Well, as threatened, this West Virginia band whipped up a storm on this, the last night of their tour. And yes, they played Plastic Jesus. The audience, some of whom had followed them over from their dates in Ireland lapped it up.
I’ve written a full review which will come up elsewhere but here are some pics of the gig.
The band going home
Sean Taylor “Walk With Me “
It’s a bit like looking for crabs in rock pools, you find tiny little ones scuttling for cover and after a while you don’t bother to put them in your bucket. If you’re lucky however a large rock, pulled back, uncovers a magnificent specimen, large, fierce, a trophy to show to others. And so it is with this gig, lots of albums, often self released, nice, fair to middling, and then occasionally a trophy, something to shout about, this is one such specimen.
Sean Taylor resides in Kilburn but you wouldn’t guess that from his music. His voice is a strained, astringent murmur that is seductive and at times approaches the cool burr of J. J. Cale. His previous albums have been in the main singular affairs with Taylor playing all the instruments, here he handles the guitars and keyboards and is assisted by a stellar cast of musicians including B. J. Cole on pedal steel and Trevor Hutchinson on bass. Together they produce an album that is as comforting as a cup of Horlicks, warm, soporific, something to wallow in. There are love songs, ranging from the hushed “For You” with its tender saxophone evoking lonely rainy nights to the opening spare ballad “Perfect Candlelight” where voice and piano create an almost perfect tenderness.
Elsewhere Taylor evokes the lasciviousness of latter day Tim Buckley on “So High” and takes on a Shakespearean sonnet, “Love Hate On” which he turns into a lazy stroll with a beautiful string accompaniment. Likewise he takes the traditional “She Moves Through the Fair” and turns it into a sinister, doom-laden lament.
Best of all is “Hold On,” a sultry, sweaty and sexy longing that bundles all of Taylor’s influences into one of the best songs I’ve heard in a while. Worth buying for this alone.
Here’s Hold On
Website here
Full Tonne Kidd
While much of Scots Americana pays homage to the likes of The Byrds and Alex Chilton with twelve strings jangling and melodies oozing with power pop chords some newer bands are looking elsewhere for their inspiration. This is probably most evident with the latest “next big thing,” Kassidy, who namecheck the Laurel Canyon sound as a primary influence. In a similar vein Full Tonne Kid, hailing from that small piece of America that is Bellshill, have a freewheelin’ acoustic blues based sound that owes more to the likes of Steve Stills and Delaney and Bonnie than Big Star. Country blues and gospel influences are well to the fore on their forthcoming EP which showcases five songs that recall the halcyon days of blue eyed hippies getting back to the country and their country roots.
A four piece consisting of Gary Carmichael and Colin Fullerton on vocals and guitars, Bryan Ferrie, bass and David Stone on drums they have a wicked sense of humour if you read their bios on their website where they create some fantastical forebears. Proof of the pudding however is in the music and this is delivered with a confident swagger. With vocals that recall Sal Valentino from Stoneground, muscular and ingrained with a Southern soul feel, Carmichael and Fullerton sing with feeling, you would never imagine these guys don’t live in Louisiana or some such place. The guitars snarl and slide to great effect and from the countdown that introduces “A Stranger” to the final notes of “Tell My Woman” this is a nice slice of country rock. The standout song is “Catch Me if You Can” where some excellent harmonica and a swamp driven beat proves that you don’t have to come from the South to have the bayou blues.
Have a look at the band here, the EP will be available there soon. In the meantime here’s Catch Me if You Can
Full Tonne Kid are playing at The Belhaven, Wishaw, on August 7th and at Glasgow’s 13th Note on the 14th August.
Howe Gelb & A Band of Gypsies. Alegrias
As the mainstay of Giant Sand Howe Gelb has slowly, over the past twenty years or so, built up a reputation as one of the stalwarts of what we call Americana. Whether with the shifting line up of Giant Sand or solo he has blistered, strummed, crooned and goofed around on over thirty albums. His star shone most brightly however with the release of ‘Sno Angel, an album recorded in Canada with a gospel choir that garnered rave reviews and exposed him, however briefly, to a wider audience. The album was a mixture of familiar old songs and some new ones but the relatively straightforward renditions (by Gelb standards) showed him to be a great writer and performer.
