city of lights

 

There's something visceral about live music. There's a physicality that goes beyond what your ears can hear,  the beat pounding through your body, the energy in the room from the band and the shared experience.

This is city of lights, a young band from Leeds that i stumbled across on a night out in manchester. It wasn't really a night about seeing bands, we were just looking for entertainment in the downtime between two days of courses. We were blown away.

I've seen a lot of bands live, both local ones and big names and there is something special about some of them, an intangible x factor if you will. You can usually tell if they are going to be any good from the first few bars. There's a tightness to the sound and an energy between bandmates that crosses from the stage to the audience so readily that it doesnt matter if you've heard their songs before.

City of lights have it in spades and they are a band that you're going to notice cropping up on the radio soon - they already played the bbc introducing stage at reading and leeds festival. Their five track EP opens with the chiming guitar of "don't give up" sounding like funeral for a friend without the metal edge perhaps. From there it weaves it's magic through intelligent lyrics and melodic hooks and a sound all their own. They are really nice lads too and i hope they have a big future. Click the link,  buy an ep and support good new music that simon cowell has had nothing to do with!

palindrome hunches

Neil Halstead has a new album out on November 5th called "Palindrome Hunches". Haunting, beautiful, melancholic and cementing his reputation as one of our finest singer songwriters. Really worth seeing him live if you can, he is superb!

On a seperate note, how annoying to have to wait for four failed courier attempts to find my house/ deliver something only to find it's smashed into 300 pieces when i finally get to open the box! grrrrrrr!

life's a gas

What with the changeble weather and dodgy swell conditions i haven't managed to get wet over the last couple of weeks but i have finally got around to learning one of my favorite guitar intrumentals, "classical gas" written by mason williams.

It's a song thats been recorded by lots of different people over the years, Williams himself recorded several different versions. My memories are from childhood and my Grandfather giving my Dad a cassette copy of the shadow's version which we played to death in the car on the way to school. Listening back it sounds quite dated now and the version above is much truer to the original acoustic guitar version.

My dad is a pretty useful folk guitarist and i can remember him playing this when i first took my first tentative guitar steps under his tutelage. Hanging out with my parents a couple of weeks ago i spotted the music and brought a copy home. It's kept me occupied in the slow times at work this week and while i'm not posting myself playing it on youtube anytime soon, it's coming together!

So if you've got a minute or two, play the clip, marvel at this guy's technique and forget the rain outside

room with a view...

So recently i've been listening to Elise by The Horrible Crowes a lot. It's a side project from Brian Fallon of Gaslight Anthem ( who are currently recording their fourth album ) and it's really very good.
More introspective, darker and less urgent than Gaslight. Fallon is a fine songwriter and lyricist who's stature is growing with each release.

This is the standout track for me, one i find popping into my head at quiet moments......behold the hurricane

intersection....

Plenty of you will have come across the names Tommy Guerrero and Ray Barbee on the music credits of Thomas Campbells surf movies, fewer of you will have recognised their names as two of the most influential street skaters ever. I was listening to one of Tommy's albums the other day and it struck me that they are the point where most of my interests collide, surfing, guitar, skating, music...

The Video part above is from "Future Primitive" and it was the first section of  american skateboarding i ever saw, it opened my eyes to what skateboarding was about, not long after getting my first board, sometime in 1988 i think. (although the film is from much earlier) It's actually held to be one of the first catalysts that kick started street skating as a "thing" distinct from ramp skating which was the dominant force within skateboarding at the time and it was massively influential, not only to skaters. If you think about it, the way good snowboarders (like nico mueller for example) ride the mountain, using natural hits as they flow top to bottom, it connects in a straight line back to Tommy ruling the hills of San Francisco. TG was my first favorite skater.

