The Lowest Pair. Fern Girl & Iceman. Team Love Records

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Some records just capture the essence of an old America, rooted in the hills and woods and the songs and tunes that early immigrants brought with them to the new world, sounds that informed the pioneers of what we now call country music. Generally it’s relatively unadorned, strings and a few other things, voices raw and elemental, spooky or life affirming, summoning up deep dark woods or back porch pickin’ and grinnin’. Blabber’n’Smoke has reviewed several artists who brilliantly  evoke this old time essence, Cahalen Morrison & Eli West, Pharis & Jason Romero and Anna & Elizabeth come to mind. Time then to add the duo of Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee, AKA The Lowest Pair to this club as Fern Girl & Iceman just oozes with that rarefied mountain air.

Basically a duellin’ banjo duet Winter and Lee are rooted in the Clinch Mountain musical style, one of the backbones of Appalachian music and listening to the album is somewhat akin to being near the clear mountain streams and wooded glens of Georgia. Recall if you will the early outdoors celebration of the river in Deliverance, the grand beauty of a wilderness and the music that grew out of it. The pair capture this perfectly with banjos strummed and picked, occasionally extended into virtuoso breaks, the vocals, Lee a rough-hewn tenor and Winter a little girl lost, her voice recalling Victoria Williams at times. In fact listening to her one can imagine that this is what Sissy Spacek would have sounded like if she had made a rootsy mountain album back in the seventies. Swapping lead vocals and harmonising excellently together the pair add guitar, tambourine and harmonica to their banjo playing while a spare backdrop of bass, drums, lap steel and fiddle offer occasional embroidery.

There are 11 songs here and all are of the highest quality. There’s the halting Stranger with its skeletal string picking, the old time waltz of Trick Candlelight with its delightful lap steel adornment and the driving ballad Sweet Breath which sounds like it came from the Child ballads. Waiting For The Taker is proof positive that a pair of banjos can summon up a storm of emotion as they flail together in a modal fashion which again recalls old time ballads of dread and doom. It’s chilling in its icy beauty with a tremendous instrumental break which recalls Indian sitar scales. The best is left to the end with the closing song How Can I Roll a perfect summation of the album, a frail cry into the wilderness with tentative picking, aching harmonies and ominous fiddle all folding into a plaintive lament. Overall Fern Girl & Iceman is an album that is fresh and timeless and they get extra points for naming themselves after an obscure John Hartford word poem. Check it out.

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iMTV: Rob Ellen’s independence Music TV

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How best to support your favourite acts and artists? I’m sure that Blabber’n’Smoke readers do more than their fair share, buying records, going to gigs, funding Kickstarters and such.  Now music promoter Rob Ellen, who is based in the Highlands, has a new concept which he announced on July 4th, Independence Day of course for those in The States.

To call Rob a music promoter is to sell him short. His Medicine Show umbrella covers all sorts of activity. He promotes artists, organises tours and house concerts, has a syndicated radio show and an online webzine carrying album and live concert reviews. In addition, he is one-half of The Slim Panatellas playing tea chest bass with cigar box guitar genius Don Jack. Now Rob has set out on perhaps his most ambitious project, iMTV, an innovative attempt to showcase music, offer folk an opportunity to become a patron and hopefully put some money into the pockets of the featured artists. It’s fully explained on his website but essentially Rob is setting up a music video channel which will carry music content such as tour documentaries, streamed concerts and the like, all unique and filmed and recorded by Rob. To facilitate this he has vowed to spend the next year touring the UK converted Hymer Mercedes motor home which is now a mobile TV studio, The Medicine Music Moose Mobile.

Rob Ellen Photograph by Gair Fraser

It’s early days. The 4th July declaration was the curtain raiser for a fund raising drive asking for a minimum £10 donation for a year’s subscription to iMTV once it’s up and running. In addition musicians will have a members page on the iMTV site and will receive 50% of  subsequent subscriptions made through their page. The initial fund raising page is here. It’s a bold venture so Blabber’n’Smoke spoke to Rob about the idea, his hopes and expectations and we started by asking him why he was doing this.

