LIVE REVIEW : LLOYD COLE AND THE LEOPARDS AT SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE 31/01/2013

Following the good reception of the recently released Standards and a sold out solo gig at Union Chapel last October, Lloyd Cole was back in the UK for a short tour with a 5 piece band (first band shows since the short tour he did with The Commotions to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Rattlesnakes in 2004). The core of the band was Glasgow garage rock outfit The Leopards. I must admit I've had troubles finding anything about them on the web. Most of them seem to be veterans of the Glasgow music scene of the nineteen eighties. Lead guitar player Mick Slaven was a member of Del Amitri for a short while, bass player Campbell Owens played in Aztec Camera, drummer Jim Gash is Australian born but has played in Glasgow bands since the mid eighties, Douglas MacIntyre the second guitar player was the head honcho of the label Creeping Bent and Blair Cowan was the keyboard player in The Commotions and has been working on and off with Cole ever since.

The Band first appearance was on Later with Jools Holland last October performing Myrtle And Rose and Women Studies from Standards and Perfect Skin from Rattlesnakes. Considering the band had just had a couple of days to rehearse before appearing on the show the performance was pretty impressive. Friday night's show was however at a different level, instead of sounding like a bunch of hired hands assembled in a short period of time, the band displayed a cohesiveness betraying its recent formation and revealed itself to be the perfect match for Lloyd Cole's music.

Coming on stage at 9pm to the sound of Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken by Camera Obscura, the band launched straight away into a note perfect rendition of Rattlesnakes with the three guitars adding a "rockier" to the song compared to the version on the Rattlesnakes LP. Great care was put in the elaboration of the set list with almost every album of Cole's career covered (I think only Bad Vibes and Antidepressant weren't covered). Almost one third of the Set list was devoted to Commotions songs with most of the well known ones getting an airing (Rattlesnakes, Perfect Skin, Lost Weekend, Jennifer She Said...). The songs from Standards blended seamlessly in the Set list, proving that the excellent reviews the new album received were well deserved. If I had to choose my favourites in the tunes played I would go for the excellent versions of What's Wrong With This Picture from The Negatives album and Like Lovers Do from Love Story, the later one featuring particularly nice guitar lines from Mick Slaven that differed quite a bit from the ones on the recorded version. Though clearly enjoying himself, Lloyd Cole seemed a bit self conscious fronting a rock band after ten years of touring in solo folk mode. He made quite a few references to ageing in between songs even joking at some point that we would be better off closing our eyes so we could all be in 1984 again. Lloyd said that this might be the last time we saw him with a band, let's hope it's an "au revoir" rather than an "adieu" as the French would say.

THE PLIMSOULS : LIVE ALBUMS

The Plimsouls are one of my favourite bands. I discovered them following thanks to a short review that followed the re-release of their live album One Night In America on CD in 2005. I finally purchased the record a couple of months later and was totally blown away by it. It just seemed to contain everything I liked about Rock'n'roll, the songs are catchy, the band is tight but the playing is not flashy and Peter Case is a fantastic singer. After listening to that album I was eager to check their studio albums. They have released 3 LP's, two during the original lifespan of the band : The Plimsouls and Everywhere At Once and one when the band reformed briefly in the mid nineties : Kool Trash. I must admit that after the "blast" of One Night In America, I was slightly disappointed by what was on offer on these 3 releases. The Plimsouls sounded a bit thin on the ears and a bit flat, Everywhere At Once has the 80's sheen common to the year it was released (1983) and Kool Trash showcases a band that has mellowed a lot compared to its heyday. Don't get me wrong though, all have really goods songs on them, it's just that none of them have the drive and the swing of what's on display on One Night In America.

In the liner notes to One Night In America, Peter Case hinted that there was other live releases to come from the vaults so I sent an email to Oglio to see if anything was scheduled but I got a reply saying that despite that announcement nothing was on cards yet. Fast forward 3 or 4 years and we finally get an announcement from Peter Case saying that a new live album will be released, titled Live, Beg, Borrow And Steal and featuring a whole show recorded on Halloween Night 1981 at The Whiskey-A-Gogo in Los Angeles. Even if there's no information on where and when One Night In America was recorded, Peter Case has said that it might have been recorded in Cleveland in 1982. Even if the band seems a little stiffer than on ONIA, LBBAS is still an excellent album and showcases how good a live a and they were. It also enables to hear the songs from the first album with some extra oomph. It also contains of my favourite Plimsouls  : Lost Time. If you want to see a really good version of that song please check this youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz6nFTzbDm4. It's an extract of a show recorded for the French television show Chorus in 1982 and it features a fantastic Eddie Munoz solo. There's quite a few songs that overlap between the two recordings (7 in total) but the difference between the two gigs justifies the purchase.

