Buck Owens - RIP

Sad to hear that country great Buck Owens, the Baron of Bakersfield, has passed away aged 76. They'll be playing 'Buckaroo' in heaven tonight.

Ivor Cutler RIP

Lovely tribute from Duglas T Stewart of BMX Bandits.

Zine watch

Blank Stares & Cricket Claps #8
A5, free!

The eighth issue of this Sheffield based zine boasts interviews with King Biscuit Time, Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players, Broadcast, Junkplanet and local raves The Long Blondes. I particularly enjoyed the chat with David Berman of the Silver Jews and the excellent piece on Nuggets, which features quotes from the Electric Prunes and Barry, of Barry & The Remains fame. It's funny too, with the demos being reviewed (purportedly) by Paul Gambuccini and Bobby Peru, and James Blunt being lampooned in a pleasingly rude photo story. Playful and sharply designed, this is a cracking wee zine.

http://www.bsacc.co.uk/

Khaki Shorts #10
A4, £1

The infamous Glasgow comic returns with its time honoured blend of mirth, bile and mockery. Contributors include John Miller and members of Glasgow's finest satirical pop group The Plimptons. Amongst its targets are Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chiefs, emo kids, and Ballboy. The strips vary in style and tone, from crude (and all the more amusing for it) Viz style japes, to dark, hallucinatory visions.
The West-Enders is spot on in its satire of pseudo-bohemian assholes as they search for drugs and hand out flyers for Heil Electro featuring DJ Wankstain and DJ Fud. As a fan of cheesey puns I have to doff my cap to the KS boys for inventing a Chinese restaurant called Don't Wok Run.
Very funny, very rude, go get!

http://ajsmith.livejournal.com/41495.html

Back in action

Apologies for the lack of blog action lately. This is what happens when your computer goes on the blink.
I have a couple of reviews lined up, but for the time being here's what's been...

Burnin' up the Beard stereo

Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
At long last! Slightly less noir than Blacklisted. Garth Hudson is all over it, playing strange and wonderful keyboards. Star Witness is quite possibly the greatest thing she's ever done - a gorgeous, evocative and deeply sad ode to a dead love.
Sonic Youth - Sonic Youth
First EP finally reissued with lots of bonuses. Very no-wave: sounds like ESG, Pil and Can. Well, it was 1981.
Thurston Moore - Psychic Hearts
Solo album from 1995 also reissued. Title track is an outsider anthem: "I bet you have a fucked up life..."
Sonic Youth - Sister
Not a reissue, just for the hell of it. Wild, brilliant, blazing. They've never done anything like Master Dik again. Mores the pity. I think it might just be their masterpiece.
Howe Gelb - Sno Angel Like You
Mr Giant Sand pits his sonic muck against a gospel choir to glorious results. His best since Chore of Enchantment. Look out for an interview in the next Beard!!!
Giant Sand - Centre of the Universe
Desert bubblegrunge! One of their best.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Kicking Against The Pricks
From my weekend second hand vinyl shopping excursions. Absolutely immense, thrilling version of All Tomorrow's Parties, and a beautiful By The Time I Get To Phoenix.
Kevin Ayers - Whatever We Bring She Sings
A Beard favourite and classic of English jazz-rock whimsy (ok, prog). Finally got my own, scuffed but playable, vinyl copy for £3 in Roxfam.
Emmylou Harris - Roses In The Snow
Stunning nu-bluegrass album from 1980. All star cast helping Emmylou out - Johnny Cash (awesome bass baritone vocals on Jordan), Willie, Dolly, Linda Rondstat. Amazing cover of The Boxer and one of the most sublime versions of Wayfayring Strangers ever recorded.
Lemonheads - Come On Feel
Evan Dando - Baby I'm Bored
Seeing the mighty Chris Brokaw has led me back to his old buddy Dando.

Football crazy!

Rather than lazing about on Sunday why not get yourself through to Edinburgh to watch some musicians take on their sworn enemies, us music journos, at five-a-side football?

King Creosote's Fence Collective, My Latest Novel, Aberfeldy, The
1990s, The Bees, and a team commanded by independent Scottish
magazine, is this music?, will compete with the cream of Scotland's
student sporting talent in the Tennent's Futsal Sessions. Football and beer eh? What a healthy combination!

Beard's own photo maestro Mark Connelly will be mowing down the opposition as part of the ITM? team.