It’s a couple of things. I got frustrated sending out my artists’ CDs to DJ’s and writers. Many of them are good enough to play some songs or write about the music but it’s getting harder and harder to establish an artist, it’s the same worthy crew who play the songs. There’s a lot of resources thrown into trying to get on the radio and I thought, well why not set up a TV station?  If we can attract people to that it will be a whole lot better than just one or two radio shows playing the music. And I also wanted to come up with a plan that can reward the artists themselves, affiliated artists will get 50% of any profits that come in.

Why do you think a TV concept will be more effective than a radio play?

I think that if you offer music in a video in these days of instant interaction then people will be more likely to remember it. I want to capture a moment and then share it with people on the video channel and also via social media.

You’ve got a mobile TV studio which you’ll be using to record shows and events.

Yes, I’m out on the road right now, I’ll be doing this for the next year, collecting content, spreading awareness and trying to raise the funds we need. So the Moose mobile will touring the country, filming and recording and we’ll be trying out the results initially on the House Concert TV channel.

I’ve given myself a year to see if we can get fully funded to see if we can do it properly. There’s a fundraising page which has started off really well but I need to keep up the momentum. So far it’s mostly folk I know that have contributed but I’m hoping that word will spread. I hope that people will see it as an investment of sorts, it’s only £10 I’m looking for and for that tenner anyone who contributes might eventually make some money if it all works out.

So what’s the current state of play with you on the road?

Right now I’m on the road with Chuck Hawthorne who’s on his first tour of the UK. He’s playing gigs, house concerts and festivals and I’m recording and filming all of it. I’m also going to try some live streams directly from the Moose mobile which will go on to Facebook, we’ll call it Chuck in the truck! It’s great to be starting off with Chuck as he’s got such an interesting back-story and hopefully we’ll get some footage of him recounting it and it will all go up on the Moose Mobile Facebook page. At the end of the tour I’m hoping to edit what we’ve got into a documentary. I think that Chuck is as important an artist as I’ve worked with for a long while and also it will be nice to get a capture of the current UK Americana scene as seen through his eyes.

Will you plan to do more documentaries once iMTV is up and running?

I think it will be more live streams, bang, bang, as it happens, captured warts and all allowing you to interact with the artist as it happens and then archived so that you can revisit it, share it and such. As the project progresses I’m hoping to install cameras in a couple of our regular concert spaces which will allow us to edit some concerts afterwards for a really professional showpiece which will be available to watch time and again.

So at the moment we are trying it out, getting to know the equipment and seeing what we can with it so that when iMTV is good to go we will be up and running from day one.  It’s a steep learning curve but I’ve got a team of folk back home helping me set it up.  This time next year we hope to have enough money to man it all and to entertain a target of 60,000 subscribers.

So if you want to get in on the ground floor you can send in your tenner to Rob’s Go Fund Me page. In addition it would be a tremendous help if folk can share this using the links we’ve included or by just sharing and mentioning this page. It’s a vision we can all participate in after all.

 

 

Doug Sahm and The Sir Douglas Quintet. Hell of A Spell/Nuevo Wave Live/Texas Hero. Floating World Records

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The late Doug Sahm has been woefully let down by the record industry in the years following his death. Aside from a  couple of decent compilations there hasn’t been (as far as I know) any attempt at a comprehensive retrospective or even a reasonable reissue programme of his major albums, solo, with The Sir Douglas Quintet or The Texas Tornados. Mind you, he recorded for a number of labels so the legal hurdles might just be too much to bear. In the meantime reissues are often slapdash, albums renamed, information scant, hidden away on back pages on Amazon.

This two disc CD (comprising three albums) is guilty on some counts. There’s little information on the musicians involved although there is an informative essay in the liner notes (written by Alan Robinson who also recounts a very brief encounter with the man).  On the plus side it’s reasonably priced and it does contain one bona fide gem from the Texan Groover.

Hell Of A Spell, originally released in 1980 finds Sahm paying tribute to Texas bluesmen (the album is dedicated to Guitar Slim) and although it wasn’t his swansong it’s perhaps his last major release before he formed the Texas Tornados (along with two decades of a variety of line ups playing the Sir Douglas Quintet hits).   With a fine horn section in tow Sahm offers up his “San Antonio blues album” covering Brook Benton, Junior Parker and, of course, Guitar Slim along with several of his own numbers. Produced by Dan Healy, The Grateful Dead’s soundman, it’s an excellent album, Sahm whoopin’ it up, his vocals fired, the band loose but not sloppy. There’s jump and jive and slow burning barrelhouse blues here. If you’re a Sahm fan and haven’t got this album then you can stop reading here and just go and buy it.

