Alphabetic aren’t having any of that shoegazing malarkey. None of your dreary monochrome, monotone moping; “French Boyfriend” is loud, it’s catchy, you can dance to it and it’s Technicolour. It does what every good single does; it grabs you with intro; eight bars of almost disco drums, organ stabs and a great guitar hook drag you into the first verse where singers Walter Heale and Rebecca Lever deliver their sides of the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses- girl, boy-stalks-girl-with-new-boyfriend story. And it’s glamorous (and a bit sleazy) because it’s set in Paris.

Alphabetic have mixed a lot influences into this song; the guitar has a clean sixties sound while the production tends towards eighties blue-eyed British soul. Imagine The Shadows in a soundclash with Pulp, ABC and The Associates and you won’t be far off the mark; maybe a little Saint Etienne shine as well. This is a great lead track from their upcoming debut album “Touch”, out on July 15^th.

How long is it since you heard a good song that was funny, or even a funny song that was good? One that wasn’t just whimsical and that you could maybe bear to listen to a second time around? There was a period in the seventies when Loudon Wainwright III, Warren Zevon and the brilliant Shel Silverstein turned out some hilarious songs alongside the serious stuff, but what’s happened since? Well, here’s the good news, it looks like Scott Cook can carry on the tradition. He’s a gifted songwriter, fizzing with boldness and ingenuity, writing about the environment, responsibility, commitment and the world stubbornly refusing to end according to anyone’s timetable. Scott describes “Go Long” as ‘a bunch of silly songs’ that were recorded live in the studio with a few overdubs and corrections later, giving it a fresh and spontaneous feel that works perfectly for the songs.

There are some ‘serious’ songs on the album (“Sweet Maddie Spawton”, “Come This Far”, “That’s Life (Loving You Right Back)” and “While the Party’s Still Going) but the remainder often look at serious subjects through a humorous filter. “Talkin’ Anthropocalypse Blues” typifies this, with a breakneck run through a few inaccurate Armageddon predictions before bringing the song back to the need to take responsibility for our planet, rather than waiting for someone to do it for us. It rattles along like Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” (written by Shel Silverstein) with barely a chance to draw breath as the failed apocalypse predictions are serially skewered.  “I Live Down Here” sounds like a children’s singalong, with a simple structure, lots of repeated lines and opportunities for audience participation but with a powerful environmental message permeating the nonsense verses.

And some are just funny. The album opens with the sound of a ringpull and the line ‘Judging by the angle of the sun, I’d say it’s beer o’clock” as the band rambunctiously stomp through “Long Weekends Theme”, while “Will the Circle be Unbroken” pokes fun at songs that are past their sing by date; both songs made me laugh out loud on the very first listen, even on a very bad day. “Lifer for a Wifer”, about the impossibility of relationships on the road, is packed with great lines, including ‘And if she can diddle the big bass fiddle, I’ll be wrapped around her strings’.

The sleeve notes suggest that this is a frivolous departure from the main themes of Scott Cook’s songwriting, and while it’s true that there’s plenty of fun on offer, more often than not there’s a serious message lurking. This is an album that will make you smile, probably make you laugh out loud, and should make you think. You don’t often find one of those.

“Go Long” is released on Friday July 8^th on Groove Revival (GRP 007).

The sleeve notes also have lyrics, guitar chords and helpful hints from Scott about how he actually played the songs.

Here’s an interesting one for UK blues aficionados. Lisa Mann, blues singer and bass player, is about to start her first UK tour. She’s been winning awards across the pond for a few years now and she’s touring the UK in support of her latest album, “Move On”. She combines sinuous, funky bass with a powerful, earthy voice that works perfectly for blues ballads, stompers and Motown/Stax soul. She’ll be backed on the tour by Dudley Ross (guitar), Steve Watts (keys) and John Sam (drums).

