Recommended: a record and a show

I have now added a review of Brasstronaut's Mt Chimaera here. They have a really distinctive sound and the record gets better and better with repeated listens: there's a lot going on.

I was introduced to Brasstronaut by the excellent Balcony TV. Do also have a look at a more recent performance there by Australian band Cloud Control - click here. I think they'll be another good discovery.

Finally, I mentioned that A Christmas Carol was on its way from .dash. More information here and tickets now available for dates between 30 November and 24 December. If you can get to London then, it will make your Christmas complete...and remember, they're watching you...

Hunter-gatherers, camels, etc

The simple pleasures are often the best. A brisk walk into town on a cold and sunny Sunday morning, and a brisk walk back again an hour or two later, with a bulging bag of records.

The periodic record fair has relocated from the barn that is the Brighton Centre to the decidedly cosier confines of the  Komedia. Fewer stalls and some tedious manoeuvring through the crush, but still nothing quite like flicking through the boxes of vinyl and finding the occasional gem.

There is something qualitatively different  and pleasing about buying nine albums at once rather than the one or two you might more usually get on a shopping trip. And doing so without being culpably extravagant, when a lot of them come out of the £3 and £4 boxes. Yes, going to a record fair is rather like going to the sweet shop when Blackjacks and Fruit Salad were still four a penny AND YOU HAD SIXPENCE…

There’s always a lot of dross, of course – scratched, tedious, overpriced or simply already present on your shelves. But usually also some combination of  reasonably-priced, interesting  and desirable things you hadn’t previously known existed, as well as fillers for some acknowledged gaps (the ‘known unowneds’, as Donald Rumsfeld might call them, were he a vinyl fan and more given to self-parody).

What you learn you can’t do at record fairs is go with a specific shopping list and expect to find the things on it:  you have to come at the gaps obliquely and take them by surprise. A nice original copy of Who’s Next was in that category this morning, a fine album featuring the great Keith Moon on thunderous form and a silly sleeve that may be a commentary on 2001: A Space Odyssey,

so much for monoliths…

As for the new treasures, a dead heat for first prize this morning:

• from the stall of an amiable French chap who often seems to make the trip over for the Brighton fairs, an 80s double album by Johnny Hallyday recorded on a trip to Nashville and featuring duets with people like Emmylou Harris and Tony Joe White; and
• an irresistibly titled Dollar Brand album African Space Program, featuring a number of camels on the cover in quite a lot of…space…in...Africa.

Looking forward to hearing them both, along with the others.

PS and very nice to hear some kind words at the fair about this blog – thanks, Mark, and hope you found something interesting too.

Who knows where it goes?

Time, that is.

A bit of a theme at the moment:  from the standard post-early-departure clichés ('...I don't know how I ever had time to go to work...'), through to rather deeper musings about life stages and where it's all heading ('who's going to mark my time?').

A good further helping - on the cosier side of the equation - last night, with Norma Waterson and daughter Eliza Carthy playing at the Komedia in Brighton, a proud Martin Carthy taking a back seat playing guitar in their band. Some beautiful singing and playing, with some entertaining and very typical family dynamics: Eliza is now 35 to her mother's 71, heavily pregnant with her second child, in her prime - she mostly let her mother lead the set and do the majority of the (extensive) talking, but both her dry quips and the power of her singing and fiddling told a familiar generational story...the torch is handed on.

The set majored on Norma and Eliza's current joint album The Gift, which is beautifully performed, but, full of old family favourites, not always material I naturally go for.  Its medley of 'Ukelele Lady/If Paradise Is Half As Nice' was the best of the bunch. Other highlights for me included two Richard Thompson songs, 'Al Bowlly's In Heaven' and 'Josef Locke'. 

A Christmas Carol is drafted and in rehearsal, so I should now be able to catch up on some things I've said I'll write...if I can just find the time.

Glorious Band of Joy show at Electric Proms

Robert Plant & co were on extraordinary form at the Roundhouse last night, mixing reinventions of old Zeppelin songs with the new classics from the current album.

You can currently listen to the show on the Radio 2 website (here) and it will be on TV next weekend. Not to be missed.

It was a great band performance with Plant taking obvious pleasure in the vocal and instrumental contributions of his colleagues.  He, meanwhile, can wield a mic stand - and of course a vocal cord - like few others...The songs I expected to hear - the killers from the Band of Joy record like 'Harm's Swift Way' (yes!) and 'House of Cards' and the more familiar oldies like 'Gallows Pole' - were all present and more than correct.  But I was knocked out also to hear 'Tangerine' from Led Zep III and 'Rock and Roll' from IV.  

The last song of a 2 hour set, featuring the Oriana Choir, was the old gospel song 'I Bid You Goodnight'.  Lovely - but a safe, traditional choice you might say.  I, on the other hand, feel fairly sure that Robert Plant was revisiting its central role in the Incredible String Band's 'A Very Cellular Song' and really appreciated that resonance.  It's an apposite one, too:  Plant, like the Incredibles, and remarkably for a rock god in his position, remains ready to take risks and go where the music takes him. He uses the voice like the driver of a very powerful car, choosing to cruise and take in the view, but every so often pressing his foot on the pedal and reminding us of what's lurking beneath the bonnet...

I don't think I'll be pursuing a career in photography, but this shot of RP and the excellent Patty Griffin is reasonably atmospheric...

All a distraction, though, I fear, from what I ought to be doing:  helping sort out the script for what promises to be an amazing .dash Christmas show - a dark and different take on Dickens' Christmas Carol.

More on that shortly.

We have lift off...

Elvis has now left the building...and so have I.

I was watching Wunch again first thing this morning and there were some interesting resonances with some of the things that are being said about reducing numbers in the civil service...

But a lovely session in the pub last night with colleagues old and young reminded me why 'building a safe just and tolerant society' was a fine aspiration, and that there are a lot of good people still trying to do just that in their working lives...despite all the corporate bollocks that sends people sliding, like a slew of ball bearings under their feet.  Good luck and bon courage to you all.