Bowie Walk

Having helped the V&A with a photo of Dobell’s, they’re kind enough to send me this Jonathan Barnbrook-designed pamphlet, David Bowie Is Walking In Soho. The tour starts here.

Riders Of The Stars
FRANK SINATRA: One bottle each: Absolute, Jack Daniel’s, Chivas Regal, Courvoisier, Beefeater Gin, white wine, red wine. Twenty-four chilled jumbo shrimp, Life Savers, cough drops. No mixers?
BRITNEY SPEARS: Fish and chips, McDonald’s cheeseburgers without the buns, 100 prunes and figs, a framed photo of Princess Diana. Britney, as always, touched by genius!
AL GREEN: Twenty-four long-stem (dethorned) red roses. Having seen Rev. Green present these in the flesh to his adoring audience, I’m touched by the thoughtfulness.

Cat Power, Bathrooms & Bullies
On Woman’s Hour I catch Chan Marshall talking about the best places she found to sing as a teenager and she talks of school bathrooms when no-one was in them, singing to the walls and the echo – and when she’s on Later that night you can see how her voice now has those reflections and deflections built into it. With a haircut borrowed from Nick Lowe and her hands jerking in and out of her jean shirt, her performance of “Bully” was twitchy and vulnerable, but beautifully her – she doesn’t sound much like anybody else (the same is true of Laura Mvula, also on the show, who – making a nod to Nina Simone – is refreshingly different from her peer group).

Found on the website bestofneworleans.com while googling “who wrote Walkin’ to New Orleans.”
Well Composed: Bobby Charles tells how he wrote three of his classic songs.
Walking to New Orleans
“I had sent Fats a copy of ‘Before I Grow Too Old,’ and he had recorded it, but I didn’t know. The next night he was playing in Lafayette, and I went to see him play. He told me, ‘I cut your song last night – I wish I’d brought a copy of it for you to listen to.’ And he said, ‘You gotta come to New Orleans to see me and hang out with me.’ I said, ‘I’d love to, but right now I’m really on my butt and got no money and no way to get over there.’ He said, ‘Take a bus or something.’ I told him, ‘The only way I’d be able to get there would be to walk to New Orleans.’ As soon as I said that, I said, ‘I gotta go.’ I jumped in the car and wrote the song on the way back home from Lafayette to Abbeville.”
See You Later Alligator
“I used to say to the band or friends, ‘See you later, alligator.’ One night after a dance, I was walking out the door, and my piano player was sitting down in a back booth, and there were two drunk couples in the booths in front of him. I said, ‘See you later alligator’ to him as I was walking out, and it was one of those doors that closed real slow. I heard a girl say something about ‘crocodile.’ I walked back in and said, ‘I don’t mean to bother you, but I just told him, “See you later, alligator.” What did you say?’ She said, ‘After a while, crocodile.’ I said, ‘Thank you,’ and went home and wrote the song in 20 minutes. My daddy was screaming at me to turn out the lights, because he had to get up and go to work at 5 o’clock in the morning. I said, ‘Give me five more minutes.’ I had to sing it to myself over and over so I wouldn’t forget it.”
The Jealous Kind
“I was married at the time, and I was in the bathtub. My wife was fussing and hollering at me while I was taking a bath. I said, ‘Why don’t you bring me paper and a pencil and just leave me alone for 30 minutes.’ She said, ‘You and your damn paper and pencil.’ I wrote it right there in the bathtub. Same thing with ‘Before I Grow Too Old.’ She said, ‘You gonna be like this for the rest of your life?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna try and hurry up and do as much as I can before I get too old.’ Bam! Bring me a paper and pencil!”

I’m appalled that I’d never known that Bobby Charles wrote one of my all-time favourite songs.

And more from The Big Easy…
…in the shape of another Hugh Laurie documentary. He’s dry and funny, and has great taste in producers and musicians, and plays pretty good piano. I just never want to hear him sing again, if that can be arranged. Best bit: the amazing Jon Cleary, an Englishman in New Orleans, doing a staggering take on James Booker and Professor Longhair. He rips through a sonic wonderworld of rhumba rhythms and tumbling blues, then turns to Laurie and says, “New Orleans comes into fashion, goes out of fashion. They don’t stop playing here just because no-one’s looking.”

