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Grex > Music > #18: World/Folk/Roots/Celtic/Whatever Catchall & Travelogue | |
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krj
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World/Folk/Roots/Celtic/Whatever Catchall & Travelogue
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Mar 26 23:41 UTC 2006 |
In the last incarnation of the music conference, we sliced and diced
these categories a bit too finely. So, this time, I'm going to try to
lump all these pigeonholes together, which (thanks to the BBC and
FRoots magazine) is largely how I experience them.
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| 35 responses total. |
krj
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response 1 of 35:
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Mar 26 23:45 UTC 2006 |
We were watching Sarah Vowell on Letterman the other night and
she was describing her perfect St. Patrick's Day, which included a
club show with The Pogues, including Shane MacGowan. I hadn't
known the Pogues were back in business, nor that Shane had rejoined
the band.
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mcnally
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response 2 of 35:
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Mar 27 03:58 UTC 2006 |
The most recent info in Allmusic.com says that McGowan and
the Pogues reunited for a tour in 2001, but doesn't suggest
that the re-union was long-lasting.
You're sure she said "Pogues" and not "Popes"? The latter
is the name of the band McGowan formed after his substance
abuse problems led the rest of the Pogues to kick him out.
Friends who saw the Pogues when I was still living in Ann
Arbor recount tales of being treated to a completely intoxicated
McGowan rant directed at the audience (the quote which became an
in joke among my peers was, I believe "You Americans.. Fuck you
and your fucking Batman..", after which McGowan collapsed and
had to be dragged off-stage.) I suppose enough time has passed
for him to get his act together and the fact that he's not dead
yet certainly suggests that he's at least stepped back considerably
from the epic amount of alcohol he was said to be consuming at
the time..
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krj
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response 3 of 35:
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Mar 27 05:09 UTC 2006 |
I found an article on boston.com (which seems to have promptly
retreated behind a registration firewall) which said that
Shane and the Pogues reformed for an Irish awards show where
the band was being honored, and then they took the show to
the USA east coast. No recordings are planned, and most of the
band is now settled with families and no extensive tours are
planned.
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krj
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response 4 of 35:
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Aug 10 16:44 UTC 2006 |
Sunday's concert at the Ark was the Finnish & Norwegian fiddle band
Frigg. Frigg is anchored by three members of the Arvela family from
Finland; members of JPP are fathers or uncles to those young folks.
The front line of the band was four fiddles; rhythm section was
mandolin, upright bass and guitar.
For the last number, the mandolin player brought out Estonian
bagpipes -- there are no Finnish bagpipes, he said. (This surprised
me, I thought bagpipes were everywhere in Europe.) In a sense I feel
like I was led to Frigg under false pretenses, because the first
track I heard on the BBC used bagpipes. :) But the band does
not play the pipes often.
----
Coming up this weekend in East Lansing, Friday through Sunday:
the Great Lakes Folk Festival, in the heart of downtown.
http://www.greatlakesfolkfest.net
Most of the musicians for this festival are not big on the
national or international touring scene; instead they are
excellent local musicians known only within their ethnic
communities.
The Celtic band this year is The Cottars, youngsters from maritime
Canada.
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krj
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response 5 of 35:
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Sep 8 16:37 UTC 2006 |
Just found a fascinating blog covering the business aspects of the
World Music market:
http://www.dubmc.com
The blog seems to have started the last week in August.
Most fascinating item so far is a survey of world music label heads
on various conditions affecting business right now.
