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ARCHIVED REVIEWS August 2008 Previews by Mike Davies Friday August 1 kd lang
It’s been an incredible eight years since Kathryn Dawn last released a collection of self-penned material with Invincible Summer, but she’s made up for lost time with Watershed (Nonesuch),a classy new introspective collection of lush, late night country, blues and jazz cocktails about self- examination and warm but sometimes scalding love, wrapped up in sweeping strings and swoonsome melodies. Dripping in banjo one moment, turning on the drum machine the next, it’s a dreamy, hot summer affair that captures her perfectly at home in her personal and musical skins. Je Fais La Planche and the pedal steel coloured Once In A While are whisperingly intimate, Close Your Eyes a narcotic wash enticing you to blissful slumber while Shadow And The Frame, Thread and the dusty banjo countrified Jealous Dog are perfect illustrations why she can stand easy comparison to Randy Newman, Atrid Gilberto and Tony Bennett alike. If she’s following the same set list as her London shows, there’ll be a fair few selections from the album in the live set, the samba sighs of Upstream. I Dream Of Spring and Coming Home among them. These come perfectly balanced by prime choices from her past career that include Chris Isaak’s Western Stars, Wash Me Clean, a camped up Smoke Rings, covers of Neil Young’s Helpless, Jane Siberry’s The Valley and Cohen classic Hallelujah, plus, naturally, her biggest hit, Constant Craving. Sublime perfection. 7.30pm. £35. Symphony Hall Saturday August 2 Them Is Me
Formerly of Reef who never really consolidated on the success of their biggest singles, Come Back Brighter and the throatily wonderful Place Your Hands, or Top 3 albums, Glow and Rides, singer Gary Stringer, bassist Jack Bessant and drummer Nathan Curran return with this new outfit, working to build things back from the ground up. A Demon Rebel (Grrr) is an inauspicious start, an undistinguished slab of thrashy garage blues rock that sees Stringer sounding like a weak Ian Gillan. The moody Let The Sun is better, calling to mind thought of early Joe Jackson in its metronomic guitar riff before exploding into another sonic squall. They clearly have a lot of work and uphill struggle ahead. 7pm. £6. Bar Academy Monday August 4 Tellison
A double header to tie in with their Banquet Records split single release, Kingston’s Tellison are a summery London indie pop crew whose watery guitar chugging Wasp’s Nest will have you thinking of Dartz!,Get Cape Wear Cape Fly and I Was A Cub Scout. Labelmates and fellow Kinsgtonians Tubelord are a more angular, jangly affair of the quiet-loud persuasion, their Night of the Pencils a short of breath number with an itchy fingered drummer. Hard to imagine either of them capturing the nation’s imaginations, but the gig should keep less demanding indie watchers happy. 7.30pm. £6. Bar Academy Thursday August 7 Hot Leg First outing for the new band headed up by former falsettoed Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins who has presumably now gotten over his strop at not being chosen as last year’s Eurovision representative. There’s no music available to hear what he’s up to these days, so the prospect of nil points may yet loom. 7.30pm. £10. Barfly Friday August 15 Taio Cruz
Nigerian British, raised in London but now US based, the singer-songwriter-producer first found success co-writing Will Young’s Brits winning single Your Game but has since firmly established himself as one of the most exciting new voices on the r&b scene with debut album Departure (Island). It’s emphasis is firmly on lady pleasing sexy silk on skin ballads like I Just Wanna Know, I’ll Never Love Again and So Cold, but as current single Come On Girl shows, he’s just as at home on Michael Jackson influenced electro-dance grooves or the 80s pop soul of I Can Be. He could probably do with a few more like the rock tinged Fly Away to balance the preponderance of bedroom croons, but for now he’s got Usher standing on the sidelines and weeping. 6pm. £10. Carling Academy 2 Monday August 18 Lostprophets