Football legend and Scotland's most famous Joy Division fan Pat Nevin will oversee proceedings, which will take place at Edinburgh's World of Football from 1-5pm on Sunday February 5. Free buses will drive supporters from participating unions
to and from the event.

The winning university team will secure the chance to have all
participating bands play an exclusive FREE gig at their student union
on Thursday, March 2.

Following last year's celebrated Tennent's Football Sessions – which
saw hot-footed indie kings and musical victors Belle & Sebastian
narrowly robbed of the cup by overall winners Strathclyde University -
Tennent's Lager is set to further challenge musicians and academics
alike with a Brazilian variation on five-a-side: Futsal.

The tournament will take place on Sunday February 5th at Edinburgh's
World of Football (Corn Exchange) and is open to the public. It is
free.

Participating Student Unions: Heriot Watt, Glasgow Caledonian,
Strathclyde, GUU, QMU, Edinburgh, Robert Gordon, Dundee, St Andrews,
Glasgow School of Art

Beard 5

Beard 5
Originally uploaded by Stew of the Beard.

Out now! Featuring an in depth chat with maverick pop's greatest Beard, Robert Wyatt and a rare interview with the first lady of English folk, Shirley Collins.
Beyond that, we have Devendra Banhart talking of dolphins and fighting, cosmic Aberdonians Hookers Green No1, and indie glamourpusses The Pipettes! Oh, and the rebirth of Bis with Data Panik! And folk-rockers Foxface! And pictures and beards from the Green Man Festival! And so much more!

Beard Presents...............

Beard magazine presents a Christmas Gift To You

Beard, the award winning Glasgow based music and arts zine, in association with Levis Antidote, is hosting a free day of live music and fanzine making at Glasgow’s Mono bar on Sunday 11 December.

Dedicated to music, arts and facial hair, Beard was awarded Best Music Fanzine at the EMAP Fanzine Awards 2005. The judges said: "Stood out like a beacon. It has loads of great ideas, illustrations and an ingenious use of language. And very funny indeed"

Headlining the show are Beard favourites Lucky Luke. An eventful year has seen these Glasgow folk-rockers release their debut album Patrick The Survivor (Invada) to great acclaim, support Teenage Fanclub on their UK tour, and record a session for BBC6music. In the new year, they will travel to Texas as one of the Scottish acts selected to play the prestigious South By South West music conference.

Cosmic Aberdonians Hookers Green No1 make a rare Glasgow appearance, promising a carnival of sound and vision. A heady brew of psychedelic art rock, electronica and big band jazz, debut album On How The Illustrious Captain Moon Won The War For Us (Snowstorm Records) has been an underground word of mouth hit since its release earlier this year.

Country-fried power-popsters Skeleton Bob complete the line up. Think Evan Dando, Jonathan Richman and Uncle Tupelo and smile.

During the day, we’ll be holding a fanzine workshop. The idea is for everyone to get together and produce a cut ‘n paste fanzine on the day. Everyone’s pages will be gathered up and collated, so we can dash off to the copy shop and have a finished zine to hand out at the end of the night. Beard contributors will set the ball rolling with a discussion, before we let everyone loose on the paper, scissors, glue, glitter and pens and typewriters.

In addition to all this we’ll have a beardy pub quiz and the infamous Beard DJs spinning a wonderful and perverse range of tunes.

The event comes ahead of the mid-December release of Beard #5. It’s been a long time coming, but we hope you’ll find it worth the wait as we have a very rare interview with the first lady of English folk Shirley Collins and an in depth chat with bearded pop maverick Robert Wyatt. In addition to that we have features on freaky folk dude Devendra Banhart, Brighton girl group The Pipettes, Data Panik, the new incarnation of Glasgow legends Bis, Hookers Green No1, and the frisky Foxface. And that’s not to mention a plethora of reviews, rants and our wondrous new strip, Beatnik Whaling Comix.

For more information contact:
beardmag@yahoo.co.uk

Notes:

From 3pm until midnight on Sunday 11th July in Mono, King’s Court, Glasgow

Free entrance.

Beard online: http://beardmag.blogspot.com and www.myspace.com/beardmag

Save the Fence Homegame!

It seems that Fife Council are planning to block the Fence Collective from holding the third Homegame festival in Anstruther next year after ONE person complained. You'd think the local cooncil would welcome an event that brought custom to local businesses and put Fife on the cultural map. Here's a message from Glasgow's Viva Stereo. Make sure you sign the petition folks!

