Vox-DylanXmasReviewPic

Christmas In The Heart/Bob Dylan

Well, the new Bob Dylan album arrived in the post today so I downloaded it on to my iPod and took a listen as I walked the dog around the local cemetery. Blue sky above and not a hint of snow on the ground, but though it might have been early autumn in the air, soon enough it was -- as the album title proclaims – Christmas in the Heart.

What immediately struck me – well, not immediately, but what started to dawn on me by the second or third song and was clear by the fourth – was that this is not just a little dashed off side project. Like it or not, the

emotional commitment that Dylan has given to these songs makes Christmas In The Heart very much the new Bob Dylan album.

For many of Bob's fans, certain albums – Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61, Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, Slow Train Coming, Saved, Shot of Love – were too associated with something they hated (rock & roll, country, schmaltz, Christianity) for them to want or be able to appreciate the albums for themselves. 

You can add Christmas In The Heart to that list.

Those who cannot accept the fact that Bob might want to have such an album in his catalogue – as Bing Crosby, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington and  many other of his favourite singers have done -- will find the album a closed door. But for anyone else, it could be a small delight.

A Twitter review of the album might be "Bing beyond the grave" – 13 of the 15 songs on the album have been recorded by Bing Crosby, and Bob's weather-beaten croon is at times not unlike the Old Groaner.

To those who have not dismissed the album out of hand but sill find it hard to take seriously, all I would say is listen to the musicians (Bob's road crew plus David Hidalgo and a few others); the really very fine melodies of

these carols and popular tunes; the instrumental and vocal harmony arrangements that both recapture the slick 1940s/50s studio sounds that Bob grew up with and breathe life into them, humanizing them; the battered and tattered voice sometimes flaring and phlegming up but still hitting all the notes -- and singing with the same intense intimacy that he invested in A Simple Twist of Fate. (Much is made of Bob's ruin of a voice nowadays but it should be noted that he sings with a range of more than one and a half octaves on this album, significantly more than the likes of Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young would be able to manage.)

And then there's Must Be Santa. Bob has often talked about his love for polka... and with this manic – yet always controlled – performance you can see why. I wonder what the world would have done if back in 1965 Bob had mixed his folk lyrics and surreal verse with a polka outfit like the one backing him here instead of a rock & roll band. Would we have booed? And a couple of years later would we then have had psychedelic polka (polka dot?), hard polka, and back-to-the-old-country rootsy polka in Woodstock?

Who knows? What we do have is a rollicking old-time Christmas album that should thaw the Scrooge in anyone's heart, with all of Bob's royalties going to feeding the hungry, through the World Food Programme and Crisis UK. It's available in three formats: CD, deluxe CD (in a slipcase with five Christmas cards) and (released in November) vinyl.

Matthew Zuckerman

Matthew used to write for the Bath Chronicle. A true Dylan fan and an authority on all matters Dylan. We are hoping that he will be become a regular guest contributor.

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Vox-ArbouretumLive

On The Road With ElectricGhost
Like A Hurricane
Arbouretum Live at The Lexington, London July 27th

All Photography: Marzena Ostromecka

Dave Heumann (guitar vocals); Steve Strohmeier (guitar);
Corey Allender (bass); Daniel Franz (drums)

Review: Lee Edwards

The Lexington, is a London music venue and lounge bar with a dash of burlesque elegance and speakeasy Americana. I have just finished interviewing Dave Heumann in a local park. It gives us the peace and quiet that we need for the interview. Now it’s back to the mayhem of the venue. People are gathering and it’s filling up. As I go to order food I discover that the growing crowd is for a pub quiz, which is also happening tonight. The gig will kick of at about 8pm upstairs. Marzena has headed off to a friend for a break and some food.

Refreshed I head upstairs and meet up with Marzena who is of finding good angles to the shoot the band. The supports Kurran & The Wolftones and The Goldheart Assembly. Both of whom are OK but I’m impatient for the main attraction.

Dave Heuman, Steve Strohmeier, Corey Allender and Daniel Franz troop onstage with an unassuming grace giving us no clue that all hell is about to break loose.

From the kick of with the majestic Another Hiding Place they fire up the otherwise laidback London audience who like me can barely believe my ears. The stellar guitar interplay between Heumann and Strohmeier is at the core of their sonic attack. We are in the midst of an electric maelstrom with raging sheets of sound and crystalline melodic psychedelic wooziness that brings to brings to mind an unholy alliance between Crazy Horse and The Grateful Dead. The rhythm section of Allender and Franz are an integral part of their cohesive sound.

Arbouretum Guitar Repair

Towards the end Heumann’s guitar strings give up the ghost and guitarist Strohmeier gives us an impromptu rendition of the classic song Cocaine whilst Heumann does onstage repairs. Magical.

Arbouretum are quite possible the best live band on the planet at the moment. The leave me, and the audience, totally shell-shocked. You have to catch them if you can.

Arbouretum-Live02

David Heumann Interview

On The Road With ElectricGhost
Pearls In The Trees
Arbouretum at The Lexington, London
Interview July 27th

All Photography: Marzena Ostromecka

Dave Heumann / Arbouretum

Interview: Lee Edwards

The Lexington, is a London music venue and lounge bar with a dash of burlesque elegance and speakeasy Americana. It’s here that I meet Anthea who runs the London office of Arbouretum’s record label Thrill Jockey. She helpful and friendly and easily helps us set up an interview with Dave Heumann (vocals/guitar), who seems to be the spokesperson for the band. We are going to record the interview and when I suggest we need a quiet space for this Dave, who’s interests outside music include photography and botany, suggests a local nearby park. So on a lovely early summer evening in a sun-dappled enclosure of trees we talk.

What led you to choose Arbouretum as your band’s name?
Well it was kinda a long time ago. I guess I just liked the sound of the word and the connection to trees. I’ve always like to spend a fair amount of time outdoors. So it was a natural choice really, and I hadn’t heard of a band that had used it. But even so we put an extra ‘u’ in there to make sure that nobody was going to use it. It also symbolised making the music organic sounding – it was over structured. So it was like a reaction against music that I thought was over structured.

