Luke Jackson @ Barista, 18.07.14

Luke Jackson has been creating waves for a while now. Emerging on the acoustic folk scene a couple of years back at the age of 18, but already with years of songwriting and performing behind him and further championed by established musicians such as Show Of Hands and Martyn Joseph, he’s a couple of albums into a career which is set to continue to soar.

While his impressive debut, More Than Boys, contained songs and stories about growing up and sounded very much like a young man finding his recording feet, his second effort was a different story. Fumes and Faith emerged earlier this year with a hail of marvellous reviews. With more of a blues feel to the songs, it proved quite a step in him rapidly becoming a confident and down to earth young man. To see him play in a tiny local venue – which sold out, naturally – was too good a chance to miss.

Whether he’s singing his own songs or covering the a cappella blues standard, ‘Grinning In Your Face’, the traditional ‘Man Of Constant Sorrow’ or ‘Beeswing’ by the legendary Richard Thompson, the two halves of the set were quality personified.

The gig also saw a couple of new songs thrown in, which seem to have taken him away from the bluesy ambience of his last recording. ‘Heart Of Stone’ and a touching, delicate ‘Flowers’, written around his experience of losing a friend in his teenage years, both bode well for the next record. With just ‘More Than Boys’ and a superbly rearranged  ‘Last Train’ from his first album in the set, Luke is definitely moving at a pace, not only in his writing but also in his stunning playing, ranging from dramatically strong and forceful to delicate picking, mixed expertly for the small venue.

Together with his own very distinct identity, Luke is now set with a sound and an increasingly broad set of unequivocally mature and self-assured songs – phrases which seem to be bandied about whenever Luke Jackson is mentioned. The bluesy approach of his latest work gives the impression of him being an artist who has suddenly grown up – rather like one of the characters about whom he sings, Charlie in the big world – and fulfilling the promise of becoming a musician of considerable stature.

Words & photos: Mike Ainscoe

The show was the last in the season of Playing Out gigs promoted by Rick Stuart whose Roots & Fusion show plays on Stockport’s PureFM. Watch out for shows in the Stockport area soon.

Review: Mathew Gray – The Crocodile EP

I approached Mathew Gray and The Awful Truth's EP, The Crocodile, with a little caution; more than a little in fact. For some reason, I was fearful of sub-Syd Barrett whimsy. Maybe it was the title and the cover image and I am clearly as shallow as a puddle because, it turns out, I was miles and several genres wide of the mark.

The title tune is our entry into Mr Gray's world. It is dense with wordplay, poetry and imagery, deeply serious in subject, and light, skippy and joyous in performance. He wraps a deep sense of our place in the world as puny humans and our tiny part in the history of the earth, in something we would dearly wish very cool teachers to play to our children at school. The next song, ‘Took Away Tomorrow’ aches to its bones with emotion and is sung with a rare blend of sadness and detachment, with faint echoes of the criminally underrated Ed Harcourt. I especially love ‘Someone To Blame’, a cool dissection of the motivators of extremism with a percussion part so perfectly placed it made me grin like I was having my feet gently ticked.



In fact, all the playing here is from the very top drawer: all the musicians knowing when to hold back and when to politely run riot. The EP closes with ‘The Soldier’, its first person narrative occasionally dipping into the well worn war's a bad thing, who exactly are we fighting for? point, but driven forward by genuinely wonderful instrumental work pulled in from the worlds of classical and folk. The Crocodile by Mathew Gray and The Awful Truth is altogether rather ace.

Words: John Wigley.

Daniel Bachman @ The Castle Hotel, 19.06.13

A good example of the appeal of this all-seater affair at The Castle Hotel is when, during headliner Daniel Bachman’s set, attendees without chairs were filling in all the nooks and crannies by crouching, kneeling, reclining and resting behind and betwixt the furniture and in the aisle.

