Tag Archive for 'ryan adams'

the things we won and the ones we lost;

Published on May 6, 2010 in music. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

My favourite bands are spoiling me at the moment, with at least five of them on new releases in as many weeks. It means my loyalties are divided all over the place – which is why it’s taken me almost a fortnight to get something up about Love It To Life from Jesse Malin’s new band, the St Mark’s Social.

My relationship with Malin’s music is a simple one. There’s no pretentiousness, no hyperbollic music blog shite. Truth be told, there aren’t really any adjectives. The essays I’ll write for other acts don’t apply here: I’ve loved the man’s brand of soul-on-sleeve gutter rock and roll music for a long time, and even if nobody else did it wouldn’t make a difference to me either way.

I’m not sure of the significance of the St Mark’s Social “rebrand”. I know there was discontent, I know there were record label troubles but the revolving cast of characters seems much the same: even Ryan Adams and the missus are in the mix. Producer Ted Hutt (whose work with current labelmates The Gaslight Anthem I already rate) has done a great job on the mix – these ten tracks lack the more polished sheen of 2007′s glossy Glitter in the Gutter. It’s a feel a songwriter who has always seemed more of a Strummer than a Springsteen is much more suited to.

It does mean the album lacks the immediacy of its predecessor, and certainly I’ve been guilty of focussing most of my attention on the first four tracks. Lead single “Burning the Bowery” opens the album with a battle cry from guitars that wail like sirens. I feel that a succesful Malin song is one that can transport me to that version of New York City that exists in my mind – a place with just enough overlap with a similar metropolis I’ve only visited once – and on that criteria this track ticks all the boxes: it’s clubs and nights and places and people long gone, but that you suspect still exist – just like they do in mine – in his head and his heart.

“All The Way From Moscow” is one of those hellfire bollocking rock and roll numbers that Malin delivers with such conviction, screaming you don’t get your money back, kid over the boots and chains of the girl at the centre of that song. I’m always half thrilled and half scared by the feral punk rock girls at the centre of his songwriting – I van sense their vulnerability, but they’d kick my ass before they’d let me see it long enough to force them to admit to it.

I knew “The Archer” before its album incarnation: then, it was a piano-driven ballad co-performed with Christine Smith and rumoured to be on the soundtrack to a biopic of the late JD Salinger I never heard anything else about. On record it’s been cleaned up, and at first I wasn’t keen on the extra layer of production, but on about the fourth listen it broke my heart in the early morning sunshine. “She’s the catalyst,” Malin swoons, “the one girl I never got over.”

“St Mark’s Sunset” is ostensibly the weakest among these early album tracks, but it’s so bouncy it utterly charmed me. One I’ll enjoy live, I reckon, in much the same way as “Burn The Bridge” and “Revelations” feel as though their live renditions will add an extra layer of punch-the-air epic singalong. While Malin’s over-earnest persona always lends itself to the odd cringeworthy lyric (and “Disco Ghetto” and “Black Boombox” are certainly examples of that particular subgenre), this was for me definitely a collection worth sticking with – and with my pal Claudia planning a trip to Scotland to coincide with a recently-announced UK tour defintely another reason why summer 2010 is gonna rock, baby.

Jesse Malin plays Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh on 30th June and King Tut’s the following night. Full UK itinerary on the Myspace.

BUY: Love It to Life at Amazon.co.uk.

child of the noughties: it was you who taught me how to listen to these distant stations;

Published on December 3, 2009 in music. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series best of the noughties

Surprisingly to nobody, in the end I couldn’t steer clear of the “best of the decade” chat that is dominating the blogosphere at the moment. Last time around, of course, there wasn’t a “blogosphere” – and I wasn’t really listening to music at all! This decade has seen my rebirth as a music fan and so, in a way, perhaps every album I call “special” or “personal” or “favourite” is could belong in this list – whatever nickname we ultimately give this decade. Personally, I’m more interested to see what trendy buzzword we come up with for the next one!

Over the next four weeks, I’m going to count down my favourite forty – one per artist – albums of the decade and, while there might not be any massive surprises, I’d be thrilled if you used this as an opportunity to pick up something you haven’t had a chance to listen to yet.

Kudos to Kate, for inspiring me with her similarly themed post on Facebook.

10. Jesse Malin: The Fine Art of Self Destruction
2002, One Little Indian
Let’s not kid ourselves: I wouldn’t have picked up Jesse Malin’s debut if it didn’t have that little sticker on the case indicating that it was produced by one Ryan Adams. It’s not as if it had much else going for it: a simple cover image with a moody young man, with bad hair and a strange-sounding name, glowering from a New York subway platform; earnest-sounding one-word song titles like “Downliner” and “Solitaire” and “Brooklyn”. Even the title, now, seems a little pretentious – but at the time it struck just the right note of melodrama to catch my imagination. You all know how this story ends – even this screenname you’ve all gotten to know me by is a lyric, if a pretty cheesy one, from track 2. You don’t analyse these lyrics like poetry though – it might be over-earnest rock and roll, but Malin is the last of the true believers.
If you download one track, make it: “Downliner”
BUY: The Fine Art of Self Destruction at Amazon.co.uk

9. Marah: 20,000 Streets Under The Sky
2004, Munich
I never got to see Marah the way they were supposed to be seen. I had tickets once, sure, but it was after Serge had left anyway and it wouldn’t have been cool to stand there while I was still bleeding from the hospital. By all accounts, it was a sight. These songs, these bands, these nights: this is where the real me feels at her most at home. Dave Bielanko writes from the same place as the sparse, frost-covered cities I love and his “murder ballad”, “Body”, sends shivers down my spine and carries me to a place not too far from here, but certainly far above: a freezing rooftop somewhere in the rain where I can watch the world go about its nighttime business while not fully a part of it.
If you download one track, make it: “Body”
BUY: 20,000 Streets Under The Sky at Amazon.co.uk