Like the sound of that? You can see her here:

07/07/16              Worthing Pier’s Southern Pavilion

08/07/16              The Convent, Stroud

09/07/16              The Astor Community Theatre, Deal

10/07/16              The New Crown, Merthyr Tydfil

11/07/16              The Iron Road, Evesham

14/07/16              The Half Moon, Putney

15/07/16              Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival

16/07/16              Pizza Express Music Lounge, Maidstone

17/07/16              The Tunnels, Bristol

Here’s a superb clip to whet your appetite:

Well I have to admit it’s an interesting idea. Not just an album of songs on one theme; this is much more ambitious than that. Murder Murder want to write, record and play nothing but murder ballads set in their own corner of southern Canada. Murder Murder is a six-piece bluegrass/string band from Sudbury, Ontario comprising Jon Danyliw (vocals, guitar and mandolin), Sam Cassio (vocals, guitar and mandolin), Geoff McCausland (fiddle), Barry Miles (vocals, banjo, dobro), Kris Dickson (upright bass) and Steph Duschene (percussion) and there’s no doubt that they make a glorious noise and have a lot of fun in the process (just listen out for fiddle and mandolin making train noises in the opener “Sweet Revenge”).

The murder theme doesn’t make the album monotonous, far from it. The songs are mainly uptempo bluegrass, with a couple of exceptions, “Bridge County ‘41” a story of moonshine turf wars and “When the Lord Calls Your Name”, a slow ¾ time hellfire sermon from a reformed killer turned preacher. The lyrical themes vary widely from the fairly standard runaway song “Movin’ On” with its beautiful keening harmonies through the infatuated teenager of “Evil Wind” to the very unusual gay love triangle of “Duck Cove”.

Besides the ten originals there’s even a cover of the Guy Clark song “The Last Gunfighter Ballad”. It wasn’t intended as a tribute, but it seems to have worked out that way. The album can be a lot of fun at times, with plenty of variety and some very good songs, but I still have reservations about the single theme running through it, and presumably through however many albums the band make in the future. It seems a slightly strange choice to commit so completely to one particular sub-genre to the extent of enshrining it the band’s name; who knows? It’s certainly worth forty-five minutes of your time and checking them out live next time they come to the UK.

“From the Stillhouse” is released on Friday June 24^th.

Meanwhile, have a look at the video for “Movin’ On”:

There’s nothing quite like it is there? I mean, music. Sometimes it just creeps up on you and whacks you over the noddle when you’re least expecting it.

The game plan as I wander through England picking out the odd gig here and there was to catch Henry Cluney, of Stiff Little Fingers fame, who was due to play The Wheatsheaf, a pub in central Oxford, on the particular Sunday afternoon in question.

And I got there late and missed him. However, this being a sort of package bill straggling across Sunday afternoon into the evening promoted by local hotshots GiddyUp Music, I thought I’d swing by and at the very least grab a beer and an earful, the way you do.

Walk through the door of the authentically cramped and sticky-floored Wheatsheaf and suddenly you’re in pubrock heaven, circa 1975. Mad Larry and his band are on stage – well, more accurately just to the left of the bar – and are blasting through an incendiary “Drinkin’ Man’s Blues” which gives way to a cheeky and well-played reggae tune which I must confess I didn’t recognise and then an absolutely storming version of “You Keep A Knockin’” which would have shamed many of the pantheon of greats who have had a tilt at this one. We then get some self-penned ditties, liberally laced with tales of beer, drugs, naughtiness and more naughtiness, stirred in between a Bo Diddley, a BB King and all played with Feelgoodian pace and attack culminating in Mad’s album title track “Dirty Work” before a wham-bam encore featuring some exceedingly tasty guitar work by Dan Collis – who’s full-on ‘yer ‘aving it’ approach reminded me more than a bit of the late, great Gypie Mayo – and honking harmonica of the greasy, sleazy variety from Kevin Busby. Blooming great engine room as well; take a bow Ron Wyatt and Anthony Christmas on bass and drums respectively.

Despite this being the last set of a long afternoon, the pub was rammed with punters all grinning that silly grin you do when the beer and the live music combine most agreeably. And for the life of me, I couldn’t think of an occasion which more accurately summoned up the spirit of the pub rock RnB gigs of the mid seventies when, if you lived in the right bit of the country, you could stumble through the door you could hear music leaking from and catch The Kursaal Flyers, The Motors, The Feelgoods, Lew Lewis, Kilburn and the High Roads, and insert name here. The only thing missing was the nicotine and I don’t smoke. And I have to say that’s how I like my nostalgia; not in pre-packaged compilation form, but about a yard away from you, at ear-whistling volume, with some own recent tunes flung in for good measure (Mad’s album was released in 2014) and played with enthusiasm and conviction.