Earlier this year we played The Fence Homegame in a wee Fishing village of Anstruther in Fife, Scotland. We opened the weekend's events (which was a great privilege) which also featured performances from James Yorkston, King Creosote, Pictish trail, Adem, Lone Pigeon, Aidan Smith and loads others.....
anyway it was a great weekend, very relaxed by the sea with loads happening and everyone had fun including the local businesses who made a fortune from the festival go-ers. Unfortunately one local person, out of the whole place complained...and this has meant the festival might not go ahead next year which would be a shame.
Anyway,we would be very grateful if you could take one minute of your time....and thats all it would take...to sign the petition to try and prove to the council the event should be staged again next year. We realise this will mean nothing to 99.9% of you would we would appreciate it :)

http://www.petitiononline.com/homegame/petition.html

Cat Power - The Greatest

Not that we need any excuse to post a picture of Chan Marshall, but in case you haven't heard, a new Cat Power album will be with us in January. It's called The Greatest and you can listen to the title track here. Absolutely gorgeous it is too. The opening piano line reminds me a little of Neil Young's Philadelphia, but then it goes into a lush Bobbie Gentry style country soul ballad, all plaintive strings, wisps of tremelo guitar and Dusty in Memphis backing vocals. Oh man! Can't wait to hear the whole album.

Ten Beardy Belters

Here's a little something I did for the Pinup Nights zine...

Ten Beardy Belters

Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom (Ryko, 1974)
In which pop’s greatest beard and most touching singer embarks on a new life, as an artist and human being, with wife and collaborator Alfie. Left paralysed from the waist down after falling out of a window at a party, Wyatt, one of rock’s most inventive drummers in Soft Machine, was forced to rethink his approach. Recorded with British jazz rock luminaries, Rock Bottom is a strange and beautiful work, at turns funny, perplexing and deeply moving. In the peerless Sea Song Wyatt imagines his lover as strange sea-creature, before wondering how to reconcile such romantic fantasies with the reality of playing “at being human for while”. Elsewhere, Ivor Cutler plays his harmonium and talks of moles. What’s not to love?

Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue (Caribou, 1977)
As Brian Wilson retreated into his depression it was left to his brothers Carl and Dennis to lead the Beach Boys. Dennis’s songs were often the high points of the band’s 70s albums, but this is his flawed masterpiece. The cover shot of a weathered, shaggily bearded Dennis against a golden California sunset gives a good indication of the album’s bittersweet mood. It’ s super slick LA pop-rock, Jim, but not as we know it. The opening River Song is gloriously affirmative, sounding like a less opiated Spiritualized, all gospel choirs and grandiose piano and guitar. Then there are the ballads, where lush orchestral bombast will drop out, leaving Dennis alone at the piano, his voice ravaged and aching, vulnerable to the point of desperation. Until it gets a proper reissue, the internet is your best bet for getting hold of this remarkable album.

The Band – The Band (Columbia, 1969)
One band, so many whiskers. Going beyond the beardy weirdiness of the debut Music From The Big Pink to tap into a rich seam of American history, The Band sing of Civil War veterans, farmers hoping for a good harvest and old sea dogs called Willie. Gotta be a few beards in there. Musically, they incorporate such beard friendly genres and country, bluegrass, Appalachia and Dixie jazz. How more beard could this be? The answer is none, none more beard.

The Congos – Heart Of The Congos (Blood & Fire, 1977)
Quite possibly Lee Perry’s greatest production, Heart Of The Congos is roots reggae at its most transcendent. Cedric Myton’s sublime falsetto and Roydell’s tenor float over astonishing dubbed out soundscapes, all tribal rhythms, percolating guitar and organ and otherworldly effects that range from the uncanny (percussion that sounds like creaking ropes and chains) to the absurd (Perry’s trademark moo cow). A beard and dread sporting masterpiece.