After the release of  LBBAS, I wasn't expecting a new release to come out of the vaults but we got a final one with Beach Town Confidential, recorded at The Golden Bear Club in 1983. The raw edges of ONIA and LBBAS have been trimmed and the raw enthusiasm has been replaced by professionalism. As with all previous Plimsouls LIlive recordings there are quite a few covers, highlights of which are fantastic versions of Fall on You and Making Time (originally recorded by Moby Grape and The Creation). There's also a really good original Plimsouls song called Who's Gonna Break The Ice that was never recorded in the studio (I'm a big fan of the intro with all the interweaving guitar lines). This record features The Plimsouls at the top of their game. Unfortunately their studio album Everywhere At Once failed to reach the mainstream and the band disbanded in 1985.

NICK LOWE : THE ROAD TO THE BRENTFORD TRILOGY AND BEYOND PART THREE

After coming back from Madrid I was thinking that now would start the long wait for the next Nick Lowe album and accompanying tour. Boy was I wrong. First there was the announcement of a joint European tour with Ry Cooder following two successful shows for a charity in San Francisco during the fall of 2008.  I managed to catch the tour at the Carre Theatre in Amsterdam. Tickets for this tour horrendously expensive, I remember paying something like 90 euros for a seat that was right at the top of the theatre. The gig mainly featured material from Ry Cooder's back catalogue with a couple of songs from Little Village (a short lived super group that Cooder and Hiatt were in at the beginning of the 1990's), a few Nick Lowe tunes and some covers. The gig was nice but if you were a Nick Lowe fan you ended up feeling a little short changed. The two highlights of the gig for me were a cover of the Eddy Giles song "Losing Boy" and a nice version of Lowe's 1984 hit "Half a Boy and Half a Man" with a tasty slide solo by Ry Cooder. The backing for the gig should have included long term Cooder collaborator Flaco Jimenez on accordion but he fell ill before the tour leaving just Lowe, Cooder and his son Joachim on drums and two female back up singers for some songs. I think that the gig would have been fantastic if they just added Ry to Nick's backing band with the same song selection. Nick band are such skilful players that I'm sure they would have adapted themselves to Ry's style without any problem.

Simultaneously to his outings with Ry Cooder, Lowe toured the UK to celebrate the re-release of his two first solo albums (Jesus Of Cool and Labour of Lust) and of a new best of called "Quiet Please" covering the whole of his career from his days in Brinsley Schwarz all the way to his "At My Age" album playing a date at The Royal Albert Hall (sparsely attended unfortunately). Apart from his usual bouts of American touring, year 2010 was spent recording his next album The Old Magic that was finally released in September 2011. I must admit that I was surprised by the mellowness of the album the first time I listened to it but it definitely grows on you with the numbers of listenings. The album is short and to the point coming at just under 36 minutes with the usual ratio of covers and originals. As I said earlier on the album is quieter than its predecessors, only the lead single Checkout Time could qualify as a rock song. The rest of the album is made up of ballads (Stoplight Roses, House For Sale) and mid tempo of what I would call for lack of a better word "lounge rockers" (Sensitive Man, Restless Feeling). The covers blend in seamlessly with the originals (showing Mr Lowe's usual flair for choosing songs that suit his style), the high point being a really good version of Tom T Hall's Shame On The Rain that removes the country twang from the original while adding Nick Lowe's touch. The best track on the record for me is the last one Till The Real Thing Comes Along which somehow never gets mentioned anywhere in reviews and that was never played live during the tour that followed the release of The Old Magic. A fantastic song that ticks every box, perfect pace, spot on lyrics and arrangement. In one word : a masterpiece.

At the Time The Old Magic came out, I was living in the south of France and despite a date being scheduled in Paris, it made more sense crossing the border to Spain to see Mr Lowe and hi band in the beautiful city of Bilbao. In a remake of the Madrid incident a few years before, my girlfriend and I spent a couple of hours going round an industrial estate trying to figure which metal corrugated warehouse contained the venue. Thanks to a few Heineken neon lights that were switched on when the night was falling down we finally located the damn place. The venue called Santana 27 was a rock club from 8pm to 11pm and then a disco after the gig finished till the early hours, the room was far from being full but there was enough punters to make it look nicely attended. The opener was Geraint Watkins (Lowe's piano player for the last 20 years) playing a solo set. Despite a big faux-pas during the gig (message to people playing in Spain : never shout "Viva Espana" when you're playing the Basque region), he got a good reception playing songs from his three solo albums plus a few covers. Lowe came on stage just by himself opening with Stoplight Roses and Heart with the band joining him during What Lack Of Love Has Done. The set list had some nice additions compared to the Madrid gig with some older tunes that hadn't been aired for a while (Raining Raining, Ragin' Eyes) mixing in with newer tunes from The Old Magic and classics (Cruel To Be Kind, What's So Funny About Peace Love And Understanding, I Knew The Bride). If my memory serves me right Lowe put the whole audience in his pocket by saying a couple of words in Basque in between songs. The last number of the gig was a cover version of Alison by his old friend Elvis Costello.

