Politicians hide themselves away, They only started the war

Friday 20 November - Yes, I know I'm a bit late blogging, but there's a woman in my life who is keeping me occupied in the very best way possible, so I'm not sorry at all. Anyway up, we were out on Wednesday and, frankly, I can't do better than let The Druid tell you all about it.

So on Friday it was a case of covers all around so Andy and I plumped for Dufflegoat (and on FaceSpace) at The Roman Bath. We've seen them twice before and enjoyed them on previous occasions. Formed in 1994, Dufflegoat are a three piece rock covers band hailing from York, consisting of Roger Newton (guitar, backing vocals), Tony Gilpin (bass, lead vocals), and Paul Marshall (drums). Even on a chill winter's evening, Paul was drumming bare-chested. Brave man. The Goat do covers, but they don't go for note-by-note perfection. Rather, they take the essence of the original and turn it into something of their own. It works very well indeed.

Being the light-weight drinker that I am, my brain is a bit foggy after two pint of John Smith's finest but I distinct remember a whole medley of Led Zeppelin The Song Remains The Same, Good Times Bad Times, Rock and Roll, Cream White Room and Sunshine of My Love, Black Sabbath War Pigs, Deep Purple Black Night, The Who Won't Get Fooled Again, Jimi Hendrix Foxy Lady and Purple Haze, QOTSA No One Knows, Fleetwood Mac The Green Manalishi With the Two Pronged Crown, and they even threw in a couple of their own songs. Sadly The Goat are not back in York for the rest of this year but they can be caught on Saturday 5 December at The Bridge Tavern, Bradford, Friday 11 December at The Axe, Boston and Saturday 12 December at The Victoria Bikers Bar, Coalville. Recommended.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine, you threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?

Friday 13 November - Severe weather warning! Torrential rain! Storm force winds! Well not in York matey. We are the eye of the storm. Quite mild for a November evening, and just right for a genteel stroll into town, to The Roman Bath to watch classic rock covers band Stealer. Now the Bath can get a bit crowded but tonight it was exceptionally so, with a constant stream of tattooed ladies and baldy blokes in leather jackets. Even a guy with a shoulder bag big enough to carry a small child in. He knocked everyone flying.

Anyway, Stealer are a four-piece from York consisting of Mick, Nick, Andy and Tivvy (on drums). Tonight they played the following and more (I can't remember much after two pints of John Smith's, such a light-weight); The Kinks You Really Got Me, Lynyrd Skynyrd Sweet Home Alabama and Freebird, The Who Won't Get Fooled Again, AC/DC High Voltage Rock And Roll, Let There Be Rock and Whole Lotta Rosie, Neil Young Rocking In The Free World, UFO Too Hot to Handle, The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter, The Doors Roadhouse Blues, The Undertones Teenage Kicks, Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited and Like A Rolling Stone, and Deep Purple Black Night. All competently played and making for a very enjoyable evening. Thanks guys.

p-Pod roulette

Let's play shuffle on the old p-pod and see what comes up:

• El Salvador. Lead track from 2003 debut album Vehicles and Animals by Athlete. Released 24 March 2004, it was the fourth single from the album and charted at number 31.


• Today The World Stopped Turning. You gotta love Thunder. This version was track 6 from the 2003 album Thunder Ballads. Thunder announced a decision to split on 28 January 2009 via their website, boo hiss. The band toured Europe and Japan before returning home for the British leg of their farewell tour in July 2009. Their very final appearance took place on 1 August 2009 at around 11pm at the Sonisphere Festival, Knebworth where, thanks to another band pulling out, they were able to arrange a place on the bill at late notice and played a short final set to a packed Bohemia tent.


• Strange Kind Of Woman. Released as a follow up single after Black Night in early 1971 by rock legends Deep Purple. Originally called Prostitute, vocalist Ian Gillan said "It was about a friend of ours who got mixed up with a very evil woman and it was a sad story. They got married in the end. And a few days after they got married, the lady died." The track peaked at number 8 in the UK singles chart and appeared on the 1971 album Fireball.


• Terminal Crash Fear. Blimey, this was a blast from the past. Specifically it was track 12 from the 1996 album The Big 3 by the 60ft Dolls. The Dolls were a Welsh rock trio active in the 1990s. The album featured four singles that had been previously released and was described by the NME as "grunge mod...proto-pub metal blues of the first order". The band toured extensively in the UK, Japan and Europe, including several summer festival appearances as well as opening for The Sex Pistols at their 1996 Finsbury Park reunion gig. But they were dogged by alcohol problems, and after an exhaustive three tours of the USA in 1997, never toured again. They released their second album, Joya Magica, in late 1998 and split soon after.