I implore all right-thinking people in Oxfordshire and thereabouts to beat a path to The Wheatsheaf whenever GiddyUp promote one of these jollies and indeed specifically to go see Mad Larry’s Band either here or when out and about elsewhere (they have been a regular guests of The Pretty Things just recently, which is no mean accolade).

Bit of a disappointment he didn’t do “Zoom” though. Or is that Fat Larry? And did he just lose weight or go mad as well?

I have seen the future of rock n’ roll.

Ever feel that you’ve been ‘ad?

These two famous rock n roll misquotes sort of sum up my reaction to one of the strangest live music events I’ve ever attended anywhere. No – make that any kind of event, anywhere.

Indulge me a moment whilst I attempt to explain the venue. A convent, formerly the home to a silent order of four nuns, in an extremely quiet and secluded corner of England at a discreet distance from the bright lights and fleshpots of, err, Stroud.

Bands play on the altar of the convent chapel, replete with stained glass windows, and the obligatory(!) trombone wedged behind the altar and sewing machines and alarm clocks scattered around the huge stone windowsills.

The rest of this huge venue appears to be part hotel, part bar, part restaurant. The whole place has a sense of brooding oak darkness about it and the sleep of centuries of silence.

The chapel itself has around 100 or so seats arranged tidily on the chapel floor and further seats in the pews around the edge.

There appears to be no signage to speak of and getting into the venue is more by luck than by judgement, as is finding the bar as you wander around the gloomy, doomy corridors in search of a pint of 6X. Or absolution. Or both.

Eventually, showtime, and this is a very precise showtime as the show is being filmed.

The audience tonight appears to be about 30 people or so, many of whom appear to be here by invitation. By now, the casual observer would be wincing for the poor promoter who would undoubtedly be facing a night dedicated to St. Flatbroke, Patron Saint of The Unsustainable Loss.

So, Blues Guitar Summit take to the stage, unfeasibly close to the declared 9PM start time for rock n roll. The three – guitar attack of Chris Corcoran, Mal Barclay and Paul Garner  are very good value, having distinctly different guitar styles, having a wide and varied repertoire from blues shuffles to solid rock boogie-woogie tunes to four on the floor 50’s rock n roll and some classic gems, such as a very likeable version of “Tequila”, for example. The rhythm section, Jamie Lawrence and Robert Pokorny on slap bass and Gretsch sticks and pans form a solid and confidence-inspiring backdrop to whatever direction the assembled guitarists head off in. The voices are workmanlike and functional, as tends to be the case, but some of the playing is genuinely inspired and very enjoyable, especially “Crawl” and ‘High Heel Sneakers’.

But something feels, very, very weird – and it isn’t just the rather ‘creepy’ venue. The band are almost treating me like I’m not here. I feel like a sort of irrelevancy. And the reason why slowly begins to dawn.

We were told at the start of the show by the smiley, jolly MC that the show was being filmed, and streamed. Nothing unusual in that, perhaps, but what became rapidly clear was – that was the whole and only point. The kit being used to film, record and stream the gig was light years in front of virtually anything I’ve seen outside the BBC and the stage / altar lighting was clearly set up with this in mind. The venue claims to be the world’s first ‘pay-to-view’ subscription live venue. Punters, anywhere in the world, pay a fee to stream the show or pay a subscription fee to stream a sequence of shows – and, worldwide, there are sufficient numbers of fans of particular musicians or a particular genre of music to make this a viable exercise.

And therein lay the problem with the performance. The band were playing directly to the camera. I was just there to be another pair of clapping hands. My ten quid ticket purchase made not a jot’s worth of difference, nor my attempts to help support the venue by purchasing another pint of 6X. I felt rather like the telly equivalent of canned laughter.

