Kilkenny Roots Festival 2015. 1st – 4th May 2015

Posted on by

Since 1998, The Kilkenny Rhythm and Roots Festival in south east Ireland has attracted some of the finest names in the Americana canon; acts like Calexico, Giant Sand, Ryan Adams,Alejandro Escovedo, Mark Eitzel, Guy Clark, Chuck Prophet, Ray LaMontagne,Richmond Fontaine, John Murry and Rodney Crowell. Last year it won the Irish Best Small Live Music Festival while one of its main venues, Cleeres won the Best Live Music Venue in Leinster award.

This year’s festival is from 1st – 4th May and is jam packed with some spectacular acts. Calexico, , Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, The Barr Brothers and Sons Of Bill and a songwriting circle of Aiofe O’Donovan, Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz are just some of the acts announced to play.  Also on the bill are Ryan Boldt, head honcho of Canada’s Deep Dark Woods,  ace new country singer-songwriter Cale Tyson, Glaswegian Daniel Meade and a rare Irish date for the acclaimed US songwriter Eef Barzelay. US band Daddy Long Legs will close the festival on the Monday night with their unique brand of primitive rock n roll. In addition there will be a number of free gigs around the town all weekend as part of the Kilkenny Roots heritage trail. By all accounts this is a fabulous weekend with the Guinness flowing throughout and a great opportunity to catch some stellar acts in intimate surroundings and while Blabber’n’Smoke can’t make it this year we’re booking up for 2016 as we write.

Tickets and general information can be found on the website http://www.kilkennyroots.com and apparently the box office, Rollercoaster Records is, we are reliably informed, not only the best record shop in Ireland but the happiest little record shop in the world!

Here’s a video made for the 2013 Festival

Blabber’n’Smoke 2014 Stats

Posted on by

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys report

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

The Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival 2014

Posted on by

The Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival for 2014 was formally launched yesterday at a reception in Glasgow’s City Chambers. Now in its eighth year, the festival has been one of the more prominent features of the progressive stance Scotland has taken on the issue of mental health over the past decade along with the anti stigma campaign, See Me and the Scottish Recovery Network

SMHAFF has always incorporated musical events and has been well supported throughout its lifetime by many Scottish musicians who have been generous in the offering of their services. It was notable that yesterday’s event was attended by Duglas T. Stewart of the BMX Bandits who has been unstinting in his support over the years along with Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches who again has long been a supporter of mental health causes. Glasgow singer/songwriter Shambles Miller enlivened the proceedings with a few of his astute perceptions including a fine song called Worriers, a clarion call for those who experience anxiety.

Running from 1st to 19th October the festival has events throughout Scotland with film screenings, theatre, art, poetry and photography all featured. In addition, there are workshops, discussion groups and cabaret, over 300 events in all. Of note, Glasgow will have an Olive Grove Records Showcase in the Glad Cafe on the south side featuring Randolph’s Leap while Withered Hand will play his new album at Paisley Arts Centre.

SMHAFF website

You can download the festival programme here

Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival 2014 from SMHAFF on Vimeo.

You can hear Shambles Miller’s song Worriers at the end of this video.

No Mean City Festival

Posted on by

Now in its fourth year, Glasgow’s No Mean City Festival has seen everyone from Kris Kristofferson and Patti Smith, to Junip and The Black Angels, grace the stage at venues across the city.
No Mean City brings together some of Scotlands biggest promoters: Regular Music, DF Concerts, Synergy Concerts & Academy Events, to help celebrate Americana in Glasgow.
This years NMC takes in Folk, Soul, Psyche & a whole host of sub genres, under Americana’s umbrella and for the first time this year, the festival will also include film.

The Felice Brothers – O2 ABC, Thursday 28th August, 7pm
The Felice Brothers started their musical career performing at family barbeques; and have just released their sixth album.
Described by American Songwriter as “challenging Americana that never takes its audience, or its influences, for granted”,
Favourite Waitress marks the first time the band ever recorded in a proper studio.

Nick Waterhouse – King Tut’s, Thursday 28th August, 7pm
Californian guitarist Nick Waterhouse is known for a sounds rooted in rhythm & blues, jazz, and soul.
On his latest record, Holly, “he hones a had-edged sound, full of nimble guitar licks, taut melodies and precise rhythm” (Paste Magazine).
He cites the movie Chinatown as his main influence for the album, which is an ode to Los Angeles; and dedicated it to screenwriter Robert Towne.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones – Oran Mor, Monday 1st September, 7pm
St. Paul & The Broken Bones is a seven-piece soul band from Alabama who use vintage technology to recreate a 60s sound.
After taking SXSW 2014 by storm, their debut album Half a City went to No.3 in the iTunes Chart.

Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin plus Sarah Hayes (Admiral Fallow) – O2 ABC2, Monday 1st September, 7pm
Glastonbury regulars Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin are one of the most innovative acts to appear on the folk scene in years;
and after winning Best Duo at the BBC Folk Awards 2014, they are very hot property.

Willie Watson – CCA on Friday 5th September, 7pm
Former Old Crow Medicine Show member, Willie Watson was once described as “Bob Dylan without the nasal whine or pretention”.
Although he did grow up listening to the likes of Dylan, it was a Leadbelly album that got him hooked on the folk style; as a result,
his expert banjo and guitar playing will transport the listener to another time.

Frank O’Hagan plus Les Johnson & The Shiverin’ Sheiks – O2 ABC2, Friday 12th September, 7pm
A regular at one of Glasgow’s oldest pubs The Scotia, Frank O’Hagan has become one of the city’s best-loved singers songwriters.
He recently supported soul legend Mavis Staples.

Robert Altman’s Nashville – Glasgow Film Theatre, Tuesday 16th September, 6pm
Incorporating film into the Festival for the first time, there will be a special screening of Nashville (1975) at the GFT on Tuesday 16th September at 6pm.
Widely considered as some of Robert Altman’s best work, the film takes a snapshot of people involved in the country music and gospel business in Nashville, Tennessee.

Natural Child plus Eugene Twist- O2 ABC2, Wednesday 17th September, 7pm
Rascals of the country scene, Natural Child ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ with comical lyrics, and a fun laid-back stage show.
Indie Media Mag sums the boys up perfectly: “the three-man band blends country, rock and blues to make an elixir to cure all your musical ales (Sic)”.

The Urban Voodoo Machine plus Dirty Diamond and the Gunslinger – O2 ABC2, Saturday 20th September, 7pm
The Urban Voodoo Machine market themselves, accurately, as bourbon soaked gypsy bop ‘n’ stroll.
“The London-based nine-piece inhabit a weird, surreal Noo Orleans world where the ghosts of Dr. John, John Lee Hooker and vaudeville orchestras do battle with stomping rockabilly-style swamprock”. (Louder Than War)

Christian Bland & the Revelators plus Al Lover – O2 ABC2, Tuesday 23rd September, 7pm
Christian Bland is best known as the guitarist for The Black Angels (part of No Mean City in 2012) His solo project,
Christian Bland and The Revelators highlights his signature sound and his contribution to one of modern psych-rock’s biggest and best bands.

Chastity Brown – O2 ABC2, Thursday 25th September, 7pm
The sound of Chastity Brown is a laid-back fusion of soul, jazz, blues and country. She has been compared to the likes of Tracy Chapman and Nina Simone;
and Penny Black Music dubbed her last album, Back-Road Highways, “THE soul album of the year”.

The Dunwells plus City of Lights – O2 ABC2, Saturday 27th September, 7pm
Leeds lads, The Dunwells, describe their sound as a “unique blend of emotionally driven, anthemic rock, featuring four part harmonies”.
Their influences vary from Foy Vance and Crowded House, to Fleet Foxes and Elbow.

website

Robbie Fulks Glasgow show.

Posted on by

This Friday there’s a rare opportunity to catch the always excellent Robbie Fulks close up in action. Fulks is one of the greats of modern country music, a fantastic writer and performer, solo or with a band backing. His 1996 album Country Love Songs is a classic with She Took A Lot Of Pills (And Died) a personal favourite here. Last year’s release, Gone Away Backwards, is a tremendous collection of gentler, mostly acoustic country folk songs which Mojo called his best yet while Rolling Stone placed it in their top ten country albums of 2013.

Fittingly the show’s being put on by Glasgow’s Fallen Angels Club as Fulks played at their first ever Glasgow Americana Festival. Friday is a solo appearance and if he’s anywhere close to the form he was on when I saw him several years ago in the 13th Note then it should be a belter of a night. Great songs and wicked humour going hand in hand.

