After Allan photographed Frankie Morrow solo earlier this year and with her band just over a week ago at their debut EP launch (‘Blue Parrot Backpackers Hostel’), he was so enthusiastic about the band that we had to ask them to make a contribution to this year’s High Fives. In a truly democratic approach, each of the band has submitted a favourite song from 2022. You definitely need to keep an eye out for Frankie Morrow in 2023; go and see them live if you can.

NEEV (Keys/acoustic guitar)

Martha Hill – ‘Right Out My Head’

I’ve always really liked Martha Hill and the way she picks out vocal melodies that have so much movement and character around her arrangements. Loving this one in particular because the production is so dynamic but keeps a lovely group of acoustic guitars and vocals at its core. Big production inspo for me at the mo, and the lyrics are so intelligent too.

DUNCAN (Drums)

Black Midi – ‘Sugar/Tzu’ Black Midi has always been a band I can’t stay away from for long, and the track ‘Sugar/Tzu’ has totally gripped me. From the surreal nature of the instrumental, to the brutal dynamic shifts between sections, resulting in a song that blurs the lines between jazz and rock. Performances on this track are delivered with pure energy, speed and accuracy, an addictive combination that perfectly complements the intensity of the story being told. The song ‘Sugar/Tzu’, and Black Midi, have opened my eyes to a whole new world of music, fuelling me with inspiration to experiment moving forward.

JAMES (Bass)

Black Country, New Road – ‘Concorde’

I can’t remember who in FM recommended this band but I’m so glad they did. ‘Ants From Up There’ is one of my favourite albums at the moment, and it’s really difficult to pick a track but I really enjoy the songwriting, structure and production on ‘Concorde’. I love the dynamics of the song, how it feels like it keeps building and how they’ve been so careful in the production to find a brilliant balance of all the instruments and vocals. The masterpiece of this song is the lyrics though, they feel so personal and direct, yet you could take your own meaning away from them. My favourite line is “But I’ll know you’ll be there, the Sandman inside.”  

SAM (Guitar)

Julian Lage – ‘Auditorium’

On the several, glorious occasions on which I have had the fortune of hearing Julian Lage live, he has always been accompanied by the audible despair of every aspiring jazz guitarist in the room (myself included). When i first listened to his new record, ‘View from A Room’ (prod Margaret Glaspy), ‘Auditorium’ made me well up with teary joy – the gentle interplay from the legendary Bill Frisell joining his band, Dave King’s stirring momentum (also huge Bad Plus fan!) and Jorge Roeder’s loving groove all make for one of my favourite Julian Lage tracks of all time. I have always loved Jazz for highlighting chemistry of band members and this line up feels like it could be one for the books.

MAZ (Vocals/guitar)

Katy J Pearson – ‘The Hour’

I’ve been loving Katy J Pearson’s new record ‘Sound of the Morning’ and just recently saw her headline the Electric Ballroom with Neev a couple months back. It was brilliant! ‘Howl’ is an absolute tune – the brass, the hook – ‘Willow’s Song’ has a beautiful switch up thanks to drumming by Black Midi’s Morgan Simpson on it, but the standout track for me is ‘The Hour’. It’s a classic folk song – vocal and acoustic guitar, nothing more, nothing less – and it is so powerful. It sounds quite mediaeval actually. It has an eternal and haunting quality to it. We are in the process of writing our next set of tunes and it has really reminded me to come back to the bare bones of a song at its very core. Plus I loved learning the fact that the reason it was so stripped back was because she had fake nails on in the studio that day hahaha. Talk about making a virtue out of necessity!

And while we’re sharing videos, how about ‘White Rocks’ by Frankie Morrow:

Just when you thought it was safe to look at Music Riot again, we’ve allowed the right honourable scribe for the eighteenth century to sharpen his quill, fill his inkpot and unroll a fresh scroll of vellum to share his words of wisdom on the modern world that he takes such great pains not to interact with. Try not to judge; old age and intolerance will come to all of us eventually. Here are the thoughts of Isitjustme:

Apps

Yes, apps; it’s not even a word. It’s an abbreviation of applications. You can’t even park your car without an app these days. The glove box of my Morris Minor is full of change for parking meters that I can’t even use any more. And to use an app, you need a smartphone. Does no-one yearn for the days when you could ring the box office and pay card, or even use a website to buy tickets. You could even be ripped off by the scuzzy scouts and scalpers outside the venue on the night of the gig. Now you need to install an app for every ticket you buy and all of those are harvesting your data to target adverts to you more effectively. I won’t name names, they’re all the same and there are hundreds of them. That’s one clock, I want to turn back. And from ticketing apps to ticket prices.

