Sometimes it feels like every time you turn around, another iconic venue vanishes, but it’s not all doom and gloom; some entrepreneurs are bucking the trend and I had the chance see the opening night at a new venue just off Pentonville Road this week. From the outside, 2Northdown looks completely anonymous. Only the presence of security staff hints at something interesting inside; there wasn’t a green door, but I told them Ray sent me and someone laughed out loud but I was in. the priorities of the management team are obvious as soon as you walk through the door. The bar is basic, and cash only, but the sound system is good and the stage is very photographer-friendly with a completely uncluttered black backdrop and some basic but effective white floods to light the stage. Top marks there.

For the opening night of Acoustic Sex, Ray Jones (formerly of Time Out) put together a bill of artists who have been attracting attention for some time now. Nuala’s mix of busker attitude, a huge voice and the ability to incorporate distractions like a phone ringing and breaking a string into her lyrics was a great start to the night. The string-breaking incident gave Ray a chance to hustle a quick guest spot from Steve Young, who also loaned Nuala his guitar to finish the set. Next up was Lisa Marini with her fusion of traditional singer-songwriter and smooth jazz (featuring Arthur Newell on drums and Jack Tustin on upright bass). It was eclectic, with Lisa starting the set with a uke before switching to a lovely nylon-strung Godin guitar for the rest of the set. The audience were completely engrossed and you could have heard a pin drop, or the shutters of half a dozen Nikons on burst mode.

To close the evening out, the final set was from Joe Slater, down from Liverpool for the day, full of cold or flu germs, but still game for a raucous half-hour set. As always, in the words of Ray Jones, he knocked it out of the park. He’s a natural songwriter and his voice and delivery are huge. His penultimate song, “Rainbow”, is what “Imagine” could have been if John Lennon had still been hungry and not living in a mansion in Weybridge; this guy has talent, and the balls to finish with a cover of “Champagne Supernova” which had the entire audience singing along.

Great venue, great atmosphere and great performers; what more do you need to know?

If you want to see some pictures of the event, go to Nuala, Lisa or Joe.

Winter Mountain’s album “I Swear I Flew”, which was released in mid-November last year was one of those that worked perfectly as a coherent, self-contained project; you should really listen to it. It was also one of those that made you want to hear the songs played live. I got the chance to do that at 229 Venue 2 and I was absolutely right; it was exceptional, but not quite in the way I’d imagined. The album is mainly (but not completely) quiet and introspective but the live show was a very different beast.

Support on the night was Cornish singer-songwriter Josiah Mortimer, who warmed up a gradually-increasing crowd with a mix of the traditional (“Cadgwith Anthem”) and twenty-first century protest songs like “Build a Wall” – you can probably guess what that one’s about. With a decent voice, some interesting chat between songs and a playing style that uses a thumb instead of a pick (anyone remember Richie Havens?), Josiah got the audience onside and ready for the headliners.

Winter Mountain’s set opened with the wistful, impassioned romanticism of “Girl in the Coffee Shop”, a chance to set the tone for the evening, demonstrating Joe’s soulful voice and allowing the band to ease their way in before the Springsteenesque roar of “Sunlight, Good Roads”. Joe Francis has created a unique mixture with Winter Mountain, blending influences from the worlds of folk (mainly Gaelic), roots, country rock, southern boogie, straight ahead rock and many others. Springsteen aside, you can hear echoes of Hothouse Flowers, The Waterboys, Rob Thomas and Gin Blossoms (remember them?). The set had its quieter, more reflective, moments, particularly the (almost) solo interlude featuring “The Morning Bell”, the poignant “January Stars”, “Lucky Ones” and “Stronger When You Hold Me” but the set really caught fire when the band were playing full-tilt songs like “Things That I’ve Done Wrong” in balls-out Lynyrd Skynyrd mode as Joe started throwing lyrics from Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” into the mix. So hats off to Alik Peters-Deacon (guitar), Jake Galvin (bass) and Garry Kroll (drums) for a great, dynamic set and also to 229’s sound man, who did a lovely job in a venue that was barely half full.