• Further On (Up The Road). One of Johnny Cash's final collaborations with producer Rick Rubin, the album American V: A Hundred Highways, was released posthumously on 4 July 2006. This was track 5, actually a cover, originally recorded by Bruce Springsteen on his 2002 album The Rising.


• Liberty In Reality. Sam Brown, daughter of Joe. This was track 6 from her superb 1997 solo offering Box. Never heard of her? Bet you have. Sam provided some backing vocals for Pink Floyd on their 1994 album, The Division Bell, and accompanied them on tour to promote the release.


• Abyssyn. Track 5 from the 2009 album Stranger Inside by Richard Barbieri. Barbieri was the former synth programmer with Japan but he has been working for the last 16 years alongside Steve Wilson in Porcupine Tree.

I'm tired of being what you want me to be, feeling so faithless, lost under the surface

Friday 6 November - there's an old saying (I say it and I'm old) that sometimes you have to listen to rubbish music otherwise you don't appreciate the good stuff. Tonight, at Fibbers, I gained a good deal of appreciation for the good stuff. However, not included in that sweeping statement was the first of tonight's bands, Astrae. We've seen them before, but I'm sure they've lost a lady violinist somewhere along the way. A York-based band, they consist of James A Hutchinson (Guitar / Vocals), Jack Beavers (Guitar / Synth / Vocals), Ali Thyne (Drums / Percussion), Rio (Keyboard / Synth), and T-Bone Malogus (Bass and pineapple knot hair do). I like their music. It's alt-rock with a healthy dash of keyboards, and somewhere in the mix was the superb Outlander, and the tracks Something for Now, and L'Ost. Each song is longer than the bog-standard three-minute as the band concentrate on lengthier, crafted tunes that convince, me at least, that real thought goes into each composition.

It's downhill from there I'm afraid. Second support came from Thatcher's Bush.Again, we've seen these before and, on the strength of tonight's performance, I've no reason to change my opinion that these are basically a formulaic pub-rock band veering on the side of ska-punk. OK, I will admit that they might make a reasonable Clash covers band.

There was slight improvement (it would have been difficult to get worse) with headliners Sons Of Albion, a London-based outfit consisting of Logan Plant (vocals and famous dad), Nuno Miguel (guitars), Gones (bass) and Francisco de Sousa (drums). They are likened to Soundgarden, Audioslave and Stone Temple Pilots but, frankly, their dark and intense music doesn't really go anywhere. It just sits in a corner making a noise while Plant hops about on stage weaving his hands around like a Bollywood princess. Of course, I may have been a bit cheesed off by this time, and therefore a bit negative. Certainly, if I had to chuck my money at any band it would have been Astrae.

We were hoping for a lift to the end of the evening by finishing off in The Roman Bath. Unfortunately there was a different band playing than had been previously advertised, and whoever it was played some dismal covers with an inappropriate ska edge. All a bit rubbish really.

You sit in your big house baby, you drive your fancy car

Friday 30 October - before I get down to the nitty-gritty of music, I'm afraid I'm going to have to drag out my soap-box and indulge in a bit of a rant. On Friday 30 October the news broke that Professor David Nutt had been asked to resign as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after claiming in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. The paper was based on a lecture he gave in the summer and had been published by one of the UK's leading university departments of criminology.

So, bad enough then that the government are not interested in listening to scientific advice, but to sack the man for criticising their policy, in a land that prides itself on freedom of speech, is surely a step too far. But, I was appalled when watching The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday 1 November, when Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson said, "Well I think to find yourself in a situation like this is very controversial. These things are best sorted out behind the scenes [my italics], so that the government and their advisers can go to the public with a united front." (Courtesy of the BBC website). In fact Mr Marr asked Mr Donaldson twice if the professor was accurate in his claim, and Mr Donaldson avoided answering on both occasions. Clearly the CMO wasn't prepared to put his job on the line and admit anything. It seems that our government would rather the public weren't aware of these anti-establishment views. Personally, I'm not in favour of re-classifying ecstasy from class A to class B (essentially, one of the thrusts of Nutt's paper), but I would rather I had all the facts on which to base my opinions. I don't want government controlling my opinions by feeding me only information they want me to have. This is 2009 not Nineteen Eighty-Four.

