Thursday, September 24, 2009

A review of a book which actually is about a different book, or maybe in fact about a movie

Okay, so this is my first book review, so I couldn't be expected to get the hang of it right away, could I? Anyway, I liked Nick Hornby's 'Juliet, naked', quite a bit in fact (considering fiction accounts for around 10% of the many books I have read for the last decade), but basically it has one massive flaw, which is that it is not Nick Hornby's 'High fidelity'. Then again, in its defence, no other book can, and perhaps it is unfair to hold it against the author, but I am cutting to the chase here. I will come back to blather at length about 'High fidelity' a little further down this page, but for now i will try and obey the rules of convention by sticking even temporarily to the book this post is supposed to be about.

'Juliet, Naked' is about a man, Duncan, who obsesses with academic precision and research about a singer-wongwriter, Tucker Crowe, who last released an album, 'Juliet', in 1984, before disappearing from the music scene completely. Ducan shares his obsession with a small but dedicatedly-odd fellow-Crowologists on-line, and the novel begins with him on a tour of Crowe-related landmarks in the US. By his side, mostly, is his weary partner Annie, who is tiring of a life which seems to have been fittered away with Duncan in the dreary seaside town of Gooleness (how can a name sound simultaneously so close and so far from 'coolness'?). Then an early copy of a CD of a new, unplugged (naked!) version of 'Juliet' arrives by post, and Annie and Duncan disagree vehemently about its quality (it appears to be the straw that will finally break this particular camel's back), and both post reviews on-line. Then Crowe himself, who turns out to be living a relatively ordinary life in the US, while very loosely connected to a diaspora of chldren and ex-wives and partners scattered around two continents, contacts Annie to say he agrees with her review, and a secret correspondence begins. Meanwhile, the increasingly loose shackles holding Annie and Ducan together finally slough off, the cracks in their relationship all joining up almost audibly, and the edifice crumbling away at last. Then, things get a bit soap-opera-ish and Crowe crosses the Atlantic for a reluctant reunion with his scattered family and a final meeting with Annie.

Now, there is no doubt that Hornby can write, understands people and popular culture, and can be very funny. His other books since 'High fidelity' have all been a disappointment to me, and 'Juliet, naked' is a definite improvment, perhaps due to moving closer to the subject he has shown a complete mastery of, in other words the places where music and relationships intersect. However, it felt a little insubstantial, and (a critical flaw) I could not imagine anyone being able to make a good a film of it (where 'High fidelity' so spectacularly succeeded).

Duncan is the best character by a mile, and the nerdishness and pseudoacademic rigour with which he approaches music is well crafted and believable. Annie, presumably the hero, is likeable and adirable but I have a problem with her which is hard to define, but I'm going to try; basically, I can't get a picture of her in my head, I cannot quite benchmark her or work out who would play her in the film (once again, see 'High fidelity' discussion below), which leaves her a bit enigmatic as a character. As for Tucker Crowe, I somehow didn't find him or his familial complexities either engaging or quite credible, and he ends up seeming a bit dull (maybe that's the point?). His music, as well, does not to me seem like it would have fit in 1984, and he seems more like a 1970s creation, except that this would make him now too old for the part he is to play in the book. Also, a lingering problem of mine with Horby is that his dialogue frequently totters on the edge between naturalistic and perceptive, on the one hand, and somehow artificial and unconvincing on the other.

When he talks about music, though, he is one much firmer ground. I love that he talks about music like a fan, not a critic, in untechnical and slighly self-conscious language, as he showed not only in 'High fidelity' (yes, I am getting there) but also in '31 songs', which was about a of songs (can't remember how many exactly) and what they meant to him.

This brings me, finally, to 'High fidelity', which I have no hesitation as describing as one of my top 5 (of course there has to be a list) favourite books of all time, and for which I will always always give Nick Hornby massive credit, and give every new book of his the benefit of the doubt. I vividly remember buying it in Eason's book shop on a work trip to Dublin and basically not being able to do a single other useful thing that day until I had read every word, and I think I started again the next day.