Five years on and he’s done it again, this time in Cordoba, Spain with a cast of gypsy (their description) musicians. The flashing guitars, flamenco stylings and sheer brio enhance another brace of songs from his back catalogue that is wildly exuberant and brimful with an effortless sense of cool. The overall feel is of an informal “juerga, where flamenco musicians jam together enjoying the music and each other’s company and according to the press this is what happened when Gelb stumbled across these musicians essentially flamenco star Raimundo Amador’s group. While many folks notion of flamenco is that of The Gypsy Kings’ flamboyant Bamboleo, this is a more measured, slower, sexier traditional sound, not too far removed from the Mexican influences which abound in Gelb’s home town of Tucson.
The reworkings of songs such as Uneven Light of day, Always Horses Coming and Where The Wind Turns The Skin Into Leather are recognisable as Giant Sand songs but the loose limbed renditions evoke lazy sunny siestas, mañana made musical. Gelb’s voice has never sounded better, weathered smooth into a sexy, sultry croon. Along with the remakes there are several new songs written in Cordoba, none better than Broken Bird & The Ghost River. This beauty floats and shimmers with a female chorus that evokes the best of sixties Euro pop.
All in all this should be the album of the summer, heard in pavement cafes and town squares and on a hi-fi near you.
Alegrias means “joy,” you can read a great interview with Gelb here where he describes the genesis of the album and you can buy it here
Broken Bird and the Ghost River
July Euro Americana Chart.
This is what’s tickling the fancy of the contributers to this month’s chart.
1 – Larkin Poe, Spring an EP, Edvins
2 – Fred Eaglesmith, Cha Cha Cha, Lonesome Day rec.
3 – Darrell Scott, A Crooked Road, Full Lights Rec.
4 – Doug Burr, O Ye Devastator, Velvet Blue Music/Spune
5 – Phantom Puercos, Electrograph, self rel.
6 – Kevin Welch, A Patch of Blue Sky, Music Road
7 – J. Shogren, Bird Bones & Muscle, Jaha!
8 – Rebecca Loebe, Mystery Prize, Me and My Americana
9 – The Halyards, Fortunes Smiles, Cheshire
10 – Joe Iadanza, All In Good Time, Self rel.
11 – Si Kahn, Courage, Strictly Country Rec.
12 – Susan Cowsill, Lighthouse, Blue Rose
13 – Mary Gauthier, The Founding, Proper
14 – Judy Collins, Paradise, Wildflower Rec.
15 – Anna Coogan, The Nocturnal among us, yeah like yeah music
16 – Jackson Browne & David Lindley, Love is Strange, Inside Recordings
17 – The Slummers, Love of the Amateur, Blue Rose
18 – Ben Bedford, Land Of The Shadows, Hopeful Sky
19 – Terri Hendrix, Cry Till You Laugh, Wilory
20 – John Hiatt, The open Road, New West
21 – Natalie Merchant, Leave Your Sleep, Nonesuch
22 – Justin Rutledge, the Early Widows, Six Shooter
23 – Hayward Williams, Cotton Bell,CRS
24 – John Mellencamp, No Better Than This, Rounder Rec.
25 – Kara Suzanne, Parlor Walls, Sublimity
Coming to You: The Fox Hunt.
Another string band from the good ole USA, the Fox Hunt apply a youthful vigour to the tried and tested American mores as purveyed by the likes of The Wilders and The Black Crown String Band. Hailing from Virginia their latest album “Long Way To Go,” is chock-full of fiddles, banjo and mandolin.
With an eye on tradition but a contemporary style there’s no gloss on their songs. They’re earthy and full of grit, as real as you can get and if they sound anything like the album a must to see. They’re playing The Classic Grand on Saturday, 17th July, and to top it all, according to a recent review they do a version of Plastic Jesus, a great song that I’ve only heard on crackled old vinyl so to hear it live would be a blessing, so altogether now………. Jesus, Plastic Jesus, sitting on the dashboard of my car………………..
Hear them here, toe tappingly real and coming to Glasgow.
