Musical interlude

Two songs I've been a humming to myself

This is the sort of band I'd like to play in... as if I had any musical talent at all.
And the story song brings a tear to the eye...



Cameo by the cool and harmonious New Country Rehab

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Meanwhile, you'll need a heart of stone not to smile at :



Another Like You by the geeky Hayes Carll with the implausibly sexy Bonnie Whitmore

Goin Giggin ~ Daughters ~ Caitlin Rose

Standing outside Farringdon Station waiting for middle-daughter I took a moment to OCD our tickets a tenth time and now, of course, I notice what I hadn't noticed the previous nine times: Strictly Over 18. Hmm, middle daughter is just sixteen - Panic!

Caitlin Rose - photo efsb

I consider our predicament: I can imagine the only thing more embarrassing for MD than being thrown out of a pub for being under-age, is being thrown out of a pub for being under age accompanied by her Dad. But surely all teenagers pass for can eighteen nowadays? Especially if not self-conscious, I think, and I determine I will not warn her... and simply hope for the best,

"Hi Dad, so, where is this place we're going to?"
"It's called the Slaughtered Lamb"
"so, is it a pub?"
"Well, it's sort of, kind of a pub thing, yes, I suppose it is"
"Well, I hope it's not over 18 only!"
"Just look inconspicuous."
"Inconspicuous?"
"hmm, no - look grown up and, um, inconspicuous"

We were headed to see Caitlin Rose, an exciting alt. country singer from Nashville, so new she is unknown to wikipedia, barely out of her teens herself, and currently on tour in the UK. She played last week in Clerkenwell  the kind of show that I sometimes imagine travelling 3000 miles to hear in Austin, TX¹

Sigh, I am not cool, we arrived at exactly the wrong time for a gig: too early for the main act (an hour and a half to wait!) but too late to secure one of the leather sofas directly in front of the stage (curses) . Unwilling to stand up we lounged on an uncomfortable bench behind a pillar and waited until the friends and family of the (quite dreadful) first support act got up and left; and then craftily nabbed the empty seats.

When the support² was finished, a group of fresh faced kids invaded the stage to get it ready for Caitlin and her band. Then, to our astonishment, they picked up their guitars and stood ready at the mics. It was Caitlin's band: lead guitar Jeremy Fetzer, in particular looking like he had just obtained 11 A* at GCSE, and feeling excited about wearing his own clothes in the sixth form. He turned out to be a smooth guitarist, but he didn't like to sing, and shifted uneasily if a mic came too close.

Caitlin Rose, on the other hand was assured and effortless. Her voice and delivery reminded me of Iris Dement, she handled the crowd with aplomb, only momentarily disconcerted by losing her special pick. Caitlin is heralded as alt. Country, but to me her songs are slap-bang in the country tradition: funny, heartfelt, simple in lyric and telling story.

Now, I wouldn't say Caitlin Rose was obscure exactly, its just that precious few in the Uk have heard of her, and to tell the truth I had heard her only once on Bob Harris country, and just before she came on MD shamed me by asking for my favourite Caitlin Rose track and - when I was forced to prevaricate, astonished me by naming three of hers. She had done her research. (And a week later is still listening: a teenage country music fan in London. Thus do parents influence the lives of their daughters.

At the gig, MD and everyone else in the audience were able to recognise and welcome the highlight songs Learnin to Ride, Own Side, Things Change and a sing-a-long Answer in one of these Bottles. Only I was mouthing the words.

Here's a song she did earlier



On her recordings Caitlin's voice is mellowed and softened, and the arrangements sometimes slightly lush. At the Slaughtered Lamb her songs benefited from the stripped down band (lead, bass, pedal steel) and unrestrained vocals, emotion allowed to bleed in to the melody. "Are you having a good time?" she asked, at one point, "because you're all very quiet" "We're English" came the apologetic response, and to make up for our poise of apparent indifference we clapped, dutifully, all the way through to the Gorilla Man.

There were about 150 or so people there I suppose, a small gig, but her support is is growing. Her UK tour includes a dozen dates, and where she is top of the bill she is selling them out.

