LIVE REVIEW : THE AUTUMN DEFENSE AT THE LEXINGTON 24/11/2013

 
A Sunday night gig, probably the perfect evening to enjoy an Autumn Defense show. Wilco is resting after quite the long tour that followed the release of their The Whole Love LP which means that all its members have got time for their side projects. John Stiratt and Pat Sansone have just finished recording the fifth Autum Defense LP that will be coming out in January 2014 and they were doing a short run of european dates at the end of November to promote while promoting their forthcoming album. Most Autumn Defense gigs outside of the United States are just Stiratt and Sansone with Keyboard and Acoustic guitars which is the configuration we got at The Lexington.

The Lexington is probably one of the best venue for acoustic acts in London. The room is the perfect size which means that in the case the turnout is small it won't feel empty. The audience is great. In all 3 gigs I've seen there, you could hear a pin drop during the songs with thunderous applause just after the last chord faded out. I only caught the last few bars of opener Leah Mason (I had underestimated the walking distance between Kings Cross and the Venue) but her and her two man band sounded pretty good.

Stiratt and Sanson are reluctant frontmans (maybe a consequence of being in a band where the main guy is quite controlling). Sansone seemed to get more comfortable as the gig went by but Stiratt seemed a bit more reluctant when handling banter duties. From what I recall of the performance, there was quite a fair chunk of the tracks from the Circles LP that were played with tunes from their eponymous record and "Once Around" interspersed. Biggest response was for "Swallows Of London Town" which was introduced by a very funny speech by Pat Sansone durig which he apologized fpr including the word rain in the lyrics. They also included a nice version of "It's Just That Simple" from the first Wilco record and a over of the Fleetwood Mac song "Sentimental Lady". They are both very gifted musicians but Sansone is a notch above Stiratt, his piano playing was fantastic. They came back for a couple of songs but had to call it a night after that because they didn't know any other songs to play. Stiratt promised that they would come back with a full band next year.

LIVE REVIEW : THE NEW MENDICANTS AT THE LEXINGTON 10/07/2013

I think that you can qualify The New Mendicants as a "Supergroup". Their launch has been slightly more subdued than the fanfare that accompanied the debut of  "Blind Faith" some 44 years ago but Joe Pernice and Norman Blake's song-writing prowesses in their main outfits (Pernice Brothers and Teenage Fanclub) are the guarantee for a night of excellent music. 

Pernice and Blake started the band last year. Both moved to Toronto to live with their partners ("They married us, we didn't marry them" said Pernice during the gig). They had crossed paths before while touring in the UK but this new proximity meant that they developed a friendship that became "The New Mendicants". They started played gigs in Toronto last year followed by recording and a tour of Australia and New Zealand at the beginning of this year. So Far they have only released an EP to coincide with that tour (imaginatively titled "Australia 2013 E.P) but an LP is supposed to be released in the first half of 2014. 

I had caught Joe Pernice live last October in a small pub and had found him a fantastic performer with terrific in-between song banter but Blake's presence at his side gave him an extra boost on both fronts (performance and banter). The set-up for the gig was pretty sparse, just the two of them with their guitars and a glockenspiel. They introduced a couple of tunes from the forthcoming album explaining that many of the album were written to be used on the soundtrack of the movie "A Long Way Down" based on Nick Hornby's novel of the same name. Unfortunately they all the songs got rejected which means in Pernice's words that half of the album will be about "standing on top a building". These new snippets were interspersed with songs from their back catalogue. We got Teenage Fanclub b-sides, Scud Mountain Boys tracks, Zombies covers ("Butcher's tale", already played by Pernice at his gig last October)... Pernice was in fine form, recounting stories from attending an Hall and Oates gig in the mid-eighties in Boston (and telling that he had made up the whole story after finishing it). There was some really funny moments like when Blake messed up a glockenspiel part on one of Pernice's songs. Pernice retaliated by playing a wrong chord on purpose during the intro of "Baby Lee" while mouthing "fuck you" to Blake.

The audience was tremendously respectful, interacting with Pernice and Blake in-between songs but keeping religiously silent during the quieter numbers. The show was sold out and to adD to and already wonderful evening, Blake announced that straight after the tour he was going to Glasgow to continue work on the next Teenage Fanclub album.