Tickets here

Buzz Cason Radio Session on ResonanceFM

Posted on by

Today Bonanza & Son Revue on ResonanceFM have a live session and interview with a true living legend Mr Buzz Cason. The show will air live at 4:30pm (UK time) when Buzz will play songs from his latest LP ‘Troubadour Heart’ ‘ plus some blasts from the past.

Buzz has had an incredible career having worked with them all. He was a founding member of The Casuals, Nashville’s first rock and roll band. He toured with The Crickets and went on to have huge success as a songwriter including the worldwide smash hit ‘Everlasting Love’. You’re only as good as your most recent album of course and Buzz’ brand new album ‘Troubadour Heart’, which has just been released on Plowboy Records, is one of our favourite albums of the year thus far and is a real gem of a record mixing Country, Blues, Rock ‘n ‘Roll and even Punk and New Wave! This is the first time Buzz has been to the UK for over ten years so we are very excited and honoured to have both an exclusive live session and a series of intimate gigs.

Buzz has also written songs for and had songs covered by Elvis Presley, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Jerry Reed, Merle Haggard Haggard, The Judds, The Doobie Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Olivia Newton-John and even The Beatles. Buzz has worked with them all and can even boast backing singer credits with Elvis Presley and Kenny Rogers.
Be sure to tune in to Bonanza & Son on ResonanceFM on Wednesday 23rd July at 4:30PM (UK time). Tune in on 104.4FM in London or http://www.resonancefm.com

The Hot Seats touring this month.

Posted on by

Regular visitors should know that Blabber’n’Smoke rates Richmond, Virginia’s Hot seats very highly. Their album are always great but live they just kill. They’re in the UK next week for a short tour with the majority of the dates in Scotland. Press release and dates below.

“A band that has appeared at just about every major festival in the UK, Virginian livewires The Hot Seats, return to these shores later this month for their sixth tour here.
The hot five-piece will be one of the main attractions at this year’s Summertyne Americana Festival at The Sage in Gateshead, and have a string of other dates, mainly in Scotland this time around, where fans will get a chance to hear blistering new material from a brand new album – their eighth. That gets its official release as soon as they arrive on these shores.
The Hot Seats have gathered praise following performances at big events such as Celtic Connections, Didmarton Bluegrass Festival, Maverick Festival, HebCeltFest and Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where they picked up the biggest accolade possible – a Herald Angel – for their outstanding contribution to the event following a sell-out run at The Famous Spiegeltent.
They were widely recognised as one of the outstanding acts at last year’s Shetland Folk Festival, their fiery brand on blistering Appalachian old-time mixed with left of centre bluegrass and a sprinkling of their own compositions winning them loads of attention.

Frontman Josh Bearman, a multi-instrumentalist, like several of his sidekicks, said they were delighted to be heading back to areas of Scotland they have visited and enjoyed previously.
“It’s great to play on the big festival stages, but we love it too, whenever we get a chance to take our music into the more intimate performance spaces,” he said.
“We are playing at three UK festivals this year, as well as returning to some smaller clubs and halls, so the balance is just how we like it.”

The band started out fine-tuning their skills on the redneck bars and college clubs circuit where they experimented with a suitcase-full of assorted toys to supplement the guitar/mandolin/banjo/fiddle/bass line-up, employing everything from jawharp to washboard, tin can percussion and vintage trap-kit drum set.

Their original music is simultaneously hard to classify and instantly identifiable, combining the virtuosic soloing and tightness of bluegrass, the band-driven rhythm of old time, the jerky bounce of ragtime, and the swagger of good old rock and roll.”

Thurs 17: Music on The Marr Festival, Brampton
Fri 18: The Border Club, Hawick
Sat 19: SummerTyne Festival, Gateshead (afternoon – 3pm) – (evening) Coldingham Village Hall
Sun 20: The Corn Exchange, Biggar
Tues 22: The Steeple Hall, Kilbarchan
Thurs 24: Universal Hall, Findhorn
Fri July 25: Glenbuchat Hall, Aberdeenshire
Sat 26: The Salmon Bothy, Portsoy
Sun 27: Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine
Wed 30: Eastgate Theatre, Peebles
Thurs 31: Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline
Fri Aug 1: The Grapes, Stranraer

Hank Wangford & The Lost Cowboys. Save Me The Waltz.