It was a busy, yet attentive, one from the start, as a pair of Manchester’s most active musicians, Tom Settle and Dan Bridgewood-Hill – aka dbh – set the scene in the Oldham Street alehouse’s back room. The former, a soft spoken finger picking guitarist whose strings collection extends tonight to a mandolin, compiles a collection comprising his own work and Jefferson Airplane’s ‘My Best Friend’, evoking the spirit of that 60s psyche band’s ballad by inviting the latter to join him to perform a rendition of Shirley Collins and Davy Graham’s ‘Hares on the Mountain’. Underneath the spotlights of a web of fairy lights that dangles overhead, dbh carries the appearance of an Eisenberg-Cera hybrid, with the pair’s gently strummed songs resembling Juno’s final scene.

When he takes centre stage, dbh can be seen in better light, showing the Eisenberg-Cera fusion to be no more than whimsical myopia on my part. His set is more forceful, with each note immaculately considered despite being short-lived amidst the fluid arpeggios of flamenco and Americanised acid-folk. While often searching and introspective, his closing tune, ‘Fix’, hits the major notes to offer a happy ending.

The main attraction – the touring American Daniel Bachman – sits just as the other two before him: quietly and politely in voice, but the most intensively of the three in sonic terms. This time launching in with his lapsteel guitar and a bottleneck slide before reverting to type with an acoustic guitar, whose open low-E string shudders in discord with other elegantly selected notes, the whole set is turned up a notch on the speedometer.

Between songs, he re-tunes, red-faced in concentration.

Then liftoff, again, with a style that isn’t quite strumming, and is far from finger picking; notes that often seem to be merged, yet are audibly separate. The catch, if there is one, is in the divergence from the core technique; beyond the opening bottleneck slider, there’s little to differentiate his songs, and a set continuing any longer would merit another direction the break up his favoured style. His chord shapes are no more inventive than anyone else’s, but with a playing technique so vigorous there’s enough to mesmerise the gathered audience.

Words & photos: Ian Pennington.
Poster design: Fliss Horrocks.

The next Crowfoot Records gig is scheduled for tomorrow, 24th July, at Kro Bar on Oxford Road, and will feature L’Etrangleuse, McWatt, Irma Vep and David M Birchall.

Wild Birds & Literature Thieves @ Night and Day Café, 27.12.12

The turkey has been plucked, stuffed and recycled. The post Christmas sales are in full flow and the best bargain I've seen is the £2 admission charge to watch six bands at the Night & Day Café.

The three females who take the stage go under the title of Literature Thieves, and with them is a sizeable contingent of friends and family to lend support. The name is derived from the reluctance of one band member to return books to their owner. Such literary leanings inevitably find their way into the songs, producing some intriguing results such as the line: “Woven into the story of my skin”.

All three, Angela Hazeldine, Amy Clarkson and Cassie Ellwood supply the vocals, with each song being dissected in order to allow each one to take a turn. The harmonies are a key feature of their tunes and they combine well even though each of their voices occupies a different range. A mandolin (Amy) and a guitar (Cassie) support Angela, whose drum kit is absent tonight, creating a more delicate effect. Whilst they may tag themselves as occupying the folk arena, there are tinges of a stripped down Midlake in the Americana direction.

“Meet me at midnight,” urge the Wild Birds, but there are quite a few in this crowd who can’t wait that long, so for the first time tonight people have gotten down to the front for a dance. This is what the band can do; get people off their backsides to start moving.

Sometimes you need to move on in order to progress. On stage tonight as Wild Birds are Steve Ballinger, Joe McAdam, Paul Hodson and Alistair Garner, former members of outfits such as The Travelling Band, The Vox and Sycamore, all displaying their musical abilities to great effect.

Rousing, full-bodied songs bounce across the venue. Skilfully crafted mixtures of aggressive guitars sit alongside melodic harmonies that conjure up distant memories of sunshine and fun.

Within a few minutes of finishing their set the crowd melts away, possibly looking for another place to meet at midnight.

