Well, happy new year to all as we head into the first quarter of 2007. The website’s architecture remains the same but the monthly discs get a new cover which will adorn all of the year’s issues. It’s a blurry screenshot of our logo, stamped with the month of release.
Last time we mentioned the annual readers’ poll and the results for 2006 are in, along with our writers’ favourites of the year. The latter would take up too much space to post but you can peruse them here. The writers’ picks were scored in order to collate an AUK top ten which featured, in order from 1 -10, Bernard Fanning –“Tea and Sympathy”, M. Ward – “Post War”, Sloan – “Never Hear the End of It”, William Elliot Whitmore – “Song of the Blackbird”, Patty Hurst Shifter – “Too Crowded On The Losing End”, Yo La Tengo – “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass”, Alejandro Escovedo – “The Boxing Mirror”, Midlake – “The Trials of Van Occupanther“, Centro-Matic – “Fort Recovery” and Daniel Wylie – “The High Cost of Happiness”. More importantly there is the readers’ votes which give us an almost entirely different result, the only common factor being M. Ward. An interesting issue which we can see if it’s repeated in subsequent end of year polls.
Calexico “Garden Ruin” (City Slang)
Bob Dylan “Modern Times” (Sony)
Jeffrey Foucault “Ghost Repeater” (Signature)
The Drams “Jubilee Drive” (New West)
Neko Case “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood” (Epitath)
Loomer “Songs of the Wild West Island” (Independent)
Howe Gelb “Sno Angel Like You” (Thrill Jockey)
Mat Gibson and the Fallen Hearts “Home Movie” (Independent)
M Ward “Post War” (4AD)
Neil Young “Living With War” (Reprise)
In other categories, artist of the year was Ryan Adams, closely followed by Calexico. Whisperin’ Bob Harris was the top radio jock while hero of the year was Neil Young with George Bush Jr. grabbing our villain of the year trophy.
A quick perusal of vintage news items throws up the following items. We report, for some reason, that REO Speedwagon are set to release their first album in a decade, we didn’t review it however. Neither did we review Bon Jovi’s so called country album, “Lost Highway” but we mention Jon Bon Jovi’s comments on the upcoming album including this nugget where he talks about his duet with LeAnne Rimes on the song ‘Until We’re Not Strangers’, “I didn’t want a young girl that couldn’t provide the sexuality in the lyric. She has a seasoned voice. She may be a young woman, but she’s been around for a long time and she knows how to translate a lyric.” Elsewhere author Stephen King goes apeshit over Ryan Adams’ latest album, “I won’t say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young…but I won’t say he isn’t, either. What I know is there has never been a Ryan Adams record quite as strong and together as “Easy Tiger”. We also mention a Rolling Stone article which reports that Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is asking young Americans to exercise their freedom to choose her campaign song. “The New York senator’s website is currently hosting a contest to select Clinton’s official campaign song. Voters can choose from nine tunes, including Jesus Jones’ ‘Right Here, Right Now’, KT Tunstall’s ‘Suddenly I See’ and Smashmouth’s cover of the Monkees’ ‘I’m a Believer’. (Google reveals that the winner was Celine Dion’s ‘You And I’, announced via a video spoofing the final episode of The Sopranos which you can watch here.)
On the interview front there’s an interesting conversation with film maker John Edginton re his movie about Robyn Hitchcock, “Sex, Food, Death and Insects” and Jason Ringenberg talks about his alter ego Farmer Jason, admitting his adoration of the Teletubbies. Best of all is a chat with Michael Weston King regarding his then current release “A New Kind Of Loneliness”. He comes up with a fairly good definition of Americana, saying, “To me, the definition of Americana is different to that of Alt Country. I feel the Alt Country thing began in the early 90’s with Uncle Tupelo and The Jayhawks. Joe Henry maybe (you could argue it was even before that with Green on Red, early REM Long Ryders etc), but I think what people refer to as Alt Country now has to stem from those bands and that time frame. Guys, who like me, had been brought up through punk and post punk, and somewhere along the line had also gone back to discover some classic country music, as well, of course, the likes of Gram, The Byrds, Burritos etc” Not dissimilar in their influences, The Redlands Palomino Company come across as a band who love a drink while they delve into Joni Mitchell The Jayhawks, Wilco, Ryan Adams, The Byrds, Gram, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Pure Prairie League.
