Gambling on The Man

It has been a quiet year for music so far, here at Eden On The Line HQ.

I was due to see Kelly Joe Phelps at the end of the week, but sadly he had had to cancel his tour. Just one gig so far: the Little Opry Americana night at the Tom Thumb Theatre in Margate last Saturday. In amongst a range of performers (including what may be - or indeed Maybelle - the UK's only Carter Family tribute band in the shape of the Kent Carters), the Pete Allen Family Band stood out for me: mandolin from old hand Pete (his earlier career Stateside included a stint with Queen Ida & The Bon Temps Zydeco Band), and guitar and banjo from two of his sons. The latter (Geary, I think) is a real individual talent, but it's good, solid, driving, bluegrass all round. Here's a taste.

More to come in February, with Fred Eaglesmith and Michael Chapman tickets already in the rack...

But the real story on the booking front is signing up for Van Morrison at the Europa Hotel in Belfast in March, on the eve of St Patrick's Day. Just 250 seats, with dinner first in a supper club atmosphere...

Van has been doing this quite a lot recently and a three-night residency at the Culloden Estate & Spa earlier this month drew strong reviews. It still feels like a bit of a gamble: he came good in a big way when I splashed out a comparable fortune for Astral Weeks live at the Royal Albert Hall, he gave a strong show in Brighton last year... Am I pushing my luck, with not the most consistent of performers?

Oh, well - fingers crossed, and think of 1972... It's great that he's still out there, doing his thing.

Yo La Tengo & other stuff

As if it wasn't exciting enough to have David Bowie breaking a decade's silence with a look back to his classic late-seventies influences, we also have for our current delectation:

• Yo La Tengo's Fade, released next week but currently streaming on Pitchfork and sounding pretty damn good as I start to make its acquaintance;
• Wussy have a free compilation of B-sides, remixes and obscurities available on their website. Can't quarrel with that;
• Gum are now officially 'big in Japan' with their new release out today there on the Vinyl Junkie label; and
• a recently acquired Furguson vinyl mini-album, My Friends Are My Culture, eventually tracked down from Spain after they caught my eye (and ears) at last year's Great Escape - splendid stuff, and you can hear a sample here. Play it loud.

Saint Dominic's Update

I don't want to give the impression that I am obsessively searching the internet for validation, but...

There are now three 5-star reviews on Amazon UK (thanks folks!) and it's also nice to see the following brief review on the Tower Records site:

 A Wow of a Book, December 21, 2012

By Dean Dee

Read it. A brilliant little tome that reads like good fiction, when it is in fact unvarnished reality. Morrison is enigmatic, and brilliant.

On the other hand, another reader was less than impressed:

New Van Morrison book - St. Dominic Flashback

About, as you may surmise, St. Dominic's Preview. Regretfully, the author's reach exceeds his grasp, and the interviews he did with the participating musicians are missed opportunities. Two revelations in 120 some pages 1. "Jackie Wilson Said" was pretty much one take (Van actually stopped the second take when it began). 2. "Listen To The Lion" was actually from the Tupelo Honey Sessions, and apparently there's a second, somewhat different take (wouldn't that have been a great bonus track if that album ever been reissued a few years back as originally scheduled). Great album, disappointing book....

Oh well, no publicity is bad publicity, I guess...

Kindle sales are now well into three figures, but I won't get any stats on the paperback till April.

Onward and upward...

2012: the one that got away

It's traditional, after all the lists have been listed and the compilations compiled, that you catch up with another contender...

This year it is Peter Buck, the first solo album from the former REM guitarist, which slipped out with little fanfare in October. It's a vinyl-only release, recorded quickly onto magnetic tape and mastered with no digital intervention, and it certainly sounds warm: in terms of sound quality and in the sense that this is a bunch of friends having a whale of a time.

Buck has assembled an interesting crew: longtime collaborators Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin (with whom he backs Robyn Hitchcock as the Minus 3); even longer-time collaborator bassist Mike Mills from REM; Jenny Conlee from The Decemberists on keyboards and accordion, with fiddler Annalisa Tornfelt from her Black Prairie side-project; the great Lenny Kaye adds his trademark Strat to four songs; and Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney takes the lead vocal on the excellent 'Nothing Means Nothing'.

It probably is 'one for the fans', as some reviews have commented. But if any of the names I've mentioned have any appeal, it's definitely worth a listen. Most listeners should be a fan of one of them, at least...

There's a bit of a Hindu Love Gods feel to the set, for those who remember the fine way that Warren Zevon and 3/4 of REM thrashed through a set of covers in the late eighties. The songs are mostly originals this time round, and Conlee and Tornfelt add some interesting textures, but the muscular and guitar-driven elements are largely to the fore. Most of the time, it's party time here.

One of the subtler moments comes with 'Some Kind Of Velvet Sunday Morning', available here on YouTube (where you can also find the whole album, should you be less than enamoured of the vinyl-only tactic). It evokes the Velvets, as you'd expect, but is even more reminiscent of Yo La Tengo, which can't be bad (their new album is due next month and should be an early highlight of 2013).

If I'd heard it earlier, I'd certainly have found room on the compilation, though it might not have made the Top Ten. I'm glad I got to it, just a little late.

Happy New Year to everyone who takes the trouble to read these musings - onward and upward in 2013.

From a guest reviewer: Jazz Slayers

This is good timing: no gigs attended in December and nothing in the diary till 1 February and now into my in-box comes a review from the legendary Rob Zanders (author of Playing Away, now sadly out of print, a mean man on the harp and a friend since we were eleven).

A hymn to all that is good about seeing smalltime bands in dodgy bars, and an overdue relief from my own deathless prose - you can read it here. Thanks Z.