The Great Escape 2013 - day two

It was definitely Billy Bragg's day, with a strong contender for performance of the year, not just of TGE. In comparison with the other stuff I saw, it's a bit like wondering how the rest got on when Mo Farah turned up for the dads' race at sports day...

It was probably the fifth or sixth time I've seen Billy over the last 25 years or so and the first that he's had a full band available throughout. We still got some solo and stripped-down numbers, but it was good to have the range, texture and oomph that his four collaborators brought to the show. A particular mention for CJ Hillman, swapping between a pedal steel and a Rickenbacker to great effect, but they were all excellent. (It must be a bit tricky playing country music as the 'other Chris Hillman', but CJ doesn't suffer by the comparison.)

And was it country music? Yes, sometimes. So what? Billy got to crack some gags about 'rocking the radical Kenny Rogers look' and tell some stories about pearl snap shirts, but in truth this very English songwriter sits solidly in a transatlantic tradition – as his entirely apt choice for the Mermaid Avenue project, setting previously unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics to new music, fully demonstrated. He played 'Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key' from that album, alongside Woody's 'I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore.'

On both, and throughout the set, Bragg has never been in better voice – deeper as he gets older, but smoother too and deployed with confidence and range. He still jokes, sipping his herbal tea at the end, that its magical properties make him believe he's singing in tune, but his strong and lived-in larynx is now a definite strength, as its foghorn side has faded somewhat over time.

That's not to say that there's any less fire or righteous anger on show, as diatribes against political cynicism and a powerful reading of 'Ideology' demonstrate. The set ranges freely across the decades and everything he choses – the overtly political and the more personal and emotional, from his current album way back to 'The Milkman Of Human Kindness' from 1983 – fits into a coherent and cohesive whole. Special mentions for a luminous 'Tank Park Salute' (I'm welling up again as I type this...) and a deftly tweaked 'Great Leap Forwards' (the uncle 'who once played for Red Star Belgrade' now says he has 'left your aunt and run off with the postman'), but I loved the whole show. There was the odd grumble on the way out that he hadn't played 'New England' - but, hey, think of what he did play and the strength of that 30 year back catalogue. (He had a nice riposte to shouted requests for more obscure numbers: 'Thank you, madam, but you only have to remember the title...') Thanks, Bill. Five stars.

And, in other news...

I'm kicking myself for getting to the Dome too late to catch more than the last couple of songs from Del Barber, a singer-songwriter from Winnipeg, who has a clear strong voice, accomplished guitar style and confident stage manner – which is not straightforward in a half-empty 2000 seat hall. I'll be looking out for more from him.

I only saw two songs from second support Sean McGowan too, but that was a choice. He has a strong, ranty voice, very reminiscent of a young Billy Bragg, but – for me – none of Bragg's focus or songwriting subtlety. It struck me as ranting to no purpose, I'm afraid.

The pick of the shows I caught earlier in the day was punk duo L'Hereu Escampa from Barcelona. Thunderous drumming and high energy attack, speeding up and slowing down to great effect. The shouted vocals – in Catalan, apparently, but it could have been anything – might get wearing after a while, but for half an hour this was a gripping set. (I think there must be something in the water in that part of Spain that turns out great drummers: L'Hereu are not quite in the same league, but came across rather like a stripped down version of Fergusson, one of my hits of TGE 2012.)

A mention in dispatches for Kinnie the Explorer, who coped well with a disappointingly thin audience at the Brighthelm Centre and built some nicely floating prog-tinged indie from intricate repetitive patterns. They lack a naturally strong vocalist, but there is a lot there to build on.

I was less keen on Alarm Bells, a young Scottish 5-piece, clearly determined to take the world by storm, and ready to deploy the kitchen sink in doing so. Their first number included dry ice, strobes, the singer whirling the mic around on its lead, the guitarist waving his unstrapped instrument about and some siren-like wailing. They built from there. The words 'unholy' and 'racket' came unbidden to my brain and I moved on.

The Great Escape 2013 - day one

So, here we are again, tramping the streets of Brighton, squeezing into some unfeasibly small spaces to see bands we've never heard of...

I'd been feeling somewhat underexcited by this year's Great Escape because it the only one of hundreds of names on the bill that I knew I liked was Billy Bragg, who appears at the Dome tonight. But a quick burst of venue-hopping last night – bookended by engaging performances by two chalk-and-cheese-different Canadian 23 year olds – restored my faith and energy levels.

Coincidentally, I'd been to see Lucinda Williams the night before and was left underwhelmed. The voice was there and some classic songs, like 'Jackson' and 'Car Wheels On A Gravel Road'. But she didn't seem fully engaged: spending a lot of time fiddling with her guitar and consulting a roadie, and relying heavily on a big binder on a lectern for the lyrics. Guitarist Doug Pettibone was fine on the textures and crunch but, to my ear, didn't add much melodically. Even from our front row seats, what was billed as 'An Intimate Evening With Lucinda Williams' ended up being more of a low-key one.

Quite a contrast to see Mo Kenney the next day. I knew nothing about this young Nova Scotian on her first trip to the UK other than that she was a singer-songwriter. She took the stage with an acoustic guitar and sang a couple of songs clearly and pleasantly to a neatly finger-picked accompaniment. Just as a 'so what?' was forming in my mind she strapped on a Les Paul and introduced Emergency, a clearly older bassist and drummer who were 'jetlagged as fuck' having flown in that morning. The rest of the set was on another level, building to a brave and excellent take on David Bowie's 'Five Years'. It transpired that Kenney has been recording with big-in-his-native-Canada Joel Plaskett  and Emergency are his band. Mo deserves that sort of attention and leg-up: she has a focus and clarity about what she does, with a spare, unpretentious, line in lyrics ('your eyes are like a big black hole / the more I look the less I know'); and an engaging dry sense of humour – noting that Brighton 'is like California...only cooler'.