Professor Longhair’s House, 2010

Longhair had my favourite band name ever: Professor Longhair and The Shuffling Hungarians [called that, as Wikepedia says, for reasons lost to time. As far as I can ascertain, there were no Hungarians in the band]. I do remember going with Mark to see James Booker at the 100 Club. As we came down the stairs to the basement room we heard the sound of a New Orleans band pounding out “Junco Partner”, the bass shaking the walls, what sounded like a horn section high-stepping the accents. We stepped through the door to find Booker alone at the piano, committing his mischief, conjuring up an orchestra’s worth of accompaniment with just two hands…

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 15th May

Tony, Tony, Tony
Following on from the despair of a couple of weeks ago at depressing rock reads, this rebalanced everything: Eamonn Forde’s brilliant compression of Tony Blackburn’s hysterical and self-regarding autobiography, Poptastic. Here are two examples, the first about Gary Glitter. Read it and weep. With laughter.

Elton John Documentary, BBC
I caught the last quarter of the Elton doc, which seemed to compress the past thirty years of his career into ten minutes and was struck by this: Why, if you’ve got an interview with Terry O’Neill, and he says, “Elton rang me up and said we’re doing a show at Dodger Stadium, it’s gonna be great, get over here and take some pictures,” do you not show any of Terry’s now-iconic shots, just some fairly run of the mill video?

Little Bulb’s Orpheus, Battersea Arts Centre
Amidst the wonderfully mad recreation of Hades and the beautifully evoked Parisian nightclub of this Django-ised retelling of the Orpheus myth, a truly stunning moment. Tom Penn, who plays The Drummer/Stage Hand/Dancing Bear/Too Many Parts To Mention, sits down and, as Persephone [the Queen of the Underworld] plucks the opening notes on a harp of a beautiful ballad, “La Chanson de Persephone,” written by the company. From his mouth issues a falsetto that is extraordinary – part Bon Iver, part Antony – and in a production filled to the brim with indelible music – “Minor Swing”, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Piaf’s “Hymne à l’amour” – brings the house down. A song you wanted to hear again the second it finished.

“I analyse leaders for a living, and none are as great as Alex Ferguson”
Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor: As someone paid to observe and analyse leaders and potential leaders for a living, I never saw one to match Sir Alex. Like the impresario of a great opera company or the chief executive of a mighty corporation he succeeded so much and survived for so long because he understood people – how to motivate them, how to discipline them and how to inspire them. When this year Harvard Business School asked Fergie to share some of his secrets, he explained how as a young manager he studied and learned from leaders in other walks of life: “I had never been to a classical concert in my life. But I am watching this and thinking about the co-ordination and the teamwork – one starts and one stops, just fantastic. So I spoke to my players about the orchestra – how they are a perfect team.” He didn’t manage teams – he created them.

Tribeca Films Logo Screen
I’m not even sure what those pre-credit sequences that show the production company of the film are even called. Splashes? You know – the Lion of MGM, the Searchlight of Fox, the Calder Mobile thing for Pathe? Whatever, check out this little beauty from Tribeca Films at the head of this two minute preview for Greetings From Tim Buckley [you’ll need to search for Tim Buckley]. Using a lighthouse sweep, it’s just gorgeous.

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 8th May

A Rainy Night In Bourges: Le Printemps De Bourges, Loire, France
The annual festival brings a platter of bands to almost every bar in town. Trying to decide where to go and who to see brings the following descriptions from the programme: Superhero Big Beat Surf/Pop Art Punk/Reggae Occitan/Black Death/House Celt Rock Experimental, and my favourite: Rock Noise Folk Blues. This poster in a nearby town would have had me putting money down for tickets, but it was in the past…

Best music we saw was a cracking band called Minou, consisting of Pierre Simon & Sabine Quinet, plus a bald percussionist on electric pads. They play guitars and keyboards, both well, and their oeuvre is some unholy mixture of Kraftwerk, Nirvana and Talking Heads, put over with personality and pizazz and great timing. They were playing in a plastic garden tent, set up in the street, with a pop-up bar serving beer and lethal rum punch, and gave it their all – a welcome relief from the sub-Punk Rock being played in most bars, that the French seem, unaccountably, to be in love with.