Lowe spent the whole of 2012 touring The Old Magic and I would have to wait till July 2013 to see another live gig by Mr Lowe. He was announced on the line-up of a songwriter day  that was part of a series of concert organized in Hyde Park. Other acts scheduled the same day were in order : Elvis Costello, Ray Davies and Elton John. One week before the gig Elton John's appearance was cancelled which resulted in Nick Lowe being upgraded to the main stage (he was scheduled to headline one of the smaller stages) and as it was too late to find a headliner, the organizers declared that the admission would be free !!! Nick's set was short and concentrated on the "hits" but it was nice to see him play in this acoustic format with just him and his Gibson. I was hoping that we might get a Lowe-Costello duet during the latter's show but nothing happened. Shortly after the Hyde Park gig it was announced that Lowe would be putting out a Christmas Album called "Quality Street : A Seasonal Selection For All the Family". Apparently the idea of making a Christmas album was suggested by Lowe's American record label YepRoc. A bit reluctant to the idea for a start Lowe changed his mind in the end and recorded the album at the end of 2012 with his usual musicians. The result, a mix of Lowe originals, co-writes and rearranged seasonal standards though far from being as good as his recent albums is a pleasant addition to his catalogue. I had the chance of meeting the great man himself and having my copy signed at the Rough Trade shop in Brick Lane on the week before Christmas 2013.

LIVE REVIEW : MIKE SANCHEZ AT THE 100 CLUB 08/12/2013

Back at the 100 Club just one week after the Dan Baird And Homemade Sin gig. Sanchez started with a band called The Big Town Playboys in the middle of the eighties. After leaving the band in 1999 he went solo while being a member of Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings (replacing Gary Brooker from Procol Harum). The gig at the 100 Club was billed as Mike Sanchez and his band which means you get to see Mike with Nick Withfield on bow fiddle, Mark Morgan on drums, Tom Bull on guitar, Martin Winning on tenor saxophone (also plays in Geraint Watkins's band) and Nick Lunt on baritone saxophone. He also tours solo and with a smaller line-up colled The Portions that doesn't include Martin Winning.

I had quite high expectations for the gig as all the reviews I had read on the web said Sanchez was an absolutely fantastic performer. The band came on stage just after nine (no opening act but after having witnessed the gig I wonder who would be crazy enough to open for this lot !!!!). After a short introduction where Mr Sanchez explained to us that he had woken up with a stiff neck 3 days before and that it would take him some time to get warmed up, he then proceeded to tear the place apart with a 45 mins set of relentless boogie woogie. The band was simply fantastic tight, special mention to the two guys fro the horn section (they must have lungs made of iron to sustain the sometimes lengthy codas that Mr Sanchez inflicts on them...). Mike's repertoire is almost entirely made up of covers ranging from the end of the 1930's to the 50's but he plays the material with such ease and passion that you would think he wrote the tunes himself.  The gig was made of two parts.. First a 45 mins set followed by a short 15 mins intermission  and then a lengthier second set that finished just before 11.30pm. By the time the gig finished there wasn't a dry patch left on Mike's jacket. He said that he would be back at the 100 Club next April. You can be sure that I will book my ticket as soon as the date is announced.

NICK LOWE : THE ROAD TO THE BRENTFORD TRILOGY AND BEYOND PART TWO

I don't know if it's the lack of major touring after the release of Dig my Mood but it took Lowe only 3 years to write, record and release The Convincer. The cover shot for the album is absolutely great (a kind of "still the Jesus of Cool" vibe emanates from it). As said in the previous part Lowe has now firmly established a pattern in which he makes his records. He hones the songs in his rehearsal space in Brentford till he knows them inside out (same process for the songs he decides to cover), then he proceeds to record them with his regular band and producer/sound man Neil Brockbank. Lowe often explains in interviews that he's not a very prolific songwriter and that he doesn't accumulate songs for albums and record them all in one go. He has to write a batch of 3 or 4 that he really considers good, records them and in return this process gives him the drive to write the rest of the songs to complete the record (The Convincer was recorded over a period of one year in different studios in London). As on Dig My Mood most of the songs deal with pain and heartbreak but there's the odd glimpse of light (the fantastic ode to new found love "She's got soul").

As usual the arrangements are top notch with just the right amount of little additional flourishes that enhance the songs but never distract the listener. Particularly impressive in that domain is "Cupid Must be Angry" (strategically placed after "She's Got Soul") with its clever use of strings and horns, "Homewrecker" with nice organ work courtesy of the "ever-soulful" Geraint Watkins. A few tracks on the LP have become staples of Lowe's live shows, "Lately I've Let Things Slide" which boasts one of his finest set of lyrics, the folk number "Indian Queens" (there's an excellent video of him explaining the meaning of it on you tube) and "Has she got a friend", a distant cousin from 1983's "Without Love" that features some great guitar parts from Steve Donnelly.