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krj
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response 6 of 35:
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Sep 11 21:29 UTC 2006 |
News about Italian folk-techno band Fiamma Fumana, who we loved
at their Ark appearance in April 2005:
A new album ONDA has just been released, and
a North American Tour is starting imminently. I don't have a web link
to the tour dates, just e-mail. Dates that might be of interest to
readers here:
Sept. 23 Seattle, Festa Italiana at Seattle Center
Oct. 2 Seattle again, The Triple Door
Oct. 4 Lansing, Michigan
Oct. 5 Dearborn, Michigan (which I think conflicts with
Swap in Ann Arbor)
Oct. 7 Bloomington, IN, Lotus Festival
I'm surprised that we did not know that lead singer Fiamma
(who the band took its name from!) left the band in October
2005, as near as I can reconstruct from trying to read
Lady Jessica's blog in Italian. The new singer on the new
CD is named Lisa Kant (rather a non-Italian sounding name),
but for the US tour she is being replaced by one
Roberta Carrieri. The Fiamma Fumana official website
seems very broken tonight.
---
After writing the above for another forum, I did some digging and
found that replacement singer Roberta Carrieri was in a rock band
whose name I have now forgotten, which released an album LABILE which
seems to be difficult to impossible to buy.
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micklpkl
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response 7 of 35:
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Sep 12 13:46 UTC 2006 |
Fiamma Fumana were featured last night, in a short segment on NPR's "All
Things Considered" (perhaps that's why their website was broken?). I certainly
appreciated the bagpipe-centric review. :)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6056149
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cmcgee
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response 8 of 35:
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Sep 12 19:01 UTC 2006 |
Saw eMusiki at the Ren Festival last weekend. Gypsy, Greek, Celtic band from
San Antonio Texas.
If you go to the RenFest, try to find them. They were on the south side, in
the middle, at their own little performance area, not one of the big stages.
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krj
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response 9 of 35:
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Oct 4 16:48 UTC 2006 |
Not that anyone is likely to take my recommendations for last-minute shows,
but TONIGHT Wednesday October 4 is the Lansing show by Fiamma Fumana,
the Italian techno-folk-pop band. Beatbox and bagpipes. That's at the
Creole Gallery at 7:30 pm. The band's website is http://www.fiamma.org.
Thursday night, Fiamma Fumana play in Dearborn. resp:6 for more
blather from me.
And Thursday, October 5, Swap is playing at the Ark in Ann Arbor.
The band is half British, half Swedish; accordion, guitar and two fiddles.
Mostly dazzling acoustic instrumentals, though they have started mixing
Swedish songs into their repertoire. The accordion player is Karen Tweed,
who some of you will know from The Poozies. I think this is my most
anticipated show of the year.
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krj
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response 10 of 35:
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Nov 11 19:38 UTC 2006 |
The 3 Five Hand Reel albums which featured Dick Gaughan have been
issued on a two-CD set from BGO. Amazon reviewers are very enthusiastic
about the quality.
Five Hand Reel's vinyl albums have been treasures here since
their late-1970s issue; they were an excellent Scottish folk
rock band which never got any traction.
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krj
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response 11 of 35:
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Nov 28 22:50 UTC 2006 |
Some incoherent ramblings about some music I heard on the BBC shows:
The "Folkwaves" show (BBC Derby) had a track from the album MANSKRATT
by Groupa which really impressed me. Cliff at CDRoots.com writes
that this 1990 album was near the mainspring of the subsequent Swedish
roots revival - two of the performers are the ever-present Ale Moeller
and Lena Willmark, and a third is a guy who went into the band
Hedningarna.
I have some vague memory that I own this CD. 1990 is three years too
early for me to have been buying Scandinavian albums, and the cover
only looks a wee bit familiar. Sigh. Might just buy another copy,
then kick myself if I ever exhume a previous one from the piles in the
house.
"Global Gathering" (BBC Radio Scotland) had a live set from the
Belgian band Think of One, who play with a big brass section and lots
of Brazilian influences. The live set was lots of fun; I have
previously had trouble wrapping my head around what this band is
about, and I'm unsure how much I like the clattering Brazilian sound.
"Global Gathering" also played a great cover of Ellington's "Caravan"
by the Gypsy brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia. I was all set to order
that, but listening to some other samples on line I came to the
conclusion that too much of the band's material concentrates on
stuffing as many notes as possible into a phrase -- that's a
characteristic I've noticed in some of the other Romanian Gypsy folks,
and I'm not sure I like it.