Words & photography: Ged Camera

Interview: The Calimocho Club

Bluesy rock duo The Calimocho Club may be named after a drink whose ingredients of Cola and red wine seem like chalk and cheese, but as a band they’re a cohesive unit despite the project’s nascent age. For Gary L Hope (vocals, guitar) and Tommy Pickford (drums) are no strangers to the live music circuit around Manchester and Salford, having appeared until recently as the stylish and memorably suited The Black Knights.

The shift into a new gear was a result of pure “gut feeling”, amongst other reasons, but a host of live shows and an accomplished debut EP have seen them accelerate since.

Conversely, debut EP Whoa Whoa, Hey Hey seems to want to slow down in title at least, but its content is juxtaposed with such an interpretation. Staccato grooves, screaming riffs and soulful rhythms are delivered with the force and unflinching starkness synonymous with the very best of electric blues and all with an urgency that keeps the fleeting running time under 15 minutes.

Musically, Tommy’s drum rolls are reminiscent of The Black Keys’ early records – in particular Pat Carney’s stick work on Thickfreakness – while Gary’s guitar and lyrics fit with the spirit of blues that they define as “raw, sometimes violent, melancholy, sarcastic, wry, hopeful and hopeless [and] mostly governed by feel”.

Their next show is a headline slot at the next Now Then Manchester show at Dulcimer bar, bringing the curtain down on another folk and blues showcase and they shared a few thoughts with us in anticipation.

Now Then: Why did you change your band name and aesthetic [from The Black Knights]?

The Calimocho Club: It felt right to do it – a combination of musical reasons, where we sat in the universe, a gut feeling and other behind the scenes issues definitely pushed us toward it.


NT: Do you have a favourite musical reinvention?

CC: Bowie has been the king of reinvention, killing Ziggy and going all 80s cocaine kid is up there for me.


NT: What have the experiences of support slots with the likes of The Jim Jones Revue, Those Darlins and Dave Arcari taught you?

CC: It helps break you out of your own bubble. They all tour like beasts – Bog Log III is the same. Band of Skulls have gone on to support The Black Keys. It’s a reality check that no two acts do things the same way. Some have more backing (team, press and monetary), some go totally DIY, some sit between the two. What is clear is that it is still a slog - you still have to be great.

What else has it taught us? That we can sit comfortably in that company. It forces us to raise our game. We always get a better reaction at these types of shows – to put it into crude numbers, we sell more CDs, and get more fans. It’s also good to see how other acts do things; you can always pick up something useful.

NT: You’ve just finished a tour of your own; which show was the pick of the bunch and why?

CC: They were all great shows but I’d say the Puzzle Hall, Sowerby Bridge for the performance and audience reaction. Bristol for the aftershow party!


NT: Lightnin’ Hopkins or The Black Keys? Do you prefer the blues of old or new – or are they not comparable?

CC: They are all the same ballpark. It’s more the spirit of the blues that draws me in – by definition it is raw, sometimes violent, melancholy, sarcastic, wry, hopeful and hopeless. It’s also mostly governed by feel rather than robotically learning patterns. Same ballpark then, but, like anything, if you can add your own personal twist onto it you’re away...

NT: What do you have planned for the near future? Are there any new recordings lined up?

CC: Unfortunately/fortunately our imagination exceeds our budget at times. We are putting together another tour at the moment, UK, but may look at some European shows.

We will be getting some new photos done, do another music video – not too concerned with having new recordings at the moment, there’s the artist in me that wants to record, fighting the businessman in me that says: “create more demand first”. We have a good EP that has still got legs and have some acoustic demos floating around.

In fairness the world is laden with recorded music; it’s ten-a-penny. It might be fighting a losing battle, but we want to try and keep music special, an experience. It’s another debate entirely, but the series of 0s and 1s that the digital marketplace has squeezed that thrill somewhat.

However, a great live show cannot be beaten. Playing live has always been our forte. You experience it in the moment and you can change things around in a way that a recorded artifact literally cannot. Yes, there are an ever-growing number of people who spend the show recording it on phones for posterity, sharing and using at as an honour/social ‘badge’ (and so miss out on the immediacy of being in the moment), but there’s still loads who long for that buzz that a live show can generate in them. That’s the fucking money!

