearing again and House stakes his claim to be considered a worthy portal to the essence of American folklore.

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Alexander Wolfe. Skeletons

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Second album from London based singer/songwriter Alexander Wolfe finds him delving deeper into the influences apparent on his fine debut, Morning Brings A Flood. Again Wolfe plays most of the instruments himself and recorded the album over a weekend while strings and horns, courtesy of the “Wolfettes” were added later. Wolfe describes the genesis of the album as arising from a period of insomnia with brief episodes of sleep disturbed by disturbing dreams resulting in the blood and bone themes that recur throughout the songs. With an admitted interest in psychotherapy Wolfe believes this was his subconscious mind foretelling him of the imminent breakup of the relationship he was in allowing us to consider the album as a Freudian equivalent of Blood On The Tracks perhaps. However while Dylan veiled his songs in allusion and smoke and mirrors and Freud sucked his thumb in his cerebral womb dreaming up sexual metaphors Wolfe addresses his loss directly when he sings in the title song “she whispers softly that “I don’t need anyone”” and on Fangs “you took your love away, too soon.” However rather than begin a case study here it might be more useful to address the question of “what does it sound like?” The answer to that is a measured, “excellent.”
The basic skeleton of the songs, Wolfe’s voice and guitar or piano, adheres to a template laid down in the late sixties and early seventies. Confessional songs, best listened to alone, perhaps in a bedsit. Cosseted and comforted by the ambient additions and the sensitive string arrangements Wolfe ventures into territory previously explored by the likes of Roy Harper on the delicate yet disturbing In Broad Daylight while Mayflowers ventures further as Wolfe evokes the vocal excursions of Tim Buckley, Scott Walker and John Martyn over a discordant scraping of strings. There’s a stroke of genius here as this challenging listen segues into the pulsating drive of Horses, a song whose title recalls The Doors and Patti Smith and while it doesn’t sound at all like either of them is the album’s one stab at a grand rock feel. A psychodrama indeed it swells and crashes immaculately. Milk Teeth sums up the album with Wolfe’s voice to the fore sounding like an extra wounded Mark Eitzel while the backing plucks at the heartstrings but the album is somewhat let down by the closing songs. A cover of Neil Young’s Don’t Let It bring You Down is a bit of a turbulent sore thumb, elsewhere it would be fine but here it does stick out. The closing Separated By A Smile has wistful and mysterious lyrics delivered in a smoky film noire style but the musical trappings including a muted trumpet take this conceit a step too far.

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Drew Nelson. Tilt-A-Whirl

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Currently touring the UK to promote this, his Red House Records debut, Michigan based Drew Nelson makes a bold bid to be considered in the same league as the likes of Springsteen, Mellencamp and Earle. Bold indeed and some might think farfetched but several of the songs on Tilt-A-Whirl come very close to the standard one expects from that triumvirate of blue-collar rockers while Nelson has form with his 2005 song, Wal-Mart V2.0 a magnificent Dylanesque clattering rant against the conglomerations changing the American landscape.
Flying the flag for the working class (singing “welcome to the world of the working poor” on Promised Land) and capturing life like stories (Danny and Maria’s soapbox romance) Nelson muscles into view with a rousing rock based sound but the spirits of Springsteen and Mellencamp hover too close for comfort here leading one to think that what we have is a mere copyist. Unfair however as from here on in Nelson delivers a set of perfectly pitched songs that might doff their hats to Bruce and John et al but resolutely stake their claim to walk along side them. The bluster of the opening songs is replaced by some superb and delicate playing with sweet guitar breaks, atmospheric keyboards and sweet pedal steel and Dobro. Dust is an almost perfect song with all the parts combining to create a fantastic whole. Nelson rails against the bankers who can destroy lives with a stroke of a pen over a superb backdrop. St. Jude is an historical supplication to the patron saint of fools, the last resort for those forced up against the wall and the reverential treatment here is sublime. This cracked forlornness is repeated on 5th Of September and What She Does with slightly swelling organ and fine harmonies from Jen Sygit caressing the songs and Nelson’s vocals. Some of the songs have a jauntiness about them with Hallelujah Morning the most optimistic song here and Here To There skipping above its string arrangement while Nelson waxes poetic.
This is a fine album which wears its heart on its sleeve and sets Nelson up to be considered as a force to be reckoned with. As mentioned, he’s in the UK right now so catch him if you can.

