So, Graham Parker and Brinsley Schwarz at The Union Chapel and I have to say that this one has a special significance for me. The first proper gig I saw was Brinsley Schwarz (the band) playing at Mansfield Civic Theatre on February 25, 1974 and you can read about that gig here. As a student I saw Graham Parker and The Rumour play at Dundee University Students’ Association (April 20, 1978 if you must know, and £1.50 to get in) and the following year at The Odeon in Edinburgh. The songs were great and the band was on fire at that time; Graham Parker should have had huge commercial success, either at that time or without The Rumour in the early eighties, but it didn’t happen. He’s continued to write, make albums, and play as a solo artist and with various group lineups, mainly in the USA, but after 2012’s “Three Chords Good” album which reunited The Rumour, the UK seems to be ready to clasp him to its bosom again.
The audience in The Union Chapel was pretty much what you would expect for this type of gig and surprisingly well-behaved (no loud conversations about how terrible the journey to the gig was or whinges about the bar prices) apart from the bunch that wanted to help GP by braying along like a tone-deaf rugby team; you can’t win them all. With a body of work going back around forty-five years and a new album to promote as well, there’s a chance that you might not get to hear their favourite song; it must have been my lucky night, because I heard two of mine.
The set started with a GP solo version of my first favourite, “Watch the Moon Come Down”, which lends itself to an acoustic interpretation and it’s probably known by most of the old fans so it was the perfect way to ease everyone in before the almost new “Stop Crying About the Rain” from “Three Chords Good”. It’s great to see Brinsley Schwarz back in live action again; his musicianship has always been superb and his harmonies add another layer to the sound. It’s not The Rumour, but it’s a big enough sound to work in an intimate venue like The Union Chapel.
The set spanned the forty years from the release of “Howlin’ Wind” (which was well represented with “White Honey”, “Silly Thing”, “Not if it Pleases Me” and “Don’t Ask Me Questions”) to the new album, “Mystery Glue” which has three songs featured: “Railroad Spikes”, “I’ve Done Bad Things” and “Flying into London”. There was an obvious warmth and camaraderie between Brinsley and Graham as well as between the audience and the performers throughout the set; GP seemed very much at ease with the whole thing and his voice still sounds superb.
As you might expect, there were a couple of interesting choices. The encore opened with an a cappella solo version of the Gershwin classic “Someone to Watch over Me” and ended with the big seventies hit “Hold Back the Night”. Throw in a scattering of great songs (“Turned up Too Late”, “Under the Mask of Happiness”, “Nation of Shopkeepers”, “Passion Is No Ordinary Word”, “Back to Schooldays” and “Stick to Me”) from across the forty year period and you’ve got a pretty good summary of the career of one of our greatest singer-songwriters. And as for that second favourite song of mine – the second song of the encore was one of the best and most harrowing songs I know. “You Can’t Be Too Strong” (from the album “Squeezing Out Sparks”) is a controversial but very brave piece of songwriting which sounds as relevant now as it did in 1979.
So, Graham Parker can still do it live and this was a pretty good selection of his best songs of the last forty years. He looks relaxed in the live partnership with Brinsley Schwarz, but I suspect that the best is still to come with the reformed Rumour promoting “Mystery Glue” which is out on Monday May 18. You can also hear him doing a guest vocal on the new Stone Foundation album “A Life Unlimited” which is released in the UK in August this year.
Vanessa Peters released an album in 2006 with her band Ice Cream on Mondays titled “Little Films” and if you wanted a pithy little phrase to describe her songs, that wouldn’t be too far wide of the mark but it’s not quite that simple. Vanessa’s songs describe a world that’s somewhere between Raymond Carver and David Lynch; the songs are vignettes of American life packed with highly visual images and a hint of darkness at the centre. Of the ten songs on the album, six are originals, one is a cover and three are reworkings of earlier album or EP tracks. Three reworkings may seem a bit excessive, but working with The Sentimentals (her European touring band) has created a different perspective on the songs which more than justifies their inclusion on the album.
The Sentimentals are based in Copenhagen and they are M.C. Hansen (guitars), Nikolaj Wolf (upright bass) and Jacob Chano (drums and percussion). They’ve worked with Vanessa on tour in Europe and the States and last year everyone decided that it was time to immortalise the magic, recording the album live in a couple of Danish studios without any overdubs. The band creates a mellow backdrop throughout the album which allows Vanessa to be close-miked, creating a very intimate setting for a voice which is part early Joni Mitchell, part Suzanne Vega and part Lana del Rey.