What literary or musical influences inspired you to write songs?
It changes all the time and is kinda whatever I’m interested in. There’s more literary influences going on with Rites of Uncovering [their previous album] than Song Of The Pearl [current album]. It’s just what I’m drawing from at the moment. Song Of The Pearl was more songs that had to do with people that I knew. I put myself in their situations and writing a song about that, or just imagining fictional narratives from scratch. Then creating a story from that. Then there is Loose Spring, which is very loosely based on a swimmer. Burt Lancaster played the guy in the movie.

You are often described as being very English sounding. Is it intentional or did it just come out that way?
Yeah it was intentional. I think both of those records have a fair amount of English influence, mostly from the sixties and seventies folk stuff.

Any particular stuff?
Yeah Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard and Linda Thompson and Bert Jansch to a certain extent.

You hail from Baltimore. I recently saw a TV documentary about the troubles in Baltimore, also Baltimore become well know here for a programme call The Wire. Have you ever had a song played on the programme?
We’ve never had any music in the programme. I gave one of the production assistants a CD. Maybe that will happen.

It’s been said that Arbouretum is a resource for you and your song writing, but I get the feeling that you come across as a band.  
Yeah that’s true. All the arrangements are collectively organised. It’s not just me call all the shots. We all work out at band practice and come with ways to play the stuff. So it changes a lot from my original idea how it ends up.

You’re over here doing the tour that was postponed from earlier this year presumably promoting Songs From The Pearl.  
Yeah but I like to look at touring as more than just supporting a record. Every night we try to do the best set we can do. We’re not really thinking that we got to play all the songs from a certain record. The most important thing is to make good music.

It feels like the four of you are going to be around as Arbouretum for the foreseeable future. 
Yeah who knows really but I’ve definitely been enjoying it. I’d like to see it continue but it’s not up to me…well not entirely up to me.

You don’t bring in loads of guest musicians and fancy arrangements does that feed into what you said earlier about wanting to be more organic? 
We have brought in some guest musicians but I think it has to do with if the song doesn’t call for it then we’re not going to do it. The next record coming out has loads of guest musicians but only because the songs seem to require it.

You seem to capture a very live feel on your albums.
Well that was intentional and we were all in the same room at the recording. We were all able to make eye contact, which I think was really important for the music that came out it.

So over the period of the albums what is your take on how the band has developed or changed?
I think there’s more a feeling of identity. The band has crystallised more and more. Especially with this line-up where everyone understands where the music is coming from. It’s not like a musician contributing, but they might as well be doing anything. This is like a musician in Arbouretum, this is how we do things. There’s that common understanding.

What were you doing prior to Arbouretum?
I was running a lot of bands that, for one reason or another, never stayed together long enough to put a record out. I was always in bands and writing songs for those bands. Lyrics have always been important and over time I have got better at. I do some collaborations as well, there’s a guy, a really good friend of mine Rob Wilson, that I sometimes work with.

On your current record you close with a Dylan cover [Tomorrow Is A Long Time] I wondered what he think of it.
I’m not sure if he’s heard it.

Actually whilst I know Dylans work very well I couldn’t guess with out checking the track information which was the Dylan cover. It sounded like you could have written it.
That’s really nice to hear.

Is doing the occasional cover something you might feature again?
Yeah sure I like cover songs. It can be a real challenge to cover a song well. It has to be someone who means a lot to me or it doesn’t work.

Have you had any thoughts about the follow up to Song Of The Pearl.
Vague thoughts. I’m going to work on it over the next couple of months. Take some time off from the band. We could have something ready for next Spring maybe.

How do you fell about being labelled doom folk?
Oh it’s fine. At first I was like were not doom folk, but now I don’t care. The only problem is that it’s limiting. It doesn’t capture all the aspects of what we do. It just a tag to hang onto something. I guess it’s OK if it helps people to identify us with something rather than nothing at all. But were not exactly that. We’re more than that.

I'd say you remind me of Arbouretum actually.
Oh that's a good way of putting it. [laughter]

Songs Of The Pearl seems like a more visceral album
Yeah and that has to do with the people in the band. What works for us in a live situation and then wanting to capture it on record.

So it’s really a collaborative effort.
Yeah even if it’s me writing stuff I hope these guys will like. That's part of it too.

I’m always intrigued when musicians do something other than music as well. For example Captain Beefheart was also painter. Your photography is very natural and organic. Is this something that you do regularly, a passion? 
Fairly regularly yeah. I like to back and forth between photography and musical ideas, it helps stimulate my creativity.

The Pearl album has a photo with a weird pyramid-like house on it. Where did that come from?  
Well that was kind of an accident. I was taking a picture of the house and I’d forgotten to rewind this picture of the moon I’d the night before in the attic window. [laughter] Then I thought Oh that’s neat. The I showed it to Cory [Allender, bass player] and he thought it was perfect so we used it. I find o lot of similarities between working with photography and making music. The one thing I like about photography is that there are no presuppositions attached to it. I’m not supposed to be good at it, so it frees me up to experiment a little bit more. Like with Arbouretum I’ve been playing guitar for twenty-three years so I have to be a good guitar player. [laughter] But I’ve only been taking photos for a couple of years so all bets are off. 

Then something about going to eat and the gig. 

LowAnthemLiveReview

On The Road With ElectricGhost
The Low Anthem
Union Chapel, Islington, London June 23rd

Ben Miller

vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, drum kit, pump organ, trumpet, E flat horn, and rack harp.

Jeffrey Prystowsky

bass, drum kit, vocals, pump organ, and acoustic guitar.

Jocie Adams

clarinet, vocals, pump organ, drum kit, electric guitar, and bass.

All Photography: Marzena Ostromecka
Review: Lee Edwards

After the interview was concluded we made our way back to the main hall. In our absence the pews had filled up and there was a hushed expectation. The stage was filled with an exotic array of instruments including a WW1 pump organ. This is the UK launch of the band's new album Oh My God, Charlie Darwin.