Anything else you should know? The songs were split almost evenly between the first and second albums and the set ended with a Beatles cover, the early “Oh! Darling”. The audience was completely silent during the quiet songs and went bananas during the raucous ones. The band covered all the bases of the glorious musical mash-up perfectly, while Joe’s powerhouse voice left you in no doubt that he has a massive rock voice as well. It wasn’t quiet the night I‘d expected, but it was a belter; that’s the way to spend a Thursday night in London.

Coming to a festival near you soon, I imagine.

You can see some photos from the gig here.

If you look at the star rating at the top of this piece, you might think I was a bit lukewarm about Rackhouse Pilfer, but the band was very good; that wasn’t the problem. There are a lot of other things that can take the shine off a potentially great evening, so let’s get those out of the way before we go any further. There are notices all around the venue reminding the audience not to talk during performances; it didn’t make any difference, particularly during Elly O’Keefe’s support set. To add insult to injury, the sound, particularly the vocals, was pretty muddy throughout the night (maybe the position of the sound desk, to one side of the stage, doesn’t help) which isn’t helpful when there are six instruments and some lovely vocal harmonies featuring all six band members. And that’s before we mention the snare rattling constantly throughout Elly O’Keefe’s set. So what about the good stuff? 

Well, Elly’s set was solid singer-songwriter material delivered, mainly her own songs with one cover, John Martyn’s “Over the Hill”. Her chord progressions were interesting, she strummed and picked and her voice went all the way from a delicate whisper to a bluesy shout. As the audience chatter got louder, so did she and eventually she won the contest. 

Rackhouse Pilfer was another proposition entirely; six musicians, all of them singers as well, is a very different kind of sound. With various combinations of drums, upright bass, mandolin, acoustic guitar, fiddle, slide resonator and banjo the band is totally at ease with a variety of textures and they sounded convincing across a spectrum ranging from Irish traditional through bluegrass, Hank Williams country (“Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do?”), the seventies Laurel Canyon scene and Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road”. I missed murder ballads, didn’t I? 

The original songs from the last album, particularly “Angela” and “Two Oceans” are powerful live and the playing (individually and as an ensemble) is spot on, but Rackhouse Pilfer have one more trick. When all six members sing and when all the voices are working together perfectly, it’s something very special indeed; it’s hard not to make that Eagles comparison when you hear those harmonies. The niggly little things that tarnished the night a little were out of the band’s control and only made me determined to see Rackhouse Pilfer doing their eclectic mix in a more congenial environment next time. You should keep an eye out for them.

Here are some pictures from the gig.

Well, that was an interesting experience. For most of the evening I felt like a gatecrasher at a meeting of a benevolent religious sect. I never felt unwelcome but, as an impartial observer (I liked the run of singles between 1983 and 1986) I couldn’t share the devotion of the fans who had all the albums, knew all the songs, B-sides included, and had stayed with Howard Jones for over thirty years. And I’ve never seen so many couples in their forties/fifties cuddling at a gig. These were people who had grown up with Howard’s music and made it part of their lives. Taking their cue from his Buddhist beliefs, they were ready to welcome outsiders to the celebration; they certainly extended their welcome to Rachael Sage as a support act.

I’m slightly biased; I saw Rachael a couple of times last year and loved her “Choreographic” album. Accompanied by her usual duo partner, violinist Kelly Halloran, she played a short (thirty minute) set taken mainly from the latest album, featuring “Loreena”, “I Don’t Believe It” and “Heaven is a Grocery Store Clerk” and a new, unreleased, song about the Dakota Access Pipeline and the plight of the people of Standing Rock Reservation. The Howard Jones fans warmed to Rachael’s very personal style of writing and the powerful performance of her guitar and keyboard-driven songs punctuated by Kelly’s violin (ever heard wah-wah violin before?) and occasional backing vocals. A great audience response and the stage was set.