So, if you like your Rock n roll without the muck, the stale beer and the piss, this is for you. Me? I felt a little bit like I’d been used as a prop. True, I was offered free pizza and drinkies afterwards and the staff and management of the venue were kindness itself but almost as soon as the band had finished – without an encore of course as the transmission end time had been reached (an ironic request for an encore was greeted with nervous laughter) – I felt a rather tremendous urge to leave. Ten minutes later given the lack of signage we were still trying to leave. Eventually we gave up and asked one of the management team where the exit was as we wished to leave; and was told, with jolly candour and good cheer, that they didn’t like it when people left and why not stay for some pizza, at which point my companions and I did actually start to do that odd run-walk thing they do in all the best horror films.

In summary, a good but sterile performance in a very strange circumstance. The Blues under laboratory conditions. Not for me.

I had the opportunity to meet up with MusicRiot favourite Hannah Aldridge just before her sold-out show at Green Note in Camden which is part of her current tour with Lilly Hiatt, taking in Northern Europe, England and Scotland. We talked about her new album, her previous album “Razor Wire” and a lot of other things along the way:

 

 

Allan – Good to see you again, Hannah.

Hannah – Good to see you too.

Allan – Back in the UK and you’ve been doing a European tour as well.

Hannah – I have, yes.

Allan – How did that go?

Hannah – It’s been really good actually. We did the Netherlands; I went back to Hamburg and played and I’ll be doing Norway at the end of it. It’s always fun to do Europe in general but it was fun this time because I explored a new market, which was the Netherlands. I haven’t played there before; it’s definitely different and it’s good to keep moving forward and forge new territories, so that was the goal this time.

Allan – I think Northern Europe really gets Americana doesn’t it?

Hannah – Well, I think from my perspective, the people who really appreciate what I do are people who can speak English well enough to understand the lyrics because, as much as I don’t want to admit this, my music is not quite as interesting without the lyrics. I wouldn’t call myself a really interesting guitar player or anything and I wouldn’t want to listen to me if I couldn’t understand what I was saying. That’s such a big part of it, and what I’ve noticed is that people who speak English fluently are the ones that gravitate towards what I’m doing.

Allan – And you’re doing a mini tour of Scotland this time.

Hannah – I am doing Scotland. I was trying to think if I’ve ever done a show in Scotland. I’ve been there, but I don’t think I’ve ever played there.

Allan – I think, like Northern Europe, Scotland really gets Americana as well and I don’t think country ever really went away in Scotland.

Hannah – It’s really interesting the UK how every country has subtle differences in the music they like. Ireland is very different than England in terms of musical taste and Scotland I assume would be the same, but I’m not really sure what to expect because I haven’t played there.

Allan – Well I grew up in Scotland, and Scots like good songs. They like a good melody but they like a message as well.

Hannah – Well that’s good to know; hopefully they’ll like what we’re doing.

Allan – And I think the rooms that you’re playing tend to attract appreciative crowds.

Hannah – I’ll look forward to it; that makes me feel good about it.

Allan – Just to go back in time a bit, which artists would you say influenced you when you were growing up.

Hannah – That’s interesting, because I didn’t really start writing music until my early twenties, so nobody really influenced me growing up because I didn’t want to be a musician until my twenties. That being said, there were a lot of artists that I listened to growing up that now influence me, Bonnie Raitt being one of them and Tom Petty being another. I was thinking earlier, someone asked me in an interview what three artists have shaped me as a musician and I looked at him and said Gillian Welch, Bonnie Raitt and Tom Petty.

It’s interesting because sometimes I actually feel like I’m writing something that sounds like a mix of those things, so I do think those people do heavily influence me but, at the same time, there’s so much I’ve listened to since that really shaped me too. I think Gillian Welch gave me permission as a female to write like a man and I didn’t discover her until later; she was very influential. And Bonnie Raitt gave me permission to play with the boys too and to stand up and be respected the same way that a man is and if there are any female musicians I can think of that men are shamelessly devoted to in terms of musicality, it would be Bonnie Raitt and Gillian Welch, and that’s pretty cool because a lot of the time you’ll hear ‘I don’t know, it’s a girl, I don’t like girls with a guitar’, but Gillian Welch and Bonnie Raitt seemed to break out of that, so that was cool for me too.