The Wynntown Marshals. Bar Brel. West End festival. 25th June 2010
It’s a crazy idea to have a gig in a conservatory on one of the hottest nights of the year, however a chance to see The Marshals up close was too good to resist. Crammed on to a tiny stage the five piece band were almost in each other’s laps as they sweated over a fine set of songs picked mainly from their fine Westerner album. Despite the heat they turned in a set that ranged from the mellow country tones of “Nelly” to the ferocious blast that was “You Can Have My Heart”. 
Singer Keith Benzie was in fine form and seemed to be enjoying the show as he explained the story behind the road trip from hell that is detailed in “48 Hours” and engaged in some banter with the audience. While “Ballad of Jayne” and “Snowflake” appeared early in the set the first highlight was a reading of “Thunder In the Valley,” one of the weightier songs from their album with some fine soloing from guitarist Iain Barbour. With Iain Sloan’s pedal steel playing somewhat buried in the mix the night belonged to the other Iain, whose guitar playing was a constant delight. Part of this may be that I was sitting two feet away from him but his mastery of the instrument, his picking and blistering solos just burned.
As the temperature in the hothouse rose the band appeared to be wanting to add to it as they approached the end of their set, the volume rose as they ended their set with the double whammy of “After All These Years” and “You Can have My heart.” A brave and rousing cover of Neil Young’s “Powderfinger” served as an encore which set the ears ringing.
Overall a great little night and proof, if needed, that The Marshals have some great songs and some mighty great chops with which to deliver them.
June Bugs
Old time American music continues today with countless proponents picking, strumming, fiddling and sometimes even yodelling, reaching back into the past and updating it with varying degrees of success. Here we have Western swing, Appalachian folk songs and bang up to date country rock.
The Quebe Sisters Band. Timeless
The Quebe Sisters Band are Texans who do like their Bob Wills and Spade Cooley. The three Quebe sisters all play fiddle and sing while Joey McKenzie strums and Drew Phelps’ upright bass provides the beat. The 14 songs here are all covers including “Across The Alley from the Alamo,” “Along The Navajo Trail” and “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” familiar songs, perhaps too familiar at times. That said the album starts off with a cracking “So Long To The Red River Valley” and when they tackle Billy Strayhorn’s “Take The A train” the fiddle playing and guitar sounds like Django and Grappelli duelling. Perhaps the only complaint about the album is that with the vocals sounding at times like the Andrews sisters this is a bit too retro, a bit too safe especially if you like a little bit of grit in your music.
The Quebe Sisters Band appear in the UK for the first time in July for a bunch of dates including The Cambridge Folk Festival.
Jeni and Billy. Longing For Heaven
Jeni and Billy trade in the same homespun feel as the Quebes although it belongs on the back porch as opposed to bars and dance halls. Theirs is the sparse folk sound of the mountains and backwoods folk, god fearing, hardworking, scraping a living but finding joy in family and friends. The pair play guitar, banjo and mandolin while Jeni Hawkins carries the vocals with Billy Kemp adding counterpoint. Together they create a warm, honest sound as natural as flowers in a field. With a mixture of traditional and original songs they sing of drunkards, jilted lovers and ruined lives. Half of these songs could be turned into tear-stained movies, “The Ballad of Sally Kincaid” tells of a girl seduced by a thieving preacher who hangs himself leaving her to end her days in shame. “Father Will You meet Me In Heaven” is the story of Johnny cash’s brother, Jack’s tragic death seen as a redemptive moment for their father’s godless ways. A previous album, Jewell Ridge Coal, documented the lives of miners in south-west Virginia and here they sing a song for Cecil Roberts, the President of the United Mine Workers of America. It’s a reminder that even these days mining is dangerous, deadly even.
A pretty stunning album for anyone into old-time Americana. Jenni and Bily are currently touring in England.
Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers.
Zoe Muth draws on classic country sounds with lashings of pedal steel and dobro and a voice that could have graced Nashville recordings anytime in the fifties to the present day. While the debt to tradition is there Muth and her band come across as an up to date Emmylou Harris and The Hot Band. Muth writes all of the songs with a worn and weary take on modern life, cosmopolitan as opposed to rural her lost souls are stuck in a neon lit nighttime dead end. The full band sound throbs and swings with some excellent playing, a rock solid rhythm section lay down a beat while steel guitar, dobro, banjo and mandolin hammer home the country roots. Over this Muth sings like a wounded angel, vulnerable yet tough and above all else she can write. All of the songs here have a hook that should have radio station playlisters drool. “Hard Luck Love” is a stone solid classic radio friendly song while “The Last Bus” is a superb portrait of a drifter drifting the lonely highways and bus stops, hungry and broke she can sing and play guitar but seems doomed to go on in ever decreasing circles. While this may be the highlight here Muth delivers again and again. “The Middle of Nowhere” is Loretta Lynn arriving in a big city while “Not You” is another Lynn type perky put down of a philandering partner. Overall this is a mighty fine album and Muth is definitely one to watch.