The kick of with a track from their first album What The Crow Brings, The Ballad of the Broken Bones; “Tell me who was it told you 'bout the broken bones, The broken bones in the sky,
'Cause I've been all over the whole goddamn world, And over the world am I”. The haunting sound of the pump organ introduces the sublime Cage The Songbird. The 500 person audience is enraptured.

I am please that they include one of my personal favourites Ticket Takers. This seems to be about what Miller refers to as the coming darkness, “…I keep a stock of weapons should society collapse,
I keep a stock of amo…” The inclusion of To Ohio, a ballad of bereavement, makes me think of the innocence and hope of Simone Felice’s song One More American Song. Classics both of them.

During the songs there is much swapping around instruments. Also during many of the up tempo hollering songs Jocie’s vocals are particularly strong. They finish up with a majestic version of Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and new song.

Thus ends an utterly delightful evening of magical songs from some of the nicest musicians I have met in long time. The Low Anthem are utterly unique, long may they run.

DukeAndKingLiveReview

On The Road With ElectricGhost
The Duke and the King Live
Bush Hall, Shepherds Bush, London May 26th

The band with Simone and Robert are Nowell Haskins (son of Fuzzy Haskins - Parliament/Funkadelic) on percussion and vocals, Jason Darling (guitar), Brian Goss (guitar/keys) and Leon (bass)

All Photography: Keith Wheeler
Review: Lee Edwards

After the interview Keith and I went of to get some food. On our return we eagerly awaited The Duke And King. We were not sure what to expect. The album has a very mellow relaxed flavour. Simone in his time with The Felice Brothers has a wildman reputation – hanging above the stage, wild-eyed and shirtless, from a monitor in the ceiling of the 100 Club.

When the band appears and Simone straps on a black Stratocaster it seems that mellow and relaxed is the last thing on his mind. They kick off with a Felice Brothers song Don’t Wake The Scarecrow with Simone coming on like a cross between Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop. So here we have Simone mountaineering on the drum kit, which Robert is hitting with some ferocity and the rest of the band weighing with an electric storm and some amazing gospel vocals.

Water Spider from the new album takes the volume down a bit. Then it’s onto the drums for Simone for the soulful Suzanne with Robert on lead vocals. At one point He shouts “take it” at one of the guitarists who unleashes a spine tingling solo.

The Devil Is Real has Simone back on vocals, coming on like a hellfire preacher. Union Street and Lose Myself, album favourites are as achingly beautiful live as they are on record.

Then its back to the Felice Brothers canon for a fiery T For Texas. Back to Nothing Gold Can Stay for The Morning I Got To Hell. After two more Felice Brothers songs it’s one of my personal favourites from NGCS One More American Song. This song already feels like a classic and highlights Simone’s genius as a poet and songwriter.

Rounding the evening off we have a rousing, Felice Brothers favourite, Radio Song and a heartfelt version of the Beatles Don’t Let Me Down.

A great evening in front of an appreciative audience. Can’t wait to see them again 

Duke&KingInterview

On The Road With ElectricGhost
The Road Less Travelled
The Duke and The King at Bush Hall, Shepherds Bush
Interview May 26^th

All Photography: Keith Wheeler
Review: Lee Edwards

Simone Felice [The Duke], Robert Burke [The King]

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost

They were just finishing their soundcheck, and then we departed upstairs to an open balcony above Bush Hall to the intoxicating street sounds and tantalising food smells. As I set up we got talking about the poet Robert Frost who inspires the album title Nothing Gold Can Stay and some of the lyrical content in the album.

Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost OK?
Simone: You’re the first cat to pick upon that. That’s amazing man.

Tom [Loose Music] sent me an early cut of the album
Robert: You’ve already heard the album?

Yeah, but lets start where I came across you first [Simone] with the Felice Brothers, and that was through Loose as well. Really loved those albums. This new stuff is really different.
Simone: Really different, we’re pretty different.

Indeed [laughter] so how would you define that difference?
Simone: I didn’t really think much about it but the thing that is the tie between The Felices and The Duke And The King is the religious dedication to poetry. The storytelling. When I first started the band that was the crux of the thing before we could even play an instrument. I just cared about the poetry. So that’s the tie the difference it’s hard for me to say maybe the King [Robert Burke] can help with that.
Robert: What I would say about this project is that it’s a little bit more psychedelic a little more tender. There’s more of an easy danger to it as opposed to an overt danger to it. But there are moments on the Duke and King record when we could go there. It’s more of an internalised sensitive thing.
Simone: We wanted to write a record that was really self exploratory and self-revealing and honest. Really this is how we feel and be honest with ourselves and very therapeutic to say [sings] Woowo I’ve been Bad” like he means that when he sings it. If You Ever Get Famous that was me sittin’ and playing one morning and thinking about the girl I love and I just started to cry on my guitar. And we’re playing all these venues like Bonaroo and getting famous you know. So from playing Sex Pistol’s cover in my grandmother’s garage when I was thirteen and then playing the CBGBs, and skipping school in New York, you know what I mean. All the things we’ve done individually and together to now. It was like maybe six or seven or eight months ago I sat down and wrote If You Ever Get Famous and that was the thing that started the whole poetry of the album. It was like fuck man this world is spinning fast, all our days are so many waves in the wind and we can’t get them back again so let’s do what our heart tells us and not what anybody else tells us. So it’s kinda following the voice in out hearts and that’s what’s brought us to this balcony.

The other thing that really struck me was that I was really touched, on going to your MySpace page and you had put out this beautiful open letter about why you hadn’t been playing with the Felice Brothers and what happened on that winter. It really touched me that someone could be that open and honest. I already like your music but that made you really shoot up even more in my estimation. This guy’s has got real grit and real honesty and I can trust what I’m hearing him say.
Simone: Thanks man.