Allan – And what about your Dad (Walt Aldridge, Muscle Shoals songwriter and performer), did he influence you either way?

Hannah – In my decision to be a musician or in my musical pedigree…

Allan – In your decision to be a musician…

Hannah – He strongly tried to influence me not to be a musician and, because of the personality I am, that actually pushed me in the other direction very hard and I thought ‘OK, we’ll see’. He’s really tough about that kind of stuff – he’s not easy to impress and it’s a different level when it’s your kid. It’s really hard to be objective about what they’re doing so he really, to this day, he calls and says ‘Why are you doing this? You can do things that pay a lot more’ and I say ‘The same reason you did it’.

It’s really interesting that what I’ve learned with him is that we function better when we don’t talk about music because we have such different opinions on it and we’re in such different markets. He was making music at a time that it was just totally different.

Allan – So, if you had to put a label on your music, what would you call it?

Hannah – I wouldn’t call it Americana, because I don’t really know what Americana is and it’s really hard for me to justify putting myself in a genre where I go ‘I don’t know what this is’, but in the same way, whatever genre you would put Ryan Adams and Bonnie Raitt and Gillian Welch in, whatever box you put them in, I guess I would fit in the same box. I think my description of my music is probably very different than other people’s, which is strange too. My description of it would be Southern rock, something like that. Singer/songwriter, Southern Rock; I’m a confused person. I’m confused when I walk out of the house every day about what to wear because I don’t know who I am half the time, so maybe some days I look like this and some days I look like that and it’s the same with writing. I think I’m constantly on a journey to figure out who I am in general but also as a musician so that makes it really hard for me to say ’This is what kind of music I do’.

Allan – I noticed you’ve created a lot of different visual identities over the years…

Hannah – I have, and think it’s become a part of the whole thing in that I‘m constantly trying to figure out what works for me as a person, and I think, more than any kind of steady identity I could give, that’s actually more reflective of me as a person than anything, that I’m constantly trying to figure out who I am and where I fit in to the world and I think that does change a lot for me. I played a show in Nashville a while ago and a big booking agent came out and they said to me ‘You know, I really, really like your music, but the look just doesn’t go with the music.’ And I laughed and said ‘Really, what is the look supposed to be, because I’ve been trying to figure that out for twenty-eight years.’ (Laughs). I think I’m just always going to be trying to reinvent myself, and I think Ryan Adams gave me permission to do that. He’s made it work, musically, and I hope to do the same.

Allan – Do you see more as a writer or a performer?

Hannah – A writer, absolutely a writer because what I really wanted to be was a staff writer. What I really wanted to do when I started this whole thing was to be a writer for film and TV. I wanted to be the person that sat in my room in my pyjamas and a bowl of cereal and made really dark music for horror movies, you know. It’s really interesting how fate, or whatever you may call it, pushed me down this path of being an artist and I reluctantly was like ‘I don’t wanna do this. I hate being on stage’. I was joking with Lilly (Hiatt) that, literally, before big shows for the first couple of years performing, I would watch Michael McDonald videos before to keep me from having anxiety, because you can’t have anxiety while you’re watching “Ya Mo Be There”, you just can’t. I would really have to push myself to do these things because I felt uncomfortable. Now, I love performing, I think it’s great and I see all the wonderful things about it, but it was definitely not something that just came naturally to me. I felt very intimated buy it and really I‘ve always enjoyed the process of being creative. So, I think in that way, I’m definitely more of a writer than a performer, you know.

Allan – “Razor Wire” (Hannah’s debut album) felt like a really personal album and it felt like there was a lot of autobiography in there as well…

Hannah – “Razor Wire” was an autobiography of where I was in my love life in a lot of ways. At that point in my life I was going through a divorce and I was trying to find out if I was capable of ever loving again and what that meant and if was a complete screw-up and all of these things and meanwhile also writing about my experiences with these other guys I was going out and dating and then at the same time. Songs like “Black and White” were what was going on in my personal life with Jackson (Hannah’s son), being a young mom, those kind of things. “Razor Wire” was definitely very autobiographical.