OK, rant over, here the music stuff. We had a full turn out of The Friday-Nighters as we were in the Roman Bath to watch our favourite artist, Chantel McGregor and her band; Martin Rushworth on drums and Alex Jeffrey on bass guitar. Regular readers will know that I've run out of superlatives to describe the awesome guitar playing prowess of this pocket-sized dynamo. You won't believe me when I tell you that she plays like Hendrix, unless you're actually seen her. But she doesn't just play covers of all the guitar greats; she elevates these covers and makes them better than the originals. She is simply stunning. I'm normally pretty good at playing "spot the song" but I struggle with identifying some of them. Of those that I did recognise were; Bridge To Better Days and Mountain Time (Joe Bonamassa), Help Me (Sonny Boy Williamson), Up In The Sky (Joe Satriani), Voodoo Chile, Red House, and Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix), Daydream (Robin Trower), One Of These Days (Ten Years After), Had to Cry Today (Blind Faith), Lenny (Stevie Ray Vaughan), High (Richie Kotzen), and New Day Yesterday (Jethro Tull). You can check out videos of her performing on YouTube. Please do it. Maybe I'll see you down the Bath on 18 December 2009, that's the next time she'll be playing in York.

After the gig we stood chatting outside the Bath. Andy had finally decided to make his way home and had unlocked his fold-up bike, ready to set off. Just then, Chantel and her parents emerged from the pub and Chantel wanted to have a go on his bike. Unable to resist a pretty face, Andy relinquished his bike to her and she hitched up her skirts and began wobbling around St Samson's Square. The early morning air was filled with her laughter as she shrieked, "Mum, Dad, can I have one for Christmas?" What a lovely lass.

Hey, You're not the first, You're not the last, To hold me back

Monday 26 October - It's a school night but when there is a very good band in town, you just have to make the effort. On my way to The Duchess I walked passed Fibbers where I was surprised to find a couple of policeman lurking near the concrete steps around the back of the Stonebow. Puzzlingly, there was another PC hanging around at the St Saviourgate end of the passage where the front entrance to The Duchess is. I later found out that a Barnsley man had climbed up onto the scaffolding and was threatening to jump off. We never realised he was there, and tragically, he did finally jump to his death at 13:50 on Tuesday.

Back to the gig, and the first support band was Ghosts On The Intercom, a York-based three-piece consisting of; Tom Robinson (Guitar and vocals), Alex Woolgar (drums), and Rich Morley (bass). Tom is from the school of guitar players who likes to wear his instrument like a necklace, affording him the opportunity to spider up the frets with his right hand, performing hammer-ons, pull-offs, and still picking out notes from the chord. It looks flashier than it really is, as evidenced by the fact that he did it for almost every guitar solo he played. That said he was actually a competent player. The vocals were way too shouty for me. Lyrics were completely wasted, something about "feed me a stray cat"? The whole set was very jangly on the ears, with one song sounding pretty much like another. Andy liked them though.

We also agreed to differ on the second band, Sucioperro, another 3-piece, but this time from Ayr in Scotland. The band are; JP Reid (vocals and guitar), Fergus Munro (vocals and drums), and Stewart Chown (bass). They produced an almighty bass sound that made my clothes vibrate. I like it when my clothes vibrate. These were very heavy, and yet surprisingly tuneful, a bit like York's own With One Last Breath. I did manage to make out the titles of a couple of tracks; Dissident Code, and You Can't Lose (What You Don't Have). I think Andy found their black arm-bands with red crosses on them, slightly unnerving.

And so to the head-liners, ManchesterNine Black Alps, who consist of Sam Forrest (vocals, guitar), David Jones (guitar), Martin Cohen (bass), and James Galley (drums). We've seen them twice at The Duchess and they perform superbly to what appears to me to be a loyal York fan-base. Certainly Sam originally came from York, and the band have strong ties to the city. When we saw them last they were touring material from a forthcoming album, Locked Out From The Inside, which they have just released. By tonight this material was fully integrated into their set, which still draws fairly heavily from their debut, Everything Is. NBA are an English Nirvana. Sam growls Cobain-like, while James drums with vast energy. The guitar-work of David and Martin is enough to wake the dead, yet melodic, sometimes as soft as down, yet a volume never dipping below eleven. Bass and lead guitarists even swap for the final two tracks, just because they can. The band came on-stage to the strains of the theme from Antiques Roadshow. Outstanding tracks for me were; the superb Heavier Than Water, Salt Water, and Burn Faster, grunge-stomp Vampire In The Sun, trouser-shaking Every Photograph Steals My Soul, and spaced-out Cold Star. Hell, I liked them all. This was a first-class gig and I dug into my pockets for a copy of their latest album to add to my collection. Very highly recommended.