She comes from Nashville (of course she does) and I wondered what it takes to get the breaks in that competitive town, to get listened to in the first place. How do aspiring young singer-songwriters get noticed? Is it luck, or is talent so plain that even the dimmest A&R can recognise it when he browses myspace? Or is it something else? Cynically I googled, and whaddyknow? her father is mainstream country singer, and her mother an award winning co-writer for Taylor Swift.  Contacts, then. Thus do people achieve lift off in a competitive world, and thus do parents influence the lives of their daughters.

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¹I have a plan, myself and two mates. Well perhaps more of a whim: a six week journey through the southern states every night listening to country music bands playing live. Moving from town to town, from bar to bar we'd hear the old and broken, the new and hopeful, the tired and the bittersweet artists that I imagine are the country music scene, travellin' light, hittin' the road, staying in motels with screen-doors slammin', always going where luck and the music took us, a journey partly spontaneous, partly planned. Oh yes, and one of the friends used to work for the BBC, so surely we could meet famous bands and interview them in the comfortof five-star hotel rooms, recording sycophantic interviews and, each morning, making a video diary in which we mocked, in a very British way, the unsophisticated acts we'd seen the night before. I'll write blog and book, my exBBC mucker a podcast and hour-long reflective programme for channel four and my other friend, a sober lawyer, would drive the RV and keep us out of trouble. And write poems. (Yes, I am practicing my pitch). It will be called The Judge the Journalist and Jerk, in search of real Country, it would start in the Smokey mountains and end at the Grand Ole Opry for CMA Awards. Would you like to sponsor us? Just £100 will buy a Budweiser a day for one person for the whole trip. Our just giving page will open soon.


²The first support was bearded Eyore from the Isle of Wight ("You are the most amazing people - you have actually come to watch a support band! Oh, my guitar player isn't here, sorry, he's at a funeral"). He wailed, dismally, for half an hour, then left. The second support band (and some might say two support bands is one support band too many) were the Lost Brothers a pair of earnest young Irishmen, one sweating in pork pie hat and overcoat, who sang tightly worded simple songs in close Everley Brothers harmony, in between murmuring at the audience as if they were the Shy Brothers (get some patter, boys)

Taylor's Mom was there as well

OK. I wasn't necessarily the oldest person watching Taylor Swift's gig at Wembley Arena on Monday night.  For instance Taylor's Mom was there as well.

taylor swift by whittlz

And younger daughter certainly wasn't the youngest person in the Arena either - for instance Justin Bieber (that would be the guy on the stage, with the microphone and the backing dancers) is only 15, going on 11... and I have to say he didn't look like he'd last long in the U16s at my local rugby club.

But even if I wasn't the only Dad in attendance, neither was I exactly a typical audience member: let's just say it was a high-decibel, oestregen rich environment, with more than a little shrieking. And clapping along: watching Bieber (who was actually quite good) I felt like Prince of Wales at the Royal Variety Performance.

But he was the mere fluff compared to Taylor Swift herself: Tall and striking, playing up the girl-next-door goofiness but at the same time more than slightly fierce; she is never vulnerable, always focused and perfectly in control of herself and her show. The demure look and shy smile that occasionally played on her lips in "London, England" was each time belied by a fiery glint in her eye: she owned the gig - and I can't help it if she looks like an angel.

But all the same: there's something different about Taylor and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that, at home, she alphabetizes her herb drawer, pairs up her socks and arranges her scarves and gloves in different ziplock bags.

Stars out of 5 : 5
Worst part of the journey home: Willesden Junction
Best Song that night - Hey Stephen. Taylor accompanying herself on by fantastically earthy-sounding 12 string.

Here's a video of her playing that song.. on a different day.

