Like It Or Lamp It

Hello again, and a special welcome to anyone who has found themselves here by clicking my link after getting embroiled in the somewhat inexplicable furore following my latest Riverside Fesitval review on Oxfordbands. Get involved and post messages here, why don't you? Love, hatred or stuff about arboreal nursery, I'm pretty easy.

This is a review I did with a reviewer named Sarah Morton. We wandered into a gig together and decided to write a review. She wrote most of it, I probably did 20%. I'll leave you to guess which parts were mine.

TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH-LOU/ THE LANTERN PLAYERS/ DUSTY/ THE SELENITES, The Lantern Society, Wytham Village Hall, 19/2/10

There's something perverse about a London folk club putting on a tour of countryside village halls, and it seems that if there were to be a natural exchange of folk music between rural and urban environments it probably wouldn't be passed in that direction. At tonight's show in the delightful bunting-decked Wytham Village Hall (seating 60 at a push) there is a slight feel of the Londoners coming down from the mountain and it's a more elaborate performance than seems appropriate for such a low-key environment where perhaps a more relaxed session would be the ideal. Though when The Lantern Players are playing they guest on-stage for each other's sets, all of which almost adds up to a strange display of formal informality, particularly when one musician's backstage practicing is audible from the stage. Nevertheless, it's a relaxed evening in a delightful environment and adds up to a show well worth making the effort out of town for.

The Lantern Players - Pepe Belmonte, Benjamin Folke Thomas and Jack Day - seem to be the in-house regulars of the Lantern Society, and each play a solo set which concludes with a sing-and-play-along from all three. Since the closing songs are the best in each set it would probably have made for a better gig if the three had played together from the outset, taking it in turns to play their solos and backing each other up, instead of spreading it all out to a six-band bill. Of the three Pepe Belmonte is probably the strongest, playing and singing blues in a Bert Jansch style with unobtrusive harmonica complementing a gentle voice. Jack Day has a striking blues-gospel sound with a put-on gravelly voice like a grizzled prospector which nevertheless doesn't feel out of place with the rolling freight-train blues style, and which lends him a Cat Stevens air in his slower songs. Benjamin Folke Thomas's reach slightly exceeds his grasp, with his aggressive guitar finger-picking not offsetting particularly well his muffled Swedish accented baritone, which is better suited to the slower, delicate songs where it has a weary sophistication redolent of Kris Kristofferson.

Of the two local supports the first, Half Moon regulars Alice Little and Danny Chapman as The Selenites, are by far the better act. Tonight they are a viola and concertina duo, and they give a strong performance of traditional folk tunes and songs in a reserved chamber style. The music is good, but the formality of the performance and the precision of the playing tends to make things a bit dry, and Little’s reticent voice, which makes her seem like a shy Edwardian spinster forced to do a turn at harvest festival, can suck some of the presence from thoughtful arrangements. It's admirable, but occasionally somewhat lifeless.

It would be kind to say as little about the second local support act - Goldrush's Robin Bennett as Dusty - as possible, as it was a truly awful performance of sub-Dylan clumsy guitar strumming, adenoidal busking and woefully clunky songwriting. The blues-style harmonica is often evocative of the freight train's whistle, but in Dusty's mouth it reminds us more of having got on the stopping train from Paddington by some horrible mistake; “42 Days” is a lamentable political ballad, but it makes us feel as if our train has been delayed by that long outside Reading. His last piece was apparently written for a “computer game about the environment”, but it would be more suited to Advanced Waiting Room Simulator or Catatonic The Hedgehog, such is its leaden dirge. Grand theft evening.

As can often be the case with bands who book their own supports, the top billing are head and shoulders above the rest. At the start of their set it's difficult to tell which of Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou is singing which parts as their voices blend beautifully in the high alto register, with Moss's voice standing out with a clear reedy tone which complements Hannah-Lou's softer timbre. It's clear they've been singing together for a long time, and the guitar playing from both of them is restrained and almost transparent to foreground the voices. For folk promoters it's perhaps surprising that they aren't playing traditional songs, but they are playing songs written to traditional themes, and the whole feels very English, evidenced by the facts that “Deptford Market” is about timeless London locales, and that Moss looks like an extra from Oliver! They’re clearly the standout act, though with tired ears it's not inspiring us enough to want to take their music home. The night was good honest entertainment, but it was a pleasant quiet night out rather than a musical epiphany…which is perhaps what acoustic nights in Wytham Village Hall ought to be.

Postcode Rock

One of many festival reviews that I'll be posting from the archives in the next couple of weeks. Elements from this were used in Nightshift, but the tone of the printed review was rather different. I'm more cynical, essentially. But that's how you like it, you slavering dogs. Oh, happy new year, by the way.

OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09

When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.

Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.

Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.

OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.