Incredible String Band – The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (Hannibal, 1968)
Along with Paul Giovanni’s Wickerman soundtrack, there is no finer album for growing a beard and dancing naked with wood sprites to than ISB’s acid folk classic. Combing folk with Indian classical, medieval music and whatever bonkers ideas came into their heads, this is a record of vision and wide-eyed charm, a key influence on the likes of Devendra Banhart and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Master & Everyone (Drag City 2003)
Steve Gullick’s masterful cover short captures the Bonnie Prince, aka Will Oldham at his beardiest, looking like some mystic who’s just emerged from the wilderness. But far from being the ravings of a wild man this is Oldham’s most considered album. One of those rare albums that sustains a mood for its entirety, M&E is beautifully spare and understated, recalling the English folk of Shirley Collins and Nick Drake as much as the lo-fi Americana that made Oldham’s name. Ruminating on the give and take of relationships, Oldham longs to be loved as he is in ‘Wolf Among Wolves’, beard and all.

My Morning Jacket – At Dawn (Darla 2001)
Fuck Kings Of Leon; when it comes to modern day Southern rock (and quality beards) the Jacket are the reigning monarchs. Place Neil Young, Lynnyrd Skynnyrd and the Flaming Lips at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, ply them with Wild Turkey and good weed, and they might come up with something like At Dawn. From the evocative title track, through the star-kissed revery of Bermuda Higway and country pop of …MMJ ride a wave of reverb and soar into the stratosphere.

Willie Nelson – Shotgun Willie (Atlantic 1973)
It’s hard to believe but Willie Nelson was once a clean shaven Nashville crooner and songwriter for hire. But then he moved to Austin, Texas, grew his hair and smoked a bunch of weed, becoming a maverick country superstar in the process. Country rock has rarely sounded as loose and as funky as on the title track and the hit Whiskey River, while on ballads like Not For You, Willie’s vocals are immaculately phrased, his guitar playing full of jazzy inflections.

Comets On Fire – Blue Cathedral (Sub Pop 2004)
A band of deranged rock n roll Dr Frankensteins, reanimating the twisted remains of 70s prog and heavy rock, Comets have the power to make your beards stand on end. Running their instruments through archaic effects and echo boxes, these hairy freaks create a sound akin to Sonic Youth jamming with the wacked out Pink Floyd of Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother. With a bit of MC5 bluster and skronk thrown in for good measure. Guitars flail and burn, drums pound and feedback dances dervish like into the heavens. Out of the melee monstrous riffs emerge, leavened by unexpectedly pretty acoustic guitar and organ flourishes. Incandescent and interstellar: Comets On Fire more than live up to their name.


Moondog – Viking Of Sixth Avenue (Honest Jon’s, 2005)
Moondog aka Louis Hardin was a blind, homeless composer of incredible scope. He would perform on the street and in concert halls and is estimated to have written over 300 madrigals, scores for brass and string orchestras, organ and piano pieces and over 80 symphonies. What a guy and what a beard! This wonderful new compilation is the perfect introduction to his odd and beautiful world.

Uh oh, Stew's being let loose on the decks...

That's right, I'm DJ-ing between bands at Glasgow's rowdiest indie night on Friday. What have they let themselves in for?

A few whiskers...

Sorry for the lack of updates folks. It's been a crazy few weeks what with all my working and gig going. In the past fornight I've seen Mogwai, Trout and Arab Strap at Mono's wonderful John Peel Night, the astonishing Deerhoof, Animal Collective*, the amazing Afrirampo and Belle & Sebastian (more on whom later) not to mention the Instal festival. Phew! Half written reviews of some of those are in my notebook, but I'll hold on to them until the next issue if that's alright. We're looking at end of Nov for the launch of Beard 5. It'll be worth the wait, with a double whammy of legends...

In the meantime I'll endeavour to bring you the odd review, ramble, interesting link and Beard news.

First up, I'm going to be a guest DJ at Pinup Nights at the Woodside Social, Glasgow on Friday November 4. I'll also have a wee article in the Pinups zine that gets handed out on the night as well. More info as it comes.

Here's an interview I did for Ideas Factory with Gaelic singer and actress Alyth McCormack on the challenges of performing in different languages.

Beard #4 has received a nice review on Live Journal. Hurrah! Scroll down to Oct 4 for the skinny, as they say.

Current listening: Yesterday's Freakzone on BBC6music. It's their Harvest festival, celebrating the great psych/prog/folk/artrock/punk imprint. We've had Shirley and Dolly Collins, Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd (Meddle, nice), Kevin Ayers, Wire, The Saints and, a new discovery for me, Edgar Broughton Band. They're nuts, like a daft hard rock version of Comets On Fire. Me likes. Any more information on these dudes would be most welcome. *Update. Just heard Sadistic Micah Band, a Japanese combo feted by Bowie and Roxy apparently. Ace female fronted noisy Japanese glam pop. Wow!