My new record that I’ve been writing also is, but in a very different way. I kind of went backwards and started writing about my life before that when I was a really heavy drug user and a really bad drunk and everything that led me to that point and trying to sort through all those feelings, growing up super-religious and feeling alienated by that and also fast-forwarding a bit to the age that I am now, approaching my thirties and being fearful of that. So that chunk of time was “Razor Wire” and I think the new record is a bit of a prequel to that. I think it’s what I write best; I’m not good at that third person stuff, so it was definitely a very personal record.

Allan – I played a copy of “Razor Wire” to a friend in radio and he said that there were three hits, if you could actually get them out there.

Hannah – That’s the thing that’s tough about it. It’s all about PR when you get to the point that I’m at now. It’s about somebody recognising that you’re worth putting money into because you’ve got the songs and you’re slowly building up to that point, but I watch it happen with people all around me and you go ‘Well, I’ve got good songs too’. All you can do is just (Lilly and I have talked about this a lot since we’ve been on the road together) stay focused and say ‘I’m gonna keep writing good songs’ and know that it’s not about me, whether or not it’s a hit. It’s about the fact that I don’t have millions of dollars to put into promotion. One day maybe I will, but until then all I can do is continue to write great songs.

Allan – If the catalogue of songs is there and the break comes…

Hannah – Absolutely. You can have the publicity but without the songs it doesn’t work very well. I’ve seen that happen a lot with people around me too where they get that shot and they don’t have the material to back it up. I’m not saying I absolutely have the material, but I think that it’s important to really focus, until you get your shot, on working up to that so that you’re ready for it. If I had the opportunities I wanted when I first released “Razor Wire”, I probably wouldn’t have performed well on Conan O’Brien or performed very well at The Ryman, which are the dreams that I have, but I have to recognise that I have to put in the time to get there so that when I do have those shots, I really kill it and that takes time. All of this takes a lot of patience.

Allan – I guess Maverick (festival in Suffolk) is one of those opportunities isn’t it?

Hannah – Sure. Maverick is really cool. I love playing there because it’s one of those things where I get to connect with a lot of different artists and the other thing that’s really cool about is that everybody that I see around England, I can see them all in the same place and that’s really cool. I see some really devoted fans, the promoters that have helped me so much, the Americana UK people and artists and it’s really neat for me because it’s everyone in one vicinity and I really enjoy Maverick Festival every single year.

Allan – You mentioned the new album briefly. How’s that going at the moment?

Hannah – It’s going awesome. I’ve got everything written and I’ll be recording as soon as I get home and I’ll be done by July 30^th and from there it’ll just be setting a release date. I think it’s gonna be great; it’s funny because the producer the producer that’s doing the record this time around, I wrote “Save Yourself” with, he’s someone I’ve played with and he’s someone I’ve written a lot of songs about as well. We grew up together actually and he’s so in tune with my music that it just made sense to get him to produce the record and he’s taken the songs and shaped them in a way that I can’t do. That’s really cool because I’ve never had that before where I wrote a song and gave it to somebody else and let them manicure it a little bit. It’s like adding a whole new level to the songs and that’s really cool. I’m really excited to hear how they all end up.

Allan – Well the one that I’ve heard, that you played here last time, “Goldrush”, hit me instantly and it’s rare that a song does that.

Hannah – I’m glad that you like that. I really like that song. Usually I have a good gut feeling about a song when I like one or, if it makes me a bit teary when I sing it the first couple of times, I know it’s good. Actually I had two killer co-writers on that song and that concept was so complicated for me to sort through in my mind that I called two people that I thought ‘I know they can help me’ because I don’t want to take that song idea to just anybody because I knew it could be a really cool song, so I called up two people I knew could really help me tie up the loose ends on it. I sat and talked to them about the idea and said ‘This is what I’ve got written and I don’t know how to tie this in’ and they helped me put that together so I’m really grateful for them helping me do that. I do love that song. I think it’s a good one, I think it’s meaningful and I think it approaches a topic that people don’t wanna talk about, which is getting older, so I’m glad that you like that one.