Gig Tickets

Have you seen the prices you can pay (if you were mad enough to want to sit in an aircraft hangar and watch bands on a video screen) for big gigs these days? Everyone involved in promotion has an easy scapegoat – Brexit, COVID and all its after-effects (cancellations, hesitancy to mix in public places and increased production costs because of technicians lost to the industry after retraining during lockdown) but it’s all a bit too glib when face value tickets can sell for four figures even before the online resale jackals get their hands on them. How did this happen? Two very dirty phrases – “corporate hospitality” and “dynamic pricing”. If you’re at a gig, avoid corporate types at all costs; they don’t care about the music and that’s all you need to know. “Dynamic pricing” is extreme supply and demand and it’s a model the airlines have used for years – convince someone that a product is better or more rare and you can charge more for it. Don’t let them get away with it; don’t support these obscene events – go and watch someone at a small, independent venue instead. Now, venues…

Multi-purpose venues

OK, no-one gets away with blaming COVID for this one; this has being going on for years across the major leisure chains and we know the motivation for it; it’s purely financial and it means that most of the old established gig venues now have early curfews, quick clear-ups and ten o’clock reopening as dance clubs. Another dirty word coming up – compromise; gigs and clubs have very different stage, sound and lighting requirements. For some reason every venue opts for club rather than gig settings. How many gigs have you seen recently in 500-2,000 capacity venues where the band was lit entirely from behind with club lights? You deserve better than that. The only places where you find decent stage lighting now are theatre gigs, for obvious reasons. Anywhere else, the spectacle of the band has been sacrificed because venues can get away with it. You know what I’m saying here; there are loads of great live bands out there so go and watch them in venues that care about live music. And it’s not just big venues that are cutting corners:

Building Regulations and other boring stuff

OK, we all accept that the live music industry needs to recover from the hammer-blow dealt by COVID but is it old-fashioned to expect basic standards to be upheld when venues are opening or re-opening. I’m not naming any venues here, but there are standards of hygiene and health & safety that would never have been accepted by local authorities ten years ago. Unfortunately, years of deregulation seem to have eroded basis standards – venues are now full of trip hazards, toilet doors that don’t lock, no hot water (or sometimes any water) and no way of drying even if you can wash. After years of festivals, there’s always hand sanitiser in my bag at gigs. I hope you’re carrying it too and you keep your eyes open for steps that you can’t see and any other ways of causing you harm. If you’re gonna do it, do it right. Anyone for Radio 2?

Take a few Chances, Radio 2

You reach a certain age and suddenly Radio 1 seems a bit inane – not all the time but you don’t want to listen to it all day. There’s a theme that runs alongside this, that nobody’s making any good music anymore. Sorry about the language, but that’s bollocks; there’s always good music about if you know where to look for it. 6 Music covers some of it but misses huge chunks. There’s a gap there that Radio 2 could fill if it wasn’t to intent on promoting the banality of Sara Cox and her ilk. There are features; ‘Song of the Week’ and ‘Album of the Week’ that could be used to feature work by bands that don’t fit well with the other stations but would appeal to a Radio 2 audience. No, that won’t do; let’s feature work by bands and artists that have had their time in the spotlight and now they’re trying to step out of the twilight – Robbie Williams, Simple Minds, Blondie, One Republic and so on, ad nauseam. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so obviously part of a marketing strategy across the media for the artists involved. Go on, show some originality for once.

We set Allan a special challenge this year – shoot five great drummer pics. As a photographer who likes a challenge, he actually produced more than five. What’s even better is that he managed to get cool photographs of four female drummers over the year, which is pretty impressive really. Anyway, let’s hand over to Allan to tell you about those kit-batterers.

It’s always a challenge photographing drummers. They’re generally hidden at the back of the stage and badly lit which is s shame because (might be controversial here), they’re generally the engine room of the band. I’ve never met a drummer who wasn’t a brilliant musician, with an understanding of how all the musical parts fit together. It’s very strange that four of my five favourite drummer shots are of female drummers. They’re all great players and all the images work in different ways, so here are my five favourite batteurs (or maybe four of those should be batteuses, who knows?)