Fast forward a year or two and Powell Peralta released their "public domain" video. In this age of readily available web content it's difficult to explain just how exciting waiting to see the new powell video was, they were almost the only company making films then and virtually the only chance to moving pictures of skateboarding! Not far into the film was the black and white "rubber boys " section set to a classic skate punk track and featuring a young ray barbee. watch it here. One of the coolest things about this section was the flatland tricks (no comply's etc) that didn't need classic american urban architecture for us to emulate. I actually snapped the tape in the badly copied video of this film i had from rewinding and watching it too many times. Barbee is also significant in being one of the first african american skaters to become widely known.

So neither TG or Ray Barbee surf but they do know Thomas Cambell, part of the "beautiful losers" art scene and who originally worked as a skate photographer before becoming widely known for his art and surf film making. Through releases on his galaxia label and his use of their music in his movies,  both have begun to become known for their music as much as their contribution to skating.

Of the two, it's probably Barbee's clean bright jazz influenced noodling that i come back to more often. His tone and melody just say sunlight and mellow sunny happy days to my ears, whatever greyness my eyes can see outside the window. There's a pretty good introduction to him here or watch the clip below for a good introduction to one man, a tele, a bassman and a looper pedal!

waxhead approved

 Friend of the waxhead and living australian rock a billy legend
Pat Capocci letting those fingers fly

douglas e powell

 

 The exceedingly talented, Mr Douglas E Powell. Acoustic singer songwriter tinged with americana, english folk and melancholy. Wholly deserving of your attention!

keep your head up.....

Keep Your Head Up - Ben Howard from mickey smith on Vimeo.

Hopefully most of you that read this from the UK will be aware of both Ben Howard and Mickey Smith ( who directed this video ) already. If not then i'm going to encourage you, along with our american cousins, to check out his album. It's really very, very good!

rocking the status quo....

Not the actual Quo you understand. I'm not advocating you go out and listen to caroline or rocking all over the world! I'm thinking more the way things are, there in your comfort zone. It's easy to get complacent, follow the same routines, the same well worn ruts to the same spots with the same boards.

Sometimes what you need is something from out of left field to make you sit up and take notice, make you take a look at things and see them from a new perspective, maybe give you the things you were missing even if you didn't realise they were absent. Just because things are easy, rubbing along nicely doesn't always mean it's the best way forward. Maybe there's a lesson for life, that you should keep looking forward, working at it, not rest on your laurels. It's fashionable to talk about "going on a journey" right now, reality shows are full of it but Shmaltz aside there's a kernel of truth there...

Case in point, the mini simm in the picture. Obviously a fashion correct hipster such as myself had to have one or i wouldn't be able to walk down the beach with head held high. Yet jesting aside, the mini simmons design and the thinking behind it has had a big effect on the daily surfing of a lot of people worldwide. It's a design that looks odd, feels a bit funny to surf initially but unlocks a huge amount of fun in marginal conditions. It's certainly redfined the way i've felt about small boards in small waves and is responsible for more surf stoked smiles than almost anything else in the last few months

rhyme for the summertime..

By the time Garret "G Love" Dutton kickstarted Jack Johnson's career with his Rodeo Clowns single , he was already four fine albums deep into a career that's still going strong today. I forget exactly where i heard him for the first time, i think it was on mark radcliffe's old late night show on radio 1 in the early nineties, or maybe on the soundtrack to an early snowboard video at my friend ed's house. What i do remember is how the mix of blues sounds with a strong groove and elements of hip hop topped with g love's laidback delivery was something i'd never heard before. Hell he just oozed cool!

After starting out busking acoustic blues on the streets of philadelphia before hooking up with "special sauce" his sound has evolved several times over the years but it's his early stuff i still like best. He's a very fine slide/acoustic blues guitarist and really underated. check his youtube channel for some evidence! (under the moniker phillyglove) He's still one of the best artists i've seen live and his first couple of albums are well worth re-visiting or discovering for that matter!

electric...

Ever since a scrappily recorded version of Tristan Prettymans "anything at all" turned up as a bonus on the soundtrack to the malloys shelter film, i've been a fan. Perhaps a little more mellow than much of my taste but her debut album 23 is great and well worth a listen if you haven't heard it.

driving with bert...