Ok, that's all for now folks.

*Thanks to Susie for the Animal Collective pics.

Franz on demand!

Not posting for a month hasn't improved my puns any, has it? As promised, here are my thoughts on the new Franz.

Franz Ferdinand
You Can Have It So Much Better
(Domino)

Alex Kapranos’s eyes glint as he tilts his head back and flashes those vampiric fangs. There’s something of the night about him. All he’s missing is the cape.

That mischievous, amoral persona is all over You Could Have It So Much Better. Check those titles: The Fallen, Evil And A Heathen, I’m Your Villain! “Your famous friend, well I blew him before ya,” he purrs in Do You Want To?

Franz’s second album opens with a killer hat-trick. The Fallen opens with a lightly frazzled synth drone over which guitars and drums break out with the muscular swing of a bantam weight boxer. The song reaches its climax in a dense cacophony of layered and echoed vocals and messy garage guitar. Super fantastich!

You’ll know Do You Want To? of course, the shameless tart of a lead off single. It’s as perfect a pop moment as any this year, jam packed with hooks and arch humour. Can you imagine any of their imitators throwing themselves so gleefully into the fabulously tacky “doo doo doo” refrain? Rather than whinge about the superficiality of fame, Franz head straight for champers and lachsfisch and have a ball. “Your famous friend, well I blew him before ya,” winks Kapranos, licking his vampiric fangs.

Galloping drums and a swashbuckling guitar announce the start of This Boy. A deadpan “yeah” and the band switch to a jagged swagger, Kapranos’s distorted falsetto vocals adding a sleazy, creepy edge to it all.

There’s a change of tack after this with the Sparks go Merseybeat balladry of Walk Away. Any song with that title raises the spectre of Cast’s unfathomably banal plodfest, but happily Franz’s effort is a classier affair, its rinky dink air of sophistication and melancholy conjuring images of Sofia Loren or Steve McQueen skiing in the Alps, decadent ballrooms and diamond necklaces. It’s not quite as tender as the music would suggest however – Kapranos seems to relish leaving someone behind.

It’s only on Eleanor Put Your Boots On that Kapranos lets his Dr Hyde mask slip and reveals his heart. “Climb to the statue with your dictionary,” Kapranos urges of his brainiac amour. With wobbly tremolo guitar and a Beatley piano part that sounds as if it was recorded in the back of small town hall it’s really rather lovely.

The rest of the album is enjoyable, but only ‘I’m Your Villain’ really stands out. You can hear the band having real fun with their three songs in one formula here. It begins with a stand-off on the dancefloor before racing into a Pulp rave up, winding up with a fantastically cheesy coda that take Status Quo down to the disco.

So this might not be the white crunk masterpiece of Kanye West’s dreams, it’s not radically different to their debut, but frankly my chickadee, I couldn’t give a fuck. I’m having too much fun.

Wot? No posts for a month? I know, I know...but I do have a day job now y'know. I'm on the individual learning accounts helpline for the time being. And today I had an interview at the Metro for a listing job. Fingers crossed.
So September flew by in a whirlwind of work, gigs and journalistic unproductivity. Fear not, for Beard shall return soon, complete with some marvellous interviews and a new look.

I shall update this thread later this evening with some thoughts on the new Franz Ferdinand LP.

In the meantime I wish to say that Balls of Steel is quite possibly the worst tv programme ever made. It's jaw-droppingly, brain-meltingly witless and vile. Sitting at home with a cold on Friday night I caught the beginning and like a rubber necker I could barely take my eyes of the whole ghastly spectacle. This is the nadir of the prank show, Candid Camera with all the invention and playful oddness siphoned out, its brains replaced with lager and curry flavoured puke. Basically some annoying media cunts find ordinary punters or celebs and act like, well, cunts towards them, thus proving they have Balls Of Steel. One of the cunts' schtick is to rummage in her handbag while telling a z-list celeb she has a present for him before lifting her hand out, middle finger raised. "You're a horrible woman" says David Furnish with some justification. Pissed up lads just back from the pub guffaw. At least that's the idea. Why oh why must Channel 4 show this crud? It makes The Girly Show look witty amd sophisticated. Yes, it's that bad.