…And that’s what I hear in The Duke And The King.
Simone: The King was there the day I had to go to the hospital and my partner and I had to deliver our baby and she was dead. Eight months into the pregnancy. We had to hold our first baby, a daughter I really love, and I saw my face in the baby’s face. I saw my own eyes and my features, and it changed my life. I was in the middle of recording the record and a lot of the spirit and energy went into the album. It shook me to the core. This new project is spawned out of our loves for each other all our loves our love for music soul music, poetry and rock n roll; and sort of this rebirth. When I had the voice in my head four years ago saying “come on boys let’s go play in the subway and learn how to be a rock n roll band” and now it’s the same voice pointing me in another direction man. You know this is what you gotta do. I’ve never been one, as the King can attest, not to listen to that inner voice. I’ve never had a proper job. I was a hustler, a drug dealer when I was 25 years old. I did that so I could play music and write poetry. It’s like whatever we had to do to stay out of that man’s world you know and not wear a suit and tie. We could just be free.

When I was listening to the album one of the songs that struck me was the song Suzanne and I could the voice of Marvin Gaye in there. I love Marvin Gaye.
Simone and Robert: So do we he’s one of our guys.

Then when I came across the Robert Frost connection I thought yeah these guys are on the same fuckin’ page you know. Tom had sent us the album was really nervous because he knew we were really into the Felice Brothers and what might we make of this. But it was the honesty in that open letter that came across and when Tom asked me if I liked it I said, “Are you fuckin’ kidding I fuckin love that album.”
Simone: We are honoured and moved by that.
Robert: We spent a lot of time crying together in the cabin [the snow-bound cabin where the album was conceived and recorded] and those tears permeate the album.
Simone: We used and antique tape machine and we know you get that you really know music. You ain’t no hipster blogger from Wiliamsburg Brooklyn and that’s what I love about you man. You get us. [Laughter]. The Pitchfork review, man they don’t get us. [Laughter]

Your’re here with a band tonight.
Simone: We have a six/seven piece band.
Robert: They’re all really close friends of ours from New York.
Simone: All soul brothers no hired guns. Everyone’s here because they believe in the music.

But was the album just you and Robert?
Simone: 95 per cent was us with some guests. We were holed up in the cabin all winter with the big Catskills snows coming. Three feet sometimes. We were happy to be locked away from the world and have the money not to give a fuck what’s going on outside that cabin. [laughter]. ‘Cos if you don’t have the support to just let go completely its really hard to just let go totally.
Robert: We really appreciate we had that kind of support.

But it’s almost something they could have made a movie about. Two guys snowbound in a cabin and what happens. 
Simone: Now that would be one hell of a movie. [laughter]

I was just saying this afternoon to someone that music has got me through stuff like nothing else has. 
Simone: That’s a really beautiful thing to say.

Dylan’s If You See Her Say Hello 
Simone: sings “She might be in Tangiers”

Music to me is as important as oxygen.
Simone: “I know I can find you in somebody’s room, You’ll make it through because you’re a big girl now.” That one fucks me up. I’m in love now, but any time that I‘ve been in love with a girl… Yeah music is a drug and so is poetry. Without them I’d be dead.

I came to your music via The Felice Brothers. You are apparently on extended leave from them. How do you see that panning out.
Simone: I try to live in the moment you know what I mean. We had a beautiful joining together my brothers and I sitting by the creek and playing songs that had people throwing dimes and dollars in the accordion box. That was a beautiful journey and my brothers have a certain vision about what to do with Felice Brothers for the future. See like for a long time I was like the manager of The Felice Brothers right, but before that I was a poet. So it was like a blessing and a curse that I had this aptitude to be a manager. So my poetry took a back seat to all that management stuff. So when things started really happening we got a real manager in Nashville and a booking agent. Then I didn’t have to do that anymore and my heart and mind and soul was open again to be a poet. Then there I am with my dead baby in my hands thinking that I’ve just got to do what I’ve got to do. Following that voice. So whilst my brothers and I absolutely love each other we’ve each got to do what we need to do. But we’ll all get together in the future and rock n roll together. But what I’m doing now is what I’ve got to do.

I always got the feeling that brotherhood was really important to you.
Simone: Yeah well when the King and I put together the new band we agreed it had to be brothers. I was coming from a place where there was three brothers in a family.
Robert: We go back maybe ten to twelve years and from the first day we met we were brothers. Started doing creative things together, just working together. This way this came together was that Nowell [son of Fuzzy Haskins ­– Parliament/Funkadelic] and I used to work together in Parliament/Funkadelic camp like we’ve had other projects we’ve done and we had formed a real connection in singing and playing together. It’s often hard to find someone you want to make music with but when you do its special. And I met my man here Leon [bass] with another band and he was playing with another band. And I really liked his playing and said I got this other bunch of musicians and I know your gonna dig ‘em. So I told Simone about him. The he came along just an hour before a radio show it’s like wow. The Duke and the King is just as much brothers as the Felice Brothers.

I really like that its hard to pin you down, you defy definition. 
Simone: Yeah we hope so. We believe in magic man. Any ideas about what we are we’ll blow it away on stage tonight.

It’s been a real pleasure to spend some time talking with you guys 
Simone and Robert: Yeah we really enjoyed meeting you too.

LowAnthemInterview

On The Road With ElectricGhost
Evolutionary Blues.
The Low Anthem at Union Chapel, Islington, London
Interview June 23rd

All Photography: Marzena Ostromecka
Review: Lee Edwards

Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky and Jocie Adams

The Union Chapel is a beautiful venue both sonically and visually. I arrive with friends and we grab ourselves a pew at the front. The band has gone to eat. The evening begins and Marzena and I wait form the call to meet the band. Eventually we are called through to a calm and peaceful open-air courtyard, which is perfect for our conversation. I am initially joined by Ben and Jeff.

I’m always intrigued by how bands name themselves and I wonder how you got to the Low Anthem.
Ben: Well there were lots of other band names first. The ones that I can immediately rattle of are Hi This is Otis, that didn’t last very long, Roscoe and The Cello Armada… oh and Sneak Wagon. So the Anthem is a kind of song that puts a root into the ground. Sort of like a hitching post for some identity whether it be a national anthem or the song you sing at a baseball game. A song that drops an anchor somewhere in the world and so many of them are not low [laughter], so many of them are quite bombastic. I’ve never answered this question and I’m sure whether what I’m saying is true but I’m just winging it. We had a lot of band names so we just set ourselves down in a room to say we need to have one band name. We were changing our name every two weeks and it was incoherent. Then nobody comes to the gig because they’ve never heard of the band. [laughter] After a dozen or so band names we said guys we’re going to pick one that is open to interpretation and this is what we came to.