Madison Violet

Madison Violet enjoying themselves

There's nothing like a late Sunday evening for a crush in the  overheated room over the Cabbage Patch that plays host to the Twickenham Folk Club (now cunningly rebranded as TwickFolk@CabbagePatch)

We were there, Mrs Botogol and I, to hear an obscure Canadian country roots/folk duo called Madison Violet (as featured by whispering Bob Harris on Radio 2)


Doors were at 8pm so, obsessively punctual, I hurried us there for 7:59. But there were two support acts. Of course there were; it was very hot and the wine was warm. Mrs Botogol was not amused.

But it was worth it!  If we had not been entirely warmed up by the slightly sulky¹ Good Intentions who preceded them ("We've come from Shoreditch. Just now that is. Actually, we're from Liverpool. Well Gaby's not") it wasn't our fault, but when these two upbeat, wise-cracking  women took the stage, positively revelling in each others' company, it was impossible not to smile.

In a packed set they played almost all of their new album - No Fool For Trying - the upbeat title track contrasting with the bitter and angry tones of Woodshop and Black and White, the yearning of Ransom and charming nostalgia of Small Of My Heart

There were a couple of Flight of the Concords moments as very dedicated tour-following fans fresh from New Brunswick and Switzerland made themselves known, Lisa and Brenley handling with aplomb, and the crowd sang cooperatively when called upon.

Here are MadViolet singing the most moving song of the evening -  Woodshop - Brenley MacEachern momentarily choking up in her introduction as she recalled the death of her brother, and the family tragedy about which the song is written.

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The set finished with singular - and sinister - cover of Simon & Garfunkel's Mrs Robinson, the  somehow menacing arrangement and heartfelt, angry vocals emphasising the less than wholesome nature of the story - and the familiar song suddenly took on a unexpected hue.

Exclellent. They are touring UK and Ireland in next two weeks - go see them.




1 - I reckon they had a row in the traffic, for their music was actually laced with some wry country wit "I was a poor boy this morning / and I'll be one again tonight / there is nothing I call my own / and I will not need my 12 string / when the angels call me home"

You could set it as a problem

Last week I have been mostly listening to Paolo Nutini.

No, I'd never heard of him either, until I watched Glasto on BBC2 where he was the highlight of the highlights singing the wonderful Pencil Full of Lead.



His new album - Sunny Side Up was released last month. It's a cracker and with its eclectic and eccentric mixture of references and genres it's also a curious thing. You could set it as a problem for a musical Ingénue:

Popular Music 101: Listen to these ten tracks and identify the genres.
Bonus marks are awarded for detecting influences and musical references.

Pencil Full of Lead?  It reminds me of no one more than Louis Prima ¹, and with the reinforcing reference to Reet Petite,  I'd identify it as swing.

Here's my other favourite - 10/10



I'd say that was is Ska. Other songs are variously country, pop, folk and is that even a Calypso tune? Anyway it's all great stuff, here's a playlist of my favourites: sharpen your exam pencil and post your analysis in a comment.


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References
(1) it's no surprise, therefore that you can also find Nutini covering I Wanna Be Like You on YouTube.

A Dinner Party Surprise

   'Surprise' by O'mages     

In the face of a surprise one imagines oneself unflappable and calm, suave and assured, decisive and charming. Or that's the hope.

At dinner last Thursday on the French Riviera, champagne glasses tinkling around our table, I had the chance to put my hope to the test when the bien chic, bien elegant French woman seated to my right gently touched my arm, flashed a white-toothed smile and breathed softly: "Can I ask you, Alibert? Eez eet OK if my sister and I kiss you zis ev'ning?"

I blinked, and not in a calm, suave way. Very possibly, dear reader, I flapped.

"You see, 'ere in France it eez  zee custom", she continued, in a waft of Givenchy, "at New Year, to kiss, at midnight.... but we know zat you English, you don't like so much to be kissed, and you must not be uncomfortable 'ere in our country".

I think I must have had too much Pomme Dauphinoise and Pouligny Montrachet, for my voice when I spoke quavered unconscionably,  "Well, I think that... I mean... well, obviously..."

I trailed off,  for over her bare, french shoulder I could see her excitable (and suspiciously wired) 'usband, dancing tanned, wild  - and now shirtless - with my daughters.