Happy Metal Weekend

Dear Beardies,

It's the weekend. Time to awaken your sybaritic senses and forget the week that has passed. I recommend starting the weekend's proceedings with this bracing little album full of sea shanties:



Well, I'm going to, dammit.

Mogwai & The Blitzkrieg Bop!

Mogwai, ABC, Glasgow

A lot is made of Mogwai’s live shows being really loud, but what’s really incredible is how they manage to create some of the world’s most emotive music despite the abstinence from lyrical intimations and penchant for metal brutality. Cheeky grins, cheeky song titles and wide-o interviews aside, Mogwai are as serious as your life. They finish with Like Herod: of course you’re fucking terrified! You know it’s coming, you expect that explosion, but you just can’t prepare for such an incredible noise, such evil wailings from a place you don’t want to end up in. Bang! It’s as good as live music gets, and as close to genuine terror as a guitar song can get you.
Before that, though, you had bliss, ecstasy and pure joy from a 3-chord progression drawn out over some noisy guitar swathes over a 20-minute dance. Astounding control of rippling noise appropriated from Growing’s best Kevin Shields collaboration, building and evoking like it has no right to; it kicks as jetplane metal, fades out like Tortoise dub, sparkles and just dances to the short film of a beautiful life. Like Herod’s ying, Mogwai Fear Satan is just wonderful.
Before that, we had plenty of fun: 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’s tragic happiness, Helicon 2’s majestic clarity and Ratts Of The Capital’s triumphant menace; harder, faster new songs indicating a shift from the wishy-washyness of Happy Songs For Happy People and lessons learned from contemporaries like Pelican or even Electrelane.
But what was before that? Well, life of sorts, all that genuine emotional stuff that Mogwai bring to a head. What does that make the ABC gig then? An end? Somehow, that makes sense. Live, Mogwai are like you’d want your death to be: dark, serious, wordless and emotional, but beautiful and ultimately worth it.
Gary Thom

Meanwhile, we'd like to bring this fine night to your attention. Some great bands and it's for a good cause! Hurrah!

BLITZKRIEG BOP - TUE AUG 30th

at Oran Mor, Byres Road, Glasgow 8pm-2am

Featuring live music from:

LUCKY LUKE

DATA PANIK (Formerly Bis)

THE BEAT TRAP (Supported Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser *cough* Chiefs)

THE NEEDLES (If they're good enough for Mick Jones hell they're good enough for us! )

ALSO DJs playing the usual punk/post-punk/ska tunes - the most fantastic DOUGIE of MOTHER AND THE ADDICTS will get you dancing like crazycats until 2.

TICKETS can be bought for a fiver at Oxfam Music, Avalanche and http://www.thebop.tk (site also has forum/list/links etc)
Band/Promoter*DJ/Flying Monkey; email us at thebop@hotmail.co.uk! x

Free Songs of Astounding and True Beauty

To keep you occupied while we go off to Green Man this weekend our guest blogger Sean Michaels of Said The Gramophone fame has some tasty MP3s for you to chew on. See you next week with tales of hippies, cider and mud.

Okkervil River – For Real
A song full of such roaring life, covered in such black and flashing fur, that it’s hard to imagine it as a thing composed, the work of men in a room trying out parts and kicking at pedals. Okkervil River were a band of rustic mountain-men, Austin’s lonesome hermit poets, but here Will Robinson Sheff’s got teeth and a fever, he’s got claws, he’s got an electric guitar that shorts the lights. This is rock music for after you realise what you’ve done, or a song for running panicked through a field. It’s a track that requires a lantern – hold yours high.

Bishop Allen – Little Black Ache
Oh, the blues. The blues are so blue that sometimes they’re even black. And if we’re going to sing about the black-and-blues, not sing the blues but sing about them, - well, let’s make sure it’s a pop-song of modest majesty, of unabashed fun, of hip-hip-hooray. Bishop Allen are passing around Polaroids with The Kinks, Modest Mouse, The Shins; they’ve got mussed hair not from the stylist but from sleeping in; they’ve got a bathtub of tunes that could power a Volkswagen convertible. They’re from Brooklyn and they’re the best unsigned band in America.