Tuesday 27 October - Continuing on my much extended weekend, we are out again on yet another school night, this time at The Basement Bar. The evening kicked off with two-fifths of Sheffield band David Woodcock and The Dead Comedians, specifically; Dave (former frontman of punksters Taste Of Shotgun) on guitars and vocals, supported by Chris Saunders on guitar. Most of the songs they played revolved around cigarettes and alcohol, or love lost. Dave sang with a Waits-style growl and invoked images of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. I missed most of the song titles, except for the outstanding City Lights.

Not a bad start to the evening that had been organised by the second act, Boss Caine, aka GT Turbo, aka Dan Lucas. A York musician, Dan writes and plays music in the Americana style. He has vocals like Neil Diamond, very bass, very smooth. Again, I missed the titles but the songs went somewhere along the lines of; Smoking In My Back Yard, something about Lady Macbeth, Kinda Loving, Anyone Here Seen Hank?, and the highlight for me, Sweet Sorrow Surrender.

The Basement Bar is a very intimate (small) venue, so there were probably only about fifty people tops. But tonight they were hosting a big act, Hope&Social. H&S come from Leeds and regular readers will know they consist of; Simon Wainwright (vocals, guitar, piano), Rich Huxley (guitar, vocals, piano), Jason Miller (bass), and Ed Waring (keyboards). They are currently joined on drums by Mark Ashwell. Sadly, this was Jason's penultimate gig with the band. After a final gig in Leeds on Thursday, he will be hanging up his bass in favour of his family.

Tonight they played most of their album, Architect of this Church. They kicked off with the super hand-clapping Living A Lie. After this they revealed that most of the band were suffering, in varying degrees, with colds. Ed even confessed to a "runny bottom." Sweet. Moving swiftly along, they polished off Stuck Like Glue, Sunlight Hold Me, Drink The Drink, and Red Red Rose. Then they exhorted the crowd to invoke the spirit of Rod Stewart for Stay With Me. It doesn't sound like a huge set-list, but each song was elongated to its maximum and the set was extended with tuneful links between the tracks. Nonetheless, it was all over way too quickly. Rich and Simon came back for an encore sans a PA system. Looking For Answers is a great track that allows for lots of audience participation, and how we participated! It was a great show and at the end Jas came around the audience selling copies of the album, using their pay-what-you-want model of distribution. Please, go and see H&S, or buy their album, for how ever much you want, or download it, or just go and see another band, but just get out there a support live music!

All I ever wanted was a reason to be happy, Happiness can be so hard to find.

Friday 23 October - In the mid-eighties, New Orleaner Tony Green and tea chest bass player Dennis Johnson collided at London's Covent Garden to form the core of busking band, the Gutter Brothers. They toured with the likes of Jools Holland and Dr Feelgood, and signed with Elvis Costello's Demon Records. The band split in 1993 and Dennis died in 2002. Since then the band has played the occasional one-off show and recently embarked on something of a mini-tour, culminating (for us at least) tonight at The Duchess. Given that they were billed as a skiffle band I was somewhat relieved to see a wash-board onstage, although unsure as quite what to expect musically.

Support tonight was billed as Tom Cawte and guitarist Dave Thornley, both of Babe Shadow, who performed an acoustic set, presumably of Babe Shadow material. They both played and sang competently, although I didn't recognise any of their material. It was a kind of rocked up folk. If I had to pigeon-hole them, they would probably get filed next to Noah & the Whale.

Anyway, on to the headline act, Gutter Brothers, who were joined on-stage by one of the Babe Shadows, who played guitar and harmonium (a keyboard instrument where sound is produced by air, supplied by hand-operated bellows). I think bass player was Steve Turner, and he played electric bass guitar as well as an electric upright bass. The rest of the band consisted of Tony Green (vocals and washboard), Chris Cawte (guitar), and Jeff Walker (on drums). Musically they played a mixture of heavy be-bop, hi-energy skiffle, R&B, and quite rocky material. The former seemed to stem mainly from their early stuff, principally drawn from their first album Isometric Boogie. The rockier stuff I think comes from their later albums, and in particular, the 2008 album El Krusho. Highlights for me where the tracks; Everlasting Shining Peace of Mind, and Stand Up, Little Jesus. Tony was a real performer. I really didn't have a clue what this band would sound like, but I'm pleased I turned out. They were brilliant and I highly recommend seeing them.

