This is the second year of the Septembersong festival, which is billed as “a slightly psychedelic seasonal celebration”. It takes place at Braziers Park, set in the south Oxfordshire countryside and is run by brothers Joe and Robin Bennett. According to the UK Met Office, the end of meteorological summer is 31 August; however, from an astronomical point of view it continues until 22 September. As I cycle out of Reading, the air is humid and the sky is grey; it feels like the meteorologists have won and summer is very much on the way out.
Saturday
Unfortunately life intervened and I missed Friday evening’s line up which included Tim Wheeler of Ash’s first ever live solo outing. When I arrive on Saturday it’s just past midday so it feels reasonable to sample a pint of the specially brewed festival bitter. However, my supping time is limited, because Lisa Doscher soon ropes me in to take part in a singing workshop; she does a great job of making us sound a pretty harmonious bunch.
Septembersong comprises two stages which both provide shelter from the weather, the Marquee and the Wonky Church. Having convinced myself that I can sing in tune, I wander over to the Wonky Church where the brilliant Nick Cope is entertaining both the adults and children alike. Cope debuts ‘Where Do Babies Come From’ which he says could get him banned by the BBC. He has the mosh pit of under tens enthralled by his “bangers” which include, ‘The Dinosaur Song’, the Kraftwerk inspired ‘Ralph The Rusty Robot’, a few tunes about Norman his whippet and the classic ‘The Baby’s Done A Poo!’, which has the crowd singing along to the chorus, ‘The baby’s done a poo, It’s not a big surprise ’cause that’s what babies do, But this was not just your regular pebbly one, Oh no, something really bad just came out of his bum’.
Back in the tent, Our Man In The Field take to the stage in all their six piece glory, with lead singer Alex Ellis, a self proclaimed “Smoggie” from Teesside, sporting yellow shades which makes him look Bonoesque. The band play a number of songs from last year’s excellent ‘Gold On The Horizon’ album, including ‘Silver Linings’ about making the best of situations and ‘Go Easy‘ about Raz who runs the Betsy Trotwood pub in London. A great set ends with ‘L’Etranger’, one for Albert Camus fans in the audience.
In the wooden confines of the Wonky Church, Robin Bennett is hosting the Stories Behind The Songs in which he talks to Nick Cope, and Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou about the song writing process and their musical careers. Nick Cope was in the Oxford-based band The Candyskins who included Radiohead amongst their support acts. Having been dropped by their record label, Cope went several years without picking up a guitar. However, whilst helping his partner with her childminding job he started playing songs to keep the children entertained and a new career was born. Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou talk about their time in their first band Indigo Moss and how it’s liberating not being in a group saying “It’s easy to hide a bad song with a big band”. Moss also speaks about the usefulness of producers. It’s insightful stuff.
Although arriving at the festival fresh from the funeral of a good friend, George Borowski & MORA remain ever the enthusiasts. We get a song about Martin Hannett who Borowski went to school with and ‘Can You See’ the single from their new album, which is coming out next year and is about people’s small mindedness and selfishness. Borowski wisely reminds us that whatever age we are, we are only “only children in bigger clothes”. Back in the Wonky Church, Ben Smith treats us to some wonderful instrumentals. He commences with a tune called ‘Tide‘, expertly looping his violin. Smith warns us at the beginning of his set that there will be looping and there certainly is, but it’s used to good effect. Technical problems means that a piece called ‘Déjà Vu‘ has a few false starts making the title very apt. Sitting on hay bales listening to Smith’s intricate, ornate, folky tunes is the perfect way to pass the afternoon.
Hannah White on acoustic guitar takes to the stage in the Marquee together with husband Kieron Marshall playing a sunburst Les Paul. Opener ‘Hail The Fighter’ is followed by ‘Right On Time‘ which is about Marshall, who’s a great guitar player. White comments on her self-imposed challenge of releasing a single every month before singing ‘Mother You Are’, which was released on International Women’s Day. White’s tale of her homelessness and arrest for shoplifting, ‘Car Crash‘ never fails to be moving. A great set finishes with ‘These Chains Of Ours’, featuring some sterling guitar work from Marshall.
The towering figure of the bearded, dungaree clad Louis Brennan delivers insightful vignettes in a deep baritone about post-colonial, 21st century Britain; ‘Cruel Britannia’ being a typical example. Brennan writes fantastic, contemporary folk songs which as he puts it capture “the repressed middle managers and ennui-ridden urbanites of late-stage capitalism”. The Lunatraktors were the find of the festival for me, comprising Carli Jefferson and Clair Le Couteur, they promise to bring something “weird into the house” with their self proclaimed broken-folk. Jefferson uses a melange of percussive instruments from around the world and Le Couteur plays everything from the accordion to the penny whistle. The ad hoc banter between the duo only adds to the entertainment. Similar to Louis Brennan, their updated folk songs hit the spot, with an accordion-led revision of ‘I Dreamed I saw Joe Hill Last Night’, songs about witches and ‘Unquiet Grave’ being reworked to take into account austerity and people dying after being declared unfit to work. The set of the weekend culminates with a Kazak folk song called ‘Black Raven’, a number based on the Book of Eccesiastes and a Napoleonic war song updated to reference Brexit.