Beyond him, far below our hosts' beautiful villa shimmered the Mediterranean, redly reflecting the fireworks of St Tropez on the far side of the Gulf.  In the kitchen yet another champagne cork popped and I collected myself.  "Naturellement, Sylvie, bien sur, zat would be  - I mean that would be - perfectly agréable"

But the moment had passed: Sylvie was paying attention to her right-hand neighbour; to my left everyone had switched to a type of incomprehensible French that resembled-not language I learned at O-Level long ago.  Through the Bose sound system Abba asked: Does your Mother Know? and I fell silent and tried not to look as if no one was talking to me.

"What would very agreeable, dear", asked Mrs Botogol, appearing unexpectedly at my elbow.

I sighed, calmly and suavely,  "A 2009", I replied, gravely, "that proves better than 2008 - now that would be very agreeable - don't you think?"

Big Ben, carefully Mp3'd and play-listed earlier in the week, bonged right on time, and the iPod segued smoothly.

Poor old Johnny Ray

Sounded sad upon the radio, 

he moved a million hearts in mono.

"So, shall we dance?"

He Sings the Songs that Remind Him Of The Good Times

picture by MatthewBradley

From: YouTube [mailto:no_reply@youtube.com]

Sent: 21 November 2008 03:18

To: botogol

Subject: A copyright owner has claimed content in one of your videos

Dear botogol,

Video Disabled A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video TRFC U9 Rugby.

The audio content identified in your video is Tubthumping by Chumbawamba. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue.

Now, I'm all in favour of copyright and I understand why record companies have a hard time with Limewire, and I'd be really miffed if people copied out Greenideas and pasted it all over the internet ¹ but I find it hard to believe that Chumbawumba's inalienable rights and long-term financial security are being seriously violated by the TRFC U9s.

In fact the reverse: you would think that in the world of the long tail, and a sea of content flooding the internet, that sound-track might serve to keep their ditty alive and remembered a little longer.

So how does it work anyway? Have record companies built bots that download all the video on youtube, and listen to it, searching for their unique chord sequences?  That must be a rewarding job: "I'm in the Music Business" "Oh, yes, what do you do?"  "Umm - music silencing department"

And all that effort to prolong a business model that must, surely be dead. I think we'll look back at the music business as a distinctly 20th century coda, a wierd period where large companies were, astonishingly,  able to control the distribution of . . . music. Kind of like GM seeds.

Sigh - so there must be a service that allows me to disguise the soundtrack so that it is unrecognisable to robots and but sounds exactly the same to the mums and dads of the U9s?
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¹Transparent lie warning : of course I'd love it :-)

It was 50 years ago today...

Fifty years ago to this very day, perhaps to this very minute, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong sat in a recording studio in Hollywood with Ray Brown (double bass) Herb Ellis (guitar) Oscar Peterson (piano) and Louie Bellson (drums) and together recorded 10 of the finest pieces of music ever laid to vinyl, including Autumn in New York, Stompin at the Savoy, They All Laughed and Love is Here to Stay.

This picture was taken twelve months previously and was the cover of the first of two albums they recorded in just four sessions in two successive summers. When the picture was taken Louis was 56 and Ella just 39 - significantly younger than I am now.

Frighteningly, I have been listening to those two albums for over thirty years, so when I first heard the recordings they weren't really very old. The equivalent to my children listening now to music from 1987.

But not really, for Ella & Louis have no equivalent: she of the purest voice and he of the purest trumpet, individually they were stunning and together for those four golden days in 1956 and 1957 they were untouchable, unmatchable, ineffable.

The picture to the right was taken in 1952, while they were in their primes.

Louis died in 1971 and Ella, poor diabetic Ella, died in 1996.

The first time I heard Autumn in New York in the 1970s, it was on my parents' old stand-up mono radiogram. In the 1980s I played it at university on my Comet hi-fi. In the 1990s I bought it on CD and played it in the car. Now I am listening to a this .wma as I type,

To me this song sounds as fresh as when Ella & Louis laid it down - exactly fifty years ago today.