Ritu Arya (Kin) @Brixton Blues Kitchen

I was photographing a day-long event upstairs at Blues Kitchen (where you sometimes have the strange experience of the stage lighting getting worse as the gig progresses) in support of the people of Ukraine when the band Kin appeared on stage. The band’s female drummer was incredibly photogenic and I got some nice shots. Turns out later that her day job is as an actor and she’s actually quite famous. She’s a pretty good drummer as well.

The Paisley Daze @93 Feet East

I was invited to this gig by singer and actress Kat. I’d worked with Kat before on live and behind the scenes shoots and had no hesitation at all; she’s one of the nicest people I know. Let’s be polite and say there were a few problems organisationally with the gig and it was in a room that looked like a work in progress. After struggling with what was effectively club lighting through Kat’s set, there was an improvement for The Paisley Daze. They were great fun with funky, dancey rhythms and some great melodies. The drummer was the secret weapon, hyperactive and providing some vocals as well. I got a few good shots before he did the classic drummer thing and took his top off, which made all the difference even with the slightly odd lighting.

Amanda Dal (About Bunny) @Bread and Roses

I first met Amanda when she was playing in a band with my friends Graeme Wheatley and Iago Banet. We met for the first time in a pub in New Cross over a few lunchtime beers. Ever since then our paths have crossed at many gigs where she wasn’t playing and a few where she was. One of the bands she plays with live is About Bunny, who are melodic, punky and mainly female. I went along to see them at Bread and Roses in Clapham  and my efforts were rewarded by this shot of Amanda giving it loads and grinning for the camera at the same time. Bit of trivia for you; Amanda’s Swedish and she’s a huge Abba fan. Like everyone else here, she’s also a great drummer.

Emma Holbrook @Folk in the Park, Sutton

Emma was one of several musicians on the day, including Holly Carter, Michele Stodart, Keiron Marshall and Hannah White, who appeared in more than one band on the main stage at the very first Folk in the Park this year. As a new event, there were a few lessons to be learned – one of those lessons was that a backdrop for the main stage would have helped the look of the event. I liked the contrasting colours in this shot of Emma and, even though the background’s a bit distracting, I still think the shot works.

Migdalia van der Hoven @Crypt Lates

This shot was taken less than a week ago in The Crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The event was a birthday celebration for one of the Talentbanq directors, Pablo Ettinger. Pablo likes to celebrate his birthday by playing a jazz gig with his group and Migdalia’s his drummer of choice. Migdalia also played a second set with her own band which demonstrated why she’s in such demand – she’s a phenomenal drummer. Besides her own gigs, she’s also touring with the musical ‘Six’ at the moment. The lighting in The Crypt is a challenge, particularly for anyone who isn’t front and centre stage and the best place to photograph a drummer is usually from behind the stage, so that’s what I did. Just as I got the viewfinder to my eye, and before I could check the focus, Migdalia pulled a wonderful smile – I got lucky and the shot was pretty much in focus.

Did I ever mention that I like a drummer photo?

We actually had a summer this year, too much of a summer for some of us but you have to make the most of it, droughts and all. It gave Allan a chance to get out and do something a little bit different with his gig photos. He’s probably the best person to tell you about the differences between his usual work and outdoor gigs during a long hot summer.

You spend the winter in dingy basements trying to wring the maximum out of your camera’s sensor in terrible lighting conditions and then you emerge blinking like a mole into the outdoors in the spring with a whole new set of challenges to contend with, but they’re good challenges. The increase in light levels creates opportunities for much sharper photos with better depth of field and freezing motion. Basically, you have more options to play with. Here are a few shots from this year’s outdoor gigs, including three from the summer sessions in the courtyard at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Amy Taylor @St Martin-in-the-Fields

This is a really interesting gig; it’s in the courtyard of the church and it’s free admission with artists provided by Talentbanq. You can sit down in the sun and listen to great live artists and you can buy a coffee, a beer or wine and a snack and soak up the atmosphere. It’s fascinating to watch tourists and Londoners wander past, hear the music and decide to come in to hear what it’s all about. On this day, Amy opened up the proceedings  at noon. When she walked on stage the courtyard was empty, twenty minutes later it was half full and in another fifteen minutes it was packed. What was really interesting was that Amy’s original songs had a better reception than the few covers that are obligatory at gigs like this. It was fascinating to watch a gig build up like this.