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Fri 16: Rothesay, Argyll Arms
Sat 17: Abington, The Abington Hotel
Sun 18: Kirton in Lindsey, Diamond Jubilee Town Hall
Tue 20: Bury St Edmunds, Private House Concert
Wed 21: Hempstead, The Bluebell Inn
Thu 22: Scunthorpe, The Plowright Theatre
Fri 23: Livepool, Leaf
Sat 24: Kendal, Brewery Arts Centre
Sun 25: Exeter, Phoenix Arts Centre
Tue 27: Battle, The Senlac Inn
Wed 28: Kelvedon, Private House Concert
Thu 29: Dedham, The Sun Inn
Fri 30: Launceston, No.8 Café
Sat Dec 1: London, The Borderline

The Foghorn Stringband, The Cactus Blossoms.

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When it comes to faithful recreations of old time string band music you’re hard pressed to find anyone doing it better than The Foghorn Stringband. Their latest offering, Outshine The Sun crams 21 songs and tunes into its 57 minutes contained in the craftily well-designed sleeve and each and every one of them is a delight. When we reviewed a trimmed down version of the band, The Foghorn Trio, last year we said that “they are astonishingly good at capturing the earnestness and innocence that is a quintessential ingredient in the pleasure one gets from listening to pre war country music” and that remains the case despite line up changes. Recorded sitting around a wood stove using one microphone in mandolin player Caleb Klauder’s Portland, Oregon home this sounds as if it could have been taped in the forties were it not for the lack of crackles and static. Klauder(who also plays fiddle and guitar), Stephen Lind (fiddle, banjo, guitar), Nadine Landry (double bass, guitar) and Rebecca Willms (guitar) are all excellent players and all add vocals that fit the songs and the sense of old timeyness perfectly either singly or in the excellent harmonies.
We can’t pick out any favourites or outstanding tracks here as each one is as good as the next. Whether it’s the rousing Be Kind To A Man When he’s Down, the jaunty By the River, the Cajun waltz of Tit’s Yeux Bleus or the tear jerking ode to a dead mother on Sweeter than All The Flowers, the playing captivates and the listener hits the repeat button in order to savour the lyrics. Half the fun here is in reading who inspired the band arrangements and while familiar names crop up in the album notes (The Carter Family, The Stanley Brothers and Charlie Poole for example) a musical quest beckons to find out who exactly were Da Costa Woltze’s Southern Broadcasters (see here). Definitely the best string band album this year, check out the website which carries a great and up to date blog of their ongoing adventures.

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As luck would have it when reading The Foghorn Stringband’s blog we noticed that they played a gig with The Cactus Blossoms reminding us that we’ve shamefully neglected their debut release which has been sitting here with pleading eyes for several months. Minnesota based brothers, Jack Torrey and Page Burkum (you figure the surnames) are two fresh faced handsome cowboy types who have obviously steeped themselves in the old Nashville sound of Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubbs and Hank Williams with a dash of the Everly Brothers and Woody Guthrie thrown in. Aided and abetted by the fine playing of Mike Russell (fiddle), Liz Draper (double bass) and Randy Broughten (steel guitar, Dobro) they’ve penned most of the songs here but manage to capture the post war Grand Ole Opry sound perfectly. Stately and respectful songs of regret and lost love are played and sung in a manner that captures a lost world of innocence, full of gingham and manners, songs your mum and dad would love. Nevertheless if the likes of hank Williams rocks your boat then you’ll love this. Cold Foot Boogie stomps along with some fine steel guitar sonic adventures and jazzy fiddling while Adios Maria is sublime with some excellent Dobro frills.

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Hayseed Dixie’s John Wheeler coming soon.