Devin Davis – Iron Woman
If we bang the drums loud enough, the mics will clip. If we get a big enough choir, the roof will blow off. If we sing our hearts out, well then maybe we’ll explode. In some worlds, each of these would be bad things. Here, however, with only two minutes to run over a parade, with only two minutes to save Neutral Milk Hotel, The Flaming Lips and Ray Davies from an avalanche, well – it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Davis sings of “three ... weeks spent throwing matchsticks at the sun”, and I can imagine that, the matches thrown overhand into the sky. But I can imagine them, too, flaring into flame, fireworks, glad little explosions to accompany the electric guitar, the feedback, the maracas, the saxophones, the piano, Devin Davis’s fantastic Rube Goldberg machine.

Last night I went to see Richard Thompson in Edinburgh. He was fantastic. The nice thing about the Festival is that reviewers tend to be treated very well, so I got a great seat bang in the middle of the third row. My review will be up on the Fest music pages sometime on Friday afternoon, but in the meantime, you can read my Yo La Tengo review here!

In other news, some bloke has been pissing on Reagan's grave.

A Sight To Behold

Better late than never, here's my Devendra Banhart live review!

Devendra Banhart
Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh

Tonight is all about Devendra and his sexy young folk chums. With his salt and pepper goatee and careworn hat, Sir Richard Bishop takes on the role of their cranky uncle. Taking a break from opium scented art-rockers Sun City Girls, Bishop has established himself as one of the leading experimental acoustic guitar players. But where Jack Rose is graceful and meditative, Bishop is spiky and mischievous. He has a light touch on the folk and blues numbers, but is unafraid to throw in Beefheartian dissonance, or cut loose on Indian and Arabic flavoured improvisations. Neither is Bishop an acoustic purist: he’ll crank up the volume and presence to add a woody percussive crunch to his more furious extrapolations, or conjure up dense layers of delay. Tonight, Uncle Rich showed the kids how to rock.

Espers’ chamber folk has all the right elements - hushed vocals, crystalline guitar, a distant rumble of percussion, creeping organ – but it doesn’t quite convince. It’s all very pretty, but c’mon, captivate me! This is music so elegantly wrought it allows no room for blue notes or flinty edges. Much has been made of the olde worlde mysteriousness of their music, but like a PG cut of The Wickerman, there are only vague hints of dread here. There’s a much needed crescendo at the end, but it’s just not heavy enough. The cellist gamely grapples with her instrument, choking mangled notes from the neck, but the rest of the band seem reluctant to push the dial into the red. As Greg Weeks studiously adjusts the volume on his Farfisa I’m silently urging him to just turn it right up and fry us with waves of trebly minor chord fuzz. I want to see the percussionist batter his cymbals and the drummer pound his kit all the way to Stonehenge, but all we get is a mildly adventurous stroll off the beaten track.

So to our fuzzy faced prince. Devendra takes to the stage in a tartan waistcoat and tight flares, accompanied by his even hippier looking bandmates. Dubbed the Hairy Fairy Band, only the fresh faced drummer lacks a beard, although he straps on a green felt fake, which works itself loose as he plays. Nice try. The band stays in the background for the opening tunes, which include a gorgeous Spanish song from the new album, Cripple Crow. Come ‘This Beard Is Soibhann’, however, they’re stomping away like a hippy show band. Banhart clearly isn’t interested in being a serene, seated folkie tonight – he wants to take us to boogieville. He shuffles his feet, claps his hands, even does the chicken dance. Sho’ nuff, the boy’s got rhythm. It’s all very entertaining, but after a while nagging doubts creep in. New songs like ‘I Feel Just Like A Child’ are irresistible, but I could have done with more of Devendra on his own. It’s nice that Devendra lets his bandmates and a local singer-songwriter take centre stage, but when guitarist Noah Georgeson steps forward to do a cover of Lauryn Hill’s ‘Doo Wop (That Thing)’ I was checking my watch. I’m sure the cover was meant sincerely, but Georgeson’s hammy baritone – as ripe as brie on a sun bed - has an air of smugness to it. Happilly, towards the end the Hairy Fairy band put their boogie shoes away and provide unobtrusive accompaniment for two of Banhart’s finest songs. ‘Will Is My Friend’ might be stripped of its melancholy barroom piano tonight, but Banhart brings that sense of wonder to it nonetheless. ‘A Sight To Behold’ might not convey the same apocalyptic dread as on record, but it’s the one moment where Banhart truly unsettles the audience. Then there’s a scrumptious ‘At The Hop’, its lyrics amended to acknowledge the minor indie stooshie the song caused after being used in a – shock horror – cheese advert. “Won’t sell out again,” he coos, tongue half in cheek. Devendra is clearly preparing for stardom with his groovy new sound, but let’s hope he doesn’t forget what made him special in the first place.

