Blackbeard's Tea Party - The West End Centre Aldershot - 5th April 2014

Still recovering from this one. I'd heard their reputation for a good live show but DANG! Ok firstly I've gotta say they are a lovely bunch. Interested, interesting, affable - well I won't embarrass them too much but I really, really liked them when I met them in the afternoon. I've also played tracks from their current album in my shows, and love that as well. They're pegged as folk-rock but what caught my ear was fusion; prog-rock and shredding so be in no doubt these people are seriously good musicians with major league chops.

BUT what makes them so good live is that they put on a show! A real all dancing; all-singing show. The stage is split into 3 areas. On the right we have the rock-zone - awesome fusion bass-behemoth with staggeringly immense access to pedals and effects - none of which he actually needs - shredder on guitar (who very graciously gave me a quick guided tour of his whammy pedal). They do choreographed status quo type dancing while peeling off incredible riffs and licks. Stage centre is the percussion section (no drummer) - two fellas on an array of stuff who set up this incredible sort of 'jungle clatter' that powers the ensemble along. I'm not being flippant - it's a hell of a trick and posits this lot in a strange sort of club music zone. Finally, on the left we have...well...violin, melodian, glamour, and an absolutely hilarious frontman. He'd won the audience over with his opening line and then just got funnier and funnier as the evening went on! He also inhabits two worlds simultaneous as, while he is clearly on stage with Blackbeard's Tea Party, he also appears to be in a Euro-disco circa 1978 dancing to a Daniele Baldelli set! I can't find any footage which really does them justice (their live sound is way more raucous than it appears to be on youtube), but here they are building up a head of steam. Note how they create those 3 areas, and that there is always something going on visually...

You thought I was making it up didn't you? By the way 4 part harmony vocals (which you know I love) as well. I wasn't supposed to be at the gig but having seen their soundcheck I had to negotiate being able to stay for their first set. 45mins seemed to pass in 3mins! Ok here they are with a favourite of mine. You also get a sample of the brilliant frontman patter; that Daniele Baldelli set kicking in at about the 4:00 mark; and those gorgeous harmonies at 4:58...

Special mention for the last two tracks of the set. The penultimate one was where they deployed the chops - all sorts of syncopation, fusion, and shredding from all of them - it brought the place down. Last track was a quiet closer but I detected some New York minimalist action creeping in (and a beautiful violin solo by the way) - not what you'd expect from folk rock.

They're on tour now - but booking more dates so here's a link to their website where the gigs will all be listed. DON'T MISS THEM.

http://www.blackbeardsteaparty.com/gigs.php

Oh you can also get their latest album there as well

 

Chris Wood - None the Wiser

Right this is brilliant. If you don't know this guy just take a few minutes to travel through the contemporary horror of market-town england with him...

Not surprisingly this is up for Best Original Song at the 2014 Radio 2 Folk Awards. I have wanted to write about Chris for a while now but couldn't get a handle on why. Now I know - the folk ghetto, whilst well-meaning, have got to let him go. Release him for the rest of the world to hear. He's one of the great singer-songwriters, up there with the Bobs, Neils, Crosbys and Jonis. Check this out (and notice how his whole body gets involved)...

"If we've done our best, we'll be ready for the rest, we'll just close our eyes and let go."

Part of my smalltown notoriety stems from my having missed every gig he has played for well over a decade now! He played The West End Centre in Aldershot on Valentines Night and I missed him again, BUT I was at his soundcheck this time and it's that, that I want to address, because it was astonishing. He's found a place. A new place. For the music to go. Or rather - where he can take it, or where it can take him. And I got to witness him trying to go there! On his own, in an empty hall. I don't know how much of this is conscious or not but he played and played and much was discussed between songs (Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, pocket knives, Dave Grohl and that Soundboard, The Pretty Things, Wittgenstein, Blue Oyster Cult, William Blake, and lots and lots of musings about music) and all the time he was searching for something. He played and struggled. The music is incredible by the way, but that's because he's a master craftsman, it's a given. But what he was trying to do was use those skills and musings to get to that new area. And he did, twice. It's the sort of place ecstatic jazz approaches, but it's not jazz, and it's not folk. It's not American - it is very very english. But he wasn't content with that. He said something like "I can't find the magic"...so on he went, on stage, off stage, back stage. Thinking, playing, discussing. And then the third time was the one for me, he played Jerusalem! I'll post a version but it is warm. The one he played was deathly cold. A very tired man, in an empty hall, in a very tired and rundown place...nailed all of that in a beautiful mausoleum made out of sound. I'm not convinced he even noticed. Then I had to leave 