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“Rockgrass” band Hayseed Dixie are incredibly popular with their unique blend of whizzbang playing and sense of humour. not regulars at Blabber’n’Smoke there’s no denying their ability to send themselves up while whipping a crowd into a frenzy with frenetic thrashes through heavy metal classics such as War Pig. Now frontman John Wheeler sets out on a short UK tour promoting his debut solo album ‘Un-American Gothic’. He’s appearing at Oran Mor on November 28 and pops up in Aberdeen as well. Judging from the song below, the first single from his album, he retains a sense of humour but musically is heading into the mainstream with Deeper In Debt alluding to the current fiscal state of the states while he recently wrote an article on the Presidential election for Q magazine.

Dates:
November 21 – Wednesday – Bristol, England – Colston Hall
November 22 – Thursday – Exeter, England – Phoenix
November 23 – Friday – Salisbury, England – Arts Centre
November 24 – Saturday – Yeovil, England – Quicksilver Mail
November 25 – Sunday – Stoke on Trent, England – Sugarmill
November 27 – Tuesday – Aberdeen, Scotland – Lemon Tree
November 28 – Wednesday – Glasgow, Scotland – Oran Mor
November 29 – Thursday – Newcastle, England – The Cluny
November 30 – Friday – Pocklington, England – Arts Centre
December 1 – Saturday – Holmfirth, England – Picturedrome

The David Latto Band

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Seems these days that there’s no end to locally produced Americana with the likes of Jim Dead, The Dirty Beggars and Old Dollar Bill releasing top-notch albums this year. Well we can add Fifers The David Latto Band to this roll call as they conjure up this fine slice of country influenced songs featuring some fine back porch picking and an excellent ear for the idiom. Starting off with the breezy Like I Feel Tonight the listener might think they’re in for some fairly good 70’s influenced West coast country rock as the band coast down the highway strumming away and adding some tasty guitar breaks. A mite misleading however as thereafter they rein in the rock side and settle down to offer a more traditional sound starting off with the fast paced romp that is Byway Man where fingers fly over fiddle and acoustic guitar. An energetic rabble rouser, Byway Man gives an indication of why the band were crowd favourites at Belladrum and the Perth based Southern Fried Festival as it’s guaranteed to have an audience on its feet. Having fired up the blood with these opening songs the band hunker down around the campfire with the remainder of the album having a more laid back feel. Whether it be the Neil Young Harvest era banjo plunk of Wronged, the Whiskeytown influenced Rollin’ On, the soulful guitar on the masterly ballad Wait A Minute or the stark Black Horse with its excellent harmony singing this is where the band excel. The dreamlike Song You’ll Never Hear embellishes their sad sound with some very evocative pedal steel and is the highlight here. While Latto’s voice captures just the right amount of pathos his bandmates (Gavin Brady, Jim Hyndman, Atholl Fraser and John Alexander) add some inspired playing that could easily have been the work of the best country music sessioneers. Harking back to the opening crowd pleasers they end the album with another rambunctious skiffle dedicated to the demon drink on God. I’m Drinking Tonight. A fine debut and definitely one to watch.

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Jimmy LaFave. Depending on the Distance.

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Texan LaFave is yet another one of those old dependables whom you can rely on to come up with the goods regularly with fine examples of Texan tales and telling. Depending on the Distance however has been a few years in the making with LaFave concentrating on setting up his own label, Music Road Records in the meantime. The good news for his fans is that it’s been worth the wait as he delivers another fine slice of originals along with a few covers including a superb reading of Dylan’s Red River Shore. A great song, Dylan recorded it for Time Out Of Mind but for his own inexplicable reasons shelved it only to unveil it several years later on the Tell Tale Signs collection. In any case LaFave lathers love and attention on it to the extent that at times it’s breathtaking, nine and a half minutes of Nirvana. There are two other Dylan covers, the well kent Tomorrow Is A Long Time which is approached a little too respectfully although there is a fine guitar solo within it and I’ll Remember You (from Empire Burlesque). While Red River Shore is excellent one wonders why LaFave adds the other two as the eight original songs he delivers stand up well in their own right. Clear Blue Sky, the opening cut sets out his stall perfectly; a fine-tuned love song with a touch of tenderness and regret LaFave has just the right amount of heartfelt tug in his voice while the backing is exemplary. Living In Your Light repeats this with the band approaching an affecting southern soul sound with some fine curling guitar while Red Dirt Night gets all swampy and dirty in a bayou style. Despite the quality of his own songs LaFave has another two covers to add to this collection. Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams is captured perfectly and fits in well with the overall sound of the album however his version of John Waite’s eighties anthem Missing You sticks out like a sore thumb.
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Primevals. Heavy War.