Nuevo Wave Live is credited to The Sir Douglas Quintet and it appears to be the same recording issued previously as Live Texas Tornado, an album recorded at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in Hollywood and the Club Foot in Austin, Texas sometime in the early ’80’s. With the likes of  Joe ‘King’ Carrasco on the scene the Quintet’s parping Farfisa Tex-Mex sound was popular again and here the band give it their all on pumping versions of Wooly Bully, Who Were You Thinkin’ Of, Mendocino and the almighty She’s About A Mover. It’s short but sweet, a crisp live recording with Sahm’s rendition of Dylan’s Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues an interesting diversion.

The second disc is a collection of early Sahm recordings delving back to 1958 many of which have been previously reissued on a variety of mongrel compilations. As far as I can see this is the most comprehensive collection so far with 25 songs gathered together.  The road to Hell Of A Spell is already mapped out on The Pharaohs’ bluesy I Can’t Believe You Want Me To Leave and Why, Why, Why, recorded with The Markays in 1060, Sahm, just leaving his teens, already a Texas bluesman. The first ten songs are all vintage rock and blues before Sahm delves into early Tex-Mex land and this is where it gets murky. There are four instrumentals credited to him but no evidence of his presence. Following this are sets of songs from Freddy Fender, Ernest Tubb and T Bone Walker, all fine but tangential to Mr. Sahm’s story. Apart from that it’s a fine disc of rudimentary rock, blues and country.

A quick cost benefit analysis might determine whether this release is destined for your shelves but overall it’s a fine opportunity to catch up on the man who once said, “You just can’t live in Texas if you don’t have a lot of soul”.

Buy the album here

Cheap Wine. Mary and The Fairy.

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Blabber’n’Smoke has occasionally ventured into the world of American influenced Italian rock music with bands like Sacri Cuori and Lowlands proving that there’s a genuine feel for the sound in the boot heeled peninsula. Some time ago we spoke to Edward Abbiatti of Lowlands about this and he recommended a band, Cheap Wine and weirdly enough the very same crew recently reached out and sent us a copy of their latest album. A live affair, recorded in Pesaro, Italy it portrays the five piece band as a very accomplished bunch of rockers who inhabit that world frequented by the likes of Tom Waits and Nick Cave although they don’t have the gruffness of the former nor the grimness of the latter. In addition the band (named after an old Green On Red Song) have a definite touch of Steve Wynn’s Dream syndicate about them (Mr. Wynn has enjoyed playing live with them in the past) and there is a hint of E Street balladry, Velvet Underground streetsmarts and Waterboys’ epic sweep on some of the songs while their European heritage flickers into life here and there, a cafe come cabaret loucheness stalking them.

Mary and The Fairy (the title derived from two of the songs on the disc) features eight songs from the band’s back catalogue that they thought deserved to be captured for posterity, songs that in concert stretch out beyond the studio versions allowing the instruments space to shine. It’s a great recording, the sound crisp with only occasional audience applause to remind one that this is live music. The majority of the songs sit astride piano driven melodies with Marco Diamantini’s vocals well to the fore, the lyrics all in English, his accent only just noticeable, his voice slightly wearied. As the band stretch out there’s acres of fluid and fierce guitar soloing that adds fire to the songs making for some invigorating listening.

Three of the songs exceed the ten minute mark, all mini epics. Behind The Bars is a showcase for the excellent piano skills of Alesso Raffaelli with the song opening like a Springsteen jailhouse opera. The guitars flail away but the piano solo midway through is mesmerising. Mary opens with Diamantini describing the titular “queen of drop out street” as if he were Kevin Ayers or Lou Reed as the band creep around him creating an atmospheric milieu until a guttural guitar solo weighs in seven minutes into the song shredding away until the end. The Fairy Has Your Wings (for Valeria)  is another seesaw of intimate lyrics and gentle instrumentation interspersed with thunderous bursts of guitar fury with some excellent calm in the centre of the storm in the shape of another fine piano solo from Raffaelli.