In non BBC news, the annual Austin fundraiser CD BROADCASTS is out.
Sigh. I've bought a dozen of the darn things and never played a one.
BROADCASTS is an annual charity compilation of live tracks recorded
by KGSR, mostly of roots/folk/country type people. If one doesn't
live in Austin, one has a window of about two weeks to order it from
Waterloo Records.
Here's the track listing:
http://www.buymusichere.net/rel/v2_viewupc.php?storenr=13&upc=60739600142
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krj
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response 12 of 35:
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Jan 2 16:57 UTC 2007 |
In the Queen's New Year's Honors list, two UK folk musicians were
honored this year.
Shirley Collins -- Besides her own singing work, she is also
important for the song collecting work she did in the
US South with Alan Lomax in the 1950s.
Archie Fisher -- who I listen to every week in his day job
as host of the "Travelling Folk" show on BBC Radio Scotland
In non-folk musical honors, percussionist Evelyn Glennie was
honored as a Dame, which I think is the female equivalent of a
knighthood.
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krj
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response 13 of 35:
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Jan 18 17:39 UTC 2007 |
Breaking news for Mickey: Haale has CDs for sale. They're on CD Baby.
Curiously, she has chosen to package ten songs as 2 five-song EPs.
I haven't explored how the track list compares to the MP3s we had
from her earlier websites.
No time to write an introduction for those who haven't heard her, so
I'll just steal the recent press quotes from her publicity email,
hype hype:
'[Haale's] earnest blends of electric guitar, thoughtful lyrics, and
vocal gymnastics borrow from both ancient song and the poetry of
Persia. The surprise chestnut at the heart of the music is the
dynamic, fiery delivery of Haale herself, whose voice is by turns
deep and commanding, feather-light and breezy, and as rich and
sensual as dark-chocolate fondue.' FLAVORPILL (MUSIC PICK: LA on
1/5/07, SF on 1/12/07)
'[Haale] draws from both the American rock lexicon and Sufi
mysticism...She sings in Persian and English, quotes Iranian poets
like Rumi and can shred on guitar.' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
(I'll have to look online for the reviews when I have some time.)
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eprom
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response 14 of 35:
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Feb 8 06:21 UTC 2007 |
Anyone here listen to Loreena McKennitt's new album "An Ancient Muse"?
She has a sample of each track on her website in mp3 format.
http://www.quinlanroad.com/explorethemusic/anancientmuse.asp
Back in 97' I was a freshly minted Airman at my first duty station.
With nothing to do on the weekend without a car, I would go to the BX
to blow my money. I saw her CD "The Book of Secrets" and bought it
just because I liked the cover art. This was like 6 months, before
her song "The Mummers Dance" started getting air-play. After listening
to the album, it kinda grew on me.....and that was my introduction to
celtic/new-age music.
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krj
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response 15 of 35:
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Apr 1 06:22 UTC 2007 |
In party, mcnally asked (loose paraphrase) if the BBC folk & world music
awards were like big mainstream awards, honoring old past-their-prime
stars and heavily hyped new pop people. I think you could paint
the Folk Awards that way, but in the case of the World Music awards,
I think they do a good job of highlighting people who are doing
vital work now.
Here's the nominations list, with sound samples, for the 2007 awards.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/a4wm2007/nominees.shtml
I know lots of the nominees, few of the winners. Yes, Ali Farka
Toure won for album of the year, and he's an old guy who just died.
I haven't heard this new one -- the living room ate it before I
got to play it -- but I don't think Toure ever made a bad album,
I've heard just about all the other ones.