I see that your formed in 2006 and at first it was just you two guys is that right?
Ben: Well no there’s a lot of different versions of the band. When we started playing professionally it must have been early 2006 and we were a trio. Our other member was named Daniel Lefkowitz. He had just dropped out of school and was looking for something to do. I had met at a guitar workshop. I had been traveling in France that summer working in a vineyard and seeing a bit of the country. He joined the band and we played together for nine months. Wrote a lot of stuff and influenced each others stuff. Then he left and went into other areas of self-discovery. The Jocie came along and had a big influence on the songwriting.
Jeff: The period with Dan, new songs were being written but and Ben and I were arranging a lot of songs. That’s when we learnt to swop around instruments to expand the sound.
Ben: That was really a trial... she enters [Jocie joins us].

So baseball that was a kick off for you guys right? [laughter]. Sorry that was totally unintentional.
Ben: It was one of our first mutual passions. We played on a ball team together at Providence. It was in Connecticut just across the border. That has always been a fairly significant part of our relationship. Jeff is more of a student of the history of baseball.
Jeff: Ben knows more of the current players. [laughter]
Ben: We have great discussions. [laughter] We have had catches in some of the strangest places. [laughter]

So what are your major musical and literary influences?
Ben: The book that most of the songs on Oh My God Charlie Darwin came from… well there’s The Origin Of The Species of course. But also East of Eden, Steinbeck’s book we had all read going into this recording session. Timshel the Hebrew word posted above the mixing console meaning Thou Mayest. As opposed to Thou Do and Thou Shall. Choice and Free Will. So this was a bit of a mantra for us.
Jeff: At the time we were also watching a lot of Obama’s campaign speeches and running around the house chanting “Yes we can”. [laughter]
Ben: The environment and planet earth are both serious influences as well. The albums not directly about global warming and self-destruction but it’s not a far cry from those thoughts. We thought of the album name as we were strolling through the zoo. All God’s creations… [laughter]
Jocie: Making out there in the big old world [laughter]

Something I read in magazine about you was morally agnostic narrative. Does that have meaning for you?
Ben: We have all these stories in folklore and elsewhere that affect our culture and our values. I think the ones we find most beautiful are the ones that don’t pretend there’s a reason why. Just show the beautiful darkness of it all. Jeff is, for example, really into Aesop’s Fables, which he carries around like a pocket bible.
Jeff: It was all the fables I grew up with. Who wins, it’s the one who is well fed. The lessons that are taught are if you’re not clever your going to be eaten by a lion. [laughter]

Two people I know have influenced you are Jack Kerouac and Tom Waits and the only non original song on the album Home I’ll Never Be. I understand its Kerouac’s words with Tom Waits melody.
Ben: It’s actually Kerouac’s melody as well. He [Tom Waits] did collaboration about ten or fifteen years back. He put two versions on the album Orphans, which was a grab of things that got left out over the years. So he had the one that was a beautiful heartbreaking ballad that was recorded straight to a tape recorder set on top of his piano. It sounds like one of those beautiful spontaneous moments. Un-edited, nothing done to flower it up. Then there’s also a more bluesy rendition of it. We love the song. I think the song is emblematic of a lot of American folk music. It has such a central idea of home and… but it’s not looking backwards for home but some going out into the world and looking west for something they can call home. I think it’s all a part of this hopeless ongoing searching for American identity. It’s so beautiful; it’s such an American song to me. We’ve all done our time with Kerouac, brilliant writer. Aside from the craft, the energy the man has as well is just incredible.

As and artist, painter/printmaker as well as a designer and publisher I’m also attracted to the way you produce your albums and use silk-screen. In the age of download do you feel that if you are going to give people some physical make it as beautiful as you can?
Ben: That’s very well put, yeah. Every stroke of the squeegee over the silk-screen, that what we were thinking. [laughter] We did the first two thousand ourselves and a couple of thousand of the previous record. So it was quite an assembly line. It took almost as long as the tracking of the record actually. And then it became quite absurd and we had to hire a local printshop in Providence to do it. But at least we were… In the US release and the limited edition in the UK we were able to get them to hire our Providence company to do it. The first 20,000 in the US are hand-painted and a limited edition of 2,000 in the UK will be hand-painted. What’s the point in slapping something together that someone is just going to throw out anyway. I don’t see the point anymore. I’d rather make a piece of art that people can associate with the music. When you listen to band or a song your always looking for an image. It’s just another platform to make something beautiful.

Ok let’s get this out of the way you being compared to Fleet Foxes. [laughter] I don’t see it myself but… I guess I don’t understand the connections some people make.
Ben: Yeah we’ve been making jokes about this non-stop. [laughter] We thought maybe we should cover some of their songs you know… no I’m just joking. [laughter]. We’re holding the release party here [Union Chapel] where everybody sounds like the Fleet Foxes. With the vaulted ceilings it should be brilliant. [laughter] Just fanning the flames for the press you know. [laughter] I think it’s a really funny point. Seriously I don’t understand it either. I think they’re a fine band. I guess you could say that they’ve paved the way a little bit, at least in this country. It becomes a kind of short hand for referencing this music using falsetto and harmonies. Of course we were making this kind of music long before we knew who Fleet Foxes were.

I am really interested in your choice of musical instruments, which seems unique to you guys. Jocie you play something called crotales can you explain to a non-musician what they are.
Jocie: It’s a set of brass discs that you generally play with a mallet or percussion instrument like a xylophone or glockenspiel, something like that. The plates are circular so they sustain a sound longer and it has this beating quality to it.

In our recent album review we put the word haunting and hollering as this seemed to reflect the two main qualities you convey. They both seem to fit together seamlessly. 
Ben: It takes a certain person to feel genuinely excited by both. For a lot of people one is the foil for the other. Some people really like the rockier songs and they can stomach a couple of quiet one because they know that the rockier will be back. Other people there’s a couple of tracks on the album they have to skip and then it’s brilliant. I guess its odd but we really don’t see much of a difference between them. It’s all the same area for us.  