Words & edits: Ian Pennington
Flyer design: Craig Brown Beards Club Illustration
Photos & logo: courtesy of The Calimocho Club

The Calimocho Club headline Dulcimer bar in Chorlton on Thursday 17th May. The free entry blues and folk showcase will also feature performances by Rory Charles, Eleanor Lou and Mathew Gray.

Interview: Death Vignettes

It’s easy to forget in the age of mp3s, laptop DJs and vocoders that modern recorded music dawned to a soundtrack of the blues. The blues in an emotive sense has certainly never left through the subsequent years, even if the sound itself has been largely discarded in favour of polished production gloss.

The Abattoir Blues nights at The Gaslamp bar seek to redress the balance by curating live blues line-ups and recording the results to capture the unrestricted sounds of musicians including Old Hands, Tyler Hatwell, Jackie O and bluesy garage rock duo Death Vignettes.

Death Vignettes headline the next Now Then show at Dulcimer bar and their guitarist Dave Brennan, who runs the Abattoir Blues nights, took the time to tackle our teasers.

Now Then: Can you give us a potted history of the Abattoir Blues nights?

Death Vignettes: Ourselves and Amelia Dean started the night back in October last year, we wanted to play a gig with artists that we respected and complemented our blues-inspired sound. The quality of the acts is very important to us. The atmosphere at each Abattoir Blues nights has been different as we have carefully considered which artists would work well together. We have tried to create each night to stand out and to have its own identity.


NT: What made you start hosting those nights and do you have any standout memories?

DV: There is a serious shortage of blues based nights in Manchester and we wanted to put a night on that we would want to go to. Our friends also have a passion for the same genre of music. We wanted to use the night as a platform for us all to perform our separate projects. Every night has had a standout moment due to all the great artists that have played. We strive to preserve these moments by recording each night. Listening back to the recordings also highlights our resident compere and his ability to get the crowd involved and creating a unique atmosphere in a small, unique venue.

NT: Who or what encouraged you to pick up an instrument?

DV: An inherent passion for the blues.


NT: Are there any blues musicians in particular who inspire you? Do you take ideas from other genres of music as well?

DV: Everything from classic blues musicians such as Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins right through to contemporary blues artists such as Jon Spencer, Nick Cave, Iggy Pop, Johnny Walker and Jack White.


NT: Where does lo-fi blues stand in these days of increasingly hi-tech music production?

DV: The blues will always be relevant. We believe that capturing the live raw sound and energy is more important than a polished recording. This sometimes gets overlooked in favour of a radio friendly production. We take inspiration from the way that the old blues artists used to record with a single mic. The recording techniques used back then would not be considered hi-tech yet captured the raw emotion of the music.

NT: Since reading High Fidelity, the messages in blues music often remind me of this quote: “What came first; the music or the misery? Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?” Can you answer it?

DV: The misery inspires the music and the music inspires the misery.


NT: When is the next Abattoir Blues night and what else do you have lined up?

DV: The next Abattoir Blues night will be the end of May and we are also hoping to put on a festival around September time. Check our Facebook for details.


Interview & edits by Ian Pennington
Now Then flyer design: Craig Brown Beards Club Illustration
Posters: Courtesy of Abattoir Blues

Death Vignettes headline the next Now Then Manchester gig at Dulcimer bar in Chorlton on Thursday 10th May. Family Wolves, The Acoustic Conquistador and Dan Melrose are also performing at the show focussing on blues and folk music. Entry is free but any donations to support the musicians will be very welcome.

Review: Folk & Acoustic Albums

A selection of folky records landed on my desk recently and as such they find themselves tethered together by this tenuous testimony for the purposes of the following combined review post...