I had been more taken by the programme's write-up of the act that followed Kenney – Norwegian chanteuse Jenny Hval. Unfortunately, I didn't really take to her: self-consciously arty, shying away from anything that might be mistaken for a groove, her voice not really strong or distinctive enough to get away with the arch phrasing and sudden shrieks. She knows how to write an arresting line – 'last night I watched people fucking on my computer' – but when the name of a song is 'Oslo Oedipus', you know someone is trying a bit too hard. (And I've since discovered that her album is called Innocence Is Kinky...)

I then took in solo electric guitarist Dean McPhee, whose write-up drew a comparison with Mike Oldfield. Not quite, I fear, it's hard for one, seated, instrumentalist to hold an audience's interest if you're not either a striking virtuoso or have really strong melodies. Compared with some others in the field, I didn't really detect either.

Moving briskly on, I sampled the more touted Merchandise, a four-piece guitar band from Tampa, Florida. Lots of thump and energy, rather less in the way of obviously distinctive style or songs. You have to aim off a bit when you can't make out the words, and pausing at the back of the Corn Exchange on the way out, I did pick up some more intriguing echoes of Steve Harley in frontman Carson Cox's vocals. From a bit of subsequent research, the band's interviews seem to be rather more expansive and ambitious than their performances ('The Sound Of Music reimagined by Augustus Pablo' was definitely not what the hardcore I heard brought to mind), but they may well have a more subtle side on record.

I then called in to a rammed Green Door Store on my way home and was pleased to have caught Mac DeMarco, another young Canadian (raised in Edmonton) with a good ear for a hookline and an exuberant air of drunken bonhomie. He wears a backward ball cap (of course) and his grinning, bearded bassist actually wears his – a tasteful Jurassic Park number – sideways. Mac numbers amongst his influences diverse luminaries including Jonathan Richman and Shuggie Otis - and you can genuinely hear that in the music: he's got Richman's ability to control his own time and space vocally above the beat and (strangely, behind the boozy vulgarity) some of his innocence too. Imagine Richman joining the cast of Animal House... and then – suspend that disbelief, now – performing a pisstake of 'Stairway To Heaven', with added blow-job references.  And the band can actually do a convincing southern funk, a la Shuggie. It came to me that the bassman could have been a young Levon Helm, delighted to have been served with some underage beers. It's not tasteful, but it's fun and it works. I particularly warmed to them when a know-all voice behind me opined to his companion 'This is the sort of band that gets canned off at Reading' before shouting 'You're shit!'. They're not – and most of the audience were having a great time.

The Return of Mr Phigg

I think I'm nearly there with the second full-length story about the redoubtable Mr Phigg.

Here are the first three chapters of The Web She Wove - any reactions will be gratefully received...

Hiss Golden Messenger in Hove

At Hove's Palmeira pub last night Mike Taylor, the man behind the Hiss Golden Messenger monicker, memorably compared his songwriting to building lightning conductors. Putting the songs out there and seeing if a flash of electricity will coruscate through them... He has a remarkable hit-rate and his fine set fairly crackled with spine-tingling moments. A definite smell of ozone, I'd say.

It was impressive that Taylor, and fellow traveller guitar maestro William Tyler, were even awake and coherent, having flown in from the US over the previous night, the airline mislaying their merchandise crate along the way. They seemed genuinely pleased to be doing what they were doing and both were on strong form. The only obvious sign of a fuddled brain came from Mike forgetting a line from his encore song 'Jesus Shot Me In The Head.' He checked with the audience, started again and nailed it with a glorious performance.

The latest HGM album Haw benefits from varied arrangements and a range of other musical contributions, but there is a particular intensity in hearing the songs played solo: concentrating more on the words, through his rich, slightly slurry, vocal delivery, against the backdrop of the sinuous pulse of his distinctive guitar style.

And just what is going on in those words? I'm happy to report that I can't exactly tell you. There is that intriguing sense of something lurking, alluded to and not fully addressed, sometimes light, sometimes dark. There is a lot of biblical imagery, which doesn't seem to be used for straightforwardly biblical purposes: introducing one song, Taylor described trying and failing to persuade a gospel singer friend to record a backing vocal for it - 'she belongs to the church, I belong to something else'. But there is nothing casual or manipulative about this; he clearly understands the weight and power of the pictures he is painting, in anticipation of a time 'when the truth will be revealed as something we can't see'.

Incidentally, I haven't seen an explanation anywhere of the Hiss Golden Messenger name: my take, for what it's worth, would be another twist of biblical image - 'His golden messenger' evoking an angel or a prophet, the extra sibilant showing that the serpent is closely involved in this too... Pretty much the human condition, really. 

Whatever. There is a depth and a heft to what HGM does which sets those sort of thought patterns going. Dive into Haw, or catch him on this tour, and see what Taylor's songs will do for you.

And a PS for Mike: do a song or two with William - that would be great.

Gum: in case you missed the earlier plugs

Call me biased, but Gum look as cool as they sound, don't they?