8. Matthew Ryan: Matthew Ryan vs. the Silver State
2008, Pinnacle
Matthew Ryan: a classic case of a label rep doing their job properly, as I’d never heard of him before a copy of this album popped the door. One of those voices that feels as if it’s been with you forever, coupled with earnest, poetic lyrics and stripped-down arrangements. This is an album for those dark evenings when the company of a good record matters most.
If you download one track, make it: “Dulce Et Decorum Est”
BUY: Matthew Ryan vs The Silver State at Amazon.co.uk

7. Death Cab For Cutie: We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes
2000, Barsuk
I guess it’s in my nature to root for the underdog, but that’s not the reason why my favourite Death Cab album is the one from before they went all OC-ish. I adore Transatlanticism and the like with every fibre of my being, but We Have The Facts represents Gibbard’s songwriting at its stripped-down and most cynical finest and the music is fuzzy, fumbling and sometimes frenetic.
If you download one track, make it: “Title Track”
BUY: We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes at Amazon.co.uk

6. Paul Westerberg: Stereo
2003, Vagrant
One of my favourite (sadly no longer updated) websites was Ruined Music, which published essays from contributors on the songs they could no longer listen to – and they were mostly to do with ex-partners. I seem to have escaped relatively unscathed from the post-breakup purging of the music collection, but I suspect that were Jay and I to split I’d be in big trouble. I bought my first album by this one-time Replacement in Swordfish in Birmingham on my first weekend in the Midlands, as a souvenir of sorts. It wasn’t as lo-fi, heart-meltingly beautiful as much of this one though: that came later.
If you download one track, make it: “No Place For You”
BUY: Stereo at Amazon.co.uk

5. Lucero: Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers
2005, Liberty and Lament
It was Jay, too, who introduced me to Lucero – with their Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers. This is an album born of the highways of the band’s native Tennessee, and as somebody who has had the privilege of being to able to listen to it full-pelt along those very highways I can testify to its power and promise and rage and romance. There’s at once a wildness and an honesty to this record that few bands can match. One of those rare albums I love every single song on.
If you download one track, make it: “She’s Just That Kind Of Girl”
BUY: REBELS, ROGUES, & SWORN BROTHERS at Amazon.co.uk

4. The Mountain Goats: All Hail West Texas
2002, Emperor Jones
It’s with The Mountain Goats that this task I’ve set myself, to only list one album per act in my Top 40, really falls down. See, if I could only take one Mountain Goats album to a desert island, or whatever, it would be one of Darnielle’s more epic-sounding concept albums: Tallahassee or The Sunset Tree perhaps. But it’s on this earlier collection, the last to be recorded on John Darnielle’s old boombox, that so many of my favourites lie – along with my heart.
If you download one track, make it: “Source Decay”
BUY: All Hail West Texas at Amazon.co.uk

3. The National: Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers
2003, Talitres
The National have a track record of albums that seep under your skin slowly – whose nuances you fall for almost without realising. But while Alligator and Boxer get all the acclaim, there’s something about their predecessor that comes across as more desperate, more urgent, more raw. There have been nights, all introspective and scribbling tiny notes to myself in the margins, that I have suspected that this bleak, beautiful and bitter album is the only one I will ever need. Matt Berninger’s deep vocals are the early morning whisper of a lover you will never see again, the sound of a curious intimacy between strangers. I haven’t grown tired of this band since the day I fell for them, and the promised 2010 release is my next year’s most anticipated.
If you download one track, make it: “Lucky You”
BUY: Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers at Amazon.co.uk

2. Ryan Adams: Heartbreaker
2000, Bloodshot
QUELLE SURPRISE PART UN: Heartbreaker wasn’t “my” Ryan Adams album, not at first, although over time it has come to mean the most to me as well as being the album most readily acknowledged as his best work. Nothing has ever really come close to matching this debut in terms of fragile beauty and brilliance – the work of a wide-eyed, mischievous miserabilist who doesn’t really exist anymore. There’s a whiskey-soaked maudlin to this album it wouldn’t be fair for a sober and happily married – if not quite sensible, not yet – Ryan to try to emulate as if he were still the scruffy boy carrying that titular heartbreak, but it doesn’t make this any less as close to musical perfection as it gets in my little world.
If you download one track, make it: “Come Pick Me Up”
BUY: Heartbreaker at Amazon.co.uk

1. The Hold Steady: Separation Sunday
2005, Frenchkiss
QUELLE SURPRISE PART DEUX: There are so many reasons why The Hold Steady are my favourite contemporary band. Their infectious, energetic stage presence, the fact that they’re these five guys who were never and will never be “cool”. And the lyrics; god, the lyrics. It’s trouble, redemption and my own residual Catholic guilt. It’s how different the city looks at three in the morning. It’s clever, druggy, messy, teenaged, literary. And the first time I heard this album’s closing track, I couldn’t stop crying.
If you download one track, make it: “Banging Camp”
BUY: Separation Sunday at Amazon.co.uk

Aaaaaand… we’re done. You know, I feel like I should have some big conclusion to draw here but the truth is, as I’ve said before, this was the decade of my “musical awakening”. That this list couldn’t include “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea”, or “Blood on The Tracks”, or “Strangers’ Almanac”, or “Born To Run” is nothing but the most arbitrary trick of numbers. Still, technicalities won’t kill the music bloggers’ propensity for lists – tune in next week for 2008 Revisited, before 2009′s own send-off.