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Revitalised Glasgow garage rockers The Primevals showed that they had the energy of most bands half their age on the ultra cool and shiny blitzkreig that was Disinhibitor, their first major release in more than a decade back at the beginning of 2011. Disinhibitor packed 18 songs into its fist, a helter skelter listen indeed that left the listener punchdrunk by the end. Heavy War however adds some dizzyingly intoxicating strung out grooves in addition to the short sharp shocks one expects. The return of original guitarist Tom Rafferty and the addition of Martyn Rodger (guitar, keyboards) to the line up does little to change the basic Primevals’ template which maintains their allegiance to the likes of the MC5, The Cramps and The Gun Club. The rock solid rhythm section of John Honeyman and Paul Bridges piledrives away while Mickey Rooney continues to communicate with the ghosts of Jim Morrison and Jeffrey Lee Pierce as the shamanistic front man of this inspired band. The line up change however does afford a leaner guitar sound, less crunchy, more corkscrewed with the guitars adding a swampier touch to several of the songs.
Howling from the gate with the energetic Way Beyond Tore Up which is MC5 personified they simultaneously fly the flag and burn it with a song that transports the listener to Detroit circa ’68 as the guitars spit and burn. A mutant Bo Diddley meets Captain Beefheart riff introduces the slick Predeliction For the Blues with slide guitar sliding way off the Richter scale as the song gathers momentum much like Kowalski before he hits the barriers in Vanishing Point. Hit The Peaks is another turbo charged careen down the highway with the band going at it pell mell with Rooney crooning a la Iggy Pop surrounded by snarly guitars and he remains inside his Iggy skin for the blustering boogie of High Rich Times. Further shades of NY punk abound elsewhere with The Dead Boys summoned up on Rightful Duty however the Primevals are no mere copycats as they celebrate their forebears and build on their foundations. One could mention the Seeds and especially The 13th Floor Elevators as guiding lights here as they fuse garage band punk with psychedelia. The Lure of Desire’s swirling organ is certainly trippy while Keep Coming Back, the only song to feature acoustic guitar is reminiscent of the first tentative attempts of sixties SF bands to marry the sounds in their heads with the songs they were playing. They also capture a beautiful and gutsy swollen Flamin’ Groovies’ guitar sound towards the end of Undertow.
The sunny side of psychedelic music, particularly the LA type, always had a dark underbelly which fed into the songs of The Doors and Arthur Lee. The band capture this sense of menace on Coming From The Hills, a brooding number that recalls the panic at the poolside’s following the Manson gang murders with some switchblade guitar to drive the point home. Two minor epics on the album capture this confused mixture of wonderment and dread, mind experiments and the intrusion of reality. Don’t be Afraid to Cry is a trip into the twilight zone , a haunted howl with Rooney searching for sensation, stimulation, elevation, deviation as the band locks into a stoned groove and the guitarists mainline Robby Krieger with their woozy delta arabesque guitar swirlings. In A Violent Way tops this however as they switch from Doors to Stooges mood and lay down a driving and incessant riff that pummels away without an end in sight. Rooney’s lyrics are minimal, repetitive, mirroring the music and he adds some fine saxophone squeals to the musical mayhem. It’s a great ending to a great album as the Primevals stake their claim to be the best leather clad rock’n’rollers who are big in France while wiping out any home contenders.
Heavy War is available on CD and vinyl from the band’s website and keep an eye out as there are some local gigs coming up.

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Quarter Mile Thunder Twist.