Once all but written off for dead, the Liberation Transmission (Visible Noise) saw them do a Lazarus with their radio friendly emo rock surges and soaring balladry. Having just done their two V fest dates, this is a bit of a celebration party gig before heading back to the studio and continuing work for the next album, so perhaps in between resurrections of Rooftops demonstrating how well they know their way around a stadium anthem, Always All Ways, A Town Called Hypocrisy, and Everybody’s Screaming they might find space to throw in a couple of work in progress previews. 7.30pm. £17.50. Carling Academy Wednesday August 20 Serj Tankian
The System of a Down frontman headlines his first solo tour in the cause of debut album Elect The Dead (Serjical Strike). As might be expected from the day job, it’s a flesh-lacerating beast with him bellowing and yowling like a banshee with a toothache through Empty Walls, Money and The Unthinking Majority as he laments the decline of the American empire. Unexpectedly though, as with new single Sky Is Over, he also takes off into the realms of operatic metal while Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition is an almost straight wedge of juddering rock and clutching Spanish guitar, Saving Us sees him fancying himself a bit of a Balkan emo balladeer. A little more conventional than SoD and a lot more accessible for the mainstream tastes. 7pm. £18.50. Carling Academy (Rescheduled date) Thursday August 21/Friday August 22 Kasabian
The Leicester lads warm up for their Creamfields appearance, dusting down tracks from Empire’s swirly psychedelic baggy mash up of Hawkwind, Stone Roses and Primal Scream, the spacerock to Sun/Rise/Light/Flies and the heavily Bolanesque glam title track and Shoot The Runner’s nods to Glitter Band stomp. Apparently currently in the studio reinventing themselves as a cocktail of Syd Barrett, David Axelrod and Babe Ruth with hypnotic dance music filtered through 60s psychedelia and even touches of Latin and gospel, they may well be slipping in tasters such as Fire, Take Aim and recent single Fast Fuse, making this even more of a double celebration. 7.30pm. £20. W’hampton Civic Hall Saturday August 23 Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
The Bright Eyes wunderkind sets aside his band alias for a while to do the solo thing again with his new eponymously titled album (Wichita), a glorious collection of infectious, hook laden, toe-tapping summer Anglo-American folk-country pop with many a nod to Dylan, (Get Well Cards sounds a lot like The Weight), Young and even The Eagles. Opening in spangly acoustic Devendra Banhart mood with the bruised nostalgia of Cape Canaveral, Oberst springs into a rollicking stomping groove with Suasalito, the hornpipe rebel yell NYC - Gone Gone and the storming piano boogie woogie I Don’t Want To Die (In A Hospital) where his droll wit bubbles all over the lyrics. But while these provide an instant feelgood musical fix, it’s the quieter, more meditative numbers that are the backbone. The stripped-down bitter veined Lenders In The Temple, Danny Callahan’s deceptively perky shuffle couching a tale of a boy dying from bone marrow disease, the folksy, swaggeringly Dylanesque road song Moab and the melancholic meditation on mortality that is the simple voice and guitar of Milk Thistle. Given it’s his debut solo UK tour and is about showcasing the new material (incuding a couple of things as yet unrecorded), don’t expect to find any Bright Eyes numbers slipping into the set list, not even Take It Easy or Lua, though apparently US encores have seen them rounding off with old folk-blues chestnut Corina Corina, a song which, of course, was once covered by his Bobness himself. 7pm. £15. Carling Academy 2 Saturday August 23 All Schools Are Strange