This book simply did (and still does) describe better than anything I had ever read before (or since) the fragile twin states of being (a) male and (b) a music-lover. Every single word it said about relationships rang astonishingly true, for better and for worse, and savage blows of recognition smacked my head every few pages. To have done this (climbing into a certain type of male psyche - self-aware and very much lacking in confidence and bravado - and laying out in plain witty English what lay cowering within) was miracle enough, but to have simultaneously situated the analysis in a world of music and love of music which summarised so much of my life was nothing short of incredible. And, of course, the complex intertwinings of the strands of relationships and music and life are beautifully captured, as in this piece (perhaps my favourite):

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music."

The writing is mostly razor-sharp, and the cast of characters is far better and more varied that in any of his other books (and there is much more bile and bite to offest his later trend towards excessive niceness). Perhaps, in reflection, there are some passages that hint of the more melodramatic and unconvincing turns I feel he sometimes later took (the dinner party towards the end with Paul and Miranda never rang true to me, I admit), but it is still a very very important book to me.

When I heard they were transplanting the story to America for the film version, of course I was nervous, but the final film turned out, against my fears (and thanks to Stephen's Frears), to be wonderful and a (mostly) fully fitting adaptation, and one of my top 20 movies of all time. The best thing I guess they did was to take most of the lines directly from the page, and all the book's best lines appear unaltered and proud. The next thing was the casting, with John Cusack a perfect Rob in my mind, and his pseudo-employees, Dick and Barry, perfectly played, particularly Jack Black as the latter. The following clips from Youtube show their interaction perfectly, and are perhaps my favourute scenes about music in movies ever:

















The musical snoberry and obsessive list-making are so genuine and identifiable, as is the capturing in book and film of the grand art of making a compilation tape, with all the associated rules and principles. What would these guys have made of iPods and Genius playlists and being able to carry thousands of songs around with them? I would dearly love to know.

The only flaw I have with the film is a pretty significant one, and it is a mark of how much I love the rest of the movie that I am prepared to overlook it, or at least live with it, and it is as follows. When you read the book, you get images of the characters in your head (far more easily than I could do with Annie, for example) and the male actors fitted each of them like a glove. However, I can honestly say that I do not think any of the female leads are even remotely right for their parts (Charlie, Marie and Laura), and just do not match at all what I had in my head, seeming to have wandered in from other films. Charlie is just awful (I guess that's the point) but I just cannot see Rob and this Laura together for real. I have asked myself many times in the years in between who I would put in these roles instead, and have still not got a good answer to that key question, but I think that with perfect casting in both genders, this movie would not be in my top 20 but my top 3.

Of course, the movie would not exist without the book, and the book is the spark which the movie just ignited and amplifies. I loved and love this book. It is wise and funny and oh so real. It is his masterpiece, and it is perhaps foolish to think any mortal could strike such a rich seam that resonates so unerringly with me twice There is somewhere in here a very philosophical point about how maybe Nick Hornby is a little like Tucker Crowe, and 'High fidelity' his own 'Juliet'.

As a final thought, I wonder what would happen if Barry ever met Duncan in Championship Vinyl. That encounter would almost be worth a movie of its own.

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A real shining star

A few years ago, I bought a CD of cover versions of songs by Alejandro Escovedo (Por Vida) which some musician friends had organised to try and (I think) pay for his medical bills when he caught hepatitis and his insurance wouldn't cover it. It was a good album, and I loved the idea of the musical community rallying around to help one of their own.

Now there is another example. Mark Mulcahy is a US singer-songwriter whose wife died last year, leaving him alone to bring up his two young daughters. To try and help keep financial pressures off the family, a very special cast of musicians have released 'Ciao my shining star - a love letter to Melissa' (see a Guardian piece for background here).