Tawse – ec.dy.sis

What do you expect in a recording from a quartet whose live covers have ranged from The National to Daft Punk? ec.dy.sis is safely more the former than the latter given its folky delivery. Chirpy opener ‘Rehab’ takes on various sides to the genre. Initial joviality gives way to inequality-fuelled emotions of anguish and insecurity (“Profit is a dirty word / It’s the dirtiest word that I have heard / There are people in the ditch / And others getting rich”) and finally a rise into remedying crescendo.

Again on the topic of medication for life’s labours and toils, ‘Painkiller’ murmurs in the same bittersweet breaths as Radiohead’s classic ‘High And Dry’, while ‘Carrion’ is higher tempo all round with its Wild Beasts-esque falsetto, but it is the percussion that has the final say; closing on a crashing cymbal. Those rhythmic guides are significantly dampened for the pensive wordplay (“I’m afraid that I don’t love you / I don’t love you ‘cause I’m afraid”) on closer ‘Why Did You?’ and although they don’t go as far as to roll out the synths and take on Daft Punk’s guise wholeheartedly, Tawse do achieve a variety within four tracks that leads the listener both high and low.

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Captives On The Carousel – Turn Off The Sun / In The Bleak Midwinter

With a sparse aural arsenal, Captives On The Carousel offer voices against a vacuum; cellist Ben Eckersley (also of Legend Of The 7 Black Tentacles) backs the earnest lyrics and occasional acoustic strums of Sarah Morrey.

Without an interfering beat, Morrey’s saccharine vocal stillness is allowed the space to linger; Eckersley’s restrained cello strings permeate an otherwise untouched subtlety with rhythm in stifled staccato. Although the more upbeat, ‘Turn Off The Sun’ stays as static as ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ in a wintry air where, like footprints in newly fallen snow, too much movement might have spoiled the imagery.

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Rook And The Ravens – The Judge EP

Rook and the Ravens have been reading from a different songbook for their latest record. Like that Judas reincarnation Bob Dylan gone electric, they are an indie / folk quintet led astray by the allure of alt rock.

Although previously evoking vague similarities with The Band and other 20th Century folk rockers, this EP veers clear of folk music roots. The title track is explosive with shrieks almost Cedric ‘The Mars Volta’ Bixler-Zavala in pitch – although nearer James Dean ‘Manic Street Preachers’ Bradfield in substance – and tightly contained drum lines; a marching progression is curtailed, simmering down while keyboard patterns peacefully lay the dying embers of the blaze to rest. It is followed by ‘Miss This Boat’, which holds onto more of melodic folk rock feel – aided by diminished drumsticks – until its chirpy guitar flourish, whereas final jive, ‘Horses’, is theatrically presented in the tones of rock opera.

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Ivan Campo – What Went Wrong?

The trio evoke not only a fuzzy-haired, fan-favourite footballer, but also sunny days and sing songs, even in the midst of coldest wintry chills.

By comparison with the above artists, these north-westerners are veterans. With What Went Wrong? they’re touching double figures, making a habit of recording long-EP / short-LP hybrids of their progress since 2003 while gigging all the while.

The palm tree in one of their logos tells a tale; with minimal percussive input, many songs are laid back and agreeably lacking in urgency. Opener ‘Dice Man’ is a fine example with a languid piano lament matched with undercurrents of clarinet preceding solemn harmonies of reminisce and its successor, ‘Wolf’, displays the other side of their coin in all its summery chirpiness.

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While we’re on the topic of folk music, locally based folky website Thank Folk For That [dot com] launch their monthly Monday at Castle Hotel this evening (26th March), headlined by Ruarri Joseph. I’m told it’s now sold out, but next month’s sees Sam Airey take top billing so get in early for that.

Words: Ian Pennington

Tawse appear on the bill of the next Now Then event; an all day Easter Sunday folk festival at Dulcimer in Chorlton, which also includes David A Jaycock, The Existence of Harvey Lord, TE Yates, Dan Melrose, Greta Santagata and Shen. All in association with Imploding Inevitable. Tickets available here or from the bar at Dulcimer.