Away from the Sturm und Drang of these longer numbers the band offer the effortless stroll of Based On Lies, the autumnal ballad of Dried Leaves and the nocturnal delights of the noirish waltz that is La Buveuse. The oddly named I Like Your Smell (you need to listen to the lyrics here) is a minor masterpiece with the addition of an accordion allowing the band to sound like an Italian version of The Felice Brothers.

For a live album this is a mighty fine listen even for anyone who isn’t aware of the original versions and for this reviewer a sweet invitation to delve into the band’s back catalogue.

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Sturgill Simpson/ Daniel Meade & The Flying Mules. O2ABC Glasgow. Wednesday 13th June

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I reckon this is Sturgill Simpson‘s fifth appearance in Glasgow in less than three years. In that time he’s grown from appearing in pubs and clubs (to small but very appreciative audiences) to become a Grammy nominated, Billboard chart topping phenomenon. Seen as the salvation of real country music (seeing off those boozy ‘Bros) with his albums High Top Mountain and Metamodern Sounds in Modern Country Music there was no doubting his credentials and his sheer talent. The philosophical bent that informed some of Metamodern Sounds shook some traditionalists but didn’t prevent the album from ranking high in the best of lists in 2014. Earlier this year Simpson unveiled A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, an adventurous epic which saw him travel further from his basic update on outlaw country, a concept album of sorts, inspired by the birth of his son, it saw Simpson add horns, strings and electronics as he pulled in soul and funk influences. A bold move for his first major label release the album has been almost universally lauded for its vision and for Simpson’s refusal to be cast in any one bag.

It was an expectant crowd therefore who turned up to see the man tonight. Reports from shows in Newcastle and Manchester on previous nights indicated that Simpson and his seven man band (guitar/pedal steel, bass, drums, keyboards and three horn players) were playing the album in full and so it was. There was some softening up beforehand as he ran through past favourites that were rearranged to take account of the horns and keys; forty minutes or so and had he left at the end of these there would have been no complaints. The opening lines of Sitting here Without You hummed like railroad tracks with a train approaching before the band battered into honky tonk heaven, the horns given  space halfway in before the band got back on the tracks. Water In The Well was an early example of Simpson’s aching way with a ballad before they launched into an almighty delivery of Long White Line which started with a soulful organ groove before Laur Joamets’ wicked guitar sparked up, eventually sparring with the horns. Chugging and grooving, the song reached its logical end but the band segued expertly into an audacious rendition of When The Levee Breaks discarding any Memphis Minnie notions as they honed in on the Led Zeppelin cover, Jaumets’ casually riffing off on Jimmy Page, pretty astonishing. There was another nod to an older song on I Never Go Round Mirrors, this time with whiffs of The Tennessee Waltz woven in. Railroad of Sin and Living The Dream were powerful reminders of Simpson’s ability to deliver hi octane country rock along with his oft-mentioned recall of Waylon Jennings while tonight’s delivery of The Promise was infused with a soulful feel that brought to mind Otis Redding.

P1050394 copyThe band remained on stage and Simpson gave a short preamble to the leviathan that is A Sailor’s Guide To Earth before it rumbled into view with a thundercloud cacophony of guitar and keyboard before settling into the melody of Welcome To Earth (Pollywog). Thereafter the songs appeared in sequence, billowing and blasting with tsunamis of sound from the horns, unfortunately Simpson’s words of sage advice at times swallowed up by the clamour.  Never mind, the overall effect was impressive. The brass burbled over some superb slide guitar on the pulsating Keep It Between The Lines, Bobby Emmet on keyboards coming on like Garth Hudson at times. There was a scintillating moment midway through In Bloom when pedal steel glided into a sharp horn break and the thunderous bass guitar intro (from Chuck Bartell) to Brace for Impact (Live a Little) led the band into an almighty wallow through funky Little Feat territory, guitar sinuous and sinister as the rhythm section locked into the groove. This was awesome.