I saw Mark at least twice in the tiny Lobby venue in Cork a few years ago, and I recall an immensely charismatic and powerful presence, tall and shaggy, with a voice that could flow from whisper to shout almost in an instant, and I bought all his solo albums. 'Smile sunset' is my favourite, and of the wonderful tracks on it, 'Resolution no. 1' is by far the most special, with his emotional voice doing tender miracles in lines like 'Do you still wanna have a baby, would you still want me around?', and songs like 'I just shot myself in the foot again' and the chamber pop epic 'A cup of tea and your insights', trailling off after 7 minutes with the line 'I know that I could be alright' being repeated so often it sounds like both a statement and a plea. In contrast to the optimism this album brings to me, his previous album 'Fathering' is more harrowing (hint: it's key track is wonderfully named 'Hey, self defeater'), but very powerful. I must admit that I have not gone back much into his earlier work with Miracle Legion and Polaris (with one exception, as mentioned below).

Another key track from 'Smile sunset' is 'Mikon the Icon', and the clip below shows pictures of Mark with this track playing over them, showcasing his quite unique voice:



The clip below shows 'Cookie jar', my favourite track off his third solo album, 'In pursuit of your happiness'; I remember hearing this song for the first time on an Uncut CD without looking at the track-list, and immediately knowing it was him from the guitar sound. I know far far too little about guitars or real music stuff to have any explanation for what I mean when I say that Mark Mulcahy has a very Mark Mulcahy guitar sound, as well as a very Mark Mulcahy voice, but there is one, and it bursts out of a cookie jar as soon as this song starts. Of course, just to disprove my point, the live version shown below starts with piano instead of guitar (I do at least know the difference between those instruments) but do check the album version and see what I mean.

So, being a fan of both Mark and cover versions albums, I was understandably excited to hear about this coming out when I read about it a while ago, but my interest was predictably craked up to near-dangerous levels when I found that The National would feature. There is simply no artist today who can excite me with teen-like anticipation like these guys, who still bring out in me the early star-struck fan who waited eagerly for releases by Depeche Mode over 20 years ago. It was the same with 'Dark was the night' earlier this year (see my post on that here), which yielded the magnificent 'So far around the bend'.

So, when I downloaded the album from iTunes (or the 21 tracks on sale in Ireland, 20 more being cruelly held for US customers only, grrr!), the first track to go on was their version of 'Ashamed of the story I told' (from his incarnation as Polaris). The song is really good, with the expected blend of great vocals, drums and a lovely piano motif, if perhaps a little circularly repetitive towards the end, with an odd verse-chorus ratio (although listening to the Polaris original reveals it to be a pretty faithful reproduction).

Then, I switched off shuffle and listened to the tracks as sequenced, with Thom Yorke ('All for the best' as track 1, the National at number 2, and Michael Stipe ('Everything's coming undone') as 3. The first impression of this trio of tracks is that they are all very good (I love the percussion and drumming on Thom Yorke's song and Stipe has a very un-REM almost-celticronic backing) but somehow louder, more technical and more impersonal than Mulcahy's songs at their best, capturing the energy but missing some of the heart? It is the 4th track ('Love's the only thing that shuts me up' by David Berkeley [who?]) that first really catches the starlight that is so important in these songs. Of the others, early highlights include 'I woke up in the mayflower' by Josh Rose, whose voice sounds unexpectedly like Mulcahy's, and tracks by Hayden, Mercury Rev, and the Unbelievable Truth (whose album I bought a decade ago, liked, forgot, and never thought about again until now). Others at first listen scare me, like Frank Black always does, while Dinosoar Jr take pretty much the same scorch and burn approah they took to the Cure's 'Just like heaven' a while back, which I am not sure I have yet forgiven them for.

Of course, another great function of covers' albums is to introduce you to new artists you have not yet heard, by presenting them to you in familiar guises through songs you already know, like a musical chaperone trying to pair you up with an artist first on common ground; this certainly is the case here, and both Chrises Collingwood and Harford will be worth a look in future.