The Beard Files Vol 2

Some more stuff we couldn't fit in the current issue...


Elizabeth Anka Vajagic
Nostalgia / Pain EP
(Constellation)

Something of a stunning if bleak chanteuse, our Liz: the hair-raising Croatian’s long, dark lamentations are expressed in a haunting, unsettling divergence of deep, yawning resonance and blistering shrieks.

Vajagic’s intoxicating sonic contortions are entwined by members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Silver Mt Zion and Shalabi Effect: Michel Langevin’s percussion impels and propels Vajagic’s orgasmic death-throes; Fluffy Erskine’s whistling, ephemeral, bowed miscellany incites an evanescent dread; while Sam Shalabi’s benevolent guitars deliver exquisite shimmers of hope. Vajagic’s primal, rasping emissions circumscribe the thrilling ebb and climactic resolutions of long-form mourning and instrumental overtures.

The Nostalgia / Pain EP – excellent if harrowing value at over 30 minutes, and swaddled in utterly beautifully packaging – is the follow-up to Vajagic’s 2004 debut album. It resumes her unswerving, mesmeric passage through spacious noise and onerous improv: her custom-shattering, bleeding art is leaden as terror and bright as a pin.
Nicola Meighan

The Rogers Sisters
“Three Fingers”
(Too Pure)

In the midst of the great NYC indie-rock deluge of 2002/03, real-life sisters Jennifer and Laura Rogers, plus bass-slinging non-female, unrelated honorary “sister” Miyuki Furtado, were one of the few groups who managed to keep their collective head (and shoulders) above the ever-rising waterline. This was due largely to “Purely Evil”, a debut album which not only managed to ride the angular crest of the new New Wave of New Wave wave, but also, by virtue of it’s infectious unpretentiousness and righteous disregard for the vagaries of fashion, succeeded in showing up many of their competitors and contemporaries for the clueless, cripplingly hip style-mag photo-shoot extras that many of them undoubtedly were. Here was a group intent on bringing as much B-52’s as Gang of Four to the party, and managing to pull it off while sounding like they weren’t even trying. This stop-gap follow-up (it was originally released in the States as a 7-track EP, but has been expanded to 11 songs for the UK) sees the trio eschewing the ramshackle, lo-fi aesthetic of their first full-length for slicker production values courtesy of knob-twiddler Tim Barnes, but surprisingly the new sound dulls none of their spikiness, and indeed rather becomes the more confident and mature song-writing on display throughout. “The Secrets of Civilisation” finds room for a muted string arrangement, while “5 Months” sees them flirting with low-level electronica, and “Fantasies are Nice”, a blistering attack on the walking coma of aspirational avarice that constitutes much of modern life, boasts an ace blast of sax skronk. Why their label thought this excellent little record needed expansion remains something of a mystery; the French and Japanese-language versions “Fantasies…” and “45 Prayers” respectively positively reek of filler, though only a fool wouldn’t delight in the inclusion of their wonderful take on Capt. Beefheart’s “Zig-Zag Wanderer”. If, on their second album proper, the Sisters can reconcile the growing confidence and maturity of these songs to the sense of rambunctious playfulness that characterised their debut (and which, alas, is somewhat missing from this otherwise excellent set) then they really will become a major force to be reckoned with.
Ian MacBeth

Dead Fly Buchowski
Land Of The Rough
(Beggars Banquet)

Psychedelic blues-punk? Sounds promising. But sadly, Dead Fly Buchowski are about as psychedelic as a cup of Typhoo and as punk as Michael Howard. Land Of The Rough sits somewhere between the stadium grunge of Pearl Jam’s Vs and The Doors at their most flatulent. Roddy Campbell’s puffed chest growlin’ and wailin’ (one part Robert Plant to two parts Eddie Vedder) is amusing at first, but his continual roars of “whoa yeahhharrgh” soon sap the will to live. Straight ahead rockers like ‘Russian Doll’ and ‘Blackout’ are solid, but nowhere as heavy or sludgy as they need to be. When they attempt to do swirling and epic it all gets a bit Spinal Tap. There’s a song here called ‘Ground Nero’, about the sacking of Delphi. Need I say more?
Stewart Smith