And it goes without saying I’d love to see where our lists overlap, so please feel free to share your links in the comments!

NOTE: Album title links almost always take you via my referrer page on Amazon.co.uk. I’m trying to save up for Christmas, so help a blogger out and pick up a fantastic album into the bargain!

a to z: steal my records;

Published on November 11, 2009 in music and photography. 4 Comments Tags: , , , .
This entry is part 18 of 25 in the series A to Z

213. Steal My Records

I’m quite proud of what I’ve come up with on this little series of pictures, so I’m going to attempt a little bit of mp3 blogging/self-portrait crossover based around a current music-related sub-project within a project. Follow that if you will, or just download the songs and tell me I’m pretty ;)

A couple of days before I took this photograph, I wrote in my blog:

"I’m lying on the floor, listening to records, the cool of the hard wood against my spine and the sound reverbrating through my huge, cushioned headphones. As I listen, I daydream: of deserts and telephone wires, wind and space and open-top cars, diners and sad-looking casinos shot on kodachrome film. I wish, not for the first time, that I could find some way to do this full-time and still make rent."

At the time I was writing about Richmond Fontaine, but there’s something so pure and so perfect about the warm sound of vinyl that I guard my still limited collection jealously.

I couldn’t not pick Ryan Adams for R. This is my favourite of his songs.

(Incidentally, I find it hysterical that my American BFF went for the same theme for R, but with a completely different artist!)

DOWNLOAD: Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
BUY: Heartbreaker at Amazon.co.uk

[lyg10] baby, i’m all yours;

Published on October 2, 2009 in [lyg10] and music. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

September this year marks ten years since I made my first, tentative and over-sharey, foray into blogging. I hope you’ll forgive a little self-indulgence on my part, but I’d like to do something to celebrate a pretty significant milestone. I’ve hit upon the idea of publishing some selected takes from my archives – there’s a little bit of poetic license required here, as some of the proper cringeworthy teenage stuff is (thankfully) lost in the mists and pixels of cyberspace, but what I’ll publish every Friday from here until the end of the year is culled from the LiveJournal years, 2003-2006.

Moving onto November 2003 now, in time to discover that my record of that particular month is corrupt. So we’ll be skipping ahead in future posts, but it’s worth a bit of effort to rescue this early contender for Best Night Of My Life – a night I just gushed about embarassingly to Under the Radar the other day.

Everything seems to be going in circles at the moment.

26th November 2003
I don’t make a habit of buying Q magazine – my boyfriend only got me the one at the end of 2001 because it had a feature on women in rock (remember PJ Harvey in her “lick my legs” t-shirt..?). It just so happened that the magazine had their “best of the year” free CD, and it just so happened that one of the tracks was “The Rescue Blues” by one Ryan Adams.

Ryan Adams. I’d seen him in the NME just before actually; laughed at the name, enjoyed the feature, thought he was kinda pretty goshdarn cute. I was just beginning to develop my musical tastes somewhat, gradually coming out of a phase of listening almost exclusively to bands with scary girl singers, and, on impulse (I liked country music as a little girl, taping my dad’s Nanci Griffith albums and learning all the words to songs about the Great Depression), bought Gold. About a minute into the second track, “Firecracker”, where he sings kiss me slow and softly, make me dream of you and you can almost imagine he’s singing with his eyes closed pushing words out through lips that would rather be kissing… that’s where I fell in love, and I have never looked back. And I make no apologies for using the word love, because it is, even if it’s only with an ideal, or a song, or a pretty pair of eyes on a crazy little boy I never thought I’d ever meet.

It’s now two years later. Ryan Adams has just released Rock n Roll (or however you want to write it), the official follow-up to Gold. A track from it appears on Q magazine’s CD of the year. And this girl finally has tickets, after false starts and excuses and convincing herself she’d missed her chance. Steve Wynn rocked like your favourite uncle, and he and his band were having so much fun up there you were almost convinced they didn’t care whether or not there was an audience or not) and counted down the minutes until Ryan was due to appear. How drunk would he be? What song would he open with? “New York, New York.. or Firecracker” the guy I’d got chatting to beside me hoped, even after I’d told him previous setlists on the tour were almost exclusively new material. “Not a hope in hell,” I replied. The lights go down and this tiny, beautiful, completely fucked up boy-man staggers onto the stage accompanied by the band. “We’ve cooked up a little something special,” he slurs. The chords are unmistakeable. It’s only bloody “Firecracker”. And you could have killed me then.

There’s a series of scenes and pictures in my head that will remain unconnected even after I find the bootleg (did I just say that? naughty Lis…) or AnsweringBell publishes the setlist. There’s Ryan swigging from a bottle of Moet and Chandon between songs, and continually glancing over and smiling at Parker Posey, who’s filming by the side of the stage. There’s the girl in the pink t-shirt just behind me who knows all the words, her eyes shining. “You’ve got it as bad as I have,” I yell in her ear, “I can tell.” There’s “Wish You Were Here” and we cheer and Ryan says, “Shall we play it again? I think I’ll play it again… like the Cookie Monster.” And he does, singing in a hoarse, Cookie Monster voice; it’s all a bunch of cookies and there ain’t no cookies round here it’s totally fucked up wish you were cookies and I laughed so hard tears were streaming down my face, and I wished you were here for the first of about twentyfivemillion times through the night. Someone throws a Celtic top onto the stage (goalless draw round the corner, I’d checked the scores between bands – God bless WAP, and Marcus Hedman) and before security have time to react he whips off his shirt and puts it on. The mean security people won’t let me even take one picture of Ryan in my team’s colours – like that’s ever going to happen again. Wonder to self when security at the Barrowlands turned into Nazis. There’s an achingly beautiful “Shadowlands” I thought he would be too drunk to pull off but which makes me cry, and a bizarre “Do Miss America” with a tambourine, no drums and all six members gathered round a microphone. It works.

