Eddi Reader. Back The Dogs EP. Reveal Records.

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Blabber’n’Smoke reviewed Eddie Reader’s latest album, Vagabond, released back in February coming up with a somewhat sitting on the fence opinion, strong on her roots but so-so on her own songs. So it’s interesting to hear her new five song EP which leads with Back The Dogs from the album along with four cover versions including a version of Moon River produced by Boo Hewerdine and featuring a full blown orchestra.

The song, Back The Dogs has grown on us since the first listen with its quirky mix of bal musette and home-grown memories and with any justice it should be picked up on radio. As for the four new songs, Reader’s voice is the hook here, almost perfect, while the decision to record covers offers the opportunity for her to ornament proven songs with her singing. Super Furry Animal’s Juxtaposed With U is given an arrangement that is reminiscent of 80’s bands such as Everything But The Girl and Weekend with their airy and light jazzy arrangements. Amy Winehouse’s Love Is A Losing Game has a more intimate performance than the original with Reader recalling Julie London and Cry Me A River’s stark beauty. The perennial Mona Lisa continues the Gallic feel of some of the songs on Vagabond with accordion to the fore and one can imagine it wafting across the small squares of Montmartre. Finally, Moon River follows the original arrangement, halting and tender with Reader reading the song wonderfully.

It maybe only five songs but the EP has a cohesiveness missing from the Vagabond album and fully justifies Reader’s position as one of the best voices we have.

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Cale Tyson. High on Lonesome EP. Clubhouse Records

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2014 is turning out to be a fine year for new artists delivering new music that is steeped in a country tradition. After Sturgill Simpson’s magisterial retake on hard core outlaw country along comes Cale Tyson, a new signing to Clubhouse Records who grasps the sound of Hank Williams and George Jones in a warm embrace to deliver some wonderfully honky tonk soaked, tear stained ballads. The sound Tyson and his excellent band produce is mesmerising with the guitars and pedal steel given a spectral feel, as if Santo and Johnny of Sleepwalk fame had turned up at the Grand Ole Opry or Chris Isaak had joined Petunia and The Vipers. At heart however this is pure Country and the opening song, Honky Tonk Moan, is a perfect example as the Hawaiian sounding pedal steel introduces the band who clip clop into view while Tyson moans like Hank Williams. It’s an almost perfect song with Kenny Vaughan’s electric solo dripping with class as the song weeps out of the speakers, guaranteed to melt the heart of all but the stoniest listener.

One could be forgiven for expecting the remainder of this seven song disc to fall short of the standard set by Honky Tonk Moan but Tyson rises to the challenge with a set of songs that at times are better in that they are less anchored in the past. Is the Flame Burning Low is another tear stained waltz with more George than Hank. With a lighter touch on pedal steel, a more acoustic feel and some fine piano added to the mix Tyson croons wonderfully albeit with a lump in his throat. Lonesome In Tennessee is another love letter to a lost girlfriend (and by now one is wondering if Tyson will ever get to keep a gal) which adds a female chorus to his love raddled misery while the band are yet looser with drummer John McTigue adding a touch of drama with his cymbal work. By now it’s clear that Tyson is destined to be lonesome and Not Missing You adds a touch of defiance as he determines to move on from his heartbreak. Despite this, it’s still a sorrowful song with the sense of loneliness accentuated by a fine fiddle solo from Christian Sedelmayer. Again, the song is in waltz time but on this occasion one can hear the influence of another of Tyson’s heroes, Gram Parsons, in the vocal delivery and lyrics.

There’s a change of tone next as Long Gone Girl is given a darker, bluesy feel. Tyson is more judgemental here, his girlfriend drug addled and dragging him down. Sounding not a million miles away from The Doors on LA Woman the band lay down a neon rain specked vibe while Tyson’s lyrics are evocative and bang up to date.
Now my mind is racing faster than a car/Back in Texas for a night I’m playing in a bar/She calls me up ‘cos that girl is never quite too far/Saying Baby, come back home to me/I live like a sunset and all your drinks are on me/Though when I return she’s too coked out to see
This is brilliant story telling that raises the hair on the back of your neck recalling Jim White’s more spectral moments but following this we’re back in traditional territory as Old Time Blues returns to George Jones’ like laments while Thorn In My Side returns to the Hankness (if there is such a word) of the opening song. Again it’s a pitch perfect capture of raw country music back in the days when giants ruled the Opry although there is a hint of Parsons in the delivery.