P1050407 copyThere was a brief respite from this juggernaut of sound on the soulful bliss of All Around You before it grew into a wall of sound with the horns blasting away and the soul train continued with the deeply moving Oh, Sarah, Simpson approaching the romantic heights of The Promise with his vocals. The ship was berthing now as Simpson mentioned his local bagpipe player, Dougie Wilkinson before Call To Arms hove into view, a perfect closer to the night as the band ripped into it with a fury. Away from ship and sea metaphors the band played this like they were in a roadhouse on fire, the last of the honky tonks. As they blazed away Simpson grew more animated throwing shapes and pacing around the players, ducking into the wings allowing soloists to shine before winding it all up with a ferocious blast of joyous noise before an abrupt end and a sharp exit from the stage. And that was it. The crowd seemed momentarily stunned before erupting into applause. There was no encore but it would be difficult to see any way that they could have topped that.

P1050371 copySimpson’s Glasgow buddies, Daniel Meade & The Flying Mules were the support tonight, evidence of the man’s affinity with this dear green place (indeed a fanciful article in a local newspaper had him musing on moving over here from Nashville, if only). Playing to a home crowd The Mules were on top form playing a selection from their new album, Let Me Off At The Bottom along with several favourites from Mr. Meade’s back catalogue. Always a good bet for some infectious rock’n’roll their recent bout of touring sees them razor sharp in their delivery and there was even some dancing going on as they tore into Please Louise. There’s a Headstone Where Her Heart Used To Be, As Good As Bad Can Be and Back To Hell were real crowd pleasers while the plaintive lament of He Should have Been Mine showed that they can be tear jerking as well as barnstorming.

Joe Nisbet Jr. Judge Not

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Last year Blabber’n’Smoke was intrigued by a singular release from Joe Nisbet Jr, one of Scotland’s premier guns for hire guitar players who regularly graces records and shows by the likes of The Proclaimers, Dick Gaughan, Justin Currie and Ags Connolly. His album, The Gospel According To Mr. Niz, is a collection of gospel songs which were originally recorded by quartets back in the 1940’s and ’50’s and was born out of Nisbet’s formative years when he accompanied his father, an evangelical preacher on a tour of the Southern US states. Encouraged by the album’s reception Mr. Niz has now decided to release his first self-penned composition, Judge Not, a song that again draws from the well of Gospel roots and adds his experiences in punk, jazz and blues over his adult years.

It’s an exuberant number, Nisbet’s guitar riding the rhythm with a nonchalant authority as he proclaims his sins. With hints of Ska and Mariarchi along with a hefty choral backing (featuring Andy May, Neil Weir, Bert Bertram and Justin Currie) it’s a jaunty take on tradition, as the man himself says, “although it sounds like a badly behaved gospel meeting in a New Orleans hip-hop club, it’s actually a punk record at heart.”
You can buy the song here but there’s a cracking video with the song set to a Betty Boop cartoon which will remind older readers of the good old days of The Old Grey Whistle Test, pre MTV.

 

DH Lawrence and The Vaudeville Skiffle Show/ Ciaran McGhee. Nice n Sleazy. Glasgow. 6/7/16

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Crikey. you go along to a mid week show in a cellar bar on a rainy night expecting to see the same old stalwarts in the fair to middling sized crowd that has turned up. Not tonight however as the place was packed. Had Nottingham’s prized purveyors of skiffle, folk and old time country started trending since your correspondent left the house? Snatched pictures of Al Rate and Kate Moss appeared on the Huffington Post or Barak Obama revealed they’re on his Spotify playlist? No. Truth is a couple of The Vaudeville Skiffle Show players moonlight as physiotherapists when they’re not whipping up a storm onstage and there just happened to be a worldwide physiotherapy conference going on in Glasgow this very week. Canny folk that they are the band slipped the word out with the result that this was perhaps the most cosmopolitan crowd Blabber’n’Smoke had ever hung out with. Australians to the left, Americans to the right and that was the English speakers. Indeed, there was a veritable Babel of chatter in between songs.

