AUK Back Pages No.7

Featured image for AUK's Backpages column

We round off 2006, incidentally the fifth year of AUK, an anniversary we forgot to mention in Back Pages No. 5 which looked back at the first four months of 2006 although it was noted in the then brand new banner. Anyhow, first off there’s the usual news items regarding new releases and upcoming tour dates but one story stands out. Headlined, “Jeff Tweedy punches fan in face at Wilco show,” it happened at a show in Springfield in October. There was a follow up item a few days later reporting on Tweedy’s reasoning, with him saying “I wish it had gone another way. He approached me from behind and I reacted in defense to get him away. I didn’t know what his intentions were, and I had to get him off of me. I’m sad that it happened at all. I feel terrible. I don’t like to punch someone in the face. It sucks.” So now you know, don’t jump onto a Tweedy stage, he might be a bit older now but he still has a sucker punch. In October we report that the actor Scarlett Johansson was set to release an album of Tom Waits covers. We were a bit premature as the album, “Anywhere I Lay My Head” wasn’t released until 2008. Now there’s a scoop!

On the live reviews front there’s the reformed Green On Red who didn’t disappoint and Howe Gelb on a solo tour after his expansive “Sno Gospel” tour. Ryan Adams and The Cardinals get a lacklustre review – “Well this wasn’t the greatest Ryan Adams live experience, that, it appears, would be long since gone, but it wasn’t the worst either” – wrote Patrick Wilkins who saved most of his praise for Adams’ guitar player Neal Casal who played an opening set. Mike Ritchie sends in several missives from the long lost Darvel Festival, reviewing Willy Clay, Richmond Fontaine and The Deadstring Brothers. Slaid Cleaves and Steve Forbert are highly praised and we report on Justin Townes Earle’s first solo UK tour in tandem with another scion of an americana legend, Jubal Lee Young.

There’s precious few interviews but Morag Rose interviews The Storys, a band who appeared back then to have star appeal, their lead singer Steve Balsamo a bit of a pin up after several starring roles in theatre productions, but it was not to be. Morag also talks to Jeff Finlin.

We mentioned the lack of content in the Giveaways section of the site last time around but by now we have our act together. There’s a competition to win two Farmer Jason CDs, all the reader has to do is answer the question, “What was Jason Ringenberg’s former band called?” Sadly, there’s no record of who won this, if you are out there, please let us know.

There’s an extensive section dedicated to live gig listings, far too many to list here but have a swatch at this to see how AUK was providing a much needed public service back then. We also note that the AUK house concerts continue with Danny George Wilson appearing in December. In tandem with the live gig listings we also had back then a fine little section dedicated to AUK friendly venues and you can peruse what was on offer back then here. As December rolls around there’s a shout out for our annual readers’ poll and hopefully we will be able to let you know who won what in the next edition of Back Pages.

In the meantime there’s the October to December discs to consider along with, for the first time, a year-end bonus disc, The Best Of 2006, compiled by our editor Mark and sent out to our supporters as a thank you Christmas gift. On the four monthly discs there’s the usual scattering of well known acts, some long gone, some still on the road – The Be Good Tanyas, The Sadies, Bonnie Prince Billy, Lucinda Williams, Joan Osborne, Willie Nelson, The Pernice Brothers, Sufjan Stevens (who delivers a Christmas song on the December disc) and Aimee Man all appear – and then there’s the usual line up of much more obscure names, I mean, who remembers Saint Paul And His Coalition Of The Willing? Their song, ‘Jesus Is Spinning In His Grave’ graces the December disc and it’s a fairly low key number, hardly remarkable, although we have to give kudos to the title of the album it’s lifted from, “Everyone Is Wrong: 12 Laments From The 2^nd Bush Era.

Of the 80 songs contained in these discs we have to mention Chris Smither’s ‘Cold Trail Blues’, taken from his album “Leave The Light On”. It’s world-wearied and quite wonderful. Shooter Jennings is just about a decade too early to benefit from the southern rock revival but ‘Gone To Carolina’ is reason enough to revisit his “Electric Rodeo” album and speaking of rodeos there’s the laid back vibes of Olav Larsen & The Alabama Rodeo Stars, a band which I seem to recall have a chequered history with AUK. Todd Snider is bang to the button on the freewheeling Dylan tribute ‘Thin Wild Mercury’ and I have to admit that I have a soft spot for the slow romance contained in ‘We’re Not Supposed To Be Lovers’, a song by Dean & Britta which is miles removed from their then day jobs in Luna.

As ever, there is a “hidden” song at the end of each disc and on the September disc we are totally in the zeitgeist as we dip into the soundtrack of The Wickerman with ‘Gently Johnny’, just as the film was then starting to move on from cult status and the soundtrack only then becoming widely available. Sparklehorse’s ‘Junebug’ pops up in October, a judicious selection but November jumps into the mainstream as Hootie & The Blowfish’s ‘Las Vegas Nights’ sparks into action after the customary wait to hear the hidden song. The December disc has several nods to Christmas (Aimee Mann’s ‘Calling On Mary’ and Sufjan Stevens ‘O Holy Night’) but it’s a bit of a surprise to hear, several minutes after the Stevens’ song officially ends the disc, to hear The Muppets sing ‘Bless Us All’, taken from “The Muppets Christmas Carol”. Not exactly Americana, I presume our editor Mark was just overdoing the eggnog. [Editor’s note – this made it on after I played it at the previous year’s customary Christmas Danny George Wilson house gig and he beamed about it, all the excuse I needed!].

And finally, there’s the Christmas present to our subscribers. While most of the acts featured in the Best Of 2006 disc appear on the past twelve month’s editions Mark picks songs not originally featured so we can’t be accused of a simple retread. Our pick of the songs here is the Silver Jews ‘Sleeping Is The Only Love’, a sentimental pick as it reminded us of the sad loss of David Berman. There is a hidden song at the end of the disc lasting all of 44 seconds which initially confounded me, but some deft searching reveals that it’s ‘Turn Out The Light (Reprise)’ by The New Amsterdams. It’s the second song from their 2006 release “Story Like A Scar” to be featured on the disc as track 10, ‘Turn Out The Light’, is from the same album.