Howard Jones performs solo, with only a digital piano as accompaniment and it’s quite a challenge to deliver a set featuring songs that were mainly driven by big eighties synths, but he’s worked hard to pare down the arrangements for this format. Unlike a lot of eighties nostalgia acts, he sticks to his own material (with one exception) because he knows his audience and he knows what they want to hear. He knows what they want to hear because they’ve been emailing their requests for months and the set’s based on those requests. Value for money? It’s a full two hour set with the songs (including “New song”, “What is Love?”, “Like to Get to Know You Well” and “No One is to Blame” and lots of album tracks) interspersed with Howard’s anecdotes and the fans’ reasons for requesting particular songs. And that’s the only real problem for me; the stories of people’s lives, with the triumphs and tragedies, attached to particular songs evoke memories of the sickly Simon Bates “Our Tune” feature which premiered on Radio One in the eighties.

That aside, Howard Jones’ solo piano accompaniment works perfectly and his voice is holding up really well. I probably wouldn’t have chosen this gig, but I was entertained without being totally engaged and it was fascinating to see such a loyal audience. And the one non-Howard Jones song was a George Michael tribute – “Careless Whisper”.

You can see photos of Rachael Sage here and Howard Jones here.

‘Well, I said hello to the spirit of 1956,

Who was stationed in the bushes next to ’57….’

Thus sang Jonathan Richman on one of the dozen best songs ever recorded, “Roadrunner”.

I encountered the same spirits on a soggy Thursday night in Leek. It’s not what you expect, really and I would have appreciated fair warning but there it is.

A modest but politely enthusiastic audience was more a reflection of the night rather than ‘the turn’. Leek, one of the highest towns in England – ‘Queen of the Moorlands’, baby – was sloshing about in the remains of the tropical storm which had brought a well-morphed spirit of the Caribbean many miles away from source. This exotic and fantastical weather ‘bomb’ was well named by the time it reached these climes.

Doris. Queen of the wet and windy.

So one for the hardy, very local or true believers.

First up, support from a local musician and leading light in the Leek Blues Fest – end of last week in September 2017 for those of you young enough to believe in the idea of forward planning – Mike Gledhill, an affable singer-songwriter who played an amiable bunch of self-penned songs, one of which he entertainingly claimed he wrote with J.J. Cale….”he just doesn’t know it yet…!” all of which amounted to a pleasant enough starter-upper.

John Lewis is, in his solo incarnation, a revelation from the second he hits the strings. Within the first four songs it is pretty obvious we’re in the presence of something a bit special here. His repertoire wanders with total comfort between 1956 rockabilly skeletons, Hank Williams-esque country painfests, straight-ahead four on the floor R’n’B – tinged rock ‘n’ roll that Chuck Berry made his own, and the prehistoric pop sensibilities of Buddy Holly. How does he manage this?

Well, for a start, this guy has A Voice. And it’s usually the voice which lets down a perfectly acceptable ‘Americana’ (hate the term – but bear with me) act, especially the blues. But this guy has got the whole thing going on. I find it incredible that one bloke’s voice can capture the essence of the pained ache of the aforementioned Hank Williams (done badly it just sounds like mawkish sentimentality – and John Lewis doesn’t appear to do mawkish sentimentality), the tremulous, vulnerable majesty of Roy Orbison, the mean, gritty swagger of some of the other Sun-era originals like Sonny Burgess, Charlie Feathers et al, and the popped-up sweetness of Buddy and yes, at one point, Elvis and of course, Johnny Cash. Not only that, he is positively expert on a range of guitars that look like they really ought to be nailed to the wall in a museum in Nashville or used as agricultural instruments.

Here is a man who is on top of his game, big style. You don’t have the likes of Imelda May helping out on his beautiful celebration of dadness, “Waltz Around the Kitchen”, or The Jets providing back-up on some of his recordings without knowing your chops. What I find similarly astonishing is the authenticity which having a ‘stamping board’ – which looks like a heavily-modified pallet – as your rhythm section. And to keep that going with metronome precision throughout a set which requires a variety of pace changes mid-song can’t be easy, not to mention physically exhausting.

What is it about the Welsh? Why do they produce such brilliant rock ‘n’ rollers? Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers; the much-maligned Shakin’ Stevens; Geraint Watkins; Ricky Valance (first Welshman to have a UK number 1 hit; ask your grandma.) Even Sir Thomas The Jones started out with beat-group derivatives of old-school r and r. And John Lewis sits fairly and squarely in the middle of this tradition. Already. And you feel there’s still plenty to come.