Ryan talks about the Pyramids, football and Britney Spears.

The encores – an acoustic set including “New York, New York” before the band come back. “Burning Photographs” as amazing as ever, Ryan walking along the barrier (champagne bottle in one hand, cigarette and microphone in the other), me cursing myself for not being nearer the centre. The security guards have to hold him upright. “Damon Albarn did that three nights in a row,” the one who’d stopped me taking pictures complained. “They think it’s a laugh, but just imagine what would have happened if he’d dropped that bottle.” “What hand of yours touched Ryan?” was all I could think of to say. Second encore – “So Alive”. Ryan comes over to our side of the stage and kisses Parker (who can’t stop giggling, and who could blame her?) then sinks down at her feet. They look so adorable I stop hating her for a whole five seconds.

I ended up with a plectrum off the stage, I’d never hovered at the end waiting for someone to take pity on me and give me some, any scrap of rockstar detritus before. I would have settled for a cigarette end. By this time I’d missed my train, which seemed the perfect excuse to hang around outside the venue for a little while. Two hours in all, and my toes may never be the same from the cold, but it was worth it. I fell in with two lovely, random guys which was just as well as I probably wouldn’t have stayed on my own. Various band members came and went, in various states of disarray. Johnny T could hardly stand up but he shook my hand, and I marvelled that I was talking to this man who was wearing the same t-shirt as in the desktop on my laptop. One of the guitarists, whose name I can’t remember (shame on me, lovely guy though) gave me another plectrum which he told me was from LA. The writing is almost worn off. Johnny Flaugher talked to us for ages and let me take a picture of us, and when I showed him the image on my digital camera he said our kids would be hot. We had to explain to both of them why half of the crowd looked pissed when Ryan put on the Celtic shirt.

The boys I was with serenaded the security guard when he wouldn’t let us up the stairs. “Do you think he’ll ever forget us?” they asked me. “I think he’ll try to,” I replied.

The support band loaded up their van, and one of the guitarists gazed at me like he’d never seen a girl before and almost wouldn’t let go of my hand. Steve Wynn said he couldn’t give us a lift to the London show as there was barely enough room in the van for the band. Ryan’s band came out with their luggage. Johnny F shook our hands, and I flung my arms round him and kissed his hair. Some stragglers from the Celtic game appeared. “Are you waiting on someone famous?” one guy asked and when I said Ryan Adams – and pointed out repeatedly I wasn’t talking about Bryan – he asked if I could point him out so he could take a picture of him with his camera phone. And then… Ryan and Parker appeared and it’s all a blur, and I wish I could remember every detail but at least I have photos and a signed ticket and his voice in my head telling us he loved us, and a mental picture of a pissed-off Parker virtually ordering him onto the tourbus. She wasn’t happy. She must realise he’s totally in love with me. Although if I’ve learned anything it’s that being the girlfriend of Ryan Adams takes a lot of work. He needs a lot of looking after. No wonder he gets through women so quickly.

“The best day of my life?” I wrote hopefully in tiny letters in my desk diary four weeks ago, but I would never have imagined this. It ended with a cheeseburger in a Glasgow kebab shop, getting sex tips from the proprietor (despite me insisting I’d only known the boys I was with for a couple of hours), a kiss on the cheek, a lively conversation with a taxi driver on such diverse topics as Fleetwood Mac and the Soham murders, and writing this until five in the morning. Sleep be damned. All I need is Ryan.

ten artists: ryan adams;

Published on August 13, 2009 in music. 2 Comments Tags: , , .
This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series ten artists

Another occasional series, this one involving actual writing and inspired by two of my favourite music boys. Scott, whose Wack Beats ruminations on music and film are frequently more entertaining than the subject matter, has been working on a list he’s calling The Forty Artists That Shaped Me. While I don’t have as many as forty (that I love, sure, but that changed my life?), I really liked the idea… and then Steve pointed out that I never followed up on his Ten Albums To Tell Someone Who You Are.

So here’s my compromise: ten artists that shaped me, and quite possibly the albums they did it with.

There are certain albums that never fail to lift your mood, even on a rainy August morning in Glasgow when you realise a little too late that you left the house in inappropriate footwear. There are certain songs that alter your outlook so fundamentally that it only takes a whisper of the opening bars to send you back to 2002. Kiss me, slow and softly, make me dream of you he sings, and despite his faults I fall in love with him the same way I did at nineteen.

I wasn’t a Heartbreaker girl, which some people find a little surprising. Certainly it’s his best work, and the album that’s come to mean the most to me over the years, but I don’t know if the angry little riot gurrl I was trying to mould myself into at the time would have made such a side-swerve. Although the rawness later appealed to me, and I can understand why Gold must have had its detractors at the time (but it’s an album that deserves another listen, and blows the cobwebs out of most of his later work), it was a work of slick, bright, countrified rock that made me fall in love with Ryan Adams.