If The Convincer had come relatively quick after Dig My Mood, it took Lowe twice as much time to release it's follow-up "At My Age". Due to a series of events in Lowe's life, it was recorded in dribs and drabs. Far from suffering from it, the record feels incredibly cohesive. The mood is a little lighter than on the two previous efforts. Even the songs that treat about lost love do it in a cheerful way ("The Club", the cover "A man in Love"). The tunes are more about reminiscing than regretting. After doing an "anti-macho" song with "All Men Are Liars" on Pinker and Prouder than Previous, he does a tongue-in-cheek "pro-macho" one with "I Trained Her To Love Me" (co-written with long time drummer Robert Treherne). The album is just so consistent, there's no particular stand out tracks, all the Lowe originals are perfectly crafted vignettes with just the amount of words, chords and arrangements. If I was strapped to a chair and tortured, I might go for "Long Limbed Girl" but picking a favourite out of such a batch of good songs is tough. This record is a special one for me because it's the one that made me discover Nick Lowe. I liked it so much that as soon as I saw he was touring Europe I booked a ticket to go and see him play in Madrid at a venue called The Riviera (located surprisingly not far from a river). I spent a huge amount of time trying to find the venue (Spain doesn't do signposting for rock venues, more on that later...). I finally managed to find it (i'd been going past it half a dozen times over the last hour) to see just a few folks queuing for the ticket when the gig was due to start in less than half an hour. I was beginning to wonder if anybody was going to turn up when suddenly one thousand folks materialized behind me in the space of fifteen minutes. The gig was everything I hoped it to be and more. Nick opened with a few acoustic numbers on his own and was joined by his band for the rest the show. The audience was a bit boisterous which ruined some of the quieter songs ("You Inspire Me") but were enthusiastic enough to entice Nick to play a few extra acoustic numbers at the end ("Seven Nights To Rock" and "Heart Of The City"). If you want to check out what Nick is like live, I would recommended his Live at St Lukes show that was recorded for BBC4 (it's on you tube) or the extra DVD on the Quiet Please Best Of that includes a recording of a full band show at The Ancienne Belgique in Brussels.

LIVE REVIEW : DAN BAIRD AND HOMEMADE SIN AT THE 100 CLUB 01/12/2013

Another Sunday night gig  but this one couldn't have been more different than the Autumn Defence show last week. I had heard of Dan Baird and The Georgia Satellites previously as I used to read French magazine Crossroads that championed them pretty often. I was browsing gig listings a couple of weeks ago when I noticed him and his backing band Homemade Sin were playing two nights in a row at the 100 Club on Oxford Street. I checked a couple of songs on you tube and decided that at 15 pounds the ticket it was definitely worth checking them out.

I arrived at the venue just before 8PM thinking that as it was a Sunday gig, it might start early but discovered that I was there 15 mins before the opening act was due to start. The 100 Club is a bit tired looking, I was expecting something similar to The Jazz Cafe in Camden but it was a lot rougher. Opening act was a hard rock cover act (apologies to them, I forgot their name) that featured an ex Judas Priest drummer (recently recruited apparently). Apart from the last song ("Breaking the Law" by Judas Priest) I didn't recognize any of the numbers.

Dan Baird and his 3 piece band came on stage rather casually, they just sound-checked and when everybody was ready started their set straight away. The rhythm section is made of 2 ex-members of The Georgia Satellites : Keith Christopher (bass and impeccably dressed) and Mauro Magellan (drums). The other guitar is played by Warner Hodges who also a member of Jason and The Scorchers. The venue wasn't full (150-200 people when the club can accommodate 350) , maybe most of the fans came to see the Saturday night show ? The sound in the club wasn't the best and Baird was struggling with his monitors and his mic for quite a few songs at the start of the gig. After a change of microphone, things were better but still a bit cavernous (I'd love to hear how they would have sounded in a place like The Half Moon or The Lexington). I'm not familiar at all with their back catalogue but I recognized the cover versions of "Don't Pass Me By" and "Quinn The Eskimo (Mighty Quinn)". The band definitely models itself on the Rolling Stones pre 1973 with a bit of Hard Rock thrown in. The chemistry between band members is is clearly evident, a fact that's highlighted by the great guitar interplay between Hodges and Baird. Their seemed to be a little tension between Christopher and Baird after the second told the first to bring down his volume after the first couple of songs (end of the tour nerves maybe ?). I've got a feeling that I should have gone to the Saturday night gig. The band comes to London every December so I'll make sure I see them again to form a final opinion (and I'll check out their albums too).

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.