Overall Tyson shows that he has an extraordinary ability to capture and repackage what some folk might consider to be the golden age of Nashville while tweaking it somewhat to bring it up to date. A post modern take on Parson’s Cosmic American Music perhaps, indebted to the elders, topical topics on occasion but overall infused with the spirit of Country music. Whatever it’s one of the best discs we’ve heard this year. The EP is released in early November on Clubhouse Records

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Jim Keaveny. Out Of Time.

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Like a breath of fresh air Jim Keaveny’s album Out Of Time is a back to basics album of American folk music with some blues, country and a dash of Tex-Mex added to the flavour. Keaveny’s one of those jobbing musicians, restless, a back history of hitching around, a colourful C.V. (fisherman, dishwasher, cook, graveyard maintenance man, brewer and busker) and eventually getting his act together, settling down and picking up his guitar.

Out Of Time is almost timeless with Keaveney’s songs firmly rooted in the dusty Americana canon of freewheeling road songs, small town romance and that old standby, the railroad. Riding the road and the rail he’s accompanied by the spirits of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, John Prine, Chip Taylor and numerous others, no big thing I suppose as one could say the same of numerous contemporaries. Keaveny however stands out from the crowd with the abandon and general sense of glee with which the songs are delivered. While the title song here is a big number production with parping horns and a similarity to Dylan going through the motions the remainder of the album is a gem indeed.

The Dylan thing comes from Keaveny’s voice which does have a nasal twang to it but get beyond that and there’s plenty to enjoy here. The confused agglomeration of guitars on the claustrophobic Parkin’ Meter harks back to cozmic coyboy days while the cluttered horn driven mayhem of The Girl comes across like a cartoon, thrilling indeed as it picks up steam. The meat of the matter however is in Keaveny’s mastery of the story telling steady rolling song with the opening song, Eugene To Yuma a perfect example. It lopes along in classic style namechecking territories as the drums shuffle, guitars brush along and a weedy harmonica roots it in the vernacular. From The Black shuffles along in excellent style with the guitars scintillating in their interplay while Anything Without You hits a fantastic retro groove as it snakes along. There’s stripped back troubadourism on the fine Ridin’ Boots and The Yippee-I-Ay Song while I Found A Girl is draped in a Mexican veil with accordion to the fore, a feat repeated in the standout song, Out Of Sight. Here Keaveney’s voice is attractively world worn as he leads us into a twilight world with huffing accordion and barbed acoustic guitar runs, romantic and evocative as hell. In addition Keaveny throws in a blinding crawling kingsnake blues number in the shape of Someone To Talk To Blues that slinks along with slabs of guitar erupting.

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Chuck Prophet. Night Surfer. Yep Roc Records.

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It must be the monkey glands. Nothing else can explain how Chuck Prophet, who should by now be a wizened old hard hat pondering the good old days, is able to deliver yet another album of turbo charged rock’n’roll, melodic and all and even able to add strings without becoming all syrupy. Hell, he even looks like he used to back in the days. Monkey glands, just saying.

Prophet’s last album, Temple Beautiful, was a fantastic, hook filled, tribute to San Francisco with every song a pelter, radio fodder for perfect radio. In a perfect world he’d be wearing Tom Petty’s hat and playing amphitheatres while Petty would be looking up at him in awe. Well, perhaps that wouldn’t be a perfect world as opportunities to see and hear him would be much more rare. As it is Chuck continues to travel the world offering us the opportunity to see one of the greatest current bands close up while he tosses off albums like Night Surfer almost as an afterthought. His pal, John Murry, captures it on the PR sheet describing the album as “it brings a tear to the eye and blood to the johnson.”