I guess the timing was right for me to discover an artist for myself. The 1990s were over, and so were grunge and riot grrl. It didn’t mean that I couldn’t enjoy the music, which was still new to and spoke to me, but it meant that the good stuff was finite. My favourite bands weren’t releasing new albums, and they certainly weren’t going on tour. I’d been to a couple of gigs that were a little more intimate than seeing Nanci Griffith with my dad in the Concert Hall by that stage – I’d got separated from my male friend when the crowd surged forward during the Cardigans’ big hit on my first visit to the Barrowlands at fifteen, and he got angry because he’d promised my mum he’d look after me. It had been a fantastic experience, once I had extricated myself from the chest-crush at the front, and I had discovered the sheer joy in singing along to the songs that you knew from taping off the radio. I’d trailed King Adora and their mad hair through the student union with another old schoolfriend and a girl I never told anybody I was crushing on. I needed a contemporary fix – and I found it on Q Magazine’s end of 2001 compilation. The song was called “The Rescue Blues”, and the pictures of the artist himself in the magazine were pretty. I went out and bought the album the next day.

I’ve written screeds in this blog every time Ryan Adams has had a new release out, so you only need to click the tag link to see that although my enthusiasm for his recorded work – and live shows – has waned in recent years, my appreciation of the man and what his music has meant to me never has. He was the thread that connected me to home and kept me sane when I was living on the other side of the country, getting up early to grab a new release from HMV on Princes Street and make it my “album of the day” on my battered CD walkman. His were the songs I soudtracked my crushes to, walking down the street and picking a line from Whiskeytown’s Pneumonia for every boy. The first time I saw him live was unexpectedly one of the better nights of my life, despite me punting my sister’s ticket to a tout because she was too ill to come with me: I wriggled my way to the front by chatting with a couple of boys, and Ryan drank champagne and pulled on a Celtic shirt one of the crowd tossed to him. Security stopped me from snapping even a blurry photograph, and the boys and I had to explain to the band why half the crowd booed since we waited outside until 1am.

oldschool fangirlin'

[I suspect the definitive review of that particular night will show up during my tenth anniversary series - let's just say it was a good one, and probably repeats much of what I have already written here.]

But probably the two biggest things that Ryan Adams did for me had very little to do with his own music: he opened me up to whole spectrum of artists, from the ones who inspired him (Dylan, Westerberg) to the ones who came after. And he soundtracked a period of my life when everything was changing. I got my tattoo the morning after walking out of a concert at the Edinburgh Picture House last year – a little piece of album artwork that means more to me than just the first shelf of my record collection.

Saturday's Bruises and Cold Roses (Day 81 of 365//Week 12 of 52)

BUY: Gold at Amazon.co.uk
BUY: Heartbreaker at Amazon.co.uk

when you were on your way out the last time;

Published on January 15, 2009 in a little more personal and music. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

The first gig of the year is always something of a milestone, whatever the band and whatever the weather. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this as I scurried up St Vincent Street in the rain, trying not to dwell on how quickly my purple coat was soaking up the atmosphere. I was safely propped up at the bar with a gin by the time my dear Dr Tristesse burst in with the wind on his breath and the elements in his hair.

And it was a surreal experience, whether I blame it on losing track of time and consuming gin instead of dinner or no. I had been promised Damon and Naomi, swoonsome understatement with their twinned voices like the soundtrack to the back of your skull, and although I had to sneak off early I need to find out what their second song was and claim it for my own. It was, however, the first time a support band introduced me to a particular dilemma: where to look? The moshing kiddies down the front, having the most sweaty fun I’ve seen in a long time, or the breakdancing horse on stage? Bless you, Super Adventure Club. Zany students! How sweet! Not my cup of tea, so I am not qualified to comment on the music itself. They were so into it, though! Them, and their fans, and a singer who looked exactly like he didn’t expect to be on fire. It was certainly one of the strangest line-ups I’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing, but I was disappointed to see how quickly the room emptied before the headliners.

The first support had been more in keeping with the overall tone I guess, a young lady with an acoustic guitar. I didn’t catch the name of her act but she said her name was Beth, a name I find easy to remember because of Little Women and because it isn’t mine. Lis short for Elizabeth, but not Elizabeth on paper… anyway, she was perfectly pleasant and cute as a button. Like a cup of tea and Battenberg – “in Bath,” the Doctor added mischievously, my future holiday plans having been the subject of earlier discussion.

I need to learn to keep my own counsel better. That’s not to say I want to hide anything from you, dear friend-or-reader, but these are dark times and there are dark things that are too much a part of me to give away. I must remember this. As, perhaps, should Ryan Adams: while I was gone he quit music again, although his original blog post is now gone. I worry, as silly as it is to worry about musicians and public figures, about how vulnerable he is. He puts too much of himself into the public domain, and I imagine the misquotings and personal attacks from an uncaring press must hurt more than he can stand. I don’t care if he never plays another note: I just hope he’s okay.

the other side of the lens (or dictaphone);

Published on January 11, 2009 in a little more personal, blogging & pixlet, books & literature and music. 13 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

So far in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, my beloved has slagged off The X-Files, alternative country and that which Americans so condescendingly refer to as “soccer” because they use the word “football” to describe some silly game where big babies run around in crash helmets and enough padding to secure a play park. He’s also threatened to kill a kitten. I still would though.

As most of you will be aware by now, this week saw the sad death of Stooges’ guitarist Ron Asheton. My friend Lilit, who writes for Jewish culture site Jewcy.com, asked me to share this short poem that Jonathan Richman submitted to the site, which is pretty special (actually, the whole site is worthy of further exploration and really deserved to be linked to before now…)

Elsewhere, Ryan Adams and Neal Casal perform “Sinking Ship” for the Black Cab Sessions. From the site: Ryan gets car sick. Ryan’s manager warned us of this and asked that, as much as possible, we drive in a straight line. It’s definitely one of the stranger requests that Jason’s ever had, but he did his best while in the back Ryan manfully rose above the nausea to sing his heart out.