I found the original Mark Mulcahy version of 'All for the best' here, and it raises a very interesting topic (perhaps for another post) of how closely cover versions should follow the template of the original; some of the songs on this album clearly do this to greater or lesser extents, but Thom Yoke has gone off-road in a very interesting way (would we expect any less?):

Even if, so far, I am not sure anyone has managed to capture that voice, and that guitar sound, just right, there is a hell of a lot of pleasure to be got from this album (and a lot more besides if I can only figure out how to access the US-only material). For the musical quality alone it comes strongly recommended; when the background story is considered, it is pretty much compulsory for anyone who likes this blog or the bands mentioned here to buy it.

His Myspace page, with the National and Thom Yorke tracks to listen to, as well as his own tracks (obviously) is here, while I, as usual, direct those in search of more detail to Wikipedia here and the Allmusic Guide here. Click Here to Read More..

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

It's an American Music Club but everyone's invited

In the early or mid-1990s, I read a review of a music festival in Hot Press, an Irish music magazine, which nearly made me cry. It is not often you say that about a concert review for a band I had never heard of but it meant so much that I kept it, sellotaped to one of the band's CD covers, and it is now yellowing and showing its age, but I want to reprint it here.

'It was always going to be about American Music Club......Suddenly, the moment is upon us and God, there they are and gasp, there he is and wow, listen to that. And that. And that and that and that. How can I do justice to something as beautiful as thus, to the wonder that is American Music Club? This is music at its purest, devoid of gimmicks, one man and his band giving us everything they have and us loving it. This is great art because it gives relentlessly of itself and because it's being given to us by men who are happy to stick their necks out, to put themselves on the line and who are prepared to be taught of by many as fools, sacrificing themselves for the few who gaze on in a state of total adoration.

'This was so beautiful, at times taking a supreme effort for me not to collapse ina heap and in a puddle of tears. In truth, I was not entirely successful in this and sobbed silently away on at leat four occaasions ("Last harbour", "Western sky", "Outside this bar", "Firefly" - just writing these titles gives me goosepimples and you can laugh all you like). This was magnificent and these men you should instantly parade around town on your collective shoulders. The man who said the world doesn't deserve them was right. American Music Club are the greatest band I know'.


What an utterly beautiful piece of music writing! Needless to say, I immediately checked them out, and bought their next CD - 'Mercury'. Now I can't say I would go quite as far as the writer (except perhaps for The National) but they are absolutely a very special band, and one of the best kept secrets in music, huddled close to the hearts of a select bunch of fans.

Their singer, Mark Eitzel, is famously regarded as a miserablist (a good thing in my book, as discussed here) and accounts of their gigs regularly referred to his fragile emotional state (as evidenced by the live album 'Songs of love live', where he sounds like he is breaking down at times). However, many of their songs have a power and majesty that defies such simple characterisation.

I will include a few clips here, starting with 'Outside this bar', live versions of which cannot touch the original album version (from 'Engine'), but capture the spirit of it, with one of my favourite opening lines ('The hospital wouldn't admit you, so we go home again....') and the chorus which always makes me think of a Stephen King tale like 'The mist' ('Outside this bar, there's no-one alive?/Outside this bar, how did anyone survive?').




The next clip is one of their most beautiful moments, 'Fearless' (wonderful even without visuals):





while one of their livelier but still utterly melodically enchanting pieces is 'Wish the world away':



The first AMC song I ever heard was 'Gratitude walks' from 'Mercury', as the first album of theirs I bought, and below is a live version of this which shows a relaxed Eitzel to prove that their live performances were not uniformly anguished affairs:


Any discussion of AMC must consider Eitzel's wonderful way with lyrics, with heart-breaking lines like:

'I thought your love was just a great big lie. Now loving you is the only thing that's gonna get me by' ('Can you help me?')