Fridays

Every Friday at Canary Wharf tube station a unusual busker plies his trade playing 70s music on his Fender Stratocaster

But not the ghastly 70s music that features in endless themed parties and interminable compilations. There is no Carwash, Blockbuster or any other class of glam-rock in his repertoire. He plays the other 70s music, the real 70s music. My 70s music. The Sultans Of Swing, Changes, London Calling, Stairway to Heaven. Going Underground (yes, really!)

Its odd music to busk in any underground station but especially at Canary Wharf: In Canary Wharf the average age of commuters seems to be about 23 and I don't suppose even 1 person in 10 recognises the music this lonely busker plays.

The effect is spooky. Not because the sound echos eerily around the cavernous converted-dock station (though it does) and not because the material he plays is incongruous (although it is) but because he plays hidden behind a pillar: London Underground, in their wisdom, sited the licensed busker's pitch facing the down escalator - so he plays with his back to us work-bound commuters, and if he puts as much as a toe outside his designated area the LU staff are there to pounce. There may be rock music and avant-garde poems on the modern underground, but they still like the buskers to know remember who's boss.

He doesn't sing, he just plays, and often the familiar tunes cause half-remembered lyrics to roll around the edges of my mind as I hurry out of the station.

A fortnight ago, late for work, running over the same old ground, with deadlines looming, and my blackberry showing 194 unread and unreadable emails (it was before I got my glasses) I reached his spot at the foot of the escalator as he was in middle of a familiar song. I wasn't sure what it was but felt that if I listened long enough I thought I could tell. It was the end of that lovely warm week we had in London and I and all the other commuters stood on the cold steel rail, trading hot air for a cool breeze, heading for blue skies.. or pain.

You don't expect to hear Pink Floyd busked, when you do it's a welcome treat. So why did I only give him a pound?

Fridays is my favourite commuting day

Eddi Reader live at Shepherd's Bush

The Guardian billed Eddi Reader as 'folk' in their '10 Things To Do' section on Saturday morning, Not unreasonable if you've been listening to the traditional-sounding Peacetime these last two weeks - indeed it's what I was expecting.

Luckily no one had told the band :-)

It was revelation: song after song from an album that I liked-a-lot-but-didn't-quite-thrill-to came alive as Eddi and her talented band thundered through two hours of top class music. Songs leapt out at me. The familar, love-and-understanding Peacetime became a pounding anthem (was that a bit of head-banging I spied from an excitable Boo Hewerdine ?) and the seventies-syrupy Prisons was transformed into an almost unrecognisable (and much better) bass-and-drums-driven piece of edginess. I suspect Roy Dodds might have something to do with it. Whenever I have seen Eddi play with him it's struck me that he drives the performance with his relentless, clever rhythms. Saturday was no exception.

Meanwhile the ballads were injected with a large dose of soul: Boo and Eddi's moving Safe as Houses the intriguing Galileo the charming Leezie Lindsay and even Ay-Waukin-O all were stronger and richer than the album versions.

Eddi had started the evening in underwhelming fashion: unexpectedly coming on stage (dressed in her duffle-coat!) to provide backing-vocals for the support band. It's not often you'll see that, and it silenced the noisy bar, but I'm not sure it was altogether wise: she seemed unsettled when she returned to the stage 30 minutes later, with just Dodds, Ian Carr and Boo accompanying a restrained, stripped down but low-key Medicine.

John McCusker, Alan Kelly and Kevin Mcguire then joined to bring the band up to full strength with the beautiful, lyrical Bell, Book and Candle, before Boo's Muddy Waters headed up sequence of six-of-the-best from the new album, each one better than the last building up to the first climax of the evening, the thumping Prisons, with Eddi growing visibly in confidence throughout, engaging the crowd in the some great banter and gentling chiding us for our English accents, our congestion charge and out trapped summer whale.

From then on th set list weaved, with older, familiar songs sprinkled amongst the Peactime tracks. Prisons gave wayto Charlie Is My Darling and a spontaneous-seeming Moon On The Rain was delightful surprise sandwiched between Galileo and Safe as Houses.