And so to business, of a sort. Last week, wee-h of wee-travellings posted a meme offering to interview her readers, and since it’s magazine time and I’m sick of the sound of my own voice on tape I thought it might be interesting to reverse the roles a little!

1. It’s time to overcome that “self depreciating streak” – what do you think people like about you the best?
Well, I’d like to think it’s my killer rack and sparkling banter… just kidding. I’m a good listener, and although I have a tendency to take too much on and then freak out at how busy I am I think most of my friends know that I’m happy to drop everything if somebody I care about needs me to. Overcoming the self-deprecating streak is so hard!

2. If you could run your own mini festival or gig line up who would you book, where would it be?
Before you even get started, a great festival needs great headliners. Picking a headliner is a tougher task than the lineups of most of the major festivals would have you believe – the act must be a household name with mass appeal, perfect for a mass singalong as the sun goes down. And the act has to have earned the honour: while the summer of the Killers and Snow Patrol didn’t kill off the headliner, it did tarnish its image slightly. Both are great bands in a mass-market setting, but they’re not legends. The kids might have loved it, but their dads probably wouldn’t even have known who was on. My picks? Bruce Springsteen (who I’ve never seen but oh, if those rumours are to be believed…) and REM (who I’ve seen as festival headliners twice, and who were spectacular both times).

The rest of the line-up should be a good selection of good fun and best-kept secrets, bands you might not get the chance to see anywhere else and bands you’ve never even heard of. I’d run the risk of staying up too late on a Sunday to draw up a proper three-page timetable with timings and everything, but I’d like to see the National, the Hold Steady, Lily Allen (who I know doesn’t fit with the rest ;) and the Gaslight Anthem, of course.

Venue-wise, I thought Glasgow’s Indian Summer was in the perfect spot although the Victoria Park site would be too small for the bands I have in mind. Various health problems mean camping’s out for me now, particularly now the world is missing the only person who ever made the rain and mud bearable, so in the city on a sensible bus route and with the ability to sleep in my own bed at night would be perfect. Some decent weather (not too sunny, but at least dry), lots of cheap, wholesome food and free drinking water on tap would complete the weekend.

3. If you could interview someone famous who would it be and why?
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Jon Snow’s marvellous autobiography it’s that you really don’t want to interview your idols: either they’ll disappoint, or you’ll make a fool of yourself. Besides, I’ve already answered one of these questions with “Springsteen”, haven’t I? ;) I have to say I love interviewing ordinary people for the magazine as much as I’ve ever loved interviewing celebrities, particularly the ones who are a bit nervous or who don’t realise they have something interesting to say until you start to unravel it through careful questioning, but Jesse Malin wasn’t bad either ;) Ahh… okay, here’s my fantasy interview list: Bruce Springsteen, Elish Angiolini, Johnny Depp, Gordon Strachan, David Simon, Erin Brockovich, Barack Obama. Only two of those are work-related, but I bet I could squeeze the rest of them in there somewhere.

4. Describe your perfect night out in Glasgow.
Again, this is a difficult one because the best nights out are the ones you can’t plan for. I suck at this, don’t I? But here are a few things that tend to feature prominently: good food, great music, better company. Maybe a cheap meal somewhere and a good film before putting the world to rights over a couple of ciders in Sleazys, or a gig at Tut’s with a band you’ve just discovered but had a sneaking suspicion you’d fall in love with as soon as you saw live… your heart races and the cute bass player catches your eye and you dance yourself to exhaustion and stumble out of the venue into the cool night air in perfect time for a seat on a night bus home. Or a meal out with friends, lots of chat and silliness – something adventurous and some great cocktails; Kublai Khan last night for Xan’s birthday was fantastic in this respect, although I was much less adventurous at the barbecue than Jay with his crocodile. And sometimes the best nights don’t end after all – it’s 6am and you’re still awake at somebody’s flat, singing along to badly-tuned guitar.

5. If you could re-live any point in your life just to experience it again what would it be?
I wish I’d done Edinburgh differently; I wish I’d taken the time to discover the city’s secrets and charms rather than spend every weekend rushing home to Glasgow. Every time I visit now, I feel as if I’ve let the city down.

But other than that, again, I struggle. I tell myself I wish I’d written more before I had a job and didn’t have the time; I wish I’d learned to drive or traveled more before the day-to-day robbed me of my time. But even if I was reliving those times again, I’d probably still be clinically depressed – would I be reliving those months and years as I was then, or as I am now? I’m making up for the latter now at least, and I might even start on the former this year!

Thanks K, and my apologies for going off-piste with, well, all of my answers. Er. Now I have to ask: If you want to be interviewed by me, leave me a comment saying “interview me!” with your email address.

I will respond by emailing you five questions, to be posted in your own blog with an offer to interview someone else. I get to pick the questions, and they won’t be easy. But please, be patient as I am on deadline!

ain’t supposed to die on a saturday night: the 2008 round-up;

Published on December 14, 2008 in film and music. 18 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

list season

So The X Factor is over for another year, which means that ’round these parts we can get back to talking about the soundtrack of your life and the music that saved it as opposed to mawkish, overwrought cover versions of such songs that even my poptastic little sister found inappropriate.