Folk on a Train. 10th April, 2010

Tear up your formulas. Don a feather'd cap and a 16-25 railcard. No, not the Nazi trainspotting club - that's Volk Trains - this is Folk Trains (Hathersage).

The idea is simple, and wonderfully sweet-tasting. The musicians, accompanied by an excited rabble of folk enthusiasts, day trippers and confused-looking ramblers take the 11:52 from [Manchester] Piccadilly to New Mills Newtown, alight, and retire to the Queen's Arms - for light refreshment and pub food (Gammon & Chips, £3.50 luv) - before hopping back on the 14:50 to Piccadilly. All the time playing, singing and reviving a sparkling array of folk, roots, blues and bluegrass music from a variety of guest singers as they all, albeit proverbially, steam to and from the Peak District.

Today is Geoff Higginbottom and his beardy mate in the terrible shirt on the electric mandolin. As the train wheezes east and upwards past the post-war urban sprawl of Levenshulme, Woodford, Heaton Chapel, and Hazel Grove, they belt out a rousing mixture of local folk songs, 60s protest music and jokes about Mexicans. The hills rise, beginning to frame the music in its right context; tight valleys with old mills turned now to more Satanic purposes. Loft living, anyone?
The visual mixture of timeless moorland and fading industrial legacy make the music seem as relevant as ever, and without a single song about meeting a sweet babe on Facebook.

Pulling up in New Mills, a stroll down the hill past the Swizzels Matlow factory, the home of the Flump, journeys the congregation to the pub. Here we meet another best friend of folk music – a pint of Mild. Accompanying sing-along choruses of 'Midnight Special', stories abound about local folk heroes like Bouncing Billy Barker, who, it is claimed, jumped across the canal in one giant leap.

On the train home, the good feeling continues as the sun beats down, only a bunch of surly-looking teenagers are clearly unimpressed when seventy folk music fans board their train and proceed to sing a chorus of 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' (as performed by The Band, post-Dylan).

Folk Trains engages people not just in music they would normally ignore, the functional a-to-b becomes a moment of pleasure, perhaps. The fact that I bloody love trains, and hills, and men with little pony tails called Geoff is simply a reaffirmation that Local Stopping Service plus Fairport Convention songs equals a perfect afternoon. And all for £3.45 (with railcard, of course).

If ever there was a reminder that the great joy of Manchester (and Sheffield too) is not just in the city itself, but in its location at the doorstep of some of England's finest wilderness, and that there is more to the music scene than supping Weissbeir in the Northern Quarter listening to some cacky new band, then this is it.

Folk Trains run out of Manchester (to New Mills/Hathersage and Glossop) and Sheffield (to Edale). Check out http://www.hvhptp.org.uk/folktran.htm for dates and times.

Words: Andy Rees

Spiro @ Band on the Wall, Friday 26th February, 2010

It's always refreshing to be reminded how much can be made out of so little. With just mandolin, accordion, violin and guitar, folk quartet Spiro have put together a sound which seems to combine the best of so many things into something uniquely irresistible.

The instrumentation and the melodic sensibility could be described as 'folk-friendly', but Spiro really aren't the traditional folk quartet. Whereas the main focus in trad-folk is usually the melody, Spiro's sound has a textural richness and variety unmatched by any other acoustic four-piece I've ever heard. There are definite resonances with the Penguin Café Orchestra; an endearingly playful reshaping of traditional folk melodies, as well as a focus on the textural warmth and richness of acoustic instruments.

But there is a rhythmic urgency and complexity which sets Spiro apart from Penguin Café's introspective ambience. Exquisitely conceived rhythmic cells criss-cross in and out of each other, creating the kaleidoscopic hypnosis you might usually get listening to Steve Reich. But again, this comparison is lacking. Although we might normally associate American minimalism with Zen Buddhism and marijuana, Spiro's infectious melodic exuberance propels the rhythmic engine skywards like a euphoric dance anthem. Cherry-picking from both albums, Pole Star and Lightbox you couldn't help but be won over by the joyous energy of a group who know they've really found their own sound.

Words: Owen Hewson