By now Eddi was on a roll. I don't suppose 1 person in a hundred noticed the Frankie Laine titles (Do not Forsake Me, Cool Water, Jezebel) smuggled into Kiteflyers' Hill, but I did. Great stuff.

Peacetime rounded off the session, followed by two encores, and five more songs: the seldom-disappointing Willie Stewart, an a cappella John Anderson my Joe and a lyrical, haunting Allelujah particularly strong.

All round a thoroughly enjoyable evening... Eddi, why don't you come to London more often??

Set List

1. Medicine
2. Bell, Book & Candle
3. Muddy Waters
4. Baron's Heir & Sadenia's Air
5. Mary & the Gallant Soldier
6. Should I Pray
7. The Afton
8. Prisons
9. Charlie is my darling
10. Leezie Lindsay
11. Galileo
12. Moon on the Rain
13. Safe as Houses
14. Kiteflyers Hill
15. Aye Waulkin Ay
16. Peacetime
17. Alleluyah
    
18. Willie Stuart / Mollie Rankin
    
19. Jon Anderson my Joe
    
20. Wild Mountainside
21. Pay no Mind
    
22. Claire

Album Track Count

• Peacetime (11) (just the tricky Shepherd's Song and the secret bonus track missing)
• Robbie Burns (4) (the four best ones)
• First Of A Million Kisses (3) (golden, welcome oldies)
• Angels and Electricity (2) (more please!)
• Mirmama (1)
  
• Candyfloss and Medicine (1) (neglected albums these two)
• Simple Soul (0) (a travesty!)

Review: Peacetime
Review: Boo Hewerdine Live

That Lucky Old Sun

One of the exquisite pleasures of parenthood is the license to inflict one's own eccentric taste and prejudices on one's long-suffering children, and there is no doubt whatsoever in the minds of my children that country music is the new rock & roll.

Question: What do you get if you play country music backwards?
Answer: You get your wife back, your job back, your car back, your kids back, your house back...

From the Rocky Mountains to the Grand Canyon is only about 5 cm in the map in the Dorling Kindersley Guide to Middle Class USA, so last summer we didn't feed any need to get up early and it was only at lunchtime, when we realised we'd driven just 1.5 mm, that we panicked.

I'll just say one thing: without Colorado Classic Country FM, Utah Ultimate Country FM, Arizona Amazin' Country FM, and Blake Sheldon singing Austin on all three, it would have felt like a very long twelve hours drive indeed.

When I was young, I was at the receiving end of similar parental enthusiasms (how is it we play these same roles from generation to generation?) and consequently I have always known that Frankie Laine was an all-time star, a forerunner of Elvis Presley and one of the first white men to eschew 1940s crooning style and sing with soul and passion. Standing too close to the mic.

Oh, my father liked him also.

Mind you I wasn't until I was grown up, and heard other people singing the songs that he sang, that I realised many of them were actually country music. He was 93 when he died this week.

... got nothin' to do / but roll around heaven all day

Peacetime - Eddi Reader

I have to confess a little disappointment when I got my hands on a copy of Eddi's 9th album Peacetime (released 29th Jan): Only a fool doesn't judge a album by its cover and, call me old-fashioned if you like, but doesn't a new album deserve some new artwork? Instead, Peacetime's cover photo is a retread of the cover of St Clare's Night Out .

Did Rough Trade run out of money? Doesn't Eddi know even one person with a digital camera and a copy of photoshop? :-)


Its been nearly four long years since Eddi recorded the Songs of Robert Burns, and six since she recorded an album of original songs - the ineffable, incomparable Simple Soul.

A confession: for every single one of those four long years I've listened to Simple Soul, Angels & Electricity and Eddi Reader more than I've listened to Robbie Burns, And for all that time I have hung on to the hope that Eddi's venture into traditional folk would prove a detour, and that her next album would resume the forward march of her partnership with Boo.