Perhaps the best compliment you can pay an artist who features a number of ‘covers’ in their set is that the originals are not fillers you sit through politely before he chucks in a crackling, impatient “Help Me” or an incendiary “Baby Please Don’t Go”. By focussing on the fundamentals, family relationships (“Waltz”) paying the bills or not (“Money Troubles”) or social exclusion (“Not Quite the Not”) his own stuff sits in perfect context with a whole range of classics which span early skiffle, work songs, blues and country. Modern sensibilities, mark you; “Money Troubles” is a beaut, naming the beast in a direct and modern setting. I mean, if he was writing ‘baby left me and mah mule got lame, lost mah money in a poker game’ you’d wonder quite what the point was. So he doesn’t.

And that quite stunning voice enables him to interpret an old and well-worn song with vision and flexibility. I mean, “Always on My Mind” sung by Elvis always sounds to me like ‘I may not be perfect but regarding our relationship I’m always Elvis Presley.’ Sung by Willie Nelson, it sounds like ‘I’m nowhere near perfect but regarding our relationship, this is the about the best I can manage.’ Here is an interpreter of other people’s songs who thinks about what they mean to him, not just his own material, and that isn’t necessarily a given.

Note to self; go and see The Real John Lewis, as the microphone stand proclaims, as a trio and see how that changes the dynamic of things. I’d imagine that freed from having to be his own personalised rhythm section there’d be some real pyrotechnics then. And also, must go see him in an over-full, sweaty cave somewhere filled with the drunk and the raucous rather than the sparsely-populated but admittedly lovely high-ceilinged Victoriana of the Foxlowe Centre.

I stop mid-gush to voice two slight concerns. Firstly, regards old rockabilly and rock n roll, (I flatly refuse to use the term Americana as I hate it with a vengeance) virtually the entire world is looking in a direction away from the original source of music as we know it at the moment. How is this phenomenal talent to break out of the limitations of the genre? And secondly, what exactly IS the genre? And DON’T say Americana, I will not be held responsible for my actions. Sooner or later, a ‘breakthrough’ airplay track may well compel The Real John Lewis to define himself a little more precisely than his talent would probably feel comfortable with. At that point The Real John Lewis – or a version of – might be forced to stand up. (At which point the rhythm section will fall silent, ‘cos you can’t do the stomp rhythm thing unless you’re sitting down.)

But neither of these things are the artist’s problem and neither are they particularly within his control, either.

And the latter might be a nice problem to have. It would be no more or less than he deserves.

New acoustic album “His Other Side” comes out on February 26^th, I’m told. Website www.therealjohnlewis.com

So the Americana Music Association UK awards and showcase rolls around again. It was back to Hackney, and this time the event was spread over three venues. Potential for clashes there but when the line-up was published, everything was fine. My two must-sees didn’t clash, so all systems were go for Amanda Rheaume at Paper Dress Vintage and Wild Ponies finishing the event at Moth Club. All I needed was two superb performances and my night would be complete. Spoiler alert; both bands were exceptional.

I’d visited Paper Dress Vintage in its previous location in Shoreditch and, yes, it’s a quirky combination of vintage clothes shop and gig venue. At least in the Hackney incarnation the bands don’t play in the window with a bus station as a backdrop. Amanda Rheaume has been touring the UK with guitar/pedal steel player Anders Drerup and bass player Anna Ruddick in support of her “Holding Patterns” album and they’re a potent live combination, creating a punchy live sound with help of some great harmonies and stomping foot percussion. The songs sound great on the album but the tight, punchy live sound was even better and a packed venue made for a memorable set, with the band tearing through a short showcase set (including the album opener “Get to the Part”, “Wolf of Time” and the relationship song “Dead Horse”) and leaving the audience wanting more. Amanda’s voice has a slightly rawer, raunchier quality in the live setting and her introductions established a genuine rapport between audience and performers.

Wild Ponies (Doug and Telisha Williams) enlisted the help of a British drummer to augment the line-up for their festival-closing set and closed out in epic style; it was a proper festival headliner set taken mainly from their 2016 album “Radiant” (which certainly is). They eased the audience in gently with “Born with a Broken Heart”, the album’s opening track before letting Mike Pence have both barrels with “Love Is Not a Sin”. They bravely slowed down the set with a beautiful new ballad “Hearts and Bones” before taking the Moth roof off with a storming version of “Unplug the Machine”, one of my favourite songs of 2016.