'I broke my promise, that I wouldn't write another song about you. I guess I lied. After 12 long years, I still love you' ('I broke my promise')

'Saved again, am I saved again? By your eyes, the tears in your eyes. Your tears are the only thing that makes me sure, I've got to love you even more. And your tears are the only thing that'll endure, unless I love you even more' ('Fearless')

His somewhat idiosyncratic way of naming songs also deserves a mention ('The hopes and dreams of heaven's 10,000 whores', 'How many six packs does it take to screw in a light?' and 'What the pillar of salt held up' spring to mind), but overall, it is the pure brilliance of the songs mentioned and shown above, plus 'Blue and grey shirt', 'Gratitude walks', 'Nightwatchman', 'Why won't you stay' and many many more that give their wonderful legacy. There was a compliation of cover versions of Carpetners' songs a while back from which Sonic Youth’s version of ‘Superstar’ got perhaps the most attention (partly thanks to ‘Juno’), but AMC’s version of ‘Goodbye to love’ is a perfect match of subject and singer. On the subject of covers, there was also a hard-to-get CD of AMC covers by people like Lambchop and Willard Grant Conspiracy called ‘Come on beautiful’ (I think I ordered it by post!) which is well worth a listen.

In the late 1990s, after 'San Francisco', they split up and went their separate ways, Mark Eitzelto a slightly uneven solo career (including recording some AMC songs with a Greek folk band!), and guitarist Vudi to apparently drive a bus in LA. Then, a few years, they reformed and released 'Love Songs for Patriots' in 2004; this was not quite up to the wonders of the magnificent trilogy of 'Everclear' (perhaps their strongest and most consistent set, but on average louder than their others), 'Mercury' and 'San Francisco'. Another post soon will address the subject of whether bands can ever completely recapture the magic after years apart (e.g., the Go-Betweens and many more), but 'Love songs' included at least one undisputed AMC classic in 'Another morning':





Last year they released 'The Golden Age' (not one of my favourites) and played a blistering gig in a tiny club in Cork (including a version of 'Home' which finally put to rest their image as sad and quiet), and so they are still out there and there is no excuse for anyone not catching up with them. I have recently installed a widget on this blog which plays their songs, as a little shrine in their honour. Their Allmusic Guide page is here and their Myspace page is here, and if you don't know them go and treat yourself!

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

iTunes 9 and where it has led me so far

September is when Apple traditionally launches new hardware and software, and this year one of the unvelied products was an upgrade to iTunes, version 9, which I downloaded, along with the corresponding software update for the iPod touch, this weekend.


It does bring quite a significant restrutcturing of the main page, with the introduction of columns which can be set, for example, for artist and album name, vertically, as opposed to the old horizontal split screen. This can be seen from the screenshot below:

This actually works well, beside being a novelty and new way to visualise youcollection, for grabbing and dropping into playlists, alongside which the columns now appear. I tested this out when I decided that I was getting nervous about my iPod being full to within 1gB of capacity, as if it might somehow burst or low a gasket from running so close to fullness, so set up a new core playlist to copy, and simply dragged across all the albums I reckoned I had around a 50:50 chance of listening to any time soon, ending up with just shy of 3000 songs; when I set the sync options to copy these plus all my usual self-made playlists and Genius selections (to give a flavour of randomness by bringing across songs I surely would not have picked by album) I think I got a good selection for carrying around, and had freed up around 6gB. This sort of decluttering was way easier in the new layout than the old.

When an iPod is attached, you can also quite easily move around your Apps between screens using the PC interface, which is actually quite useful, and let me set up a utility screen, a games screen etc. I invertoried my games apps as follows:

Alien Attack (addictive old style space invaders game)
Asphalt 4 (not a big fan or car games but looks good)
Biball lite (early shower-offer for accelerometer)
Bloom (Eno makes it cool but actually a bit boring?)
Brothers in Arms (played a bit, too hard)
Chess free (keeps beating me)
Doom Resurrection (played a bit, best shooter found yet)
Four free (addictive, keeps beating me!)
Imagini (really hard word game, too hard)
Labyrinth 3D (like biball, bit hard, bit boring)
Monopoly (way too slow and complicated)
Ragdoll Physics (cleverest and best, really cool)
Scrabble (an old reliable)
Shooter (not played yet)
Soduku (it is soduku - does what it says on the tin)
Star Wars (Force Unleashed) (good graphics but complicated)
Terminator (new, haven't played much)
Tetris (hard to control on small screen)
TT star lite (new but looks good)
Wurdle (like this a lot, word search under time pressure, like Boggle)