Anyone who's read this blog since the beginning might remember me posting the video for Neil Halstead's Paint a face single in the first few posts. I'm a huge fan of Neil's thoughtful acoustic english songs as well as his previous incarnation as a driving force behind the Mojave 3. The guy is undeniably very cool indeed and very good live.

I just came across this free download of his set from a truck festival in america last year. If you have half an hour, treat your ears to a performance from a great english singer songwriter at the peak of his powers.......

ringside seats for the neighborhood fight.....

I haven't been playing guitar much the last few months, and when i have it's been the 335 through my little vox combo and Mayall style blues, but as of this week the Gretsch hollow body is back in heavy rotation.
Maybe because i've been grooving on Chonoski's hot rod style, it got some setzer back on the old ipod. There's just something about a 6120 through a fender on the verge of break up that makes me smile and remember there's more to life than sand between your toes....

fixer

Miles Hunt, just post Wonderstuff in classic vitriolic form. Vent was made up of Miles, Morgan Nicholls, originally from senseless things and currently keyboard player for Muse, and the drummer from Eat whose name i've forgotten. One brilliant album and they were gone. It remains one of my favorites.

Finally made it back into the water today after a month off( ! ) Surfed just like i hadn't for a long time but it felt good to slide a couple of semi clean peelers. Lighter mornings and evenings are definately well on the way, even if the dawn patrol would have been easier with a foghorn today.

twinkling fingers

This is a slight cheat as it isn't my photo, it's taken on a diana by my friend Jim (star of the old blog banner!) but it is a picture of me indulging in one of my other obsessions, keeping the winter blues away with some proper blues (a bit of john mayall if i remember correctly). I really like the picture and, as you know, love a bit of self promotion :-)

toys

So i've kept this fairly surf based so far, but those who know me will know that guitar & music in general is another of my life's obsessions. I recently treated myself to the little vox amp in the picture. Four watts of lovely rich tube tone, looks like a handmade chocolate and best of all?

It's quiet & aesthetically pleasing enough to be allowed downstairs in the house!

This pic and the water shots on film are from another new toy, an ebay bargain waterproof film camera + some film that expired 6 years ago. Seems like an experiment that has worked so far!

fresh fruit for rotten vegetables...

I just got hold of a copy of Steve Cleveland's new movie (the guy that made Another State of Mind). It's called Fresh Fruit For Rotten Vegetables and is available from Xtreme distribution. First impressions are pretty darn good. It doesn't try too hard to be an arty film, more of a classic surf vid with an upbeat soundtrack, a fair split of progressive and traditional longboarding, some shortboard, fishes and hulls thrown in and waves from Cali, Oz and some cranking barrels in Indo.
Highlight for me was Chad Marshall's fin first hang heels (truly mental). There is some stellar logging from Jai Lee, Knost, Pickle, The Marshalls and CJ Nelson. If prog is your bag, Bonga gets big barrels (great sentance no?) Harley Ingleby rips and Taylor Jensen pulls a couple of christ/rocket style airs on a 9 footer. Nice to see some new footage of Tudor too.
Well worth the price of admission!

a fine night out

Last night i had the great pleasure of accompanying my wife & Mr Douglas E Powell to an evening of musical entertainment at Lilicos in Barnstaple. There are free gigs there for the next few mondays as part of North Devon festival. Last night was a very mellow singer songwriter kind of deal featuring Peter Bruntnell, who despite living in Mortehoe, is regarded internationally as one of the finest British acoustic talents and is sadly not so well known at home. Pete (who i feel may have a slightly fuzzy head this morning) was followed by Neil Halstead who is probably one of my faves on my ipod at the moment. Many moons ago he was in shoegazer band slowdive and has since found his way onto a few surf films and into a lot of cd players as the main songwriter for mojave3. Last year he released his second solo album on Jack Johnsons label, and it's great!

He (along with Mr Powell) is on the bill for the upcoming Goldcoast Ocean fest at croyde. Next Monday@lilico's is Douglas E Powell & The Caves, the week after features Otis Gibbs

Highly reccomended. 

(Still flat today here but fingers crossed waves are on the way!)