It doesn't, quite, but still - a new Eddi album is not to be sneezed at, and I was as excited as small child on Christmas Day last week when I slipped the disc into the player and myself into something more comfortable and settled down, eschewing the sleeve notes, to wallow in 14 whole, brand new helpings of Eddi's wonderful, rich crystal clear voice.

It's very folksy: 7 of the 14 songs are listed as 'traditional', no fewer than three of them are more Burns, and many of the rest have a traditional folksy feel to them - The Afton for instance sounds positively 19th century, and it's a surprise to look it up and find out it's new.


It's probably too obvious to say: but the best of the trad-folk songs are the ones that are kept simple - Baron's Heir + Sadenia's Air is a fine beginning, with Eddi's voice soaring over a simple guitar in the opening sections, and her Scottish accent coming through delightfully clear, two songs later it would take hard heart not to smile at Mary and The Soldier, and Leezie Lindsay is catchy enough. But it has to be said there are also some duds: Aye Waulkin-O, and Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon seem to me simply bland, and even Eddi the alchemist cannot turn that lead entirely into gold.

Shepherd's Song stands out. It's an odd one and it has had some positive fan attention. It's certainly unusual with it's brass-band opening section, as soon as I heard it, it seemed familiar, reminding me of something. No, not Bailero from Songs of the Auvergne by Canteloube: but Pink Floyd's Outside the Wall.

Am I giving the impression I don't like the album? That wouldn't be fair. I couldn't dislike anything by Eddi and, besides, WMP tells me I've played it 13 times already so it can't be that bad. It isn't - and there's an important redeeming feature: three diamonds in the coal, the three unmistakable songs by Boo Hewerdine.

Instantly recognisable these songs - to me - carry the album. The first one we hear is track two Muddy Water, a 'brief encounter' says Eddi in the sleevenotes, a brief illicit encounter say I: 'Did not do what I should / I nearly lost it good / but the CCTV camera never caught us' Boo's sparse lyrics perfectly capture a time, a place an emotion. Listening in the bath last week, knowing only that there were three Boo songs there somewhere it wasn't hard to pick them out when they came: Muddy Water, Safe as Houses and the eponymous Peacetime with their references to CCTV, to the London bombings breathe some current relevant meaning into an otherwise hard-to-fathom collection.


We've had Eddi Reader sings the songs of Robbie Burns. That was good, but I'm not sure this new album carries Eddi forward as it should. What would be wrong with Eddi Reader sings the Songs of Boo Hewerdine? Until that happy event Boo fans may find pleasure Rosalie Deighton's upcoming album which will feature five songs co-written with Boo (that's two more than Eddi's)

Oh dear, I feel I have been a bit rotten to Eddi. But rest assured she's still one of my all-time favourites, and I'm still going to Shepherd's Bush to see her next month. And I'm still hoping to hear Soul, Lucky Penny, Wolves, Simple Soul, Footsteps Fall and Sugar on the Pill.


Links
- review of Boo Hewerdine gig in November

Pandora

Here's a cool, well constructed site: pandora

• you enter some music you like, it suggests (and plays) other music that it thinks you would like
• umm, that's it
• except that's not it.... the thing is: It's very well done
• using it reminds me of how it was when I first came across flickr - the immediate knowledge that something is executed well.

I heard of this from corporate presenter

Boo Hewerdine

An enthusiastic band of the faithful squashed into the noisy back room of the Cabbage Patch pub in Twickenham on 26^th November, for a lively gig from a witty and on-form Boo Hewerdine.

Belying the slightly uncomfortable performance on his 'Live One' album, and his sometimes brooding on-stage presence behind Eddi Reader, Boo smiled and joked his way through a baker’s dozen of songs accompanied by the winsome, if breathless, Rosalie Deighton on vocals, and the talented fast-learner Dave Marks on bass.

The small back-room at the Patch, which doubles as the home of Twickenham Folk Club each Sunday night is intimate in the way a top oven is intimate, and it's hardly an ideal venue for a softly-spoken singer. Indeed, from time to time in the gig Boo, like Rosalie before him was accompanied by the not-so-faint sound of bar chatter the other side of the door, and occasional crashing of saucepans from the nearby kitchen. The lack of space was such that come the interval, the trio were forced to hide, hilariously, behind a velvet curtain - hapless Manie Krugers: ‘off-stage’ but with feet and elbows clearly visible.