This looks like a lot, but I reckon I still spent less on these than I would on a new PC or Wii game, and they have filled in many a quiet moment in an airport or on a plane or train. I like the apps side of the Touch, and the extra dimension it gives the iPod. I much prefer playing games on it than either a DS or PSP, and know that may put me in a minority.

One of the other new 'big launch fuss' items was iTunes LP, which I heard about and then found very hard to actually find. The new iTunes store interface (not that huge an improvement, in my mind) does not exactly highlight them despite the fuss, and I had to do quite a bit of googling before I found what artists were on it, and the only one that semi-appealed was the new Muse album, because I had read some good reviews recently, so I downloaded it in ‘LP’ version, for the same price I would pay for a regular iTunes download album.

The LP format actually means very little in terms of what goes on your iPod; the content is all on your PC, but the track list now include a LP icon, and clicking that brings you to a ‘homepage’ for the album (first screen short below), from which you can navigate to pages with comments on each song, lyrics, photos, videos (3 short live clips) and full credits. I like it and think that, for an album I love, this will add a huge amount of added value.




So, what about the music for this guineae pig download? I had not actually listened to any Muse-ic (cue groan at pun) before this, and it is too early to do a detailed review, but so far I do like the sound of it (particularly the drums). I found a live clip from the last few days on Youtube of one of the songs I like so far as below:



Yesterday, I also, in a completely spontaneous decision, bought a bargain bin (€5) CD of the greatest hits of Dusty Springfield; several of the songs were familiar, and I loved 'Son of a preacher man', discovered of course through 'Pulp Fiction'. A few partial listens tells me that (a) I know more than I thought and (b) the voie is simply amazing, and send shivers up and down my spine (like Karen Carpenter does). A clip of her doing 'I just don't know what do do with myself' is below:


Of course, when I get and like a CD like this, it is something of a departure from my normal listening, and prompts sudden panic attacks of age-induced diminution of my critical faculties, but then a little digging reassured me that it is okay for like Dustry, even if you are not QT. Fans include the White Stripes, who can be seen doing the same song below:



And finally, what about the apparent gulf between my two purchases on the same day, Muse and Dusty? More digging proved that the gulf is not that wide after all, as it seems they have a habit of playing 'Can't take my eyes off you' live:


Yes, I know, it is not Dusty (but Andy Williams) but it is in the same ballpark, as opposed to this post, which started off on software and ended up on Andy Williams. Blame iTunes 9!

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Nostalgia lands me in a bit of a jam

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I switched on the TV in a house I was renting and saw a performance on MTV Unplugged by a band I could not immediately identify, some of whose songs sounded quite familiar, and all of them sounded fantastic. One in particular stuck in my head, and a few days later, I badgered someone into identifying it as 'Alive' by Pearl Jam, and confusion reigned - they were some kind of grunge/heavy metal band, right? Now, I had bought 'Nevermind' and enjoyed it, but I had not gone much further, and had no real intention of doing so, but on the basis of that TV performance I bought 'Ten' and it really did nothing for me, and was what I thought Pearl Jjam was like, and have rarely listened to it since.

A few years later, for some inexplicable reason, I bought 'Vs', though (maybe it was the reviews, maybe it was just near the register in HMV, maybe some particularly persuasive salesperson talked me into it), and this made far more of an impression, and I really liked it. Then, harsh fate intervened, and it was stolen along with a bunch of other CDs in a burglary, and I forgot it.