Bob Gumpert Appalled By Ricin Suspect
Josh Marshall, TPM: “We had the first court appearance this morning for James Everett Dutschke. Unlike his predecessor, a flat claim of true innocence does not seem to be in the cards. More shocking, it’s now alleged Dutschke is a Wayne Newton impersonator.”

Bob says: “Perhaps only in Mississippi – the first guy arrested for poison letters was an Elvis impersonator. He was turned loose. The new person arrested is a Wayne Newton impersonator and that is just plain offensive.” To make it even worse for Bob, The Daily Mail reports that “the FBI searched his home, vehicles and former studio last week, after dropping charges against an Elvis impersonator who says he had feuded with Dutschke in the past.” Couldn’t make that up – feudin’ impersonators: Elvis vs Wayne…

58. “Nice snare sound.” Always say this to someone you like when they are playing you terrible music, especially if it’s their demo. This insincere but specific observation allows both parties to sidestep more general, and potentially cruel, discussion. If the person insists, they deserve everything they get, starting with “shit snare sound.”

Portrait Of The Artist, The Guardian: Madeleine Peyroux, Singer
What work of art would you most like to own? “I hate the idea of owning a work of art. But I do own a guitar that I consider a work of art. It’s a 1943 Martin 0-17. I took it on tour with me for 16 years, but I’ve just had to put it back in the closet. It was made in the United States during the second world war, when metal was rationed – there’s no metal in the neck, which means it’s constantly going out of tune.”

Edith Bowman’s 10 Best Songs Ever Written, Stylist Magazine
Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On: “To be honest, I don’t feel there’s a lot I can say about the song itself. Just listening to it says it all. It’s the perfect tonic. It brings out the sunshine. The horn section at the start of the song, coupled with the melodies, makes you want to groove from the first few bars. Instant smiles from the get-go.” Marvin would be pleased that his agonised plea for peace and understanding (opening lines Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying/Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying…) soundtracks Edith’s braindead summer picnics. And she actually says, about Joni Mitchell’s “The River,” “she sings it in a way that makes her feel totally accessible, the fragility in her voice encouraging you to sing along. This is probably quite a ‘girl’s choice’ to be honest…” In what world is choosing a song by one of the greatest songwriters ever to have graced pop music girly? There’s not a lot of fragility in Joni. Bare, naked honesty, yes. Fragility? I don’t think so. This is a woman who got totally pissed off when she played acetates of Court & Spark at a party after Dylan had played the acetates of Planet Waves, and having no-one listen. And knowing that it was a better record. The woman who Dylan whispered to, after they shared a bill together in the early 2000s, “Joni, you make me sound like a hillbilly in comparison.” Oh, Edith. Behave.

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 1st May

One Thing I’ll Miss Later This Week: The “Muscle Shoals” Film
I’m really looking forward to this documentary, but am not around to see it at the Sundance Festival in London this week. I wrote a reminiscence of the time that our band, Hot!House went there to record (find it here). Incidentally, the Rock’s Back Pages logo is the legendary Jimmy Johnson’s guitar pick (he lent us his car as well…)

I liked this review on imdb titled, The only puzzling thing about “Muscle Shoals” is how this story went so long without being told.
prettycleverfilmgal writes: “Have you ever heard of Muscle Shoals, Alabama? Let me rephrase the question – have you heard an Aretha Franklin song? Have you ever grooved to Wicked Wilson Pickett’s “Land Of 1000 Dances?” Have you ever thought, “Yes, Percy Sledge, that is exactly what happens when a man loves a woman!” Have you ever driven way too fast while the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” blasted through your speakers? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you have heard of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, or at least you’ve heard the Muscle Shoals sound, the subject of the documentary Muscle Shoals from director Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier. In the interest of full disclosure, these are my people ya’ll! I grew up just east of Muscle Shoals, also on the banks of the Tennessee River – “The Singing River” to the Native Americans who made their home there for millenia before Rick Hall founded FAME studios. Driven by a need to escape the crushing poverty and overwhelming tragedy that befalls him, Hall is the central figure in the story of the famed “Muscle Shoals Sound” – well, him and a group of homegrown, white-as-cotton studio musicians known as the “Swampers.” These men shaped what ultimately proved to be some of the finest rock, soul, and R&B America would ever produce.”