Life is so crazy of late. The one thing I wanted from this year was simply to make the most of it, and I think that I’ve done so for the most part, but these last few weeks have run away from me in such a crazy gallop that I’m scared to go to sleep in case I wake up and it’s 2009. Friends are texting, asking if we can see each other before the holidays, and I’m having to decline as I still have a week of work a family wedding and a Christmas in the Midlands. I’m off until the 5th as of next Tuesday, and I’ll be grateful for the chance to catch my breath (and make some mixes!). This all sounds like a story best saved for my last post of the year, but my point is that if I don’t get these lists posted between blitzing my Christmas shopping today I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to do so again. A precursory recap of how my 2007 picks stood the test of time has been one casualty, but suffice to say at least the top two have held their positions.

But that was then, and this is now. Onwards, then, to List Season 2008.

LAST YEAR’S GIRL’S FAVOURITE, IF NOT THE BEST, ALBUMS OF 2008:

10. Vivian Girls: Vivian Girls [buy]
By all accounts the backlash has already started against these cutesy one-trick ponies, but I don’t use the internet anymore therefore I don’t care. I unashamedly adore the Vivian Girls’ scuzzy debut and their punk-rock slumber party live show, and I think you should too.
I said: “More reverb!” cried bassist Kickball Katy, with a laugh and a toss of her long red hair. “If you can still make out what I’m saying, then we need more reverb!” (December)

9. The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride [buy]
One of the greatest lyricists of our generation returns with another brilliantly understated, beautifully melodic masterpiece. 2008 was a good year for fans of the Mountain Goats, with a couple of EPs (a “pay what you want” download plus a tour EP with Kaki King) thrown in for good measure – next year a proper UK tour though, eh?
I said: [I]t’s as if Get Lonely got a certain kind of melancholy out of our John’s system, and its follow-up is the manifesto of a proud iconoclast. (January)

8. Laura Marling: Alas, I Cannot Swim [buy]
A precocious talent, the debut of Reading’s Laura Marling carries a maturity far beyond the singer-songwriter’s tender years. Marling’s is one of those too-early-in-the-year releases that I hope doesn’t slip under too many people’s radar as the lists get drawn up, and her haunting melodies stay with you long after the album’s end.

7. Okkervil River: The Stand-Ins [buy]
The “companion piece” to last year’s runner-up, the songs and musical interludes that make up The Stand-Ins apparently formed part of the “Stage Names” sessions. While the latter is certainly a stronger album overall, I didn’t realise just how catchy and clever these songs are until I was lucky enough to hear them live.
I said: As live bands go, on a scale of one to the Hold Steady, the Texan indie rockers score at least a 9.5 in my head. (November)

6. Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago [buy]
I was a late convert to this wonderful album – particularly as, if my sources are right, it was originally released in 2007! There’s something rainy-day desperate, yet lush and beautifully moving, about Justin Vernon’s high vocals; but this album will forever take me back to breakfasts of bacon and Coca-Cola in Australia when James couldn’t believe I hadn’t yet heard it in its entirety.

5. Death Cab For Cutie: Narrow Stairs [buy]
A return to form? But Lis, didn’t you actually LIKE Plans? I hear you cry. Well, yes, but I certainly didn’t wake up one morning in November wanting desperately to listen to the album in its entirety. I guess that’s what happens when your old bandcrushes decide to rebel against their slow descent into teen movie indie landfill and trail their new album with an eight-minute single with the creepiest lyrics since “Every Breath You Take”. Ten years and a world removed from their debut, Death Cab For Cutie are as relevant and as worthy of obsession as ever. Snow Patrol et al, take note – this is how it should be done.
I said: [I]n this age of short attention spans and single track downloads, [Narrow Stairs] is a complex beast best appreciated as a complete package. I love everything about this album – from the CD booklet (remember those?) with its die-cut edges, to the perfect segues that refuse to let me prune even the imperfect tracks from shuffle. (May)

4. Sun Kil Moon: April [buy]
Some of my most quality music listening happens in transit, staring out of the window at nothing in particular and appreciating a particular album or artist on a level I’m just not capable of if it’s merely on in one ear while I’m doing something else. I listened to April hurtling backwards on some particular train journey or other, and then again on the long flight home from the other side of the world when I began to realise that sleep was out of the question. Mark Kozelek’s ethereal voice is like a security blanket to me, wrapping me up in a dreamworld where my heartrate slows and panic subsides.
I said: April… is a strange record; one which requires patience but which ultimately sounds familiar. The sprawling compositions almost overlap in my head to become a comforting soundscape… (September)

3. Kathleen Edwards: Asking For Flowers [buy]
I always seem to pick the boy singers; preferring, as I said once, to imagine myself as the girl sung about rather than the girl doing the singing. Since I discovered Kathleen Edwards, fell for her immediately and bought up her entire discography on the one weekend, she has consistently bucked the trend and her third album is another stormer.
I said: It’s the voice that draws me in. It’s throaty and a little bruised, the voice of a girl who’d go for a couple of drinks and a cheeseburger, not pass over dessert because she simply couldn’t, and laugh with you all the way home. It’s a voice that’s also perfectly in my own pitch, meaning I can sing along in the kitchen. And it’s a voice that can do honest, tender, sincere. (April)

2. Matthew Ryan: Matthew Ryan vs The Silver State [buy]
A couple of weeks ago, as I started to think about this list seriously, I had a moment of despair as I considered the fact that there hadn’t been an artist unknown to me before this year who had grabbed me as completely and unexpectedly as the Twilight Sad did last year. I was, of course, wrong – it’s just that Matthew Ryan’s is one of those voices that feels as if it has been with me much longer than it has in reality. A bonus from my contact at Jesse Malin’s record label, ripped to my iTunes and almost forgotten about until one dark evening when it mattered most. Ryan wears his Springsteen influence proudly (“her mascara was born to run”), but his earnest lyricism has a poetry all of its own.
I said: I’m on such a Matthew Ryan kick lately, and this song is amazing. It even inspired me to have a proper hunt around for my Clash t-shirt (the one that was Jay’s Clash t-shirt…) (July)

