Last week in this column I featured the band The Young Republic who were one of the first and only releases on the End of the Road record label. The same year I saw them was the year I saw this band at the same festival, an indie collective founded in Calgary, Alberta who had up until that point supported artists such as Iron & Wine, Grizzly Bear and Calexico. Their third album ‘Die Stadt Muzikanten’ was released in 2010 and still sits with me today as one of the great unheard records of this century so far, it’s just so layered and epic in its ambition (and look at that artwork). This particular song, a ballad about ageing gay pirates, crushed me when I first heard it. Nowadays I feel like an ageing gay pirate – not so sure if the grey suits me. Woodpigeon were originally called Woodpigeon Divided By Antelope Equals Squirrel but I still would have loved them unconditionally.