Thinking About Richie Havens
Introduced to him by Don Sollash, manager of Dobell’s Record shop (“I listened to jazz all day – the last thing I wanted to listen to at home was more jazz…”), I bought all of the late 60s-early 70s Havens’ LPs and loved them. I re-bought some of them last year on iTunes and gloried again to “I Started A Joke,” “This May Be The First Day,” “Handsome Johnny” and their like. Marcel called me up when they showed a Beatles At The BBC programme of cover versions, saying how great Richie’s awesomely strummed version of “Here Comes The Sun” was. His second guitarist and conga player have the damnedest time trying to keep up with him…  And this is lovely, from Richard Williams’ thebluemoment: “I interviewed Havens once, for the Melody Maker, and it gave me a good story to tell. It was at a hotel on Park Lane, in 1970 or 71. I went up to his room at the appointed time, knocked on the door, and was shown in. He greeted me with great warmth, and looked me straight in the eye. “Aquarius,” he declared. Er, sorry, I said, but no. Still that piercing look. “Sagittarius!” No, wrong again. “Capricorn!” Look, sorry about this, but… “Taurus!” You can guess the rest: he ran through the whole card before a process of elimination gave him the right answer. He didn’t appear at all embarrassed, and it certainly amused me. Then we got to talk. He seemed like one of the good guys.” I also like Havens’ story of walking on Hampstead Heath in 1974 and spotting Ray Charles from a distance, sitting on a park bench. “Suddenly I heard, “Hey, Richie. Get over here!” And it was Ray. He had extraordinary senses…”

Jackie DeShannon,“Put A Little Love In Your Heart” As Seen On TV (In A Cholesterol Spread Advert)
I heard this (probably DeShannon’s biggest hit, from 1969) on tv the night before her cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” pops up on my iPhone. Now most versions of this, even by good people, are dull and lugubrious. This one, in the hands of the estimable Jackie, is different. It starts straight, then an accordion enters and gets a Bacharach/Butch Cassidy feel going. It takes a left turn with the entrance of a pedal steel into a 5th Dimension/Bones Howe groove, and DeShannon pushes the vocal line away from the original, but in a good way. Oh, and it has an accordion. Did I mention that?

“I Bet Your Mama Was A Tent Show Queen”
Bob Gumpert sends a link to a fascinating piece by Carl Wilson (not the Beach Boy) on the Random House, Canada blog. It’s the strange story of, to quote the intro “a gay, cross-dressing, black singer named Jackie Shane, who scored a surprise radio hit in what was then staid and uptight Toronto.” His only surviving tv clip can be seen here, a compellingly diffident performance of Rufus Thomas’ “Walking The Dog”

Meshell Ndegeocello: Ronnie Scott’s, Tuesday Night
The drummer, Earl Harvin, sits on the left, his kit pointing across the stage. His mallets are at the ready. Chris Bruce, the guitarist, playing a modded Tele Custom from the 70s, crouches at his pedalboard. Meshell Ndegeocello, her angular bass worn high, counts the song down. And, like setting out a manifesto, they start playing “Tomorrow Never Knows”…
Turn off your mind relax and float down stream
It is not dying, it is not dying
Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void,
It is shining, it is shining.
Yet you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being
Love is all and love is everyone
It is knowing, it is knowing…
and underneath it all creep the contorted keys of Jebin Bruni, wrenching decayed and tweaked noises from his banks of vintage organs and synths and laptop screens.

There is, in her music, enough of the familiar to feel comforted. Often the songs are known – tonight derives mostly from her album in tribute to Nina Simone – but the constituent parts are roughly handled. They keep you on the edge of your seat: how far will they push before it all collapses? Great holes appear, to be suddenly filled by the rolling thunder of the drums or a shard of guitar or a sliver of keyboard or the clanging slap of Ndegeocello’s bass. It’s as if all the comforting sureties of the songs have been stripped away — but it’s music of beauty. It’s just that it’s not afraid to be ugly, too, like it wants to encompass the whole experience of life. It’s really hard to do it justice: my hastily scribbled notes in the darkness have phrases like ghostly martial doo-wop liberally sprinkled. But I’m making it sound doomy and it wasn’t at all. There’s such joy in hearing these musicians play. The metal freak-out that ends “Feeling Good,” the girls at the bar providing the backing vocals for “See Line Woman,” the stunning bass solo that brings a double-time “Suzanne” to an end – this is all wonderful, wonderful stuff. A version of “Pink Moon” in honour of London, and the stark and short “Oysters” are the icing on the cake. If she plays your town, go.