Both of these artists had cracking albums out last year. You should give them a listen and watch out for their next appearance near you. You can see some pictures of Amanda Rheaume at Paper Dress Vintage here and some Wild Ponies pictures from Moth here. Now, when’s the next gig?

There was something different about The Borderline; you could sense it in the air. It wasn’t the wall-to-wall double denim and hundred-times-washed black tour t-shirt crowd that I normally see at blues/rock gigs there. No, this was something very different; at least half of the crowd was Texan. Before you ask, yes, I did hear quite a few yee-hahs and I even saw a Stetson. I’m not even sure there weren’t a couple of longhorns lurking over by the cloakroom. The reason for this Texan invasion of W1 was that singer-songwriters Wade Bowen and Willy Braun (of Reckless Kelly fame) were opening their UK tour in London.

As co-headliners, they opted for the song swap format, both players on stage from start to finish and playing songs in turn. If you judge these things by quantity, at around thirty songs, that’s a pretty good deal. Add in the fact that they were all great songs, beautifully performed and that’s a pretty good night. The differing vocal styles added another bit of variety; Willy has more country inflections whereas Wade has more of a modern Nashville style voice, crossing over into a more rock intonation. The whole show was held together by the rapport between the two performers and with the audience, with plenty of chat between songs, explaining their origins, talking about visiting London for the first time and, inevitably, the result of the presidential election two days before.

From Wade, there were a few songs about drinking, including “Saturday Night” and “Sweet Leona” as well as the inevitable hangover song “When I Woke Up Today” while Willy did his bit with “Pennsylvania Avenue”, Tee Champ” and a country version of the Beatles’ “ I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party”. The standouts for me were Willy’s new song “Moment in the Sun” and Wade’s “A Battle Won” with a special mention for Willie’s cover of the Lukas Nelson song “Georgia”. It was an entrancing evening watching two people do what they love.

Just another couple of things; I was gobsmacked at the number of people who thought it was ok to hold conversations during an acoustic performance despite repeatedly being told to STFU. To counterbalance that, with a performer’s instinct, Wade managed to home in on a Spanish fan and his son (both Luis), who had flown into London on the day of the gig and were flying back the same night. Luis and Luis, I salute you; that is true dedication and I’m pleased you had a great night in London.

Well, it was certainly an interesting night out in Camden. I’ve been looking forward to seeing Underhill Rose since I had to miss a show earlier this year and what could be better than watching them play at Green Note. Just one little problem; the queue outside and the absence of any kind of lighting didn’t look too good, but it takes more than a power cut to close Green Note. After a slight delay to position dozens of tea lights around the room, the venue opened and things went ahead pretty much as normal, Underhill Rose had decided to play a completely unplugged set rather than disappoint the sellout crowd. Not having power isn’t necessarily a problem for players brought up in acoustic tradition, and a candle-lit gig does have a certain romance to it. In a typical twist of fate, almost immediately after the stage had been cleared of mic stands and DI boxes at the interval, the power was restored but by that stage, neither the audience nor the band wanted to move away from the acoustic format.

Underhill Rose is Eleanor Underhill (banjo and harmonica), Molly Rose Reed (guitar) and Salley Williamson (upright bass) and they all sing, creating some of the most gorgeous harmonies you’re likely to hear. The songs are all beautifully crafted and the live performances make good use of all the vocal and instrumental textures available to them. After the drama of creating a scene that took us back almost a century, it was appropriate that Underhill Rose opened their first set with “Not Gonna Worry”. It’s difficult to pick favourites from a set packed with lovely songs and performances, but a song dedicated to friends, “They Got my Back”, the swing-tinged “Whispering Pines Motel” and “Montana” did it for me and a cover of “These Boots Were Made for Walking” was a huge crowd-pleaser.

Watching Underhill Rose at any time is a pleasure and a privilege; an intimate performance by candlelight is a once in a lifetime experience. I’ve never been so happy about a power cut (or should that be outage). A wonderful night.

