Half Mast Flags

For this week’s blog, I was initially going to look at the situations involving the deplorable, institutional anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic prejudice endured by Neil Lennon and James McClean, two of the finest and most principled men in professional football, but the very thought about having to read through the screeds of cyber bile directed at either or both of them for the purpose of research, was simply too depressing. Suffice to say, they both have my unstinting support and eternal admiration.

Instead, it’s time to get cultural, as I’ve not talked about music and books for ages now. We can deal with the books I’ve read fairly quickly, as I’ve only managed the entertaining if lightweight 500 Notable Cricket Quotations by Irving Rosenwater these past few months. It’s worth looking out for, as it’s typical of the legendary curmudgeon who compiled it that the sources are generally ephemeral and the contributors often at the arcane end of obscurity, with a great emphasis on pre-World War 2 utterances. As they supposedly came from newspapers, magazines and broadcasts from back in the day, it’s a fair bet Rosenwater made them all up, which would make the book even better.

Moving on to music then, I’m still in a state of shock that Trembling Bells and the Band of Holy Joy, both of whom set the heather blazing in front of my eyes as recently as July, have called it a day. While there appears to have been a slight rowing back from BoHJ as regards their imminent dissolution, it’s a certainty that Johny Brown will soon reappear with a new project, either solo or with others, as he has done so many times before, I wonder just what will happen with Trembling Bells. It was Lavinia who called it a day, as she’s concentrating on both a solo album and her new band Stilton, with fiancé Marco Rea and fellow Wellgreen Stu Kidd, not to mention her teaching career. Alasdair and Mike’s plans I’m unsure of, but Simon has been busy putting the final touches to the Youth of America album that will undoubtedly be one of the first milestones of 2019. As ever, they all seem layabouts compared to Alex Neilson, who already has 2 further solo albums in the bag; early next year will see the launch of his Otterburn release.

Additionally, the boy Neilson toured as part of a Will Oldham tribute act, Three Queens in Mourning, with the monstrously gifted troubadour Alasdair Roberts and the stunning strumming skills of Jill O’Sullivan (Ni Shuilleabhain), landing up at the new Star & Shadow in October. From the glorious opening seconds of I See a Darkness to the climactic, emotional Ohio River Boat Song, it was a pleasure and an honour to be in their company. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Oldham live, but this homage to the great songsmith was a rare treat and I’m delighted to see the set has subsequently been set down in the studio for future release. I did leave the gig with a pair of mementos, in the shape of Alasdair’s 2017 album Pangs and 2018’s What News? The former is a collection of self-penned material in a traditional style and the latter is a series of traditional ballads, fashioned in a distinctly untraditional way.

Pangs boasts bleak austere ballads, with a full band that combines cello, fiddle and flute with bass, drums, courtesy of the Leeds and Govan Polymath, and howling electric guitar. Roberts’s baroque melodies and scrupulous lyrics, boasting dense imagery, internal rhymes compels the group to storm through The Angry Laughing God and The Downward Road, though, quieter observational pieces like Scarce of Fishing and the reflective Vespers Chime, are delivered with Roberts’s trademark sharp, stentorian brogue.

In contrast, What News? is a collaboration with early music scholar David McGuinness and electronic composer Amble Skuse. It is Roberts’ fourth album of entirely traditional material, though a mainly gentle proposition as the main instruments are a 19th-century piano and a fragile 1920s dulcitone (a keyboard instrument in which tuning forks on the inside are rung by gently pressed keys). The dulcitone sets off the tenderness in Roberts’ beautifully unworldly voice well, particularly on Rosie Anderson, in which a “gentle man as ever lived on earth” sees his wife kissing another. Skuse’s laptop textures offer slow-burning, elemental accompaniment throughout: flutters and clicks in The Dun Broon Bride, watery bubbles in Babylon, and falling rain in the beautiful closer, Long A-Growing, in which the grass keeps on lengthening in life as well as in death, on a take that rivals even Liam Clancy’s stunning early 60s reading of the song. The most beautiful album of the year, other than the tiresome epic Clerk Colven which is strictly for purists.