Until this year. If this blog was a movie, there would be some cool transition to explain the passage of over a decade, but in reality Pearl Jam popped back onto my radar by the release of their new album and the re-release of 'Ten' in a special edition including that fateful MTV performance. Now, being the sort of sap for deluxe editions and the like that record company executives dream of, I went to buy said edition, but found it to cost a whoping €40, and took an uncharacteristically mature decision that nostalgia has its cost, and it is less than that. I then went home and bought 'Vs' from iTunes instead, as well as (on a whim) a live album from somewhere called Benaroya Hall, which was recommended as being mostly acoustic (and which I have yet to listen to much).

Anyway, how was 'Vs' 15 years or so later? Bloody wonderful! This is so far from the kind of music I have been listening to in the intervening period that I half expected my iPod to reject it, like a badger organ transplanted into a human body. Before finishing this post with the usual set of Youtube videos, I will show a clip from that MTV performance, of 'Alive':




The combination of Vedder's unmistakeable vocals and the expert musicianship reassure me as to why it made such an impact on me such time around. Moving to 'Vs', my favourite track is probably 'Daughter', as shown live below:





Of the other tracks, I guess 'Elderly woman behind the counter in a small town' (does exactly what it says on the tin?) should fit my tastes pretty neatly, but in fact I prefer the heavier songs, like 'Dissident' below:




For the final clip, over the chasm of years since first listen, the drum intro to 'W.M.A.' has somehow lodged in my brain, like a latent virus or a sleeper agent, reactivated when I played it again, and sounding, as it did then, like a new reimagining of Joy Division:




This month, I have discovered one artist from the 1990s who I unbelievably managed to miss at the time (the unbelievable Jayhawks) and one album that I caught first time around, and then forgot, and then rediscovered. Not a bad musical month.

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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Mick'n'Martha

On Wedneday night, 2nd September, I went to see Mick Flannery for the second time in a month, in another tiny venue called the Blackbird, a pub in Ballycotton, around 30 miles from Cork, which has a small back room used for intimate (estimated max capacity of 50!) gigs. It was too small for the full band to fit in, and the drummer had to stay home; also, unexpectedly, did Yvonne, his back-up singer and usual duet partner. Violinist Karen had to step in and fill her shoes, and did very well under the circumstances!

A few weeks back, I wrote a long piece and review on Mick (see here), so I will keep this one short. Basically, the latest gig was very different, partly due to the line-up and also partly due to the set-list, which featured an idiosynchractic choice of cover versions, as well as the usual stuff from his two albums (some notable omissions included 'Safety rope'). Nonetheless, it was a great gig, and he was in sligthly more relaxed form (a relative term for Mick); I am becoming convinced he is developing a very definite stage personality which is based around not having a stage personality, and his nervousness and self-deprecation is an essential part of the charm package.

The first cover was Tom Waits' 'Martha' (as also played in the previous gig) and which he was somewhat 'pressurised' to do by my wife, after explaining the fact that our daughter was named after the song. Fair play to him for playing it out of either loyalty to his fans or fear, and it can be seen below (remembered to turn the phone around after the first few seconds):



The next cover caught me off guard as I was going 'I know it, I know it....' before my mental filing of everything Uncut taught me brought the Felice Brothers to my lips, and even the song name ('Frankie's gun'); I downloaded the album ages ago and this was the only track which really stood out for me. Eventually, after the penny dropped, I got a quick clip as seen below:



The next clip I am including is from 'Cut it clean', which is fast becoming a favourite of his new stuff, after this, probably my third hearing:


And finally, I will include another surprising (and yet fairly logical) cover, of Springsteen's 'The river', and the clip includes some audience banter and eventual mass participation (all 50 of us!) in a really lovely and powerful version:


As has happened before, my N95 lost the will to film at this point, and the battery faded badly, and so I missed what was still a good lively final cover of 'The night they drove old Dixie down', before a short encore (they couldn't go anywhere - the crowd was blocking the door), and the final song was, appropriately, 'Goodbye'.

Another great gig and I remain a true believer with the fervour of the convert; he has announed more gigs in Cork and the U.K. (see here) and wherever the hell you are, you should get to one of them.

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