Well I see it as light and shade and you need both. I like variety. Your first album What The Crow Brings in 2007 Jocie I don’t think you were on that album.
Ben: She was on one track.

As a final question it seem to me that in a world where we are facing great economic and political challenges that you stand out as band there are really real. You seem to fit the age we’re in.   
Ben: I think we live in a time of real chaos where the limits of our politics are becoming evermore clear against the depletion of resources and population growth and global warming. Everybody’s individual efforts to better themselves have snowballed into this just massive chaos that projected into the near future is just going to do things that we can’t even imagine right now. It’s amazing what perspective that puts on the simple stories we were taught as children. All the things about values and what you owe to those around you. Religious values or just even how to live in a society that seem so irrelevant, because there’s some darkness coming.

Daisy Chapman Interview

Daisy Chapman at Komedia Interview April 6th
“It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin." That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.”
(Richard Brautigan: Scarlatti Tilt from Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970)

When you were inspired to be a musician what was the kind of music you were listening too.
It’s a silly answer really. I was inspired to be a musician not because of the music I was listening to but I got a keyboard for my birthday when I was 10 or 11, I think. At 10 I was listening to Kylie Minogue’s first album and I was just re-creating The Locomotion and some Jason Donovan numbers, Mel and Kim that sort of thing. Can’t they were the ones to inspire me be a musician but the keyboard playing was inspired by that time. The when I got more serious about things I started listening to things like Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan women who play piano and sing. I thought that was all I’d be able to do, I never thought I’d find and play with a band. But when I got to University and met a bunch of lads we started listening to Nick Cave, Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen and more recently Elbow and Arcade Fire; very dramatic and arranged music like that. So I was in a band then for 6 to seven years, a band called Soma. It’s was experimental in that we were experimenting with musicians but not the music.

The first thing of yours I came across was Scarlatti Tilt.
…yeah 2004 that was when we formed.

Originally I was due to go to St James Wine Vaults to see the Blood Choir and I couldn’t Sara went to see them anyway because she knows them as well and we’d both been involved in doing a press kit for them. Afterwards I said to her “How were they?” and she said “ they were great but there was this woman Daisy Chapman you have to hear her!” And the rest is history.
Great.

So with this great solo career blossoming what happens to Scarlatti Tilt.
Well when the drummer’s somewhat extended honeymoon ends in May we’ve some UK dates sorted and also Germany. Germany is where our label [Dandyland] is, the label I’m on, they signed Scarlatti Tilt first. So we’ve got two weeks worth of German dates. For personal reasons we may not play again, but who knows in the future. I still want to play with a band in the future.

So as a consummate solo artist what do other musicians bring to the mix for you?
I don’t interchange the songs so much with a band as when I’m solo. It’s a different project entirely. With a band the songs have a lot more balls and guts and I like being less exposed anyway. Sometimes you do feel very at the forefront of everything when you’re on your own. [laughs]

Musicians often tell me that they feel less exposed as well when they do other people’s song, which brings us to your cover of Hallelujah. Cohen recent live version is possible his best version.
Well he’s subject to his own miseries so perhaps he wrote a beautiful song but didn’t realise how beautiful it could be. He’s obviously reassessing his songs now.

So you’ve got an album coming out in the autumn.
Well this going to be a little more adventurous than my last one as I’ve been writing song with a string quartet in mind. It’s all very arranged particularly the string parts. I’m actually spending a lot of time and really working hard on it. Whilst it’s not really make or break if people don’t really like it I’m going to be really upset. With the last one, And There Shall Be None, I was a lot more relaxed. This one will be quite different, more up beat and up-tempo. [since this interview Daisy has uploaded two tracks Madame Jeneva  and Umbrella from the new album The Green Eyed to her MySpace Page which has a very Berlin Cabaret feel. Update July 2009 from Daisy: The Green Eyed is an album exploring guilt, passion and most of all jealousy. Whilst the piano will take centre stage, I've also written for a string quartet who will be punctuating my songs with some energetic lines and beautiful harmonies. With this will be percussion, trumpet, and a host of other little instruments I'm going to play myself.]

I get the feel that there is a slightly Berlin Cabaret feel in your work…  
…well I’ve never been to Berlin or the Cabaret.

…well that’s was my impression anyway.
There is an element of showy type music. I’m classically trained, I grew up on classical music, I played classical piano and I like classical music.  

I was really struck today by the acapella song, using you voice as an instrument you started with, a very dramatic way to begin your set. The words at the end are pretty startling as well.
It wakes people up and that’s why I did it [laughs]

It certainly achieved that [laughter] there were a few jaws hitting the floor, mine included.
It’s actually a short story called The Scarlatti Tilt by Richard Brautigan. It's a tiny short story. [She quotes: "It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin. That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver." It comes from his collection The Revenge of The Lawn.] That’s it the beginning the middle the end. I thought what cool lyrics.

Any thought about what you want to do with your career in the immediate future.
I just want to get as many gigs as possible. Also I was thinking of paying for some PR because they can get you into the magazines and on the radio. It’s so hard to do it yourself. Lots of well paying gigs that don’t shaft you. I mean I don’t think I’m going to get paid much for tonight. CD sales at gigs plus venues that pay well give you a chance to make it work. Whilst I’m not going to go away with much, if any, money from tonight; this has been great gig because the sounds good and the people are nice [Karma Lounge Promotions]. But there’s always the question of how I’m going to pay my rent tomorrow. In Germany it’s a completely different situation, whether you come from Germany or not, they offer you beer all night they give you food. If they don’t do food they give you vouchers for a restaurant next door. They also put you up, because every venue has a flat above it or a flat down the road, and they pay you – it’s just another world!

So Germany seems to have a lot of positives for a lot of artists.
I think when people discover how well you’re treated over there then they don’t look back to be honest. Also I know many German artists who could never play in the UK because they could not afford it.

So are you saying that were not really very well set up in this country to make live music work.
That’s right because there are too many bands. So if I question the conditions like pay etc they can just move onto the next band.