Ags Connolly @Folk in the Park, Sutton

Folk in the Park was a festival in Sutton, Surrey put together by Sound Lounge owners Hannah White and Keiron Marshall, two very talented people who are totally committed to live music. The music was virtually non-stop throughout the day with two stages alternating to keep the interest high. The night ended with a storming set from The Magic Numbers, but there were lots of great artists performing on both stages during the day. Phil Hooley performed on the Folk/Americana stage and Dan Owens put in a storming show on the main stage, but my favourite photo of the day was of the Ameripolitan artist Ags Connolly, who was also having a belated birthday celebration.

Zoe Wren @St Martin-in-the-Fields

I spent a bit of time here over the summer, mainly because it was a lovely place to be listening to live music on warm summer days. When I first photographed Zoe, she was the archetypal singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar but she’s added a few more elements to her repertoire now, including a loopstation occasionally, which broadens out her sound a little. She has a great collection of original material including the classic ‘London Town’ and has a few well-chosen covers for gigs like this one.

Hollie Cook @High Tide, Twickenham

High Tide Festival in Twickenham has been steadily building up over the last few years since Phil Penman and Kevin Jones from Eel Pie Records started the event in 2019. It’s a one-day event with a main stage at the end of the High Street and loads of satellite venues running smaller stages. The programming for the festival is always eclectic and even showcases up-and-coming local bands. It’s a fabulous family event and each of year I’ve shot there, the weather has been perfect. This year Hollie Cook was headlining the main stage with her reggae style that was just perfect for a glorious July day. This one was always going to be a colour shot.

Natalie Shay @St Martin-in-the-Fields

I’ve seen Natalie play in a wide variety of indoor and outdoor and watched over the years as her songwriting’s developed. She’s always been a confident performer and she knows how to go onstage and win over an audience. She’s also a very physical performer and seems to be in constant motion. Using a high shutter speed to freeze the action also meant that background distractions were out of focus and minimised.

We’ve reviewed three Pawn Shop Saints albums here on Music Riot and they’ve all been great pieces of work, particularly 2020’s ‘Ride My Galaxy’. When we asked for contributions for this year’s tenth anniversary of the High Fives feature, Jeb Barry was one of the first to submit a contribution covering, in true High Fives tradition, a wide range of his special 2022 moments and experiences. Over to Jeb:

So here are my five favorite things of the past year or so…

Home recording:

 I’m lucky enough to have my own small recording studio where my band, The Pawn Shop Saints, record, mix and master all of our releases. It’s small, but it works for our style of music…laid back acoustic Americana. It’s been an important part of the creative process to simply walk up a flight of stairs and work on music….and it doesn’t cost us a penny. This is important since I fund everything myself and we are 100% indie…we do it all on our own. It may be a little low tech for some, but we are trying to create our own sound our own way. Sometimes it works..other times..well, not so much..but it sure is fun.

The European Americana Scene:

I live in the Berkshires in the state of Massachusetts…not a huge original music scene, but that’s ok since, from the start, we’ve focused on promoting ourselves across the Atlantic instead of at home. Europe seems to have a more focused and concentrated Americana scene, and our last three albums have all charted there, thanks to great support from our promoter, djs, critics, writers, bloggers, etc…It’s still pretty cool to see all the airplay and reviews that we get with every release, which makes all the work worthwhile.

Except for my publisher and a handful of others in Nashville, we are pretty much unknown…even in our own town. It’s simply too hard to compete with groups with money behind them and staff to do the hard work of promotion, publicity, booking, distribution,  and everything else that goes with doing original music.  We play live only a couple of times a year locally since we are not in the local music loop and are picky where we play. My dream is to someday get to play some shows in Europe, even if it’s a solo show.

The Return of Live Music:

Solid Sound, Wilco’s three day festival that occurs at the Mass Moca Museum complex, finally returned this past spring. Since it is held five miles from me, I have gone to every one of them in the past ten years. To be honest, I was a little uncomfortable being in such large crowds with Covid still a factor, but since it was outside it made it a little easier to be in a crowd of 8,000. This festival, along with the Freshgrass Roots festival held every September (I have played six of them) are three days of bands, food, art, and performances. It’s great to see old favorites again and new groups for the first time. It’s a great scene…not too big like some festivals.