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 22nd April

Words Fail, pt. 73
From the Evening Standard: The soundtrack to David and Samantha Cameron’s marriage is an album of Depression-era US folk music, the PM’s wife has disclosed. Time (The Revelator) is a 2001 collection of austere narratives by Nashville singer Gillian Welch. Peter Mensch, manager of rock stars such as Metallica and husband of ex-Tory MP Louise, discussed the Camerons’ tastes at a Tory function. “I asked Samantha Cameron, ‘Why Gillian Welch?’,” said Mensch, who manages the singer and invited the couple to her Hammersmith concert in 2011. “She said, ‘There was a record store  in Notting Hill where David and I used to live. I would say to the guy with the purple mohawk: “What should I be listening to?” He sold me Time (The Revelator). For the past 10 years David and I listened to it all the time’ .”

Lana Del Rey, Chelsea Hotel No 2
Nicely simple and atmospheric version of a song its author has often felt uneasy about. I’m not even sure anyone but Leonard Cohen should sing this, but the solemn and melancholy tune is a draw to a certain type of singer. I think my favourite version is actually Meshell Ndegeocello’s, where she creates such a slowed-down, sultry arrangement that it seems that she’s only singing the song for one person to hear, not an audience. I don’t think it’ll be on the setlist next week at Ronnie Scott’s.

From Our Woodstock Correspondent
The road from RT 28 to W’stock, formerly rt. 375, will be officially re-named Levon Helm Highway. Meanwhile, all Robbie has named after him is the house next door, and that’s not even official. (But a couple has moved in and are done a nice job renovating…) as ever, john c

What I Say
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s notice, posted on the doors of Webster Hall, New York

Killing Them Softly
The soundscape of the beautifully filmed film based on George V Higgins’ fine book, Cogan’s Trade, and recently released on DVD, is fantastic. It’s worth watching just for that, from the opening credits of crunching footsteps underneath a voiceover of Obama on the election trail. The election is a presence throughout the film, playing on TVs in bar and on car radios. From the creak of car seats, the roar of throaty engines and the rain on the windshield, to the clangs of echoing hallways, real care is taken. Music supervisor is Rachel Fox, piano pieces and musical ambiences by Marc Streitenfeld. Take a bow.

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 17th April

George Elliot, Bill Colyer, Brian Harvey, Doug Dobell, Ken Lindsay, George Webb, John Jacks and a bottle of Emva Cream Sherry at the opening of Dobells in Brighton in 1957. Bill had just finished building it all with Peter Martin.

The Dobell’s exhibition at my old alma mater, Chelsea School of Art (now relocated in the shadow of Tate Britain and renamed university of the arts london chelsea) was a Proustian rush – who knew that the Museum Of London had collected parts of the original shop when the Tower Street branch finally closed in 1992? The ‘drum’ sign, the record bags, the cover artworks, most of all an original record rack built by my dad – filled in a picture of what it was like to be there, at a time when record shops were part-business, part-clubhouse, and part-preacher’s pulpit. I met two of my old bosses, Les and Gerry, caught up with Leon Parker – whose hard work had made the exhibition happen – and ended up between Donald Smith (the curator) and Jona (“You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties”) Lewie as they both reminisced about Anthony Newley and sang snatches of his songs back and forth, which seemed a strangely appropriate end to the evening.

Richard Williams was there too, and writes here about the story of Dobell’s in a typically astute post on his blog, thebluemoment.com.

Here are some photos – mostly taken by my dad, Bill – of life in the shop in Brighton, with a picture of the more famous London shops at the end.

Unknown man outside shop, possibly Pete Martin’s wife Joyce behind him.

“Has ‘Trad’ Jazz Had It? Special Investigation.” Those were the days…
Don Sollash, my mum Betty and me, and my cousin Ray, Brighton Shop, 1957

Early window display. Poor opinion of Elvis Presley expressed.

I, however, love Elvis.

Early record browsing seals habit of lifetime.

Ron & Mina Bowden and Bill look on as Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry (cut off) play in the shop.