Allan – And you’re going electric this time round…

Hannah – I am going electric this time round. I was nervous as could be. I had dreams before this tour that I got out on the road and my electric didn’t work, because I’m so comfortable with my acoustic guitar, but I’m making a point with this record to really push myself and I’m trying to push out of that box that people are putting Americana in because I don’t have to be this certain thing because you’re put in Americana, it’s so broad, you know, and I really wanted to push the boundaries of what people thought of me as an artist and maybe what they think I’m gonna put out musically. I wanna stay within reason and not get too crazy, but try to get myself out of my comfort zone. I felt like a lot of these songs are meant to be played on electric and it doesn’t make sense to go out with an acoustic and try to play them; they just don’t translate so I’m literally learning in front of people on this tour how to deal with this electric guitar because I play it at home and I write on it, but I don’t go on tour with it very often, and if I do, I have a band behind me, it’s not just me standing up there with an electric. At this point in the tour, I feel really comfortable. The first day or two, I was sweatin’ bullets up on stage trying to figure out how to do everything, but it’s fun and it adds something interesting for me because it’s so easy to get bored when you play songs hundreds and thousands of times and you think ‘I don’t wanna play this song anymore’, but it’s been fun to revisit “Razor Wire” on the electric.

Allan – One final question. Have you got a song, yours or someone else’s that makes you cry?

Hannah – I have some of mine that make me cry. Other people’s songs? Pretty much any John Moreland song ever written; those make me cry. “God’s Medicine”, “Cherokee”; pretty much all of his songs are so damned good, I would say every John Moreland song and “Hallelujah” does as well; that song always gets to me too because there’s a couple of lines in there that really speak to me on a lot of levels.

Allan – Thanks very much Hannah.

Hannah and Lilly will be playing the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh on June 21^st, The Blue Lamp in Aberdeen on the 22^nd and Music in the Suburbs in Glasgow on the 23^rd.

 

I’m sure they wouldn’t have wanted it this way, but Doug and Telisha Williams have tapped in to the zeitgeist with this album released so soon after the latest atrocity in Florida. “Radiant” has more than its fair share of message songs including one that deals with sexual intolerance and another that has references to gun massacres and sexual intolerance (and lots of other things). By a strange coincidence, those two songs, “Love Is Not a Sin” and “Unplug the Machine” are among the standout songs on the album, but by no means the only ones. The playing and the vocals are perfect throughout as Doug and Telisha are supported by Megan Jane and Fats Kaplin and their overall sound is beefed up by Doug’s switch from acoustic to electric (Telecaster, of course).

The album covers a variety of styles, from the sixties-styled, reverb-soaked opener “Born with a Broken Heart” to the pure country of “Mom and Pop” and the lyrics range across message songs, revenge songs and songs about Catawba tree watching over generations of families and silently witnessing the changes in their circumstances in “Tower and the Wheel”. “Radiant” is full of songs that are superbly crafted and arranged, particularly a section of three songs in the middle of the album.

“Mom and Pop” is country all the way, with a lead vocal from Doug, as it tells the story of a small-town store forced out of business by the big retail players. It’s powerful social comment made more poignant by the little details about the creaky floorboards the owner never got round to fixing and the relief that Mom and Pop aren’t around to see the end of their store. “Unplug the Machine” is raw power from the start, the verses spitting out a rapid list of the world’s ills in the style of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” before erupting into the catchiest chorus I’ve heard in ages; you’ll be singing along at the top of your voice. It’s an anthem. “The Night We Never Met” drops down through the gears to a sixties girl group sound with a story that’s an alternative take on Goffin and King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”, where the lovers don’t actually meet. It’s a lovely (and very clever) song which captures the style perfectly.

“Radiant” combines a passionate commitment to social and environmental issues with lovingly-crafted songs to create an album that inspires a questioning attitude without sounding preachy; that’s quite an achievement.

“Radiant” is out I the UK on Friday June 24^th on No Evil Records (NER003).

They’re also touring the UK and Europe at the moment and you can catch them in these places .