Listen here
The Quebe Sisters “So Long To The Red River Valley”
If Wen. Take A Look At the Sea.
I suppose it was too much to think that Scotland’s Fence Collective has a monopoly on slightly off beat, “nu folk” minstrels. If Wen is a Cornish troubadour who would be right at place in any gathering in Anstruther, singing of the wind and the sea, at one with nature and swapping banter with James Yorkston or Kenny Anderson as the haar rolls in.
Folkwit Records have re released this 2007 album (with a few extra songs) that gained some rave reviews first time around. Why the reissue I don’t know but an album this good deserves every chance it can get. Having composed the songs on a beach in Cornwall Wen then took himself off to a barn to record the basic tracks with ambient noise leaking into the sound. However the album is anything but bleak. Multitracked vocals, thumping percussion and lashings of acoustic guitar add up to a dramatic soundscape with Wen’s fractured vocals, at times strained, sometimes whispering creating a lush, melancholic feel.
While there are echoes of classic songwriters like Nick Drake and Elliott Smith here I was struck by the similarities to that strain of baroque English pop of the eighties (Momus, Paul Roland) best heard on the songs “Love Letters” and “Eclipse has Gone.” The latter is a highlight here, six minutes of climax after climax, over too soon indeed.
Delicate, awkward, endearingly intimate, this is an album to savour, to mull over. The original closing song, “One Day” just about sums it up, a lonesome soul, sitting drinking and dreaming of one day finding a soulmate but eventually realising it will probably never happen as the wind blows and the sun sets over him. A bedsit album for the modern age. You’ll find him at If Wen
Susie Hug “Tucson Moonshine”
Over the past few years, Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico have been the hired guns of Americana. Need a rhythm section to enhance your dust-strewn ditties? They’re your men. It helps of course that Convertino is one of the best drummers around with a solid yet relaxed swing and that Burns has a direct line to south west cool. Here, transported to Tucson’s Wavelab studios and with a roster of local luminaries in tow we have Susie Hug, ex of UK indie band The Katydids, tapping into the Calexico lode in fine fashion. While her voice is as clear as ever the jangled pop sound of The Katydids is missing, instead we have a laid back set of songs that float and shimmer like a heat haze. There is nothing here that utilises the full blown Texarkana mariachi style that Calexico do so well but Hug uses the musicians to provide colour and atmosphere, the trumpet of Jacob Valenzuala wails mournfully on several songs while Convertino plays excellently throughout with tasty fills.
Hug’s clear voice has an anglo sensibility which at times is reminiscent of early eighties groups such as The Marine Girls. She is joined on the first song, “A Modern Lie” by Burns’ melancholic vocal. This is an excellent opener, accordion and Spanish guitar weave in and out while the pair duet magnificently. “A Modern Lie” and “Everybody Changes” are the songs that most evidently wear the Calexico imprint on their sleeve but “Cherry Blossom Hangs” has a delicate folk singer meets spaghetti western feel. “Flinch,” with dead pan vocals, sounds like The Raincoats in their latter days with some wonderful sonic rumblings from the band which are then revisited on the closer, “My Own Skeleton.”
One is reminded of the album that Convertino and Burns as OP8, along with Howe Gelb and Lisa Germano recorded some years ago although this is less dusty with more weight accorded to the singer. Hug’s songs are well up to par and the pairing with the Tucson crew is an inspired touch.
The album is released by a relatively new label, Vacilando '68 who appear to be becoming the main conduit for Tucson based music here in the UK. Hot on the heels of their release from Marianne Dissard, another Calexico sidekick, they are well worth keeping an eye on.
Website Susie Hug
Listen to A Modern Lie