Merchandise like CDs seems to be a positive though. Even though a CD may not sell very well through the standard channels, selling it at a gig is much more successful.
That’s absolutely right but my iTunes sales are pretty good as well. Here again German sales are much better than UK ones.

So in the current economic climate do you think being a musician is a sustainable occupation?
I don’t know. I’m just trying; I’m just really trying. Doing what I know I can do and even if I end up failing I will be able to tell my grandchildren I gave it my best shot. When I gave a up my well paid marketing job to tour the States I took that risk and whist it wasn’t a massive financial success it was a totally cool and brilliant experience.

Dean Owens Interview

Dean Owens at Chapel Arts Centre Interview March 22nd
We spoke in the artists dressing room before Dean and his support treated us to a great evening of fine music.

So you are originally from Edinburgh.
Yes I’m from Leith, which is in Edinburgh. It’s slightly separate from Edinburgh but that’s where I was born and raised.

You started out with this band The Felsons, perhaps you could tell us a bit about them.
We got together for our first album in ’96 I think. Basically it was a bunch of guys who’d been in a pop band called Smile that was going really well. Then as it happens with a young band we broke up and then we got together again, a few years later, as The Felsons. We did three records and we did a stadium tour with a band called The Mavericks. We’ve never really officially broken up and Bob Harris used to play us. Actually, as of a few weeks ago, we decided we’re probably going to get back together again. So it’s still a wee side project.

So how does that link up to today with people like Al Perkins, Will Kimborough and Gen Gunderman [Jayhawks] championing and playing with you?
Well we went to Nashville when as The Felsons we were on tour with The Mavericks and when we were there I met loads of people. Nashville’s a great place, there a real tacky country area but also a lot of really good musicians working there. So I met loads of musicians on trips who said, “If your making a record give us a shout”. So when it came to making Whiskey Hearts I wanted to make it in Nashville because I had such a great pool of musicians there. My previous Album My Town had pulled in all the great Scottish musicians I knew. But this time I really wanted to do something different. I met Will Kimborough at a Steve Earle concert and in fact he came and played on the My Town album.

Your first solo album is the Droma Tapes.
Yeah well Droma is a Loch up in Scotland in the North West. I recorded it in this little cottage there. It’s very much like the campfire tapes. Not really meant to see the light of day, but it did and a lot of people really liked it.

I’ve always felt that the Scottish ballad tradition goes really well with American roots music. Also a lot of Americana bands like Willard Grant Conspiracy have collaborated with Scottish musicians.
Yeah and I obviously went there to make a record and play. What was good was that songs like Raining In Glasgow and The Man From Leith, I knew they had a celtic tinge to them and I didn’t want to do it with local Scottish musicians because I though it was too obvious a way to go. So I thought if I go the Nashville and get people like Al Perkins to play on it then it would bring something else to it. So this album sorta like celtic music with a twang you know.

Yeah that’s the first thing that I noticed that these two elements blended together seamlessly.
That’s good then [laughter]

But essentially I feel it’s the strength of the song that stands out.
That’s right just add a guitar or piano and it’s a good thing.

So what do you feel are your major influences musically?
Well the earliest music I can remember hearing in my house were really basic things like The Beatles, The Stones, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and The Comets, Andy Stewart. My Granny singing On Ma Kelly’s Doorstep; all these things, Bob Marley. Then when I started getting into music one person was John Lennon, I just thought he wrote really great songs; and there was this Scottish band call Aztec Camera. Roddy Frame was their front man and he was really different from the New Romantic stuff that was around at the time. That made me want to go and write songs, listening to people like Lennon and Frame. Then, of course, I really got into country music. Our manager in Smile gave us some records to listen to like Gram Parsons Grievous Angel/GP, he gave me the Jayhawks Hollywood Town Hall and a Doug Sahm compilation. The another friend who ran a record shop in Edinburgh called Hot Wax gave me a Hank Williams record as well. When I listened to them I was just blown away. I was expecting your average ‘cowboy hat’ country but this was really great song-writing. I mean Al Perkins was playing on the Gram Parsons album and then here he was playing on mine that was an unbelievable thrill.

And Al Perkins really brings a distinctive flavour to the album.
When Al came into the studio I basically said to him “you’ve been around the West Coast you know sunny twangy music can you bring a wee bit of that sunshine into my record?” Then I just let him go with it and we did like three takes and kept everything. His playing on it was so bloody good that, at one point I just wanted to have an instrumental version. I didn’t want to hear my voice on it I just wanted to hear Al Perkins soloing.

Let's face it he is a legend.
He’s certainly a legendary steel player. There’s not that many of them really. He’s played with just about everyone. And Will Kimbrough’s a really fantastic guitar player, very inventive. He just brings so much energy to any room he’s in. He also a great singer and song-writer as well.

As a song-writer are there writers of any type you are drawn to.
Well I really like a lot of American writers which is why, I guess, so inspired by American music and landscape. I love Steinbeck and Richard Yates, Larry McMurty; I mean there’s loads of them. My favourite book of all time is Steinbeck’s East of Eden. I read a lot and also I love movies, old American westerns. So I’ve always been drawn to the American landscape, which is why I’ve travelled there so much. I now have a wee old Airstream trailer because I really fell in love with the desert. My folks are really mystified by this love affair. My mum will “but there’s nothing there” [laughter]. I think that’s the whole point of it. I love being in that landscape, being in the desert. I’m really drawn to the American way, but I’m not drawn to American politics. It’s not so bad now but several years ago I was really embarrassed when they had that arsehole George Bush as President. Now hopefully things will improve.

Irvine Welsh has said some really nice things about you.
Which I’m really grateful for. He’s used some of my stuff in his work. To be honest I was a little surprised, but very pleased [laughs], that he likes my stuff so much.

So what is exciting you musically now?
I’m really enjoying Fleet Foxes and Midlake at the moment. Also a guy called Ben Kweller whose stuff is a real throw back to The Burritos Brothers and Gram Parsons. Also all the great old records like Elvis Costello and all that stuff.
.