Nevertheless the homely surroundings seemed to suit Boo, perhaps in some part accounting for the stronger, meatier delivery than typically heard on his records – and beneath the plaintiveness and sadness easily associated with Boo’s music, on this hearing I detected a thread of anger running through the gig, beginning in a powerful Bell, Book and Candle (complete with introductory Emmerdale synopsis), and continuing through to Slow Learner, normally dismissed as slightly too self-pitying, which came alive with the added bite. (Has Eddi recorded this song? I think it would suit her).

That’s not too say our heartstrings went untugged. Teasing his audience by inviting requests (‘Nope, sorry, it’s got to be the one that’s in my head already’) Boo seized on a thrown-out shout of Ontario to set up a trio of ‘dead puppies’:

Ontario, complete with slightly anomalous sing-along chorus, segued smoothly into Murder in the Dark, Boo's depressing, pessimistic picture of married life, and then (abandoning any pretence of requests now) a tight I Felt Her Soul Move Through Me finished the section. Credited on the album to Hewerdine/Reader/Henderson/Dodds, to my mind this song is nevertheless Boo’s own - and possibly his finest. Written after the death of Boo’s mother and Eddi’s father in just a short space of time, it’s a simple but powerful piece with clever and subtle images. Hearing anything sung live often brings out different aspects, and this time the couplet ‘Too late I landed / To say goodbye’ suddenly struck me as the keystone of this short song.

But it wasn’t all miserable. We enjoyed Patience of Angels and - this being a folk club after all - Boo obliged with a new song Harvest Gypsies written for up-and-coming folk artist, Kris Drever as well as the sentimental favourite Follow my Tears; the choruses of all accompanied by an enthusiastic audience.

Boo finished with Peacetime, which will be the title song of Eddi’s new album out in January. Peacetime’s not a new song - it’s on Anon. I’d never really thought of it as a ‘protest song’ before, but that’s how Boo described it, neatly extending and tying off the angry thread that I detected weaving in an out of all his songs that evening.

Boo has recorded eight albums with Eddi, and he told us that Peacetime is the best of the lot. Listening to the song last night it wasn’t hard to imagine it with a Simple Soul type arrangement, with Eddi’s vocals soaring over the top.

A new album! Eddi Reader sings the songs of Boo Hewerdine, perhaps? A great prospect.

Boo’s on tour for a while longer on his own before he joins up with Eddi in the New Year. See him if you can.

Rosalie Deighton

Set List

Stone in your shoe
Bell Book and Candle
Harvest Gypsies
Patience of Angels
Slow Learner
59 Yards
Honey be Good

Follow My Tears
Ontario
I felt her soul move through me
Murder in the Dark
16 Miles
Peacetime

Figaro at the ENO / Opera as Musical / Feral Memes

To the Coliseum, a rare excursion to the Opera to see the ENO's Marriage of Figaro.

Slightly odd to have them singing in English AND with surtitles.

The critics didn't like it much. Ho hum: I enjoyed it a lot, but (and get ready, here's the philistine bit...) I couldn't help thinking it was 90 minutes of wonderful entertainment packed into three hours.

"What if", I thought to myself, during one of those slow bits in Act 2, when the central characters were badly bogged down trying to heave the plot along two more tiny steps, "What if you cut out the all the 'sung' dialogue, lost all the twiddly bits removed a couple of the sub-plots and focused more on the real songs? A bit like a musical in fact.."

Luckily, my inner culture-alarm bell rang insistently in my mind, and I refrained from expressing my childish, ignorant thought out loud during our sophisticated, witty, £27 bottle of ice-bucketed chardonnay, interval conversation. Phew.

And then I read in the papers about what Trevor Nunn is doing with Porgy and Bess

A feral meme indeed (How do ideas spread?)