Appearing as support to U2 tribute act Achtung Baby, forged out of a mutual love of Marc Bolan this Essex quintet have been knocking around in different line-ups for over 20 years. However, while they do drop in a few covers, and have recorded a decent version of T Rex classic Children Of The Revolution and do a lovely acoustic strings and sax reading of Bolan’s Bold Rose, they’re not a tribute act per se. Indeed, their Beyond The Door (Strange Music) album is very much rooted in 70s progressive rock and psychedelia with numbers like the Yes-like jam groove Colour By Numbers, the jazz-rock shades of You Don’t Know Me and Give Me Knowledge (hints of Average White Band meets Taste) while Get Ready recalls 10cc, their self-titled single has a reggae lurch and, like closing anthemic ballad and Bolan tribute Night Music, shows the influence of Bowie too. Unfashionable and not exactly young bucks, obviously, but if the album’s indicative, they can be relied on to provide a night of solid musicianship and some decent songs too. 8pm. £10. Robin 2, Bilston Sunday August 24 Danny and the Champions of the World
That will be Danny George Wilson then, Australian sometime singer with Grand Drive, welcoming along members from The Brakes, Electric Soft Parade and Goldrush to create his eponymous second solo album, the follow up to The Famous Mad Mile. Where that adopted a simple campfire acoustic approach on songs such as the lullaby Old Soul and a Springsteenesque title track, this time round (taking its title from Roald Dahl's novel) things are a little lusher with brass, strings and even a dash of sitar adding extra textures to his self-described 'celebration of collective yesness'. Opening track The Truest Kind sets the vibe with its strummed guitar, Wilson's warm croon, backwoods hula society humming harmonies and a melody that strokes the sun from the sky. Neatly dividing itself into the bouncy upbeat and dreamy slower numbers, the former's gorgeously represented by the jubilantly summery The Ghosts And Me and the good times by the creek These Days while a hillbilly CS&N styled bluesy folk Shadow Of The Wolf and Red Tree Song with its air of hilltops and clear skies are prime examples of the latter. There's only eight tracks, but three of these clock in at over seven minutes with two of them proving the album highlights; the plaintive confessional I Still Believe which builds slowly to almost Polyphonic Spree proportions, and the epic When The Summer's Gone, a majestic number that starts out as a simple backporch, mandolin rippling folk and, introducing brass, swells to a tumultuous, heart-bursting street parade finale. Pure yesness, indeed. 8pm. £7. Kitchen Garden Cafe, York Rd, Kings Heath Wednesday August 27 Glasvegas
Four Glaswegian cousins, imagine a cocktail of The Proclaimers and Jesus & Mary Chain with a 60s Phil Spector production and you’ll have a good idea of just how special this lot are. Earlier this year they exploded with the Roy Orbison tinged anthemics of Geraldine and return now with a new version of earlier single, Daddy’s Gone (Columbia), a song written by guitarist Rab Allen admonishing his absent father. By the time they get here, the self-titled debut album should be around the confirm the promise with tracks like the Oasis referencing It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, the drum driven Flowers and Football Tops' tale of murdered teenager Kriss Donald with its snatch from You Are My Sunshine, and the slow doomed melancholy of Stabbed. They’ll be needed far bigger rooms this time next year. 7.30pm. £8. Barfly Wednesday August 27 Quicksilver Messenger Service
Formed in 1965 as part of San Francisco’s psychedelic scene, with John Cipollina and Gary Duncan on guitars, Greg Elmore on drums and Duncan and bassist David Freiberg handling vocals, their eponymous 1968 debut and 1969 follow up, Happy Trails, are unquestionably the band’s seminal albums. Indeed, the latter has something of classic status with one side devoted to a 25 minute live jam version of Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love and the other another lengthy improvised acid-rock suite that opens with Diddley’s Mona and leads into the epic Maiden Of The Cancer Moon and Calvary. Although Shady Grove from the same year has its moments, subsequent releases, and assorted line-up changes that saw Duncan leave and return, a stint by Nicky Hopkins and the now late Dino Valente take up residence on vocals, never captured the same magic. These days, only Duncan and Freiberg (who also plays in Jefferson Starship) remain from the original line up, and, amazingly, this marks their first ever UK appearance. They’ll be including material from across all aspects of their career, but it’s the early stuff that’s going to make this, if not exactly up there with seeing Arthur Lee do Forever Changes, still something of a must for old hippies. 7.30pm. £16. Robin 2, Bilston Wednesday August 27 Miles Hunt & Erica Nockalls