Bellowhead2009Interview

Komedia Bath February 18th 2009
They've just finished their soundcheck and I head of somewhere quiet with Andy Mellon (trumpet), Paul Sartin (fiddler/oboist) and Jon Boden (fiddler/singer). The review of that gig appeared in ElectricGhost Issue 14. Here a little later than anticipated is the results of our pre-gig chat.

What’s the origin of the name Bellowhead
Jon: Well bellows as being in melodeon and John [Spiers] and I called our second album Bellow…
Paul: …and also a lot of English bands have the suffix on the them like Motorhead and Radiohead…
Jon: …and we’re somewhere between Motorhead and Radiohead, positioning ourselves like that
Um yeah OK [laughter].
Paul: Well that’s the most coherent response your going to get to that.

OK. I have always been interested in how you’ve named things like your album Burlesque which seems to reflect the theatrical part of your identity. It seems to me that almost from day one you had your musical approach sorted.
Jon: Well not really although I guess there elements of it from the first set. Material that me and John [Spiers] did that we arranged for the big band. Originally quite folky but then it expanded, we noticed what was working and what wasn’t.
Paul: Well I think also as we gelled as a group from a bunch of individual into a band we all felt more confident to bring elements of ourselves to the mix. We have such a wide variety of experience and players its inevitable we’ve bought in the brass band and jazzy stuff for example. As the music has become more varied it’s also become more Bellowhead.

Apparently you [Jon Boden] and John Spiers initiated this idea for a big band whilst stuck on the M25 motorway, or is that just an urban myth?
Jon: Well that’s where the controversy lies John thinks it’s the M25 but I think it’s the M1. [laughter]

Do you find an influence in other English ensembles like Bonzo Dog Doodah Band and Temperance Seven?
Jon: Well we’re certainly English and eccentric. This has arisen before. I’ve never heard of these bands and far as I know no one else is a big fan of theirs. It seem very interesting that we have referenced various bands, also like John Tam’s Home Service that we don’t know very well.

Well I can see that because both the Home Service and also The Albion Band have done stuff in the theatre and used brass. I‘ve also read that your fan base ranges from The Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Frank Skinner, which is pretty varied. [laughter]  On to the new album Matachin. The word is defined as traditional but dangerous, that kind of sums you up doesn’t it?
Andy: Well we had a girl pass out to the words of The Widows Curse recently. Or maybe it was it was too hot [laughter] we haven’t quite worked that out yet.

Mind you whole new array of folk music we’ve got like yourselves Mawkin Causley, Jim Moray and so on, there seems to be something quite full blooded as opposed to the old folk scene which seems to be a bit po-faced and proper and playing the tunes right. You guys seem to have fun.
Andy: Well we haven’t got an issue with playing the tunes right because it doesn’t matter [laughter].
Jon: And also as fiddlers we have quite different fiddle styles. We’ve tried to sit down and unify styles and I think that does give it a freer feel.
Paul: Also we’re the first generation of folkies that have felt secure about it. Previous generation have more concerned with keeping the music going and make sure it doesn’t die out. We feel everything’s been recorded that can be, everything is secure now lets take the ball and run with it and push the envelope a bit.
 
I’ve noticed that the arrangements on your albums are amazing and complex and yet at the same time you pull it off live, do you feel more at home live or on record?
Andy: It’s funny hearing the record because you don’t really hear yourself live apart from the mobile phone or YouTube piece. In a recorded situation its mixed and you don’t hear the whole piece. The whole record thing is strange, I don’t think we’ve been captured properly on record yet.
Jon: This is a basic problem with recording an 11 piece band which I guess answers your question. On stage that’s quite an impressive thing, that scale thing, which you kind of lose on CD. So in that sense I think we are really a live band.
Paul: I think it’s difficult because on a record you play everything carefully because it’s being captured for eternity but on stage it has more immediate impact.
Jon: The great thing about live is that it’s the only job where you get a round of applause every 5 minutes [laughter].
Morris Dancing
Paul: Moving on swiftly…[laughter]

I’m sticking with Morris Dancing you not getting away that easily [laughter]. There was some item on the news recently about not being able to recruit new young people into it.
Paul: Yeah that’s an absolute load of crap

But it does seem to have an image of just not being cool.
Jon: Well somebody is in a Morris team that has got a problem and the media has blown it out of all proportion. It’s not the case that it is a nationwide problem. There’s load’s of young people involved. Its just nonsense. It doesn’t matter if its trendy or not, people don’t do it to be cool its just what they do.
Paul: Also if young people see other young people doing it then they going to at least accept it. I don’t any of us would give a toss whether morris dancing or folk music is considered cool or not.

You seem to have has some success live in Canada have you ever thought, or even have plans for the States?
Paul: I think there are several problems with the States, one is getting Visas and the other is the exchange rate.

You seem to have built up quite a strong visual image by using photographers like David Angel who have a very creative and innovative approach to photographing bands, particularly folk bands.
Paul: Well many folk bands do it at home on a very low budget…
Andy: We did win an award for packaging on Burlesque didn’t we.
Jon: They were either awful or like Topic Records representational but not very exciting, but then Jim Moray’s albums came along and we all ran off and said me next [laughter]. He [David Angel] does go a bit far we have to rein him in sometimes [laughter].

We’ve just got your new solo album through Jon, Songs From A Floodplain, which we’ll be reviewing. Where the hell do you find time to do this with all your other stuff going on?
Jon: I had the idea actually years ago and I just thought I’d better get it bloody done because it could have easily not have happened. Finished writing over last summer and then went into a studio…
…And played all the instruments…
Jon: …yeah because that was essentially a lot quicker than getting a band together for it.

Do you plan get a band together when you tour it?
Jon: Yes I’ll be touring it in March with a four-piece band.

Actually you all seem to have your side projects. Do find that going of and doing those things brings a richness back to Bellowhead?
Jon: I think so; I think it stops me getting bored.

Plans for the future.
Andy: Bondage [laughter]
Jon: Well we’ve got to do a new album fairly soon. And you two [Jon points at Andy and Paul] should do something.
Andy: We have its called The Gimp [laughter]