These girls fall like dominos, dominos

Friday 16 October - Sorry, there was a bit of radio silence last week as I was at a wedding. Anyway, I'm back to normal this weekend as we kick off at Fibbers with, apparently, one of the top ten British blues guitarists of all time (according to Guitar & Bass magazine). Support tonight came from Mark Wynn a York chap who plays in the troubadour tradition, a bit like Bob Dylan or Woody Guthrie. I didn't recognise any of the songs he played/sang, but he sang clearly and strongly, and his playing was excellent. I think he plays around York fairly regularly and I would recommend looking out for him.

There was a rather noisy element to the audience, but these were swiftly drowned out by the headline act, Matt Schofield and his band. Matt was born in 1977 in Manchester but grew up in Fairford in Gloucestershire. These days he is based in Canada and typically performs with an organ trio, a slightly unusual format for a blues band. He is currently touring his 2009 album Head, Tails & Aces with a four-piece featuring Jeff 'The Funk' Walker on bass, and replacing Evan Jenkins with Alain Baudry on drums. The fourth band member is organist Jonny Henderson who plays a Hammond organ, performing bass lines using his left hand, and playing chords and lead lines with his right hand. All very clever stuff. I was a bit sceptically about the whole "top ten best blues guitarist..." blah, blah, but as the set unfolded Schofield did indeed produce some blistering guitar solos the likes of which made my jaw ache as it was dropped open for so long. I didn't pick up much of what he played; there was Betting Man, effectively the title track from Head, Tails & Aces, All You Need, and Lights Are On, But Nobody's Home, a cover of an Albert Collin's track I think. It was an exceptionally good gig and I thoroughly recommend that you try and catch Matt on tour. Researching him afterwards, I noted that he has also co-produced albums of another British blues guitarist that I've seen relatively recently, Ian Siegal. Ian is also gracing the boards at Fibbers, sometime later this year.

As we had an early finish, we sprinted gracefully across town to The Roman Bath to catch the last half hour of The Penetrators. Not the old punk band (actually the first live band I ever saw), but rather a classic rock covers outfit. A four-piece outfit from Hull, The Penetrators consist of Andy Bolder (guitar & vocals), Ian Bolder (guitar & vocals), Haydne Carter (bass guitar & vocals) and Mike Wright (drums). They were playing Genesis' I Can't Dance when we arrived, and our ears were treated to a bit of AC/DC, Whole Lotta Rosie, The Who, Won't Get Fooled Again, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin etc. We've yet to catch a full set by these guys but they sounded pretty darn good to me.

Saturday 17 October - Always on the listen out for something new, Saturday found us in the bowels of The Duchess. Well, me at least. 'A' was attending a call-out from work and was a little late in arriving. In fact he missed the first support band, Idiot Savant. I'm not sure there's a category box for these chaps. It was all a bit Divine Comedy gone completely avant-garde. Art-rock? No idea. It was different, let's just leave it there.

The second support act were We Fell To Earth an electronic rock band from London, of which the main performers are Wendy Rae-Fowler and Richard File. Dave Okumu and Leo Taylor of The Invisible play drums and guitar on the debut album, but I'm not sure if they are part of the touring band. File joined UNKLE after DJ Shadow left and subsequently met up with Fowler whilst working in LA. The UNKLE influence is retained in the work of WFTE, it's millennium-era post-trip-hop with File and Fowler as Tricky and Shirley Manson. The drums are tom heavy and there are stray bleeps and bloops in the spaces between the drums and vocals. It's polite, well-produced music, but a bit too middle-class to be worthy of the label "interesting".

The headliners, on the other hand, were a complete different kettle of kittens. The Big Pink are an electro-rock duo from London, Robertson "Robbie" Furze (vocals, guitar) and Milo Cordell (programming, keyboards, synthesizer, vocals). For the live tour they are joined by other musicians who provide bass, percussion, and backing vocals. I think they also had multi-instrumentalist Daniel O'Sullivan with them, ferreting about in a metal case, pushing buttons and hitting things. I guessing that most of the material they played was from their debut album A Brief History Of Love, released in September 2009. I also understand that they are supporting Muse on tour in November 2009.Their music is a bit like Spiritualized, or Spacemen 3 (I've not heard SM3 so the comparison comes from 'A'), a cross between trance-dance and drone-rock. I remember one track, Count Backwards From Ten, but the others passed me by so I couldn't identify individual tracks. This blissed-out electronica is not normally my cup of Yorkshire but I thoroughly enjoyed this band so that must make them pretty good. I'm also listening to quite a bit of drone-rock at the moment, although I would have put TBP at the fringe of the genre, so I was probably more receptive than I might otherwise have been. This was a great end to a great weekend of music.