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krj
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response 16 of 35:
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May 25 17:10 UTC 2007 |
This one's for Mickey. Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell
has a new album out ("Instrumentals", kind of an ironic title
since nearly all her work has been instrumental) and there is a
track at the end of the first hour of the current "Global Gathering"
show. It sounds great. Definite but slight jazz influence,
I think
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krj
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response 17 of 35:
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May 25 18:14 UTC 2007 |
Mike Harding tickled my brain in a couple places. There's an
interesting track from the new Richard Thompson album due out next
week, but of course that one is an automatic buy.
Eleanor Shanley performed the song "The Tide Full In," which it turns
out I remembered fondly from another recent band. Google reminded me
that it was Fine Friday, from their second CD. I'm guessing that
Fine Friday is defunct, since Nuala Kennedy now has a solo album out
(nice track from that too on the Harding show) and Kris Drever is
now in the band Lau which is garnering great acclaim. (For the few
reading this who care, Kris Drever is the son of Ivan Drever, who was
one of the people behind Scottish bagpipe-rock band Wolfstone.)
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mcnally
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response 18 of 35:
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Jun 15 03:56 UTC 2007 |
For those who are Richard Thompson fans: the Onion AV Club currently has
both an interview with Thompson
http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/richard_thompson
and a review of his new album
http://www.avclub.com/content/music/richard_thompson
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krj
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response 19 of 35:
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Jul 13 23:43 UTC 2007 |
For those who don't have enough to read:
UK "roots" music distributor Proper has a magazine called PROPERGANDA
which they are kindly making available free as a PDF file on the web.
The current issue, #6, features an interview with Richard Thompson,
written by Colin Irwin so you know it will be interesting :)
Other features are on Alison Krauss, Nick Lowe (now swimming in the
roots music pond) and the BBC Jazz Awards.
About the magazine:
http://www.properdistribution.com/proper-partner-scheme/magazines-detail.ph
p?pg=2&id=15
Download page including back issues and lots of promo stuff:
http://www.properdistribution.com/downloads/downloads.php?pg=14
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Colin Randall writes in a very professional manner about the UK folk
scene in this blog:
http://www.salutlive.com/
Currently near the top of the blog: a guest piece from Robb Johnson
on Johnny Hallyday; Martin Simpson; numerous pieces on Fairport and
Cropredy. Dig into the archives if you are so inclined.
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krj
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response 20 of 35:
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Aug 9 17:46 UTC 2007 |
Note mostly for Mickey: The current Mike Harding Show on BBC Radio 2
has a track from a new Kate Rusby release, and Rusby will be the
featured guest on the August 15th Harding show.
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krj
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response 21 of 35:
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Oct 25 14:58 UTC 2007 |
Here's a nice article, one of many, about the just-released
collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss:
"Led Zepplin Were A Country Band"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/10/25/bmplant125.
xml
This is the next step in Led Zep Goes Country: previously,
John Paul Jones produced the most recent album for the band Uncle Earl.
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krj
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response 22 of 35:
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Mar 14 19:11 UTC 2008 |
I remember, back when I used to pay more attention to it, that the
celtic folk-rock stuff was definitely a minority taste....
Flogging Molly's new album "Float" is at #4 on the Billboard charts.
Yes, I know it was released in time for St. Patrick's Day, and yes, I
know album sales are down -- really down, if Flogging Molly's 48,000
copies are good enough for a #4 album chart position.
Still, I'm rather awestruck.
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10
03724042
(Flogging Molly sold only 9000 copies less than Janet Jackson, whose new
album was in its second week of release. Given Janet's overhead, I
wonder who is making more profit?)
Oh yeah, I also had a giggle over the names of the top three chart
artists for the week: Alan Jackson, Jack Johnson, Janet Jackson. If
only Joe Jackson could have had a top hit this week!
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anderyn
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response 23 of 35:
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Mar 17 13:59 UTC 2008 |
Wish I liked Flogging Molly but they seem to be a younger taste than mine.
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cyklone
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response 24 of 35:
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Apr 3 17:08 UTC 2008 |
Is that the band with the Celtic fiddles over the rock guitars that I keep
hearing in TV ads and promos?
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