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Chicago musician Ben Clarke’s latest offering under the name of Quarter Mile Thunder is a brooding and atmospheric slice of misty folk and ambient sounds and pulses. With synthesisers and banjo given equal weight the eight songs here merge almost into one piece and if it weren’t for Clarke’s vocals one wouldn’t be surprised if this was the result of a collaboration between Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois with some pieces very remiscent of Eno’s Apollo Soundtracks. Clarke’ roots the album however with his voice and lyrics which provide the folky element. Laid back in the mix (sometimes too laidback) he almost croons the songs over the sonic orbits that surround him, his wispy voice is as atmospheric as the music and at times recalling Bon Ivor.
I Am Hurting Too opens the album with a mild cacophony of electronic flotsam before voices and guitar ground the song as Clarke evokes the spirit of Will Oldham as he sings mournfully of a relationship where she “has sucked the venom from his wound.” It’s a fine song but here and elsewhere on the album the ambient noise distracts somewhat from what could be delivered much more simply. Clarke proves this on the next song, Absolute Beginner, where the atmospherics are more subdued allowing his voice and the guitar to shine. Throughout the album the songs are like nuggets of gold needing to be sieved to uncover their beauty, some shine brightly such as the slightly Stones’ sound of What’s It Like and the stately piano driven M Plates but the mother lode is found on the closing song It’s All The Same To You. Here Clarke balances the thrum and throb so that it pays service to the song creating a narcotic buzz that is not dissimilar from the latest Simone Felice and John Murry offerings. A great song and a fine close to an album that strains to be heard. It’s available via Bandcamp on a name your price offer.
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Cahalen Morrison & Eli West Our Lady of the Tall Trees

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When Morrison and West released their debut The Holy Coming of The Storm in early 2011 it received almost universal acclaim and ended up in many a top ten album list at the end of the year. Their unique blend of studied antiquity with their songwriting skills and superb picking and singing struck a chord with listeners and they topped it off with a triumphant Celtic Connections appearance.
18 months later and we have the follow up, Our Lady of the Tall Trees, an album that continues in much the same vein as its predecessor which is tantamount to saying that it’s essential listening. Morrison continues to write the bulk of the material here with one traditional song offered up. However this time around there are three contemporary cover versions included, the very familiar Townes Van Zandt’s Loretta, Norman Blake’s Church St. Blues and closing the album Garry Harrison’s Red prairie Dawn, a nice touch as it serves to pay tribute to Harrison, an Illinois fiddler and lover of old time music who sadly died earlier this year.
It’s a measure of how successful Morrison and West are in creating their sepia toned world that their version of Loretta jars the impression that we are listening to an archived recording from the dusty old days. Theirs is a fine reading but the familiarity of the song accords it an outsider status, a glitch in the matrix if you like, however the instrumental Red Prairie Dawn ends the album with a flourish, a beautiful tune lovingly picked and plucked on banjo and mandolin it captures the essence of old time country music.
As on the debut album however it’s Morrison’s songs that support any claim to greatness here. He has the ability to capture and recreate old time ballads, tales as strong as an Oak with language that seems to be hewn from ancient timber. It’s reminiscent of the best of the English folk rock revival of the seventies when tales of yore were married to a contemporary sound. Morrison and West however eschew drums and amplification creating their tapestries using guitar, banjo, mandolin and bouzouki. The words do hark back to the richness and poetry embodied in the King James Bible. When they sing

“Although starched your apron may now be, it’ll lose it’s shape in the water. But go swimmeth thee to the anchor most near, a lady does not often falter. Oh the winds they blow and the tide she swells, brings life into the beaches. Oh that seem between the Earth & Tide, from land that sea is not quite so wide”

one could be reading from that old good book. Morrison packs his songs with such lyrics on A Lady Does Not Often falter, All I Can Do and All For The Sake of Day. Meanwhile the front porch plucking on their instruments offers some fine moments of beauty with the mandolin solo on All For The Sake of Day especially standing out.
Ancient and modern, homespun and literate, it’s a standout album from a pair who astonish and exhilarate. Do give it a listen.

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