An intimate upstairs bar acoustic set, punctuated with anecdotes, from the Wonder Stuff frontman and his fiddling partner. They’ll be picking and choosing numbers from their No Exit album, most hopefully including rousing three minutes of bile Back On The Charm Offensive, the mazurka flavoured The Cake and These Things Remembered ‘s country trot hoe down. 8pm. £10. Katie Fitzgerald’s, Stourbridge. Friday August 29 Moseley Folk Festival
It just gets better. Last year’s was a triumph and, if the summer plays fair, this should rival and surpass that. After their new album, Dive Deep, was released with virtually no fanfare and no chart position at the start of the year, Morcheeba will be looking to raise their profile with a headline appearance here. Quite why the album had no profile and was met with such public indifference is hard to fathom. Perhaps, with Skye Edwards long gone solo, the decision by Ross and Paul Godfrey to feature a variety of vocalists (best known among them Judie Tzuke on sensual single Enjoy The Ride) didn’t catch the imagination, but musically ranging across folk and Americana as well as their familiar trip hop this is excellent stuff. Its uncertain who’ll be doing the live duties, but numbers like dreamy ballad Riverbed (featuring Thomas Dybdhal), folky recent single Gained The World (with French singer Manda) and the sitar trad folk flavoured Run Honey Run should go down perfectly tonight. Adding local clout to the bill will be Mickey Greaney, Americana-hued singer-songwriter James Summerfield unveiling his new Count To 10 And Start Again album and the inestimable Michael Weston King. Also on the day’s lime-up you’ll find former Rumblefish guitarist Dominic Crane, Kevin House, and The Accidental, a new collective formed by Stephen Cracknell from The Memory Band, Tunng frontman Sam Genders, Liam Bailey and, one half of Bicycle Thieves, Hannah Caughlin.
They’ll be showcasing their debut album, There Were Wolves (Full Time Hobby) and with songs like the playfully lollopping acoustic Can Hear Your Voice In My Head, pulsing cello laced electro-folk Wolves, instrumental loops jazz-folk single Knock Knock, dreamy summer’s morning love song Jaw Of A Whale (a touch ISB with birds singing in the background), a percussive puttering The Closer I Am, don’t be surprised if they don’t prove the biggest hit of the day. 3pm-11pm. £15 (kids £7.50) Weekend £55, kids £27.50 (u12sfree). Moseley Park Friday August 29 Kid Captain
A hometown gig for the four piece who, to judge by debut single, A Contrast In Winter and the big sounding cinemascapes of Open Water, are fans of Morrissey, Joy Division and Snow Patrol alike. If this is indicative of the rest of the material, then watch them fly. 7.30pm. £5. Little Civic Saturday August 30 Moseley Folk Festival Day two and a hefty line-up that includes such local acts as Eastern European fiery gypsy folk proponents The Destroyers, bhangra drummers The Dhol Blasters, singer-songwriter Ben Calvert, and Vijay Kishore. Here too you’ll find folk veteran Chris Wood of The Lark Descending fame, Southampton folk-blues outfit The Family, upcoming singer-songwriter Samantha Marais, Jon Redfern, and the contempo-trad darkling folk sounds of Oxford’s Sharron Kraus.
The two top names though include a rare appearance these days from Isle of Wight sextet The Bees who’ll be serving reminder of the pop confections wrapped up in last year’s Octopus album with such fun ditties as the jugband flavoured Who Cares What The Question Is?, Crosby, Stills & Nash go sea shanty Love In The Harbour, the reggae gospel Listening Man and soul folk (This Is For The) Better Days.