Posted on by

Pioneering UK country veteran Hank Wangford has been on a mission for the past thirty years to inform the public that country music is not all rhinestone and showbiz smiles. He’s been smitten by the dark underbelly, the god fearing singer who behind closed doors is a raging drunk pilled to the gills, a monster who writes beautiful songs about death, divorce and drunkenness. Introduced to the music of the patron saint of drunks, George Jones by Gram Parsons (whom Wangford knew at the tail end of the sixties) Wangford was singing country to punk audiences well before Costello went all blue and The Mekons hightailed it to Chicago.

Now Hank wants to reclaim the waltz, the 3/4 signature that fuels the majority of sad country songs. Typically seen today as “middle aged and suburban” as Wangford notes in his short essay in the album booklet, the waltz was seen as decadent when first introduced to English society by Lady Caroline Lamb in 1816 with dancers touching each other’s body, “sex on legs.” He goes on to say “the saddest country songs are in three four. It’s certainly the best rhythm for a slow drunken shuffle in a honky tonk bar with some voluptuous intertwining of limbs.”

So Save Me The Waltz is a double album of slow sad country songs that share that three four rhythm as Hank and the excellent Lost Cowboys take the listener down a lost highway littered with broken souls, cripples, plane wrecks, heartache and sin. A double dose of misery that will delight any connoisseur of the genre( and timely for those who enjoyed My Darling Clementine’s recent albums) as Hank delves into his favourite writers as well as delivering some fine tearjerkers of his own. Willie Nelson scores four covers here while The Louvins, Dallas Frazier, Woody Guthrie and Wayne Kemp get one apiece. More up to date Gram Parsons and Lucinda Williams and surprisingly Lennon/McCartney are also covered.

The band sail through the first disc (entitled The Light with disc two, The Dark) splendidly with the rhythm section (Kevin Foster, bass and Roy Dodds, percussion) laying down an unobtrusive backbeat while Martin Belmont and BJ Cole add lilting pedal steel, throbbing heartbreak guitar and breezy Dobro as Anna Robinson accompanies Wangford on some excellent harmonies. It’s delightful to sit back and wallow in this with the lazy fat guitar of Half A Man and the dappled Appalachian Dobro of Get Acquainted Waltz swim hypnotically in your head. Wangford’s title song itself is somewhat sublime with Belmont curling his guitar licks around the words while Cole lurks mischievously on Dobro and Hank and Anna twirl wondrously around each other on vocals.

Disc two (The Dark) is less comfortable, edgier and, well, darker. Waltzing With Sin features Larry Love of the Alabama 3 ( thanked in the liner notes for sounding like Richard Burton on acid) and it’s a big production number with fuzz guitar and space age cosmic pedal steel, fantastic. Baby’s In Black is another fuzz fuelled pedal steel driven epic (think Sneaky Pete here, hot railing the Burritos) with some pummelling percussion. It’s notable that Wangford penned most of the songs here and by and large they stand up to scrutiny compared to the covers. Lies is tied to the roots of Nelson and Jones while Lonely Together is a fine riposte to Willie Nelson’s Permanently Lonely as Wangford injects some hope and optimism while maintaining the sad slow waltz melody. While Lonely Together is one of five songs on the album previously released it fits the concept so well we have to pause while the beauty of this song hits home and listen to it again as The Lost Cowboys deliver a master class in aching country music. Mention should be made of two songs recorded with Billy Bragg in the eighties (and released as B sides to Bragg singles), a fine rendition of Sin City and a heartfelt Deportees which sit well within the album.

Save The Waltz is obviously a labour of love for Wangford who in his 73rd year could reasonably be expected to be sitting at home, pipe and slippers to hand. Instead he’s hitting the road with The Lost Cowboys and he’s in Glasgow next week (Thursday 15th May) at the 02 ABC. With Martin Belmont and BJ Cole in the band you get three legends for the price of one. Other tour dates here

website

Soundcloud won’t let me uplift some songs for some reason so head here to listen to two of the songs.

ahab – Nice’N’Sleazy, Glasgow. Sunday 13th October

Posted on by

A heads up for this gig coming up on Sunday which is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor for this band who are well placed to follow the likes of Mumford and Sons and The Avett Brothers into popular acclaim. Ahab started off busking in London and then got a great lift playing at Fairport’s Cropedy Festival back in 2010. Who should be watching them but “whisperin’ Bob Harris who promptly invited them onto his radio show which led to them releasing an E.P produced by John Leckie.
ahab are well placed to capitalise on the current interest in acoustic based music following the chart storming performances of The Mumfords. They’ve got banjos for a start and their vocal harmonies recall the West Coast country rock of the seventies as parlayed by the likes of Poco and even CS&N. They’ve got a new album in the works, Beautiful Hell, which won’t be officially released until the new year but they promise that they’ll have advance copies on the night. So why not go down for what promises to be a whale of a time.