So, Night Surfer, what’s that all about? Prophet tells all (or not) in this interview but suffice to say that Peter Buck’s guitar adds some jangled mayhem to several of the songs here with the propulsive Ford Econoline the most immediate, grabbing you by the jugular as it leaps from the speakers. Prophet’s gift for electrifying stomps is well served with Felony Glamour harking back to seventies glam rock, the opening song Countrified Inner City Technological Man has a beefy Stax beat and meaty guitar and Laughing On The Inside sounds as if it should have been on a soundtrack for one of those high concept movies of the eighties and nineties before it melts into a welter of psychedelic guitar, soaring strings and ferocious percussion.

Prophet’s pop sensibility is evident on Lonely Desolation which opens with a guitar rumble before staccato Brill Building strings tie the song to a more innocent time despite the story line which bears comparison with The Left and the Right Hand, from Temple Beautiful. In addition he offers some tender moments as on his cover of Ezra Furman’s If I Was A Baby while Truth Will Out (Ballad of Melissa And Remy) is a spoken word melodrama that is perhaps somewhat overblown on the album but will probably go down a storm live. Equally anticipated is the glam rock stomper, Love Is the Only Thing, that closes the album. It’s dumb but gloriously so with a Gene Genie guitar riff and rousing chorus although here the strings do sound superfluous and surely will be a hit live. The good news is that chuck is hitting these shores in the next week with a show at Oran Mor on 19th October along with other UK dates.

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Yep Roc Records

Police Dog Hogan. Westward Ho! Union Music store.

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The eight piece Police Dog Hogan are a perfect example of unassuming country folk played with a sly grin and a slightly right on stance, mildly left wing and prepared to champion causes. Above all however is their obvious delight at the opportunity to play together some of their own favourite music in the hope that some others might also enjoy it. They remind me at times of The Colourblind James Experience, eclectic in their influences, never too serious but serious fun.

Westward Ho! is their third album and it gathers English and Irish folk influences ranging from the Oysterband (whose sometime bass player, Al Scott, produced) to The Pogues. While there are American name checks in Buffalo and Judgement Day is a fine fiddle laced hoe down it’s the common or garden English sentiments of West Country Boy and the sublime A Man Needs A Shed that stand out.

The opening song Thunderheads is a glowering ballad concerning an orphan, square pegged and unable to fit in the round holes offered while One Size Fits All has an insouciant swagger as it shrugs off any idea of wallowing in heartache with fiddles and banjo gaily bowing and plucking. West Country Boy is a Pogues like band odyssey though Devon with the protagonist fond of his curried pasties from an all night petrol station. It’s great fun and tailor made for maximum audience fun in a live setting and the band revisit this toe tapping feel in the closing song No Wonder That She Drinks. St. Lucie’s Day is a much gentler England, pastoral and reflective as it builds up with massed backing singers, there’s a modern day Thomas Hardy feel to it. Ethan Frome seems to be set in the deep south west of England, land of surfers smoking spliffs through red wine lips looking for the carefree life while Crackington transports a standard American small time gangster to the same area (and a first here for Blabber’n’Smoke as we had to use Google maps to check out all of these place names). A Man Needs A Shed perhaps reflects the average age of the band here (most of the members won’t see forty again) but it conjures up thoughts that this was what Loudon Wainwright might be writing about if he lived in a semi detached in suburbia. Mention should be made of the song Home, a collaboration between the band and Music In Prisons charity. Several ex prisoners assist here on a song that is melancholic and sweeping with a spoken rap seamlessly inserted into the song. It’s a powerful piece.

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Stiv Cantarelli & The Silent Strangers. Banks Of The Lea. Stovepony Records

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Sometimes it’s good just to blow the cobwebs out of your head and there’s nothing better for that than some loud ramshackle rock music. Turn it up and clean your head indeed. Well Stiv Cantarelli’s latest album is just the medicine required for anyone in need of a good blast at the old neurones packed as it is with rackety blues rock, switchblade guitars and honking sax.

