Folk Brittania
I've had a strongly folk-themed week in a "bloke-in-a-media-bubble" kind of way. I've not exactly been writing slogans on my acoustic guitar or smoking gitanes in coffee shops. Not been protesting about Pershing or Cruise. I've had plenty of baths. I just bought this CD box set in a record store and went to a concert.
The box set is awesome, but CD one is so flipping great that I've got stuck on it (spangly troubadour bizniss), only just venturing onto the second disc. It's been put together by this guy David Wells, and greater authorities than me have made assurances as to its comprehensiveness. Highlights thus far have to be The Ian Campbell Folk Group's cover version of "Dirty Old Town". Did you know Ian Campbell was Ali and Robin of UB40's father? There's some kind of micro-history/theory right there. People complain about "Dirty Old Town", about how it's all worn out. But I remember liking The Pogues's version, and I heard The Dubliners version recently as well and I liked that too. The whole poetry of it I find irresistible, the idea of the smell of the spring wafting into the city, the natural's casual, ever-so-subtle victory over the man-made.
Also I like the Hamish Imlach. I'd *always* wanted to hear some Imlach ever since John Martyn spoke about him in the same breath as Skip James. I believe Martyn took lessons from him. There's a funky quality to "Clive's Song", Imlach leans into some notes, pulls back from others. Last night I heard the faintly awful act King Creosote (yeah I'm sorry I didn't like them, let's hope they don't get upset like ol' R Stevie Moore) and then one song caught my ear, and even though the vocalist sounded like a janitor from a sitcom I found myself digging it. Then it slowly dawned on me that it was Imlach's "Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice". Wow that's a nice tune.....
The rest of the evening was a huge downer. I just hated Adem, god what plodding and caterwauling! Max Richter who produced the new Vashti LP was horribly precious with his laptop and string quartet, like an updated Philip Glass, not nice. Apologetic yanks Currituck & Co emerge from the Devandra Banhart hegemony. I guess they were OK, they did a post-Patty Waters take on Nina Simone's "Black is the color of my true love's hair" forging some nice bits of almost soukous-y guitar scaffolding. They triumph for me cos I have more truck with the The Wire-ish vision of neo-folk than the fRoots thing. Even if Devandra Banhart does next to nothing for me whatsoever.
Looking forward to the old people I was a bit mystified as to where Bert Jansch went? I fear he may have played a very early set. Mike Heron I was really pleased to see on stage. He carries a huge grin which is obviously tempered by a whole lotta livin'. Most of these other folky dudes were a bunch of pussies. If you've nothing but an acoustic guitar and some congas to prop you up you need to have something pretty flinty to offer. Too many of them make what Flashos, in his infinite wisdom, described as "crying music", it's all very well making music which makes people cry but only a weed would start off with the assumption that he wanted his audience to cry. It has to be unintentional. Mike, who I now suspect to be Vashti's husband, was joined by his daughter Georgia, and they were OK until the last track The Incredible String Band's "The Hedgehog's Song" when sparks flew, and they rocked.
I was beginning to dread Vashti's performance. I needn't have cos she was great. What a lovely, bewitching, almost hilariously modest lady. The volume dropped about 10 decibels, everyone playing as quiet as they could. The new songs were nearly the equal of the old ones. Fun like Vashti performing the song Jagger and Richard wrote for her with a little wiggle. Actually prompting me to really invest in my Vashti as Rolling Stones-in-a-separate-universe idea. I love Vashti with a passion. People have criticized me recently for forsaking Nick Drake for "A Diamond Day", I have this to say to those people: You're a bunch of emotionally stunted cloth-eared clods.