The opening song, “Pacific Street” is a cover of a Hem song which the band speeds up and builds around a laser-clean guitar figure. It might not sock you on the jaw, but it leads you gently into the album, hinting at the little treasures within. Of the reworkings, two (“Big Time Underground” and “Fireworks” are from “Little Films”) and tell the stories of variously dysfunctional individuals in relationships; the arrangements have more space and feel more intimate than the originals, allowing the narrative to shine through. “Afford to Pretend” (originally from the “Blackout” EP) goes in the opposite direction, replacing a solo acoustic guitar backing with the full band and a military drumbeat.
“Fickle Friends” and “Light” are both moody pieces, the former having an almost trip-hop feel, while the latter is heavy on reverb and the visual imagery which runs through the album. It’s fair to say that either song would fit perfectly on “Born to Die”. The remaining four songs are classic Vanessa Peters short stories, telling tales of doomed relationships (“Mostly Fictions”), the partner who’s impossible to get close to (the country-tinged “Call You All the Time”), the impossibility of completely closing the door on a chapter of your life (“The Choice”) and the album’s closing track, “Getting By” which is about – well, I think you can work that one out.
The playing on the album is tasteful without ever breaking into showy territory, apart from the lovely guitar solo at the close of “Mostly Fictions” but the songs don’t really need too much embellishment, just a framework to hang them on. If you like your songs, to use a phrase I nicked from the great Scottish singer-songwriter Dean Owens, “somewhere between melancholy and miserable”, then you’re in the right place.
“Vanessa Peters with The Sentimentals” is released on Monday May 11th.
If you still believe in the album format, and Music Riot certainly does, then the sequence of tracks on the album is important and the opening track should set the tone for the rest of the album: it certainly does here. There are no instrumental pyrotechnics on “Soul Fly Free”, no amps cranked to eleven, just a bunch of great musicians laying down a smooth groove overlaid with Hammond and steel guitar that wafts over you like a cool breeze on a still August day. I would normally namecheck most of the musicians, but Alice DiMicele has pretty much used two bands plus a raft of guest musicians to create “Swim”, her thirteenth self-released album so, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll give that a miss this time.
It’s also difficult to pigeonhole Alice; she’s had a couple of attempts herself with ‘organic acoustic groove’ but there are an awful lot of other influences there as well. The album’s closing track “Ripple”, a Grateful Dead cover, is pure country, laid back and with some lovely piano courtesy of the legendary Bill Payne. “When Jane Rides Scout”, dealing with the bond between a woman and her horse, has a trumpet solo which adds a Mexican feel to the song, while “If I Could Move the World” (reworked from the 1994 album, “Naked”) is in a slow jazz styling with muted trumpet which evokes out-of-focus neon lights on a misty night and a vocal which is reminiscent of Rickie Lee Jones.
Alice is renowned as an environmental campaigner and the album features a couple of songs which use human stories as a framework for highlighting environmental concerns. “Old Life Back” sets the controversial practice of fracking (and the ideology backing it up) against the story of a farmer forced to abandon his farm and move to the city. It’s powerful stuff. “School House” combines a narrative about returning to your roots with concerns about the environmental impact of damming the Klamath River in north-western USA. Alice creates a happy ending by looking into a future where the dams have been destroyed and the river is running its natural course again. Vocally, the pathos of “Old Life Back” and the passion of “School House” combine with simple and powerful melodies to create a powerful message.
There are some very personal songs on the album as well. “Inside” deals with the impact of death on those left behind, and the spirit living on in those people, while the uptempo “Open Road” concerns soul mates who are also free spirits and how the apparent contradiction is resolved. “This Love” creates emotion by having Alice sing at the lower end of her range (with a hint of k.d. lang) backed by finger-picked guitar and mellow strings, while “Swim” is unlike anything else on the album. Guitar, bass, Hammond and drums create a swirling, sinuous, funky groove to underpin the vocal, punctuated by stabs and fills from the horn section.
You won’t feel your attention wander while you’re listening to this album; it’s diverse both musically and lyrically. It takes you on an emotional journey for the uplifting “Soul Fly Free” through the harrowing “Inside” to the ebullient and irrepressible “Swim”. It should make you think a little bit along the way as well.
Out on Monday May 4th. Available from CDBaby or iTunes.