Cantarelli is an Italian who ended up in Portland many years ago striking up a firm relationship with Richmond Fontaine to the extent that they backed him on his solo debut Innerstate. Gathering up The Silent Strangers, essentially his old rhythm section from his Italian band Satellite Inn and adding Roberto Villa on guitar and sax, Cantarelli then released Black Music/White Music last year to some acclaim. Recorded in Italy it seesawed between stark country and amped up rockers. For Banks Of The Lea the band descended on Hackney’s Gizzard studio and looked for inspiration from the famed Canvey sound of Dr. Feelgood to the extent of getting the landlord of Southend’s Railway Hotel, Dave Dulake, to tinkle the ivories on several of the songs. The result is a maelstrom with the ferocity of the Feelgoods allied to the sinister slink of bands like Gallon Drunk and The Gun Club while the hellish urban setting of several of the songs casts the likes of Bruce Springsteen’s anthems under a baleful light. The high point is the magnificent Soul Seller, a gloriously lopsided tumult with the band shifting from a pell mell punk thrash to passages of unhinged slide guitar weirdness that build in intensity as the drummer thrashes his cymbals. It’s an all out orgy of sonic excess and by the end the listener is exhausted (and indeed cleansed).

While Soul Seller might be the summit there are thrills galore on the way up to it. The opening song, The Streets, kicks the door wide open as the band march in with their best garage rock strut before collapsing into a Yardbirds like freakout. No time to take a breath at the end however as they immediately slam into the piano boogie of Frenzy with the sax yacketty yacking like its horn was full of amphetamine. Jason Hit The City barrels along with sax again to the fore as Cantarelli and crew update and eviscerate Bruce Springsteen’s New Jersey fantasies adding a fine Jim Carrol street savvy. Leaving Blues abandons the city for a visceral take on rural blues with the Devil making his usual entrance. It’s not cotton picking back porch romanticism but an electrifying ghost ride somewhat akin to R L Burnside’s scabrous sound. The album ends with the monumental and thrilling juggernaut that is Before I Die with Cantarelli moaning the blues over tumbling drums and razor sharp guitar, a voice crying in the wilderness as all hell breaks loose around him.

Banks Of The Lea is a thrilling ride and the band are on the road for a short tour supporting the release. Tour dates here.

Sunrise Highway. Windows. Kool Kat Musik.

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Time again to appreciate the old theory of the cream rising to the top as skimming through the review CDs this unassuming disc almost immediately grabbed attention. I say almost immediately as the opening title song, while a thoroughly fine wisp of summer jangled pop didn’t prepare us for the shift into a heavier gear, a fuzz fuelled psychedelic haze with all the hallmarks of The Beatles circa Rain allied with latter day wizards such as Julian Cope on the following song Breathe. Five minutes of blissed out bliss. Next we’re in the retro world of The Fleshtones with the mighty garage pop swagger of Peter Pan, stomping power chords and deadpan vocals chiming together with an innocent sense of pomp and circumstance. Foreverland continues in this vein and by now the listener could be forgiven if they’re wondering if Sunrise Highway are a cloak and dagger covert operation of The BMX Bandits, Scotland’s finest purveyors of Beach Boys garage cool. However it transpires that Sunrise Highway are a New York bunch helmed by Marc Silvert who writes all of the songs here while he also sings and plays guitar and keyboards.

There are 14 songs here and with the exception of the aforementioned title song the album is a treasure trove of jangled guitar rock with hooks galore, glorious harmonies and just the right amount of freakbeat. There are moments here of sheer bliss that demand the volume be cranked up and the remote set to repeat with Call Waiting in particular crying out for attention. A sneered vocal whines away, frustrated and sick as the band crunch on laying down layers upon layers of guitar and harmonies building up before a key shift leads to a fractured climax. It’s a minor pop nirvana. While they don’t top this there’s plenty to enjoy in the remainder of the songs. Cinnamon Eyes is an off skelter guitar romp that threatens to teeter into Eastern scales but instead dances on the edge with guitars igniting like sparkplugs. Excellent!

