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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.
35 responses total.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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
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.)
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
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 ---------- 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.
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.
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.
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!
Wish I liked Flogging Molly but they seem to be a younger taste than mine.
Is that the band with the Celtic fiddles over the rock guitars that I keep hearing in TV ads and promos?
Don't know, have not seen those ads.
Idle internet browsing led me to two more second-generation folkie/ acoustic musicians last night. I have not heard the material from either of these yet, but there are samples on MySpace pages for when I have some time. Finding these just makes me feel old. :) Lucy Wainwright Roche, daughter of Loudon Wainwright and Suzzy Roche: http://www.myspace.com/lwrlwr Lucy is the half-sister of Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright. ----- Kamila Thompson, daughter of Richard & Linda Thompson: http://www.myspace.com/kamilathompson I knew that Kamila was out there and I think she'd done a few guest vocals with her mom, but I didn't know that she was seriously pursuing performing. Kamila is the sister of Teddy Thompson.
Should mention a couple of recent shows at the Ark. Janis Ian was at the Ark last Saturday, and we had a big Grex turnout for that one: remmers, mary, Carol, katie, arabella and krj. Janis' stories were much darker this time than on previous times I'd seen her; she's promoting a new autobiography which has a lot of dark stuff in it. She still sings great. She's going to be one of the last of the 60's singers left standing, since she started when she was about 14. Last Friday was the Barra MacNeils, from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Sister Lucy MacNeil missed this show because her oldest child was starting school, so it was the five brothers and their friend the bass player. They've added two more younger brothers to the band since I last saw them about four years ago. I really should get past their over-ten-years-past flirtation with folk-pop on a major label; they are back to 80% or more traditional material, though sometimes there's a bit of a showbiz sheen on it that I find a bit offputting. But we had a great time, and I continue to be surprised how much Leslie is enjoying the "Canadian Celtic" pigeonhole. Possibly upcoming for me on Thursday: young Scottish band Bodega, with all members about 18-20 years old.
Great Lakes Folk Festival: August 8-10, 2008. East Lansing, Michigan Friday evening: The opening concert is always at the small M.A.C. stage, my favorite stage, located right in the heart of downtown, and they start with short speeches by the director of the MSU Museum, the mayor of East Lansing, and local folk radio host Bob Blackman. 6 pm: April Verch -- She's a fiddler from the Ottawa Valley in Canada, an area with a mix of European traditions, without one dominating. She's also a very good stepdancer, maybe only so-so as a singer though. Her band included a guitarist and bass player, and her husband on bodhran and other percussion. 7 pm: Crooked Road Revue --Hike down to the Valley Court grassy main stage. The Crooked Road collection of old-time musicians was assembled for a tour by the National Council for the Traditional Arts, and they were planned to be the core of this year's festival. The Crooked Road refers to a highway running in the mountains near the Virginia/North Carolina border; the land of the Carter Family. Guitar, banjo, fiddle, and a striking young singer named Elizabeth LaPrelle. The leads flowed from player to player, as if they were sitting on a porch. About half of Elizabeth's songs with the ensemble were lightly accompanied. More details on the performers when I cover their solo sets. But the ensemble performance convinced me that these performers were worth following for the many hours they were booked to sing and play for the weekend. As a vocal ensemble, they had a fine performance of "Bright Morning Star", and they closed with a Carter Family medley. 8 pm. (Back to the M.A.C. stage.) Mamadou Diabate on kora, with a scorching band of balafon, percussion and upright bass. Totally delicious. This was not mentioned in the promo material, but I found a claim on the web that Mamadou Diabate is Toumani Diabate's cousin. Mamadou D. is now resident in Durham, North Carolina. 9:30 pm Back to the main stage, by way of the Maria's Taco booth... I missed a good deal of the Cephas and Wiggins set and will cover them in their Sunday set. 10 pm: Reveillons! a Quebec quartet who I was trying hard to like. They are very cheerful performers, great stage presence, but I'm annoyed that they play a concertina rather than a big accordion, and the vocal quality isn't what I want for what they are trying to do. (I just played some of their CD, while writing this festival review, and my wife asked me to take it out of the player because the voices grated on her.) (I am starting to suspect that understanding the French lyrical content may be essential to appreciating this band.) ------ (( more to come... ))
It's been a year, sigh, since any activity in this item. At the moment I am really obsessing over Kalamazoo's band Red Sea Pedestrians, who I saw live twice at the end of July -- once at Art Fair, once at the Ark. Their CDs have gone into carry-with-me-every-day status. Coming up this weekend: the 2009 credit-crunched edition of the Great Lakes Folk Festival in downtown East Lansing. Three stages this year, down from 4 last year, and 11 artists, down from 18.
Great Lakes Folk Festival was achieved -- two days of it, anyway, and I have hopes of writing something up so it can be ignored. Given the high level of activity in this conference, I probably won't rush it -- but I need to write it anyway for a few other people, so something will trickle back in here eventually.
I'm looking forward to hearing about it. So there! ;-)
Some of us lurk here.
Hi lurkers. I'm off for a family trip, so either the report will get written during downtime on the trip, or it will hold for a week or two.
Your two weeks is almost up.
Hah. The Philadelphia part of the trip turned out to be much more stressful than expected: I am now too old for 3 days of Heroic Packing and Moving Adventures. Friday and Saturday, back home in Michigan, Leslie and I just sort of stared off into space and tried to get our brains back. The Folk Festival review is still on the to-do list.
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