Tom Bright is a songwriter from Derbyshire, who at 18 became the youngest pub landlord in the UK until five years later he moved briefly to Australia. He performs a poem which is eulogy to the British public house, before playing ‘Somewhere Anywhere‘, the title track of his new album. As I retire to sit by the fire I can still hear the relaxing sounds of the Senegalese master musician Jali Fily Cissokho playing his 21 string kora in the Marquee.
Masal are a duo combining trippy, electronica synth sounds with a harp. There’s a hint of Vangelis’s ‘Chariots Of Fire’ in their first song. We get ‘Black Bees‘ from their new album, which has recently been played by Iggy Pop on 6music. By the end of their performance, everyone is up and dancing, having a great time. Headlining the Marquee are Danny And The Champions Of The World who never fail to deliver. There’s not much chat from Danny George Wilson just great songs from a tight band which comprises Henry Senior on pedal steel, Paul Lush on guitar, Steve Brookes on drums, Tom Collison on keyboards and festival organiser, Joe Bennett, taking up bass duties. A wonderful ‘(Never Stop Building) That Old Space Rocket’ neatly encapsulates the whole event, before Robin Bennett joins the band on stage for ‘Restless Feet’, which brings the evening to a close.
Sunday
There were some ferocious thunder storms over night which I fortunately manage to avoid on my early morning bike ride home. When I reach the site in the early afternoon it’s bathed in sunshine. I arrive in time for a recently reformed Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou clustered around one microphone singing superb, heartfelt, close harmonies. Their set commences with ‘A Proud Surrender’ and comprises both old and new songs, with the promise of a new album in the works. It closes with the heart-rending ‘Should Have Gone Dancing’ and a cover of Charlie Parr’s ‘Cheap Wine’.
Indie veteran Pete Astor, formerly of The Loft and The Weather Prophets, gets waylaid by a chat about the merits of grey versus black Volvos, before playing ‘Model Village‘. The Weather Prophet’s song ‘Joe Schmo And The Eskimo’ gets an outing before ‘English Weather’ is played. Astor says that the “Maoist approach of punk and post punk” is the reason he can’t finger pick before unleashing a song called ‘Peter Cook‘. The song in question is actually played on a guitar which once belonged to the great man and came to Astor via Peter Cook’s drug dealer whom he knew. His set finishes with ‘Time On Earth’. Astor is now a lecturer at Westminster University, so this means live gigs are few and far between, but he’s well worth catching if he’s playing near you.
Lisa Doscher hails from the New Hampshire in the USA, where she grew up singing five part harmonies with her family, she currently resides in Oxfordshire. She brings two friends on stage to help her sing her David Crosby inspired song ‘Grow In Love’. After Gillian Welch’s ‘Everything is free‘, she gets us all singing along to Sting’s ‘Love Is The Seventh Wave‘. She finishes with a lovely, acapella version of Sylvan Esso’s ‘Hey Mami’. Jackie Oates and John Spiers provide superlative, traditional folk songs the ranging from the ‘Congleton Bear’ to tunes from the Forest of Dean, as well as ones from a book entitled “Folksongs Of The Upper Thames” collected by Alfred Williams. After a couple of Welsh dancing songs, we’re treated to a gothic witch ballad called ‘The Lady Of Skin And Bone’. 14 Iced Bears bring their C86 indie rock to the Wonky Barn; they’re the first band to use a drum kit in this musical cathedral. Their jangly, scratchy two guitar line up set delivers ‘Cut’ from 1986 and finishes with ‘Florence‘.
It’s half a century since Gram Parsons released ‘Grievous Angel‘. Joe and Robin Bennett bring together most of the artists who’ve performed over the past two days to recreate the album, backed by various members of the Champions Of The World. Robin Bennett takes the role of Gram Parsons #1 and Lisa Doscher is Emmylou Harris on ‘Return Of The Grievous Angel’ before Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou sing ‘Hearts On Fire’. Pete Astor and Hannah White tackle ‘$1000 Dollar Wedding’. As we move on to the ‘Medley Live from Northern Quebec’ which commences side two of the record, Robin Bennett relates how he met Charlie Louvin, the author of one the songs and Kieron Marshall wryly remarks that there weren’t too many Gram Parsons’ records in the Mitcham council house he grew up in. For the final track, all the Gram Parsons and Emmylous gather on a crowded stage to deliver ‘In My Hour of Darkness’. The crowd, who’ve been having a great time, won’t let the artists leave the stage so Joe Bennett brings the festival to a close with ‘Sin City’.
It’s been a brilliant way to bring the summer, (meteorological or otherwise), to an end. Hopefully the brothers Bennett will continue to bookend the summer with this and its sibling Wood Festival in May for many years to come.