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Now I don’t know how many of the audience were fans of the band before the show, perhaps just keen to investigate the ergonomics of playing a washboard or banjo, but I’d bet that by the end each and all were converts after a storming set. Skiffle, jugband and old time country are all kind of rabble rousing in their own way and the band stoked the crowd throughout ending up with a fair amount of them on stage scrubbing away at a variety of washboards and kitchen implements and wheezing into kazoos and whatnot for the final song, Mama Don’t Allow No Skiffle ‘Round Here. Indeed as one entered a kazoo was thrust into your palm with instructions to wait for the invitation to play.

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It wasn’t all party music. On their album, Sons & Lovers, DH Lawrence and The Vaudeville Skiffle Show delivered some skilful and moving songs that draw from English and American folk traditions with several delivered tonight along with some choice covers. You Saw Me Fall was given a cool viperish vamp, Sons and Lovers (adopted from DH Lawrence’s novel, “he was a bit of an arse,” they said) portrayed their roots while their latest single, the somewhat awesome Black Rain did have the audience transfixed with its sinister delivery. However it was the good time element that had the crowd baying, a mass kazoo participation on Tom Waits’ Chocolate Jesus was great fun while keeping with the Jesus theme their rendition of Hayes Carll’s She Left Me For Jesus (with the band aping a gospel tent confessional) was a definite hit. The band with an ever revolving frontsman and with much swapping of instruments entertaining throughout the night.

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Support tonight was Ciaran McGhee from Edinburgh, a chap you can catch at the likes of The Royal Oak. McGhee is in thrall to traditional Scots folk music and has a voice that can thunder out the throatiest ballad as evidenced on his powerful rendition of the Jacobean Macpherson’s Rant, at times reminiscent of Dick Gaughan in his prime. A songwriter himself McGhee sang several of his own songs which show promise including Hypocrite and Sing me A Love Song, the latter showing he is not all rant and rave. Perhaps to celebrate a night out in Glasgow he offered his take on Cod Liver Oil and The Orange Juice, a song popularised by the late Hamish Imlach. Steeped as it is in Glaswegian patois he obligingly translated the words into Standard English for the benefit of our visitors.

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Peter Bruntell tour dates

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Peter Bruntnell is heading out throughout July with band in tow for what promise to be some spectacular shows. Fresh from his recent jaunt to Ireland and what was reported as a barnstorming performance at Maverick Festival Bruntnell is riding high on the very postitive reviews of his current album, Nos Da Comrade, a recent Mojo album of the month. Described by The Guardian as “an alt-country genius,” over the course of 11 albums this Welshman has been a flag carrier for home grown rock that picks up from where the likes of The Byrds and Crazy Horse left off. Blabber’n’Smoke reviewed Nos Da Comrade here while Americana UK gave the album a rare 10/10 review.

Peter has very kindly offered one pair of tickets for any of these shows for Blabber’n’Smoke to hand out. If you want them just email us at paulk.blabbernsmoke at gmail.com with Bruntnell in the subject line and tell us who was the inspiration with his bully boy tactics for Peter’s song, Mr. Sunshine. Please include contact details and the show you wish to attend.  The tour starts on the 14th July so the competition closes on Tuesday 12th. In the meantime here’s an example of the man in action.

Annie Keating. Trick Star

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Despite being championed by Bob Harris Annie Keating still seems to be somewhat under the radar in the big old world of Americana. Undeterred she keeps plugging away with Trick Star her seventh album and one that ensures that those in the know including The Telegraph’s Martin Chilton and the Glasgow Americana festival, will continue to sing her praises.

Keating says of Trick Star that it’s about being raised up, torn down and finding the way back home. There’s certainly a lot of memories contained here, the title song is about her first bicycle (something like a BMX) and offers her the one opportunity on the album to rock out with snarly slide guitar over a solid organ groove and a fine Dylan subterranean blues rap in the middle. The remainder of the album however is classic Keating, her voice often tender, almost childlike in its vulnerability at times, the songs clusters of fully realised images and emotions. While there’s a Donovan like innocent frivolity on the trombone borne Creatures, Keating wishing for the freedom and peace of mind  she imagines the animal kingdom to enjoy, and a fine pop rock swirl on Time To Help Me Forget it’s on the more restrained and contemplative numbers where she truly shines.