Charing Cross Road, Jan 1966, Kodachrome Slide

Taken from this post:
5 Things Extra: Dobell’s Exhibition

Willy Moon, I Wanna Be Your Man
Short. Stylish. Funky. Great guitar. His new album is 28 minutes long. That’s the way to do it.

Buying Cords from Eric Clapton
Well, not actually from Eric. Going to the wonderful Cordings on Piccadilly to peruse the trousers only to discover that EC liked the shop so much, he bought it. Shops that you feel will be forbidding and aloof usually turn out to be the opposite. Davidoffs’ cigar store on Jermyn Street and uber liquor-emporium Hedonism in Mayfair spring to mind—great, knowledgeable staff and no pressure…

The Art of Listening to Records
I listened to two great stereo systems this week, Alex’s and George’s. The same day we’d been in Cordings Alex put, by total coincidence, Eric Clapton’s “The Core” from Slowhand on his Technics deck… After listening to George’s – driven by a Garrard deck set in concrete – it seemed like Taj Mahal and the Pointer Sisters were actually in the room as we listened to “Sweet Home Chicago,” a great performance which I had forgotten all about. I always appreciate amazing stereos when I hear them, and am in awe of the lengths people go to – steam cleaning records, adding AC/DC converters, setting decks in concrete and the like.

Part of George’s extraordinary stereo

Then I saw this on London Jazz Collector’s blog: “I read something recently on the subject of record and hi-fi reviews which struck a chord. It was this. No-one really knows what anyone else hears. Thinking about it, it’s true. I only really know what I hear, and sometimes I’m not even sure of that. Sometimes I am only remembering what I thought about what I heard, which is not the same thing. I am remembering an opinion, not a sound. Every now and then I put on a record I haven’t played for a while, but remember thinking at the time was one of the best pressings I had ever heard, only to find it rather ordinary. It hasn’t changed, I have. Or the system has. Or something I am not aware of has. Worse, I recently upgraded a copy of a record I can remember really liking. Only to find, on playing, I no longer like it at all…”

Actually, worse is my admission that my favourite place of all to listen to music is one that any self-respecting audiophile absolutely scorns: the car.

Spring arrives, time for Calypso
As if to prove my point, no sooner has the sun come out (after what seems like an eternity) when “Lorraine” by Explainer bursts into life on the iPhone as I’m driving around town. Truly, one of the great intros: a bouncing bass, a chattering guitar, tss-tss hi-hat and The Explainer shouting: “Taxi! Taxi! Airport Kennedy!” And it sounds fantastic in the car…

Rock ’n’ Roll. Phew!
My friend Pal Hansen had this to say about photographing people whose work you know: “Sometimes you get that commission to photograph someone whose work you admire and whom you think is genuinely interesting. Many times, you walk away disappointed and with a distaste for whatever you did admire them for in the first place.”* It’s a little like that with most rock biographies, I find. And, my God, books written by musicians are seriously depressing, no? I’ve barely recovered from the ghastly sleazefest that was Warren Zevon’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead when I pick up Dallas Taylor’s Prisoner of Woodstock. Taylor, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young’s drummer in the late sixties, is a favourite of mine, but this terrible tale of abuse, insecurity, drugs, surgery and ego was almost too awful to read.

* Pal then went on to say: “However, once in a while, someone who comes across as truly talented and nice is actually just that.  One of my favourite actors, Forest Whitaker, is as nice as they come.”

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 10th April

‘January 26, 1962: Passed Dylan on the street, he said to me that he “didn’t know why so many things are happening to me.” I said that he did.’
Michael Gray writes a very nice piece on Izzy Young on the occasion of his 85th birthday. A couple of years ago in Stockholm we sat with Izzy outside his office, the Folklore Centrum, having tea with Sarah Blasko (Izzy is a magnet for any musician of a certain bent who happens to be in town). Here’s a photo of some of Izzy’s files. I’m guessing Irene relates to ‘Goodnight, Irene.’