The new Star & Shadow is a real winner of a venue; it avoids issues of invisibile performers that bedevil The Cluny and doesn’t seem likely to spontaneously combust, unlike the original location opposite The Tanners. Having almost fainted in the sweatbox atmosphere of The Cluny watching Michael Head in July, it was no better a deal when my mate Polly took me to see Willy Mason at the back end of September. I’m no midget, but it always seems I ended up behind body doubles for the Harlem Globetrotters at gigs. Mason is a singer songwriter I’d not come across before and, with Polly’s missus attending Kyle Minogue at The Arena, I volunteered to take her place at this one. It was an evening of pleasant Americana, with Mason’s two hit singles Oxygen and So Long garnering the most positive reaction from a very healthy attendance. I just left frustrated at the fact I’d only heard him sing, not seen him play. To be honest, it may well take something extra special to get me back to this venue again, unlike The Star & Shadow which is an absolute palace for live music.

We first visited back in August, when The Vaselines, fresh from an Edinburgh Festival show with The Pastels and Linton Kwesi Johnson, put in an appearance. Lovely and lovable as ever, a call and response set of greatest non-hits, from Molly’s Lips to I Hate the 80s and an anthemic, essential Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam had the crowd eating from the palm of their hands all gig long. It was a lovely, pervy, cutesy night, with Eugene and Frances on top form, complemented by a sensitive pick up band.

Unfortunately, the quality of a venue sometimes fails to raise the performers from the mediocre. Initially, the concept of Brix & The Extricated was one that did not appeal; I’ve never seen the point of Fall cover or tribute acts, as the unique nature of Smith’s delivery was often the thing that made the band so compelling, at least until about 2000. That said, Steve Hanley is one of the best bass players of all time, his brother is a damn fine drummer and Brix, during her first stint, was involved in some of The Fall’s finest records. Unfortunately, their previous visit to Newcastle, when all they played were Fall songs, went under my radar and I didn’t get to hear about it until weeks later. Apparently, it was a stunning night. Consequently, I insisted on going to this one.

What can I say? A Friday night after work, in the company of a couple of eager pals, Polly and David, open eared music aficionados both, but it simply didn’t take off. Three Fall songs, Guest Informant, Glam Racket (I’d forgotten how simply superb it was) and Totally Wired were the undoubted highlights; not just for me, but for the band as well. The Hanley Brothers are still one of the best value rhythm sections going and Brix, despite resembling Mo Mowlam in a fright wig these days, is a compelling frontwoman. Obviously, the new material isn’t as strong as The Fall stuff, but it isn’t terrible. Sadly, the rehashed Adult Net songs are an absolute load of dross; twee mid-90s pop that wasn’t worth listening to the first time and certainly utterly unsuited to being rehashed twenty years on. Too many lame fillers let the performance sag. I had a good night and I’m glad I’ve seen them, but I can safely say I’ve no interest in Brix and The Extricated going forward.

Looking forwards, another band with a female singer who have grabbed my attention are L Space, the delightful quasi electronic dream pop outfit I saw in Falkirk back in June. At the time, I promised I’d get a copy of their album Kipple Arcadia when it came out and so I did. The undoubted highlight is opening number, Home Sweet Home. Singer Lily Higham’s ethereal phrasing acts a soaring counterpoint to bassist Dickson Telfer’s 70s dub style pulsebeat. The whole album is akin to being washed over by synth waves of sheer sophistication; it could be the late 70s or 50 years from now. Krautrock and Mogwai are better reference points than lame comparisons with Goldfrapp or a cheerful Portishead. An immensely impressive and profound debut that hints at greatness to come in the future.

Going backwards, I got hold of a couple of releases on Overground I’d been promising myself for years. Swell Maps were one of my favourite bands in the 1978 to 1980 period; behind the silly names and daft lyrics were a collection of driving, three chord, off kilter epics. The singles they released from Dresden Style to Let’s Build A Car were some of the strongest work on Rough Trade in that period. Even better were the daft b-sides, generally comprising bedroom records from as early as 1975; either surreal attempts at acoustic songs or sprawling improvisations that were akin to free jazz without the brass section. Wastrels and Whippersnappers is a solid collection of these lost fragments of inspired insanity, from the days before the band emerged in public. As you’d imagine the sound quality is muddy at best and certain of the more meandering exercises don’t really go anywhere, but early takes on Dresden Style, Full Moon and especially Harmony in Your Bathroom make this worth the price of admission, along with the more experimental and, frankly, daft bits of esoterica that also appear. The really sad thing about Swell Maps is that the early, untimely deaths of Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks mean there will never be a late payday for this band from the nostalgia punk set. It is time for a proper reappraisal of what these West Midlands Dadaists actually achieved.