1. The Hold Steady: Stay Positive [buy]
See, I reckon if the Album of the Year comes as a surprise to anybody then I’m clearly not doing my job as a blogger. Whether it’s in the play tallies, the shows seen, the fake tattoos or the constant namedrops, the Hold Steady are so clearly my favourite contemporary band and one of the few bands worth getting Web Sheriffed over. Craig Finn writes the most memorable characters, the greatest screwed-up Catholic girls, the most vivid killer parties, and the music Tad, Franz, Galen and Bobby create around those stories is perfect and earnest and real. A band who go from strength to strength, and who need a place on your “must see live” list.
I said: The characters that populate the Hold Steady’s earlier work are back… and they’re as druggy and messed-up as ever. But this time they’re older, sadder, dealing with the consequences and trying to lift themselves from their obscurity. It makes for a depth that, although not lifting the album to the giddy greatness of their finest hour, Separation Sunday, certainly edges it above its blogworthy predecessor. (July)

2008′s Honourable Mentions: The Indelicates, American Demo; Marah, Angels of Destruction; Amanda Palmer, Who Killed Amanda Palmer

2008′s Albums Which Might Have Made The List Had I Had Them Longer Than A Week: The Gaslight Anthem, The ’59 Sound, Mark Kozelek, The Finally LP, Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.

They say the devil is in the detail, and there’s plenty of that after the jump. Continue reading ‘ain’t supposed to die on a saturday night: the 2008 round-up;’

the motor screaming out, stuck in second gear;

Published on December 6, 2008 in a little more personal, music and travellin'. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

A last-minute rush to make a certain website’s last ordering date before Christmas keeps me up way too late on a Friday night my feverish brain would rather have gone to bed early. Still at least the most complicated part of my festive shopping is out of the way, even if I haven’t started thinking about the rest of it.

I’ve spent the evening enraptured by Ryan Adams’ acoustic take on “Halloweenhead” – a song I couldn’t stand when I first heard it on Easy Tiger – and bugging the good folks on Twitter til I found a programme I could use to rip the audio from the above YouTube video.

I have felt absolutely rotten this week. A couple of years ago, when Jay and I were just starting to flesh out the seemingly ridiculous scheme that would see him move to Scotland and me move, well, at all I guess, we used to joke about how we wouldn’t care if we ended up with no money; telling each other stories under a blanket by candlelight, living off pasta and cuddling up together to keep warm. Winter seems incredibly romantic when you’re young and in love, but while we’re still both of course the reality is me padding about in a hoodie and these ridiculous oversized Hello Kitty bedsocks, clutching my pirate-patterned hot water bottle to my chest and grizzling.

Monkey Towers, with its high ceilings and massive windows, is a lovely flat but a nightmare to keep warm in the winter. I don’t remember ever being this ill last year, but I doubt this creeping cold which seeps right deep into my bones can be aiding my recovery. Since it’s been difficult to cuddle up I’ve been comfort-eating instead, which I’m particularly annoyed at myself for as long work days and a sniffly nose have kept me away from the gym since Monday. If I go every day next week I’ll make my minimum number of work-outs before my monthly weigh-in (yes, I loathe myself for even thinking about it, but I have to admit I’m enjoying the noticeable difference in my fitness levels).

I’m looking forward to a couple of hours’ worth of long-lie before my hair appointment tomorrow, then getting packed for my short trip to London before going to see those controversial Vivian Girls with Kate and Jo. I suppose, with a schedule like that, it’s my own fault that I feel so dreadful, but tea and sympathy would be appreciated regardless dear readers!

One last project for tonight – getting all those 2008 releases onto my iPod for one last listen before I start to think about List Season in earnest!

PS Craig Finn’s in the Independent today, talking the genesis of The Hold Steady the week they visit everywhere in the UK that isn’t Glasgow (thanks Jon for the link). It’s a great read, although missing out on seeing the band this time around doesn’t help my fluish vulnerability any.

saturday’s bruises and cold roses;

Published on November 15, 2008 in a little more personal. 18 Comments Tags: , , .

Saturday's Bruises and Cold Roses (Day 81 of 365//Week 12 of 52)

Still feeling a little under the weather, hence a Saturday night spent eating cheesecake and live-Tweeting The X Factor with the great little Glasgow crowd we seem to have going over there. As Saturdays go, I feel as if I got things accomplished – I spent time with my siblings, cooked a fantastic curry; oh, and got that tattoo I mentioned yesterday.

I should probably stress that this permanent arm graffiti isn’t some shotgun reaction to a touch of the blues, but rather something I’ve been planning for ages. I’ve always loved the design, but had originally wanted to also feature the words beautiful sorta- with tiny wrists like mine though, it was never going to be practical for a Srs Legal Profeshunal such as myself. It’s quite a detailed design and, although over in about ten minutes and nothing like as painful as I expected it to be, I admit I winced a little as my Australian tattoo artist drew over some of the lines.

Well worth any temporary discomfort though – it’s healing up really nicely and I absolutely love it. Regardless of whether or not I’m still listening to Ryan Adams when I’m sixty, it connects me to a place and time that’s very much a part of me – and its positioning on the inside of my wrist is also symbolic.

I can’t stop looking at it and grinning.

[PHOTO: Day 81.]