Unfortunately some of the music clubs I used to go to pre-Covid have closed or drastically cut their schedules.

The Ongoing vinyl resurgence

Yeah, I’ve been collecting vinyl records for about 12 years. The resurgence in interest is great, but it has had some negative impacts on my hobby. For one, I can’t simply go to the local thrifts or estate sales and find tons of records like I used to do. There is so much more competition, but that’s ok…I just have to try a little harder. The resurgence has also impacted my bands releases, as I planned to press our last two releases on vinyl, just for the hell of it, but due to everyone pressing their releases, the cost and wait time was too much for us, so we’re sticking to CDs and digital.

Calton Guitar Cases:

Eight years ago I finally splurged on an upper level acoustic guitar; a Martin HD-28 with the 1935 sunburst color scheme. Since then, I have always been nervous to fly with that guitar, given how airlines can mistreat musical instruments. So I finally splurged on my dream guitar case (yes, there is such a thing LOL) …a Calton case, handmade in Austin, Texas. This gives me a little more peace of mind when I fly the next time and can take my main guitar, instead of my second guitar (A Martin 000-15). Hopefully this will be next summer when I try to get back overseas. Oh yeah, I got a blue one since it’s easier to find at the airport…or if someone walks off with it.

It’s a bit of a momentous occasion; it’s the tenth birthday of High Fives and it’s also the first year of proper post-COVID gigs. That has to be worth celebrating, so we thought we would celebrate with a look back at some of the artists that Allan has photographed for the first time this year. Some of them are artists that he’s seen for the first time in 2022, but some of them have a story that stretches back a few years (OK, a lot of years). We’ll leave it to Allan to tell you about his photographic selections.

I’ve learnt over the years that you can never predict the way things will play out in the music business. Here’s a good example; the very first proper gig I saw was at Mansfield Civic Theatre in 1974 and the headliners were Brinsley Schwarz. I’ll never forget it because there was a stage invasion by a gang of Hell’s Angels which was beaten away by the road crew and the band (particularly Nick Lowe); it took a while to realise that gigs weren’t always like that. A few years later, I had photographed all of the Brinsleys in various incarnations with Graham Parker and Rockpile, except Brinsley himself. Fast forward four decades and a photo that I shot of Martin Belmont playing with Graham Parker and the Goldtops is used to publicise a Bob Collum gig that features a guest appearance by Brinsley Schwarz trying out new material and I get an invite to the gig and the opportunity to tell Brinsley why the stage invasion happened nearly fifty years ago and also get a chance to grab a backstage candid shot of Brinsley, Martin and Graham.

It’s another Seventies memory. One of the two football teams I grew up supporting was Mansfield Town, because I lived there from 1968 (the other’s East Fife, if you’re interested). In 1975, the DJ at Field Mill played Randy Edelman’s brilliant cover of Unit Four Plus Two’s ‘Concrete and Clay’ before every game; it was a pop classic and perfect football terrace material. It was followed up in 1976 with ‘Uptown, Uptempo Woman’ and I was completely sold. Randy then went on to write scores for incredibly successful movies. Fast forward again to 2022 and live music promoter Tony Moore tells me about a new club he’s booking artists for (The Camden Club) and that Randy Edelman is doing a free gig there. I’m already on it even before I find out that Isabella Coulstock is doing a support set. Anyway, I get to hear a great version of ‘Concrete and Clay’ and grab a few shots of Mr Edelman. Job done.

In June this year, I was shooting a gig at The Camden Chapel. The wonderful Say Anise was headlining and had invited Frankie Morrow along as support. The Chapel’s one of those gigs where I like to grab a few soundcheck shots as insurance because the lighting can be a bit challenging during gigs. During the soundcheck I had a chat with Frankie and, as fellow Scots, we got on pretty well. She turned in a storming solo set as support to Say Anise and I was hooked. Frankie told me about upcoming full-band gigs to promote her new EP and I was all fired up to photograph her with the full band before COVID got in the way and the gig was pushed back to November. It was no surprise that the band gig was stunning when it finally took place at The Sebright Arms a few days ago. Frankie’s definitely one to watch for 2023.

I’d heard lots of good things about Jenny Colquitt this year but, because of gig clashes, I didn’t manage to see her play until November when she played a headline set at Green Note supported by Simon James. Everything I’d heard about her was absolutely right; Jenny has great songs, her guitar and piano backing are both spot on and her voice has tremendous power even though she was recovering from a heavy cold and felt that her voice is only at about seventy per cent. I can’t wait to hear it at a hundred when she does the band tour next year.