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The Lost Brothers. New Songs of Dawn and Dust. Lojinx Records

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Oisin Leech and Mark McCausland, the Irish duo who are The Lost Brothers make beautiful music together. Since teaming up in Liverpool in 2007 they have seemed to be conjoined at the hip (or throat) as their superb harmony singing has graced three albums and led to performances at the infamous Midnight Ramble at Levon Helm’s studio complex and more recently appearing live on Russian television. Invariably they’ve been compared to both the Everlys and Simon and Garfunkel due to the vocal setting but it’s fair to say that the pair are also very fine songwriters who have a knack of teaming up with simpatico producers and players giving each of their discs an individual personality.

Having recorded previously in Portland, Oregon, Sheffield and then Nashville (with Brendan Benson in the producers chair) for their previous releases New Songs of Dawn and Dust finds them back in their old stomping ground of Liverpool with ex Coral guitarist Bill Ryder Jones producing while another Coral member, Nick Power adds keyboards and writes one of the songs here. In contrast to 2012’s The Passing Of The Night which featured an excellent studio country band (including Gil Landry and Paul Brainard) here the music is pared back for the most part with the Brothers’ voices and guitars complemented on occasion by piano and drums and occasional trumpet allowing the harmonies full rein to shine.

The album opens with the gentle and lilting Spanish Reprise, described by the Brothers as “a Mexican sunrise over the Mersey.” Similar in mood to the cantina instrumentals on Willie Nelson’s Spirit album it serves as a bridge from the avowed Americana of the last album to the comparatively muted new world influences on the songs that follow. Day’s Ahead showcases the reasons for the comparisons to Phil, Don, Art and Paul as the Brothers deliver a jaunty acoustic guitar scrubbed cousin to Wake Up Little Susie with Mariachi trumpet adding colour. On Derridae however they take a cowboy lope and marry it to an Irish mysticism as they sing about a girl who weaves spells capturing hearts. It’s a beautiful song that features Leech and McCausland at their best, troubadours of the West and the Celtic heartland. Soldier’s Song is another winner with a simple guitar melody adorned by a mournful trumpet while Poor Poor Man harks back to a rustic and simple ballad form with a Woody Guthrie feel while the trumpet ( by Martin Smith) again adds a forlorn air. Gold And Silver reminds one that the Lost Brothers often refer to dusk and darkness (witness the album title) and is the sparest song here as an evocative and solitary guitar allows their voices to shine with a crepuscular glow as they sing about the lure of riches and the resultant price to pay, “raining down like poison showers.” This sepulchral element is highlighted on the closing song, the stark and majestic Stones Throw which throws up shivers for the listener as Power’s dramatic keyboards echo under the twilight vocals with the end result having a similar emotional heft as Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

New Songs of Dawn and Dust is in essence a fantastic album, a mature work from a duo who are well able to deliver these songs in a live setting stripped of the studio trappings. The Lost Brothers will be touring on the back of the release with some Scottish dates included. See here.

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Jon Budworth. Trees Turn To Fire.

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While Blabber’n’Smoke would never profess to be well versed in traditional folk music there was a time way back when bands like Fairport Convention and Pentangle were an entry into a world of musicians who were trying to square alternative lifestyles with a particularly Anglicised (and occasionally Celtic) tradition. Groups such as The Incredible String Band, Comus, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band were hip, sharing stages with the rock bands of the day. Rob Young wrote about this phenomenon in his book, Electric Eden (with a fine CD to accompany the book as recommended here) and it’s been gratifying recently to find that there has been a mild resurgence of interest in the idiom both here and in the States.