January finds AUK hosting two live reviews of Ritchie Havens playing a three day long residency at London’s Jazz Café. Keith Hargreaves was there on the 8th while Jonathon Aird attended two days later. Both were fulsome in their praise and it appears that Jonathon was reporting on his second attendance at the shows, having been there on the night Keith reviewed the show. This was of course long before we learned to communicate with each other. Elsewhere we review gigs by Angie Palmer, Bela Fleck, John Renbourne, Bonnie Prince Billy, Richmond Fontaine (two reviews of course), Laura Viers, Danny & Dusty and Loudon Wainright III and Jonathan Aird gets his Dylan kicks seeing the man at The Wembley Arena. Of note, Alan Taylor catches The Redlands Palomino Company on a very poor night and Graeme Scott reviews a Joe Ely gig in Edinburgh which only mentions the support act as he had somewhere else to go to before Ely came on! On the festival front Patrick Wilkins gives us a lengthy report from SXSW.
As ever, AUK, aside from reporting on the music we love, offers support in solidarity with various campaigns and in 2007 The Venezuela Information Centre joins the list of organisations we support. It’s quite bitter to see that, so many years later, Palestine is in much greater peril these days.
On to the discs then. A reminder that these were sent out monthly to subscribed Friends Of Americana UK, culled from the albums sent in for review and, these days, each one a fine time capsule. January’s disc opens with the aforementioned Redlands Palomino Company who had just released their “Take Me Home” album. It’s far better than Alan Taylor’s live review might lead one to expect. Their song, ‘She Is Yours’, is a rousing slice of pedal steel fuelled cosmic country rock. Aside from the Palominos and America (yes, those wispy haired Neil Young impersonators) the cast list on the January disc is bereft of big names. Not so on the next three instalments which contain songs from Richmond Fontaine, The Decembrists, Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, Mary Chapin Carpenter, John Prine, Gretchen Peters, Son Volt, Golden Smog and Alison Krauss.
Again, much of the joy of listening to these discs is in finding obscure delights and there are several here. Airport Girl turn in a wonderfully wearied song called ‘I’ve Seen Mexico’ and who can resist a song called ‘Hello, My Name’s Jesus And I’m An Alcoholic’, delivered with a hop and a skip by The Dials. Joshua Marcus outbillys Bonny Prince Billy on the banjo driven ‘Coal Or Smoke’ and ‘Friendship Fails You’ from Rhode Islands’ band Barn Burning inhales a similar air as that of Willard Grant Conspiracy (no surprise really as Robert Fisher guests on the song).
This quartet’s hidden songs (included by our editor Mark on a personal whim) are, on the January disc, ‘Sleep Well Tonight’ by Jan Obi, a very obscure UK indie band who wallowed in bedsit introspection. February finds Chicago making their second appearance as a Mark pick with their song, ‘In The Country’. In comparison to the Chicago song which featured on the June 2005 disc, this is more the Chicago I remember, a somewhat overloaded blend of rock, jazz and blues. Maybe Mark will appear in the comments below with a scintillating post on why he seems to like them. March is a bit of a mystery. It’s billed as ‘Gorky’s Welsh song’ so, presumably it’s by Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci but even Shazam can’t help me find the title of the song and I don’t have time to listen to their full catalogue. No such problem with the April selection as Mark dives headlong into AOR music and the strains of Boston’s ‘Used To Bad News’ waft from the speakers. Maybe this time we should demand an explanation!
You can still be a friend of Americana UK in this digital age and, amazingly, it’s now cheaper to do so than it was in 2007. All details here.
Vintage screenshots grabbed via The Wayback Machine.
