The so called Paisley Underground has been back in the news recently with The Long Ryders releasing a new album and touring while a Record Store Day release of an album, ‘3X4’, featured The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate, The Three O’Clock and The Rain Parade. And now Russ Tolman, a founding member of another Paisley Underground band, True West, has released his first solo album in many moons and will be touring the UK for the first time since the 1990’s. Tolman, a native Californian, formed his first band, Suspects, in 1978 along with Steve Wynn and Kendra Smith. Considered the first new wave Californian band, they foundered when Wynn and Smith moved to LA and formed their own band, the Dream Syndicate. Tolman then moved on to True West, a band noted for their twin guitar attack and blend of American and English rock styles (even recording a version of Syd Barrett’s ‘Lucifer Sam’). Despite several close brushes with fame True West called it a day in 1985 and Tolman went on to forge a solo career releasing several acclaimed albums. Continue reading “Interview: Russ Tolman. From Paisley Underground to Laurel Canyon vibes”
Based in Cornwall, Jeff “The Horse” Horsey is a veteran practitioner of old time blues music, often to be found with his acoustic guitars and harmonica on stages here in the UK and in Europe. This latest venture, a limited edition 10” vinyl EP, finds him branching out somewhat with the focus of the disc a ten-minute long version of a song he originally released on his last album, ‘Songs From The Old West’. ‘Rattlesnakes’ takes up the first side of the disc with side two (yip, I said it was vinyl) occupied by three songs, one of which, ‘Heartstrings’, is the first of a projected song cycle inspired by the characters who populate ‘Rattlesnakes’. 
This Canadian six piece seem to be popular on the US festival scene and even a cursory listen to ‘Rattlesnake’ will tell you why. The songs have a danceable quality to them while singer Simon Ward uses the popular Nashville pop trick of autotune from time to time. Add to that a kitchen sink full of massed vocals, crashing percussion and simplistic sing along choruses and you have a party band but what you don’t have is, in any sense, a country, folk or, God forbid, an Americana band. 
While Jay Farrar might be considered as being pretty grounded when it comes to singing about familiar folk themes he’s never been a political writer. On ‘Union’ that changes as he here turns to topical concerns, setting out what is essentially his state of the union address. ‘Union’ is not a protest album, there are no street fighting anthems here and the names of the guilty are not mentioned, but when he sings, “Proud to serve but not this president,” on ‘Reality Winner’, it’s not hard to guess his inner thoughts even though the song is ostensibly about a whistleblower jailed for leaking classified documents. 
Had this arrived in a vinyl format we would not be surprised to see a small palm tree on a grassy island decorating the label. Crooked Weather, a Yorkshire based duo, are unashamedly influenced by the folk rock sounds of the late sixties and early seventies as purveyed back then by the likes of the Island, Harvest and Transatlantic Record labels. As such, they can be compared (slightly) to the Pentangle family, John & Beverly Martyn and Michael Chapman along with some American contemporaries. However, much like, for example, Doghouse Roses, they don’t attempt to recreate their forebears’ sounds but use their influence as a starting point for their own singular music. 
Harmony Rockets is kind of a sideline project for Mercury Rev’s Grasshopper and Jonathan Donahue, allowing them to go off-piste as it were and indulge themselves. Here they team up with the little known but well respected sixties raga guitarist Peter Walker, an associate of Timothy Leary, for an album composed of three instrumental pieces which hark back to the times when Jerry Garcia was known as Captain Trips and flute players could record albums within the Taj Mahal.