All of this is by way of introduction to Jon Budworth, a guitar teacher from “deepest darkest Lancashire” whose second EP has found its way here. As you might expect from a tutor his guitar playing is excellent; he cites his primary inspiration as John Renbourn while Richard Thompson and Nic Jones are also name checked in his bio. What really grabbed attention however on this six song set was Budworth’s ability to pen songs that hark back to an England tied to the land, pre industrial, clinging to the seasons, all delivered with a fine sense of brio with Budworth accompanied on various songs by accordion ( Bernard Cromarty) and violin and viola (Elliot Moore).

At its best as on the traditional Searching For Lambs, a haunting mist laden tale straight from Thomas Hardy country or Budworth’s own When Will My Harvest Come Home? where he summons up a percussive drive that would sit well in a Levellers’ set he has a firm hand on Albion’s past, it’s stirring stuff. Dusty Roads tops these however as Budworth picks his way through a simple song that is wintry and desolate as his character attempts to woo a love with poetic, Shakespearean comparisons as the English Civil War rages around them. Muffled cannon fire and musket rounds complete the illusion.

There are some caveats here. The sound on the EP is brash and somewhat tinny while Budworth’s voice occasionally strains to hit the right note, nothing that can’t be sorted with some more experience for sure. The second cover on the disc, Paddy’s Lamentation, transposes the action to the new world where an Irish immigrant is drafted into the American Civil War. With a Celtic feel to it Budworth does struggle to sing with conviction leading one to suggest that he stick to exploring the byways of old Albion as on the songs previously mentioned, all evidence that he has the skills to go down this road. Definitely one to watch however and in the meantime you can buy the CD for a measly £2.49, much less than the price of a pint so why not give it a go.

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Luke Tuchscherer. You Get So Alone At Times That It Makes Sense.

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“Drummer makes solo album” is seldom a cause for celebration (there are exceptions of course, just see Levon Helm and Simone Felice) but in the main it’s not the best of news. It does help if the drummer in question has a track record as a writer and singer and Luke Tuchscherer ably manages both duties in addition to the sticks in his day job with country rockers, The Whybirds. While The Whybirds muscled up on their last release, A Little Blood, at times coming across as a power trio, here Tuchscherer goes in the opposite direction, ditching the rock in favour of an excellent set of acoustic based songs which hark back to seventies LA country folk with pedal steel, keyboards and occasional strings sweetening the mix.

The album title is a direct lift from a volume of poetry by Charles Bukowski, barfly and bum, a man able to create art from abject degradation and the privations of a serious drink habit. Gritty stuff but while Tuchscherer dwells for the most part here on lost love, fumbled lust and solace in drinking his writing is more of a doomed romantic bent with little of Bukowksi’s self disgust. Rather he recalls the existential emptiness of Townes Van Zandt, forlorn and resigned, telling a tale over which he has no control. Indeed there are moments on the album such as (To Make It Worse) I’m Falling In Love Again with its weeping cello and mournful harmonica which recall Townes on the likes of Our Mother The Mountain. There are shades of other forebears on the album with the snarly Dobro driven (Lord Knows) I’m A Bad Man recalling Steve Earle while Three Long Days lopes along like one of Steve Goodman’s bitter sweet laments. In the main however Tuchscherer takes on familiar styles delivering his downbeat tales with sweeteners such as the breezy Bakersfield sound on When Day Is Done and The Band like rootsy stomp of One Of Us. Women is a sprightly country gem of a song with some sparkling mandolin but the standout song is Hold On with its wearied vocal refrain and superb acoustic bedrock adorned by some evocative guitar stylings.

Tuchscherer’s blessed with a fine voice, slightly weary in its delivery and he’s ably supported by Whybirds band mates, Dave Banks on guitar, mandolin and banjo and Ben Haswell on guitar along with Max Hart on piano and pedal steel, Nick Mailing, bass, Simon Rinaldo, Hammond and Chris Corney on Dobro, banjo and lap steel at various times while producer Tom Peters handles drum duties. While the Whybirds remain a going concern it appears that Tuchscherer has assembled his own band, The Penny Dreadfuls, to accompany him on some live dates. Hopefully he’ll make an appearance north of the border at some point soon.

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