In The Valley is a lilting number with sweet pedal steel and viola and a bittersweet lyric as Keating describes an Elysian field, a place to lay her head. Slow Waltz aches, recalling Patti Page’s Tennessee Waltz as it slowly wends its way, Keating recalling a summer night at a carnival many years ago with the opening lines again allude to death as she sings, “I’m over my head, I’m trying not to care, I’m six feet under the overpass where we first met”.  Regret and forgiveness is writ throughout the very tender Orchard and the winsome country stylings of Come and Go while Fool For You is a halting and intimate song of self recrimination.

Keating’s regular posse of musicians ((Steve Mayone, Jason Mercer, Chris Tarrow, Yuval Lion and Trina Hamlin) are credited by her as having been fully involved in the evolution and arrangement of the songs and throughout they are in fine form. They shine however on Lucky, a song that recalls the simple folkiness of John Prine in its lyrics as the band combine rippling acoustic strings with a fine curdled electric guitar.

According to Keating the seed of the album was sown at a concert at London’s Barbican Theatre when she heard the Brooklyn Youth Chorus performing Black Mountain Songs, a celebration of the North Carolina institute which in the 1930’s forged a blueprint for American alternative culture. Moved by the performance Keating wrote and has teamed up with the Chorus for the closing song here, Phoenix.  A celebration of the power of music and words, the rebirth of hope, an anthem of optimism it’s an addendum to the main body of the album but it’s also an anchor, ensuring that despite loss and hurt there’s always hope.

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Rummage. Something Else. Cannery Row Records

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Despite the fact he’s from Scotland Mark Mulholland is a new name to Blabber’n’Smoke. Born in Glasgow he was involved in the Edinburgh scene in the eighties before becoming something of a globetrotter, residing for periods in Prague, Berlin, Paris, Haiti and currently Mali. On the course of his travels he became close to two other musicians in particular, James Finch and Rusty Miller, both of Jackpot, their shows sometimes colliding at festivals (in particular SXSW). Over the years the trio spoke about recording together and Finch worked with Mulholland on the latter’s 2011 solo album. Eventually the stars lined up and the trio recorded this album in California with Mulholland writing all songs (one a co write with the band), singing and playing guitar, bouzouki and banjo. Finch and Miller handled drums, bass, additional guitar and keyboards.

Collectively the trio have an eclectic CV as players having worked with the likes of Chuck Prophet, Jason Lytle, Nikki Sudden, Captain Sensible, dEUS and Tony Allen alongside their own work in Two Dollar Bash, Impure Thoughts, Jackpot and Nightgown. Admittedly the latter are hardly household names so it would be somewhat amiss to describe this collective as a super group but they have certainly paid their dues and there’s an undeniable sense of fun here as the three pals finally get to let loose in a studio.

Overall the album is a collection of songs that do recall the likes of Nikki Sudden, a loose limbed amalgamation of The Stones and The Byrds, Mulholland’s voice reedy but borne aloft by strong melodies and some fine playing. Guitars jangle, twang and erupt while there are faint echoes of Dylan, Big Star, garage rock and Paisley Underground here and there. Mulholland proves himself a dab hand at writing, his words perfectly attuned to the louche subterranean worlds of songsters such as Lou Reed and Kevin Ayers. Ayers in particular comes to mind on the late night ambience of Fucked Up Again, a cocktail jazz pastiche that discards the janglier rock’n’roll ambience of the album while Hoodathunkit, a fuzz driven scuzzy riff of a song with distorted vocals recalls Ayer’s own pastiche of the Velvet Underground on Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes from his excellent whatevershebringswesing album.

The album opens with the effervescent garage fuzz of Ebb and Flow before the wiry Give Me A Ride  with a Dylan & The Hawks like mercurial slink flows into view.  Dreaming Of Trains surely is somewhat ironic, the title and delivery recalling Robyn Hitchcock, another spangled guitar jangler,  if it’s not deliberate then it’s fine evidence of Happenstance. Listening to it again right now visions of Green on Red also swim into view. Half the fun of the album is in figuring out what band each song reminds one of especially if like Mulholland the eighties were the touch paper. He hits the target time and time again with the slightly awesome Trams and Trains and Aeroplanes standing out, wasted elegance indeed with a shambolic rock’n’roll heart while there’s some tumbledown country melancholy on Floods Of Memory.

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