After we leave, Sam (Charters) tells me that the last time Bob Dylan played in Stockholm, Bob’s people arranged for Izzy to meet him, and he ended up having a chat to Bob by the side of the bus. As they said goodbye, Izzy grabbed Dylan’s cheeks and waggled them, like a Jewish grandfather would do to his grandson. Security! Nobody touches Bob! Bob, however, burst out laughing… Sam said that Bob’s road manager told him it was the only time he saw Bob laugh on the whole tour…

BP Garage, Clapham Common Northside, Thursday
A man in front of me is slowly paying for petrol and weird “garage” shopping: A bottle of wine, Jelly Babies, Screen Wash, Iced Buns…  so I idly pick up the new Bowie CD. He looks at me and says “Dreadful cover,” about Jonathan Barnbrooke’s white square over Heroes. I disagree and say that the fact that it created thousands of memes proves that it worked as one part of Bowie’s brilliant stealth marketing for The Next Day’s release. Who’s been that excited about an album launch in years? He smiles, says fair point, and Exits Garage Left.

We Love Site-Specific Street Signs & Slang!
“Artist Jay Shells channeled his love of hip hop music and his uncanny sign-making skills towards a brand new project: Rap Quotes. For this ongoing project, Shells created official-looking street signs quoting famous rap lyrics that shout out specific street corners and locations. He then installed them at those specific street corners and locations.” More here.

emusic Find of the Month
Marnie Stern, downloaded because of its title: The Chronicles Of Marnia. She’s a really talented “shredding” (ask the kids) guitarist who seems to have made an album that references Battles and Braids. It’s manic & great & slightly odd—fretboard squalling, swooping vocal whoops and wild drumming… Somehow I was disappointed that the cover wasn’t more like this…

The Voyage of the Dawn Shredder

Reading The Guardian Magazine two weeks after publication, and finding Stephen Collins being brilliant. Again.

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 3rd April

Poliça
If Rooney Mara was the lead singer of a band, it would be Minnesota’s Poliça. With her alt-Dusty Springfield arm gestures Channy Leaneagh seems – in the words of Daughter – to be the flamboyant conductor of this little orchestra that consists of a bassist and two drummers (the Independent’s critic thought the same). Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishman tour had two drummers, as did Steely Dan’s 73 roadtrip and there’s something wonderful and thrilling about the thump and paradiddle of synchro’d drumsets, especially when they control the beat as much as Ben Ivascu and Drew Christopherson. Chris Bierdan’s bass half holds the bottom end, half dances around the ghostly, swooning melodies of Leaneagh’s auto-tuned, layered and reverb-ed vocals. Even though she seems out of sorts for the first half of the set, the sounds coming off the stage are monstrous. The third number’s juxtaposition of solo vocals and pulverising drum breaks is nothing short of astonishing. Their set is a perfect length – 60 minutes – and for an encore there’s a ghostly solo version of the old folk song ‘When I Was a Young Girl’ followed by a new rollercoaster thumper. Fabulous!

Davidoff’s Cigar Shop, Jermyn Street

Youth In Revolt. The last sentence is not made up.
British rap star Professor Green refused to let sub-zero temperatures freeze his secret gig at a bus depot on Saturday night. “I have got a lot of powers, but unfortunately controlling the weather isn’t one of them,” the ‘Read All About It’ singer joked to fans at the Kings Cross garage in London. Instead the star raised the temperature by ordering fans to thrash around to his tracks in order to beat the big chill. Meanwhile Pro’s stunning girlfriend, Made In Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh, was also in attendance to see her beau on stage. Millie proved she’s just like the rest of us as she was also seen enjoying a greasy pizza and bottle of beer to help keep warm at the exclusive gig. Professor Green was performing in celebration of Barclaycard Contactless now being accepted on buses.

Arthur Rothstein, dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936
Snowbound at my friend Kwok’s. We’re talking about Elliot Erwitt and his photos of Yukio Mishima, when he pulls this beautiful print out to show me.

I know it as the cover to Folkways’ Dust Bowl Ballads Sung By Woody Guthrie. Arthur had wanted Kwok to have it – he was given it by Eve Rothstein, Arthur’s daughter on November 11, 1985, the day that Arthur passed away.

Philip Larkin, Garrison Keillor and Bob Dylan go antiquing
I loved this drawing when John Cuneo did it in 2011, and this week it gets blown up and put over a whole wall at the Delaware Art Museum. Roll On, John!