They also played their current single “One Time a Year” which is out now. It’s a great single and a portion of the proceeds from each sale will go to Women for Women International.

You can see some photos from the night here.

There was a time in the mid-eighties when the north-west of England, and Liverpool in particular, dominated the music scene. The Crucial Three, Pete Wylie, Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope, were at the top of the pile, bursting with creativity, vision and sheer audacity and never short of an outrageous quote for the press. Fast forward thirty years and Ian McCulloch’s in semi-retirement, Julian Cope’s a scholar and novelist, and Pete Wylie’s still doing what he does best; as the t-shirt says ‘Part-time rock star, full-time legend’. Which is why I was wedged in to a heaving crowd at The Water Rats in Kings Cross, watching him prove it, with the current incarnation of The Mighty Wah. He’s still got it.

The room was packed with fans from the eighties, London-based Scousers and even Liverpool-based Scousers, so he didn’t really have to warm them up. As soon as the stage lights went up, it went, well, chicken oriental, as they say in these parts. Pete Wylie’s gained something that you wouldn’t have expected from his eighties pronouncements; he’s learned to have a bit of a chuckle at his own expense. The chats with the audience between songs are sometimes funny, sometimes political (Thatcher and Trump) and sometimes fond reminiscence (Pete Burns and Wylie’s good friend Josie Jones, who was commemorated with the criminally under-rated “4 11 44”). There was plenty of nostalgia, but some powerful new material as well.

When the band kicked into “Come Back” as the second song in the set, it was an acknowledgement that Pete Wylie has anthems to spare, he didn’t need to save this classic for the end of the set. The rest of the set included “Heart as Big as Liverpool”, “Seven Minutes to Midnight” (record of the week in four music papers), “Story of the Blues” and a version of “Sinful” which morphed into “Heroes” as a Bowie tribute. Just when the audience thought he’d run out of anthems, for the encore the band blazed through “I Still Believe”, a new song from the album that’s as good as anything he’s ever written. The album’s called “Pete Sounds”; now that’s what I meant by audacity.

For ninety minutes, a little corner of Kings Cross turned into mid-eighties Liverpool. Trust the t-shirt; Pete Wylie is an absolute full-time legend.

You certainly can’t accuse Time Out of ignoring up and coming talent; they’ve been running the Rising Stars event in various venues across London, including Jazz Café (newly refurbished and looking very nice indeed), 229 The Venue and Green Note featuring half a dozen unsigned acts performing showcase sets. They’ve covered a wide spectrum of styles and featured all sorts of line-ups from solo artists to full bands. The one thing they all have in common is quality; the September selection was no exception.

Mark Sullivan opened the evening with a set of soulful acoustic songs backed only with his acoustic guitar and a loop pedal (oh, and a stunningly powerful voice). He threw everything into the performance and finished with a cover of the unplugged version of “Layla”; job done. If you were expecting Malory Torr to turn up wielding a ukelele, you would have been disappointed, but not for long. Backed by bass, drums and keyboards (and some lovely harmonies), she delivered an atmospheric set including a cover of “She Drives Me Crazy”. Joe Slater (from Liverpool) played a short set in singer-songwriter/Jake Bugg style, finishing off with the by now, obligatory cover, “Live Forever” this time. And then it all got a bit loud.

Nick Howe played a barnstormer with a full band and a beatboxer. Powerful songs, a band who were on top of their game, and a cover of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” were the highlights. Wang Dang Doodle hark back to the golden age of blues harp players with Laurent Mouflier’s gritty voice and superb harmonica playing topping off the glorious noise created by Mylon Kosmas, Francesco Cuturi and Ben Heartland. Stellify completed the line-up on the night with their classic rock sound of big riffs and thunderous bass and drums.

Another great night, with only one reservation and it’s about the audience rather than the performers. Why is it that audiences at showcase events (not just Rising Stars) drift away after seeing whichever act has brought them there? Wang Dang Doodle and Stellify played storming sets to a half-empty hall. It wasn’t even 10:30. The artists and Ray Jones and his Time Out team put a lot of work into making these events successful; why would you leave halfway through?

You can see some photos from the night here.