Martin Carthy

Looking back through my old emails (I never delete anything), I note that the first concert ticket I bought for 2015 was actually purchased on December 28th 2014. The gig in question was the great Martin Carthy, who, back in February, played to an audience of around 200 in the beautiful surroundings of a 17th Century octagonal chapel.

Earlier today I booked my first concert ticket for 2016 and once again it's for Martin Carthy, though this time I have to wait a full five months, until mid-March, for the show. The venue on this occasion is a tiny basement room where I've previously seen both Hot Feet and David Thomas Broughton. Capacity? I reckon if they try to squeeze more than 75 through the door we'll have to hold our breath. 

One of the many highlights of Martin's performance in February was his solo interpretation of 'Her Servant Man', a song originally recorded with his daughter Eliza on their 2014 LP 'The Moral of the Elephant'.

Birds of Hell

The lo-fi childhood reminiscences of 'Hometown Rage', the new single by Birds of Hell (a.k.a. Pete Murdoch), hint at some tough times in the past. The song ends with a charming 78rpm recording of Pete's late Grandmother's voice echoing down the years, which he gently sings along with to genuinely moving effect. Buy the single here.

Elsewhere, in 'Ransom', the subject matter is dark and so is the humour. Check out more tunes by Birds of Hell here.

Something's Gone Wrong Again

A channel dropped out while I was playing a record about a month ago, leaving just a crunching noise coming from one of the speakers. I checked the leads, fiddled with settings and cursed a bit. Everything else feeding off the amp appeared to be working fine, so I reasoned that it must be a connection in the turntable. After a little research, I discovered a place about 20 miles away that carries out general electrical repairs, so I took my turntable in for a service. Back at home, literally an hour later, my old laptop died. (I have a new laptop, but I still haven't got around to transferring all my photos and music across) I phoned up the same servicing place to find that yes, they were confident that they could get the laptop up and running again, at least for long enough to allow me to retrieve everything from the hard drive. 'Bring it in' they said.

A week later I made the 40 mile round trip to pick up the turntable and drop off the old laptop. When I got home I plumbed the turntable back into the system and sat back to enjoy some tunes. After a minute a channel dropped out, leaving just a crunching noise coming from one of the speakers. The fault was somewhere in the amp all along.

On Monday I got the call to say that my laptop was ready for collection. I mentioned the amp to the guy on the phone. 'Bring it in', he said. So, yesterday morning, I disconnected everything from my trusty vintage amp, placed it carefully on the back seat of the car and set off on another 40 mile round trip to drop it off and pick up the laptop. Two miles down the road the engine started stuttering and lights began to flash on the dashboard. The car shuddered to an undignified halt. I raised the bonnet and stood by the side of the road looking at the engine in despair, as traffic whizzed by inches away.

I only want to listen to a record.

Flip It! #6 - Teenage Fanclub

An occasional series, focusing on flipsides.

Marie, over at the consistently excellent It's All in the Grooves, recently posted Tommy Roe's 1963 hit 'Everybody', which inevitably set me thinking about Teenage Fanclub's appropriation of large parts of the tune as the basis for their own 1996 track, 'Kickabout'. I asked Marie if she'd ever heard 'Kickabout'. It turns out that she hadn't at the time, but I think it's safe to say that she was less than impressed when she did catch up with it! I have to confess that I'm somewhat surprised that Teenage Fanclub failed to acknowledge the pretty obvious, ahem, inspiration of Roe's original on their own composition, but I've always loved its lightly psychedelic joie de vivre nonetheless.

'Kickabout' initially cropped up on a surprisingly good Euro 96 related compilation, 'The Beautiful Game', before reappearing the following year as the b-side of 'Ain't That Enough', the first single taken from my favourite Teenage Fanclub LP, the mighty 'Songs From Northern Britain'.

Sniffin' Sleeves

A recent post by C in her terrific 'Random Access Memories' series over at Sun Dried Sparrows (here), began with her thoughts on a humble LP sleeve. This got me thinking. Am I the only one round these parts who was prone to sniffing their LP sleeves? It might sound a bit weird these days (ever tried sniffing an MP3?), but sometimes the combination of ink and cardboard created a certain unique fragrance that, over time, became as evocative as the design on the front and the music housed within - well to me anyway. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still recall the individual smells of my original copies of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band's 'Impossible Dream', Pink Floyd's 'A Nice Pair' and 'Raw Power' by Iggy & the Stooges. In fact at a car-boot sale a couple of weeks ago, I picked up and discreetly took the nose of a copy of 'Caribou' by Elton John, just to see if it had the same distinct and memorable aroma that my own LP sleeve had, back in 1974 - alas it didn't.

One LP in my collection that definitely smells exactly the same as the day I bought it in 1982, is 'Strawberries' by The Damned. Initial copies came with a heavily scented lyric sheet and the sickly sweet fake strawberry smell is still detectable a mile off. I don't need to put my nose anywhere near it.

Version City #46 - Junior Parker sings The Beatles

Junior Parker's 1970 LP, 'The Outside Man', included no less than three Beatles covers. 'Lady Madonna' was pulled from the album as a single, but for me it's the versions of the less obvious 'Taxman' and 'Tomorrow Never Knows' that really hit the spot. What a voice the man had.

('The Outside Man' was reissued in 1971 under the new title of 'Love Ain't Nothin' But a Business Goin' On'.)

The Furrow Collective

For the penultimate song of their tremendous performance in Norwich on Thursday evening, The Furrow Collective deployed that most underused of instrumental combinations - guitar, harp, banjo and musical saw, after which Emily Portman, Alasdair Roberts, Lucy Farrell and Rachel Newton stepped around the microphones to bid us farewell with a gorgeous unamplified reading of 'Blow Out the Moon', from their recent EP of the same name.



Listen to / buy the whole EP here.