website

Nice’N’Sleazy listing

Glasgow Americana- Israel Nash Gripka/My Darling Clementine

Posted on by

No sooner than No Mean City ends another Americana themed festival hits Glasgow in the shape of Glasgow Americana hosted by Fallen Angels promoter Kevin Morris. Packed into a week of mouth-watering gigs in a variety of venues this years event sees stellar names such as Israel Gripka Nash, Slaid Cleaves, Laura Cantrell, Darden Smith, Madison Violet, Devon Sproule, My Darling Clementine, Anna Coogan and Dean Owens appearing. The week culminates in a tribute evening celebrating Gram Parsons featuring James Grant, Roddy Hart, Madison Violet, Ben Glover, My Darling Clementine, The Parsonage Choir and The City Sinners.
The Parsons tribute night and the Cleaves show are already sold out so folk intending to attend any of the other shows would be well advised to head over to the website and book their seats now. In the meantime we thought we’d delve into some of the wares likely to be on sale at the various gigs.
We’ve already mentioned the excellent new release from Slaid Cleaves and the latest live offering from Madison Violet while Anna Coogan has long been one of our favourites. However it’s with a degree of serendipity that albums from My Darling Clementine and Israel Nash Gripka have recently dropped into the Blabber’n’Smoke mailbox with both of them boding well for their Glasgow appearances.

My Darling Clementine are husband and wife team, Michael Weston King (ex The Good Sons) and Lou Dalgleish and their album, The Reconciliation? is a celebration of classic country male/female duets with some southern soul thrown in for good measure. It’s not a pun to say that this effort appears to be a labour of love as everything about it appears to have been well crafted from the song writing and magnificent playing to the superb packaging that has a faded and scuffed vinyl album patina looking like the sort of platter one might find in a charity store bin. King and Dalgliesh spar and croon as well as any of their forebears including Tammy and George, Dolly and Porter and even Emmylou and Gram while the music flits from honky tonk to tear jerking Nashville rhinestone ballads and soul farm grit with backing from Richard Hawley’s band for the most part. There are no happy songs here although the final cut Miracle Mabel tells of the birth of King and Dalgleish’s daughter with a fine tenderness. The majority of the songs are about breakups and divorce (Unhappily Ever After featuring a guest vocal from Kinky Friedman standing out) and while there’s a barb in some of the lyrics where they strip away the showbiz tears and schmaltz and reveal the reality of domestic abuse and alcoholism ( No Matter What Tammy Said (I Won’t Stand By Him) for example stands Wynette’s melodrama on its head as Dalgleish abandons her man) listening to the album one could almost be sitting in a flea bit bar with a great jukebox belting out each of the songs here and quietly shedding a tear in one’s beer. Magnificent.

Israel Nash Gripka has been well regarded for some time with his two previous releases garnering favourable reviews. Now ditching the Gripka he unveils his latest offering Israel Nash’s Rain Plans following a relocation from his native Missouri to Austin Texas. God knows what Austin has done to him but if he could bottle it he’d make a fortune as this album astounds from start to finish. Nash wallows in the sumptuous sound that characterised the glory days of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young with particular emphasis on the Young contribution. In addition there is a sweeping pedal steel vista that hovers over and around some visceral guitar work that sends shivers up the spine evoking Jerry Garcia’s work on Crosby’s seminal work If Only I Could Remember My Name. All of this might mark Nash as a mere copyist or revivalist but the sheer beauty of some of the songs here soon overwhelms any such thoughts with the middle eight and outro in Myer Canyon in particular stunning the listener into a state of awe. Guitars weave and wander with a ferocity and lyricism that defies description and he repeats this throughout the album and there’s a moment in the title song where the guitars fizz and burn just like the best firework you’ve ever seen. Rather than go through this album song by song it’s sufficient to say that it burns brightly and holds its freak flag high and is a contender for the album of the year. If Nash can deliver even a tenth of this energy live then his show will be incandescent.

Check out the Glasgow Americana website