Don't miss him. Tour dates and albums here-
http://chriswoodmusic.co.uk/

The Pretty Things - The West End Centre Aldershot 1st February 2014

We had been joking about drugging them and stealing all of their equipment. How we (didn't) laugh when they actually turned up with a mouthwatering selection of vintage amps, priceless vintage guitars and drums. Apart from the leads/cables, everything on stage was from the early 60's (including 3/5ths of the band), and cumulatively worth more than my home! A very likable bunch of chaps, and off stage they dress like the heaviest grease rockers you've ever seen. The start of the gig itself was odd, they just shambled on, had a minor row and, in passing, mentioned who they were! The most modest start to a set I've seen - given what was to follow. The black jacket and tie look suggests one of those bands who haunt the chicken-in-a-basket circuit with their faded glories...WRONG! What we actually got was (deep breath) Weapons-grade garage rock band, in love with Bo Diddley, who rocked harder than the others, but matured so much faster...Raw garage rock brit r'n'b boom beat thuggishness flowering into beautiful acid rock guitar solos....pounding rockers twisting and turning into psychedelics...bliss-outs located somewhere between San Fran royalty (think Quicksilver Messenger Service) and Sonic Youthness...Onstage grouchiness and good-natured cheap-shots flying...they can still sing so 3-part harmonies in those lovely songs or Phil roaring out the rockers...very muscular acoustic blues section with great slide playing...Harp - imagine an acid rock guitarist arting out on harmonica...The young guns in the rhythm section dropping into all sorts of rhythmic tricks and traps and syncopation, every time the bass player swung around to look at the drummer you knew something fresh was gonna appear in the engine room - great way of keeping an old act fresh without interfering with the original genius...some Electric Banana...oh, a Bass Amp with it's own gravitational pull...

Then, near the end of the main set (of course there were encores) Phil makes an aside, and you suddenly realise their ages, and that 3 men in their late 60's just played the best R'n'R gig you've ever seen.

Two abiding images afterwards. A member of the West End Centre crew, who shall remain anonymous Neil, being handed a holy grail Fender Strat and becoming rooted to the spot with awe...for ages ha ha. And a guy on crutches hurtling past me waving a poster for autographs and yelling, by way of explanation "I've loved them since 1964, where's the drummer, he's the only one I haven't got yet" as he clattered off into the distance.

Cove, S&M, and Early Mammal - Gig review/rant from June

Cor what a great gig! Just got in (1.18am here - having had to leave the gig at 10.30pm!) Finally met Tony David and Stephen in real life - lovely fellas, absolute delight finally hooking up AND two of them are in Cove who produced a venue-scalding set - wherein a broken string transformed their noise-rock-kraut-funk into an ecstatic delay bleeding meltdown. Also finally got to see Early Mammal and they did not disappoint. Acid-Psych-Stone(r)-Space tinges but lifted into the magical realm by dint of a superb drummer, an almost psychic bassist AND incredible organ-shenanigans run through a nest of very tasty pedals (think i spotted a malfunctioning mooger fooger) Jono Wright has to see this lot! S&M are darker...so dark they asked for the lights to be switched off. She's on drums, and he's on acoustic guitar wired up with arcane electronics whose entrails spew out the back and into an old suitcase wherein terrible homemade elec-trickery produces - many lost voices, churning tectonics, horrific frequencies, and much arsequaking. It's an eldritch thing. That was compounded as I stepped out for air/sanity by my first encounter with the Roof Dog! and child! Hell-Houndage! Great venue (Windmill Brixton), great crowd, great staff, great bands.

Birdy - Lyric and Wildheart Theatre Company - Rich Mix London 20 September 2013

Just saw a preview of this show which is in the latter stage of rehearsal and really really enjoyed it. Would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who likes burlesque, vaudaville, circus theatrics, the surreal, music and laughter. Ostensibly it's about a couple of youngsters who fall in love and the tribulations of the early years, post romance...her (Birdy) in particular. But the real star is the mayhem that surrounds them, courtesy of two mischievous anti-cherubs who morph into all sorts of problematic characters and maniacs; a cross-dressing organist; and a very physical, whirling, at times slightly out-of-control, stage set. Just like life, nothings perfect, it's clunky, frustrating, there's weird eroticism; awkward and hilarious sex; it often moves at breakneck speed but then hits a wall; and it's certainly the first time I've ever found a baby in my beard! Although this is a theatre company, and there is music from the organist and the two anti-cherubs who sing harmonies and play strings, melodica, mandolin, drums, kazoos (lots of kazoos ;-)) throughout - this is not so much a play or musical as a SHOW. So I can recommend this to hardcore-theatre-goers and/or anyone who just wants a bloody good night out. Oh I forgot to mention, despite the darkness at the root of the story, once the story is set up it is very very funny - laugh out loud funny - and alive with great set-pieces, none of which I am going to spoil for you.