Taken from this post:
Five Things: Wednesday 27th March

Southland
The fever dream that was Beasts of The Southern Wild led me back to Kate Campbell’s “When Panthers Roamed In Arkansas” – first heard on a CD accompanying the wonderful Oxford American magazine’s Music Issue, maybe ten years ago. The small girl at the centre of the film sees giant aurochs – ancestors of domestic cattle – astride the landscape, a result of the ecological disaster that’s befalling them. Kate Campbell, with a Nashville twang but a Memphis musical sensibility, kicks off the song with a fast “Ode To Billy Joe” vamp, before the horns storm in:
“I miss Elvis in the movies,
With his dyed black hair…
Wish that I could find an ice-cold
Double Cola somewhere,
If I had a time machine
I’d go back when panthers roamed in Arkansas
And buffalo made their home in Tennessee”

The great last verse tips its hat to ecological disaster, too:
“Frogs are disappearing
Through the ozone hole,
I can’t find one song I like
On the radio…
They didn’t have these problems
Way back when panthers roamed…”

From Mick Brown’s great piece about the Discreet Charm of Nando’s in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine
“The most tireless contributor to Rate Your Nando’s [a website for devoted fans of the Chicken chain] is Ryan Wilson, who has eaten more than 1,000 meals in 139 branches across the country. Wilson lost his Nando’s virginity, so to speak (‘Actually it was more enjoyable than losing my virginity. There was some conversation at least’), about 11 years ago at the Birmingham Broad Street branch… He had been taken there by a friend from work named Dylan Wesleyharding. ‘I think,’ Wilson said, ‘his dad got a bit carried away in the 1960s.’ ”

At One Point, Five Cowbells

He’s waited over twenty years for this… a happy, happy fan

Trouble Funk, Islington Assembly Rooms. The DJ plays go-go. As Mark says, we’re about to see ninety minutes of go-go, PLAY SOMETHING ELSE! Big Tony on Earthquake Bass. A beat so relentless it shakes the beer in your glass into a flat, flavourless liquid. “Uptown, Downtown, Around Town, All Aboard!” They do, indeed, Drop The Bomb. And it was great to see the legend that is Bill Brewster, after all these years.

Whatever Happened To Shea Seger?
Watching Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo (yes, yes, I knew it wouldn’t be up to much) I noticed a familiar name in the credits. The name was Shea Seger, a Texan who – transplanted to London – made a great album, May Street Project, in 2001 featuring a great single, “The Last Time.” I went online to see if anyone else had spotted it. And of course someone had. Kristian Lin in the Fort Worth Weekly, last April: “Even though I didn’t care for the movie when it hit theaters last December, I was intrigued by a minor mystery about it involving Fort Worth singer-songwriter and recent Weekly cover subject Shea Seger. [Early] in the movie a woman hits on Matt Damon. [She’s played by] an actress named Desi Lydic. This character is never named in the film (and indeed never appears on screen again), but in the closing credits, she’s identified as “Shea Seger (Lasagna Mom)”. Given how knowledgeable Cameron Crowe is about music, it seemed inconceivable that this could have been a coincidence. I sent inquiries about this to 20th Century Fox, but nobody there seemed to know [anything]. This week, we got an answer from the filmmaker himself. The writer-director of Say Anything… and Almost Famous tweeted us: “may street project… truly great album. there was an outtake from our elton john doc where he was raving about her too.” No word yet from Shea Seger herself about Crowe associating her with sex-hungry moms, crushes on Matt Damon, or lasagna, but if she gets back to me, I’ll let you all know.”

Nigel Kennedy interview, The Guardian
I wonder why Linda Nylind’s picture looks strange. When I catch it on the Guardian website I realise. Someone’s said, he’s upside down, we can’t have that!

Do you care about fame?
It’s useful: it’s given me choice about what music I play. And of course it’s more heartwarming to play to a full concert hall. I remember one concert in Dublin, when I was 19 and completely unknown. About 50 people turned up to a hall that could hold 5,000. I said, “Look, come round the pub, I’ll do it there.” So that’s where we all went.

Is there anything about your career you regret?
Not getting a band of my own together earlier. When I started playing my own stuff, people in the classical world would say: “Who does he think he is, writing his own music when he could be playing Beethoven?” I should have realised sooner that that’s not the point. No one has to be Beethoven: he’s been dead a fair amount of time now.

Taken from this post:
FTIS&HTW: Wednesday 20th March