Last, but definitely not least, in the list of this year’s discoveries is Amy Taylor. At the end of April, I went to a So Live Sessions showcase at Escape Bar in Dalston, mainly to catch up with Cloudy Galvez who was recovering from long COVID and gradually rebuilding her live career. If you do a lot of showcases, you see a lot of bands and it’s easy to get a bit blasé about supporting artists. Amy Taylor wasn’t about to let that happen and it was her original material that made an instant impact; she’s a gifted songwriter. She’s also a classically-trained pianist who also plays guitar and she’s only been singing publicly since the start of this year. Anyway, I was totally blown away by Amy’s soulful songs and powerful vocals and I’ve been telling people about her ever since that gig. I would love to say that I spotted the reflection of the earring on Amy’s cheekbone that completes the picture, but I didn’t spot that until it was on the 28” monitor.  I’ve seen her several times since then in all sorts of venues and she’s nailed it every time. You should give her a listen; I suspect she’ll be doing a lot of gigs in 2023.

Let’s get this out of the way now because there’s no hiding from it. Yes, The Williams Brothers do sound incredibly like The Everly Brothers and with good reason. They aren’t just brothers, they’re twins, and Andrew and David Williams been singing and playing together for decades. And here’s a little bit of additional information; they’re also nephews of easy-listening megastar Andy Williams. With that musical heritage and the twin thing going on it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Williams Brothers’ two-part harmonies are absolutely stunning.

Before you even get into the detail of the individual songs, ‘Memories to Burn’ is an interesting concept; it was arranged in a small studio and recorded live to two-track. Everyone was happy with the results and then the tapes were stashed away for twenty-seven years before resurfacing this year. It’s an interesting package of ten songs, split equally between well-chosen covers and songs written by band members; the country stylings of the covers create a nice unity for the album, blending with the originals perfectly. It’s also noticeable that most of the songs clock in at about two minutes with two at around the 2:30 mark and the album’s closer, the Buffy Sainte-Marie song, ‘Piney Wood Hills’ scrapes in under 1:30. There’s absolutely no fat to trim away on any of these songs; if you can deliver your song in around two minutes, why would you add anything that makes the message less concise. It’s an album of short stories rather than novellas.

There are two constants across the entire album; the stunning two-part harmonies of the twins and the steel guitar licks that create the melancholy, retro mood of the album. There are moments on the album that are pure Everly Brothers; the title track could be Phil and Don vocally, although some of Marvin Etzioni’s chord changes are unusual and the falling upright bass run owes something to Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Were Made for Walking’. It all fits together perfectly. Another Marvin Etzioni composition, ‘Unanswered Prayers’, hints at Phil and Don’s ‘Let It Be Me’ with the Williams Brothers’ two-part harmonies featured throughout the song.

There’s an interesting transposition of styles across the album’s second and third songs. ‘Cryin’ and Lyin’’, another Etzioni composition has a Sixties pop song sound, while the following song, a genuine Sixties pop song is given a country makeover. Dave Davies’ Kinks hit ‘Death of a Clown’ might be an unlikely choice but the country treatment seems to highlight the strangeness of the lyrics; and they are pretty strange.

If you’re a fan of The Everly Brothers, then ‘Memories to Burn’ should make you smile. It’s out now on Regional Records (RR222).

Here’s an interesting idea. Although the central figure in Old Californio is renowned songwriter Rich Dembowski, ‘Old Californio Country’ features ten covers and three band originals. There’s no reason why a songwriter shouldn’t do an entire album (almost) of covers; Bruce Springsteen’s just done it with his favourite old soul and rhythm and blues songs and the record-buying public is purring over that one. ‘Old Californio Country’ that’s packed with superb playing, beautiful lead vocals and harmonies and wonderful interpretations of songs by songwriters acknowledged as masters of their craft. It almost goes without saying that the playing isn’t showy, it’s just the playing that the song needs to make it shimmer.