My other purchase was the even more obscure and utterly cacophonous Detailed Twang by The Door and The Window. Initially a duo of non-musicians whose art was based on abusing instruments to make a hideous din, The Door and The Window’s debut single contained 4 dollops of atonal yammering, with the second side an absolute delight, containing their undoubted career highlights; Don’t Kill Colin and Worst Band, in which they admitted to being “worse than The Skids.” This latter track is revisited on Detailed Twang, by which time they’d grown to a trio with the addition of Mark Perry, fresh from the savaging his Vibing up the Senile Man Alternative TV offshoot under the name The Good Missionaries had endured in the music press. Perry brought fresh ideas and a synth he’d apparently found in a bin, which allowed The Door and The Window to get even more challenging. Indeed, highlights such as Dads and the cathartic He Feels Like a Doris are a fairly punishing listen. In truth, it doesn’t have the immediacy of the first, long-unavailable EP, but I’m very glad to have something by them in my collection.

I was also immensely glad to have seen Teenage Fanclub perform Bandwagonesque and Thirteen at the Barrowlands at the end of October, especially as I was with Ben for this one. When the tickets went on sale for the 4 sets of 3 nights, with Grand Prix and Songs from Northern Britain making up the second night and Howdy plus a collection of b-sides for the final evening, it was when I was at my most impecunious; I simply couldn’t afford tickets and I’ll regret the fact I was unable to see all 3 evenings forever. The news that Gerry Love would be leaving the band after these dates, because of his reluctance to tour, made these evenings even more poignant. Circumstances helped me; the tragic fire at the Glasgow School of Art meant the ABC, originally slated as the venue, was out of commission. Hence, the shows were moved to Barras, resulting in more tickets, with everything shunted back a night as Sleaford Mods (precisely…) were playing there on the intended first night. My dear friend Peter could no longer make the gigs and I took the Monday one from him, got one of the newly released ones for Ben, booked a hotel so far up the West End I thought I was in Oban and purchased the train tickets.

Monday afternoon we journeyed to Glasgow. Bags dropped in the hotel, we headed for a bite to eat in the Thirteenth Note and then to Mono to meet the gang: Macca, Terje, Ruthie, Janet, Kerry, Mickey; all those wonderful people I’ve met far too infrequently over the years at Fannies gigs. We drank beer and caught up, before heading to the Barras for the gig. Sold out, of course.

I’d seen Bandwagonesque performed twice before; at the Kentish Town Forum in July 1996 and at this iconic venue in September of that year. Undoubtedly, it is their spiritual home; a marvellous, atmospheric amphitheatre ideal for the best fucking band in the world. In the first half, Guiding Star and Is This Music? were the absolute show-stoppers; chiming guitars and the perfect balance of lightness and depth. Goodness knows how they’ll cope without Gerry; presumably Dave will get an even harder paper round.

Thirteen is my favourite TFC album; that opening salvo of Hang On, The Cabbage, Radio, Norman 3 and Song to the Cynic are unbeaten by any record I know of. Those hidden gems Escher and Tears Are Cool deserve plaudits too, but what more appropriate song than the incomparable Gene Clark could mark the passing of the latest phase in the career of a band I love so much? Teenage Fanclub are simply beyond criticism; everything they do is perfect to my ears. How I hope this next phase continues to do their name justice.

That is not something I worry about when I think of British Sea Power. Saturday 10^th November at the Boilershop was my ninth time of seeing them at 8 different venues; 5 gigs and 5 places for Ben. Talking, as we were, about superb openings, how about an opening trio of first singles from successive albums, in the shape of Machineries of Joy, Who’s in Control? and Bad Bohemian. Typical of BSP, the mood changed with 4 new numbers in a row. Soon the atmosphere was cranked back up with Remember Me and No Lucifer, heralding the arrival of Ursos Actis and Bi-Polar Bear. Sometimes British Sea Power gigs are more like a family wedding, but in a good sense; everyone dances and everyone leaves in a far happier frame of mind than when they arrived. The euphoric, anthemic closing Great Skua makes that compulsory. However, and I’ve said this before, the sheer joy of Waving Flags almost breaks my heart. It was released to celebrate the arrival of our friends from EU accession states. Nearly a decade and a half later it has turned into a positive anachronism; an emblem to lost days of social cohesion. Yes, it does break my heart.