And then there’s headliner coup, Stockholm singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez, who’ll be digging into his mellow bag for songs from his two albums, Veneer and In Our Nature, most obviously his breakthrough international hit, Heartbeats. Mistakenly perceived by some as a kind of soul-pop act who plays Spanish classical guitar, he’s folkier than you might imagine, and the earthy tones and darkling shades of things like Killing For Love, How Low and the trad sounding Teardrops from his sophomore release are perfect for this setting. Noon. £33, kids £16. Weekend £55, kids £27.50 (u12sfree). Moseley Park Sunday August 31 Moseley Folk Festival
The final day sees the Fest out in style. From the local scene there’ll be some hot old school bluegrass from the redoubtable Toy Hearts who’ll be unveiling their sophomore album, When I Cut Loose (Woodville). Fronted by the Johnson sisters Hannah on mandolin and Sophia on guitar with dad Stewart on banjo and dobro, Lauren Rogers playing double bass and Howard Gregory handling fiddle duties, it’s a fine consolidation of their If The Blues Come Calling debut with 11 self-penned cuts providing perfect settings for their vocal and instrumental dazzle. Sounding like they’ve spent their lives in the Kentucky hills rather than Kings Heath, they open the set with Stronger, a title that aptly sums up Hannah’s vocals that (as the title track also demonstrates) are raunchier than before. Girl In Each State showcases the sort of picking that would make Ricky Scaggs envious while The Angels Sing To Me finds them waltzing around the honky tonk floor with beer in one hand and a Bible in the other, Giving You Back Your Troubles hits the hot club and jazz-blues notes, Montepellier Street swings with a Grapelli groove and Fast Raging River conjures thought of early Johnny Cash recast as a bluegrass Lucinda Williams. When they let rip and set the strings smoking on Sly North Wind and Gregory has flames leaping from the fiddle with I’ll Keep Waiting, there won’t be a still limb in the park. They’ll be joined by fellow home grown treasures Friends Of The Stars with their fine Americana, Birmingham ceilidh outfit The Old Dance School, blues-folk songsmith Scott Matthews fresh from his excellent support slots on the Plant-Krauss tour, and living folk legend Ian Campbell. Indeed, there’s a wealth of old school folk icons on hand with sets by both John Tams and Barry Coope and, arguably, the godparents of the English trad folk scene, Waterson-Carthy. Representing the younger generation, there’ll be the forever gigging London-centric Chris TT, the Dory Previn meets Kathryn Williams jazzy blues folk of Oxford’s Katy Bennett with songs from her excellent Bluebirds album, Nottinghamshire jazz n trad folk songstress Ruth Notman and, currently basking in the glow of a Mercury Music Prize nomination for The Bairns, the splendidly austere but warmly beguiling piano and fiddle led Rachel Unthank & The Winterset.
A new name to try and catch are Leicester duo The Junipers. Their just released debut album Cut Your Key (San Remo) is packed with rather lovely soft psychedelic folk-pop like the summery lolloping Fly The Yellow Kite, the Sgt Pepper influences evident on Gordie Can’t Swim and Mortimer and, for real psychpop devotees, the spangly joys of Mark (Teenage Opera) Wirtz, Terry Melcher and Curt Boettcher. Elsewhere, Already Home shows a jangly jogging country element, Sheena is pure CS&N West Coast shimmering pop while the title track is S&G folkie and Sunnydown Ave suggests a lost collaboration between Brian Wilson and McCartney. Even if it rains, this lot will let the sunshine in.
Topping off the weekend will be folk music’s latest flag waver for mainstream crossover, Seth Lakeman. Following on from his Dartmoor set Kitty Jay debut and the conflict and English Civil War themed Freedom Fields, he’s currently turning heads and ears not usually attuned to the folk scene with his Top 10 hit Poor Man's Heaven (Relentless). An album rooted in the traditional forms and subjects but lashed with a driven rock sensibility , at times like drum pounding opening track The Hurlers (about a stone circle on Bodmin Moor, since you ask), it even conjures thoughts of Led Zep. The songs deal with familiar trad and Cornish concerns, often of a nautical bent. There’s dangers at sea (Feathers In The Storm, Crimson Dawn, Solomon Browne’s tale of the 1981 Penlee lifeboat disaster), whaling (the fiddle scraping bluegrass tinged Race To Be King), spurned lovers’ curses (I’ll Haunt You), murder ballads (Sound Of A Drum, Greed And Gold), false hearts (Blood Red Sky), and, of course, the rousing title track’s class struggle. Given all three albums are firmly rooted in West Country stories, he might need to get out a bit more for the next, but geographical restrictions seem unlikely to dampen the spirits tonight. Noon. £33, kids £16. Weekend £55, kids £27.50 (u12sfree). Moseley Park
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