Although the album’s heavily loaded with covers, the opener is a Rich Dembowski original played in classic country style and spiced with outlaw country sentiment – “shorten your give-a-shit list” is good advice for all of us. The covers range across a wide variety of country-related styles and interpretations, from Neil Young’s ‘Lotta Love’ that almost mimics Young’s ‘Comes a Time’ production but is turbocharged with perfect and powerful harmonies, to a rockabilly reworking of John Prine’s ‘Knockin’ On Your Screen Door’ that opens with a nod in the direction of Billy Joel’s ‘Still Rock and Roll to Me’. The Beatles’ ‘Because’ is transformed from a psychedelic piece to a banjo-led country song with soaring harmonies, while Lowell George’s ‘Willin’’ has all the edges and corners smoothed away to create a plaintive and beautiful ballad of life on the road made tolerable by “wed, whites and wine” punctuated by the reliably melancholy harmonica and lap steel fills – it’s the loneliness of the long-distance trucker.

How about favourites? Well two songs stand out for the quality of the song and the Old Californio interpretation. The Jason Isbell song ‘Maybe It’s Time’ (also covered recently by KB Bayley) is a classic example of powerful, evocative and economic songwriting highlighting indoctrination of the population underpinned by finger-picked acoustic guitars, lap steel fills and Nashville twang solo. The Guy Clark song ‘Stuff That Works’ is delivered in a minimal, laconic style with a resonator slide solo; it’s a hymn in praise of using the things that we actually need rather than the things we’re pressured to buy to keep up. Forget iPhone 14 and concentrate on that old shirt, pair of boots or guitar. On a personal note, I listen to my review albums on a fifteen-year-old MP3 player – if it ain’t broke…

‘Old Californio Country’ is out now.

Here’s a live version of ‘Willin’’:

OLD CALIFORNIO – WILLIN’ – Live at McCabe’s – YouTube

It’s become pretty much a tradition over the years that the first contribution to appear in our annual High Fives comes from Neil Sheasby, bass player and co-songwriter, along with Neil Jones, of British soul legends Stone Foundation. There’s a reason why Neil’s contribution usually opens the feature – he’s always the first one to reply when we ask for contributions. Simple. Congratulations are in order as well this year as Stone Foundation prepare for their 25th anniversary in 2023.

Music I think it’s been a really strong year for new releases, I’ve heard some great albums over the past 12 months, very complete pieces of work but if I have to select one to wear the crown then it will be Drugdealer – ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’. Golden grooves that embrace that warm LA / FM sound, dare I say it’s Yacht Rockin’ territory. Yes, it sounds like 1974 but surely that’s cool? Well, if you dig the Dan, Little Feat and even hints of Lowe & Lynott then it’s time to get your fix. 

Vision I got hooked on a series called “This is Us” on Amazon prime, there’s about 9 seasons of it so it’s unusual for me to commit to something so lengthy but I got recommended it by my friend Mark who owns Loafers record shop in Halifax and I watched the first couple and was hooked. It’s all about the lifespan of an extended family and we watch their journey unfold from cradle to the grave. It’s emotional!

Reader

Jarvis Cocker’s book ‘Good Pop, Bad Pop’ really struck a chord with me.

It’s not a life story but a loft story where he delves up into his attic to find treasures such as tickets, clothes, photos and souvenirs that really map out his life.  Anyone that follows me on social media will be aware that I have a fairly hefty archive of ‘stuff’ stashed away up in my own loft so I could really identify with Jarvis and his plight of what to keep and what to bin. 

Personal

On a personal note I found our Stone Foundation gig at Koko in Camden in November to be a real highlight. I think it was maybe the accumulation of having played every pub and bar along Camden High Street over the last 25 years finally leading to the glitz and glory of the old Camden Palace. 

I didn’t really take it in on the night but it hit me afterwards and I was able to process the vision and noise of that audience crammed over three floors of the venue. It was humbling and heartening in equal measures. A real moment for us. 

Art

‘Grown up in Britain – 100 years of Teenage Kicks’ showing until Feb 2023 at the Herbert Gallery in Coventry. I’m a disciple of The Saturday’s Kids so this exhibition kind of knocked me out. 

The Museum of youth culture is an emerging museum dedicated to the styles, sounds and social movements innovated by young people over the last 100 years. Championing the impact of youth on modern society. The Museum has been collecting photographs of youth and subculture movements for over 25 years. From the bomb-site Bicycle racers in post-war 1940s London, to the Acid House ravers of 1980s Northern England, the Museum of Youth Culture empowers the extraordinary everyday stories of growing up in Britain.

And yes…there was a photograph of an 18 year old me featured.