During my time in London I spent a lot of time living at Nine Elms Pier, on a succession of boats. Initially, I was on a huge Humber Keel barge called the Charles William, until the owner sold her. I was incredibly lazy about arranging somewhere else to live, but it looked like I was going to have to move off the pier, which I really didn’t want. Then, by some happy accident, on the day before I had to move out someone appeared on the permanently empty little narrowboat moored just next to the Charles William. We got chatting, and I moved in the following morning – he was unable to make any use of the boat due to living a bit too far away, and was glad of the rent.

I loved living on the pier so much I actually bought a narrowboat when one came up for sale later that year, see here, and the picture above. This was, as Sod’s Law would have it, just before I was finally offered a job in Edinburgh to be with Mrs. Toad. The timing was rotten, but I did a lot of work on her and was able to sell on reasonably easily, so I managed to do okay out of it all. I was pretty lucky though. Boats degrade pretty bloody fast and I could have been sitting on a colossal, gradually sinking white elephant if things had gone badly.

Anyhow, at about the time I moved from the Charles William to the Lagom – the tiny little Narrowboat – I was really enjoying reading the independent music magazine Comes With a Smile. It was run by Matt who I think is a graphic designer by profession, and this really showed in the gorgeous layouts and artwork. Every issue (roughly quarterly) he would compile a CD for us which was a perfect combination of new things, with a fine dash of stuff I already knew, just for familiarity’s sake. He had a real love for intimate, mellow Americana and I discovered loads of groups through his compilations.

CWaS folded eventually, and the last issue was in late 2005. Perhaps in this internet age, printing an actual magazine was always going to be an impossible enterprise for so small an operation, but I very much miss my occasional brown envelopes from Matt. There was so much personal thought and emotional investment in the stuff, it was almost like being round at his house while he played tapes for you.

I mentioned this because I have two CDs of highlights from various samplers which I made simultaneously at about the time I was moving between boats, called, not terribly imaginatively, ‘Farewell to the Charles William’ and ‘Welcome to the Lagom’. They are both so full of Comes With a Smile songs that every time I hear them I think of Matt and his ultimately doomed labour of love. He’ll probably never read this of course, but thanks, wherever you are.

Sun Kil Moon – Carry Me Ohio
Micah P. Hinson – Close Your Eyes
Jim White – Static on the Radio
Giant Sand – Brand New Cumberland Gap
American Music Club – Mantovani the Mind Reader

Ah, that felt good. I’ve been so busy trying to catch up with all the music I want to tell you about that it’s been ages since I remembered to prattle on aimlessy about nothing much in particular for an entire post.

I am going to have to stop posting about bands I found through reading Cable & fucking Tweed or Rich is going to have some sort of creepy internet stalker restraining order taken out.  When discussing the Ice Cream Socialists’ superb new album, he mentioned that they sounded a little like Man Man, who I’d never heard of before.  You won’t go far wrong following Rich’s recommendations, so I went and had a listen, and bought their latest album, Six Demon Bag.

It’s a bit full-on, and nothing that you’d play when the in-laws are around, but it’s rude, loud, and just a little bit unhinged.  The music is a kind of mixture of carnival exuberance, old time jazz styles, and seedy seafront marionette shows delivered in a manic combination of Waits, Beefheart and Zappa.

Some supercilious arse at Tiny Mix Tapes – you know, the kind of world-weary indie reviewer who has just seen it all before, to the extent that you wonder why he even bothers if the world bores him that much – has a bit of a dig at this album.  Dismissing it as ‘just’ indie-pop and pointing out, quite accurately that is has nothing of the depth or artistic merit of The Genius That Is Tom Waits.  Which is true, it is just indie pop.  But even Tom Waits wasn’t The Genius That Is Tom Waits after two albums.  Mind you, not that I’m denying the truth of his statements – this is just an indie-pop album that sounds a bit like Tom Waits in his more circus-friendly moments, but he seems to consider this a criticism, whereas I do not.

What I hear is an indie-pop album that sounds a bit like Tom Waits in his more circus-friendly moments, and is thus an absolute joy and completely inconsistent, but for the most part an uplifting marvel of discordant, raucous fun.  So there.

Man Man – Skin Tension
Man Man – Black Mission Goggles

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I sometimes think this could be the shortest review I’ve ever written, which seems a shame, because it’s not to show a lack of love for the album, which is superb.

All I mean is that explaining this music will take a second, and then it’s really up to you to have a listen, decide whether or not you like it, and then scuttle off to buy the album.  Basically, this is a short, lovely album of acoustic blues-folk with the sparsest of arrangements that nonetheless manages to generate a wonderfully evocative, full sound.

There you go – see: you know exactly what I mean, it’s not that hard and it’s hardly an unknown genre.  There is a lot of thin, lifeless stuff in this particular bracket though, so I do feel I should say that Alela Diane avoids any of that.  There is a wonderfully old-fashioned warmth to her voice which is rather gorgeous, and she is one of very few people I have ever heard sing songs with repeated choruses like ‘Clicketty-Clack’ without annoying me.  It is all at once very other-worldly and very simple and very present, and I would really recommend this record.

Alela Diane – Rifle
Alela Diane – Can You Blame the Sky?

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Here I sit at work, late into the night, browsing the music blogs while my computer crunches renderings and I’m reading quite a bit about this Mark Ronson character about whom I know nothing at all. More specifically, I keep coming across compliments of his version of Maximo Park’s Apply Some Pressure. Now, I am no Maximo Park acolyte by any means, but I loved their debut album and thought that Apply Some Pressure was an absolutely splendidly uplifting indie-pop gem of a song.

Mark Ronson’s version is so bad it makes me want to punch myself in the head just for having ever heard it. Being an imbecilic glutton for punishment I meandered over to his myspace page (no, I’m not going to link to it – if you’re that bent on self-harm then you are going to have to do it to yourself) where his full abomination of an album is available for preview. It appears to be a big steaming pile of cover versions – oh brilliant, cover versions – all of which are so toe-curlingly awful I nearly fractured my spine, I cringed so hard. It actually makes you contort yourself into some sort of overwhelming spasm of embarrassment – like your body it trying to fold in on itself in an Herculean effort to pretend that it isn’t there, being subjected to this horror. It’s so bad I can’t even summon any vitriol. It’s like musical Kryptonite – honestly, I’m absolutely and utterly aghast.

He actually makes me feel sorry for the Kaiser Chiefs, he’s that bad. I don’t even like the Kaiser Chiefs, but no-one deserves to have virtually their only decent song butchered so horribly. And then, when it’s down on the ground and bleeding, it’s last shred of dignity utterly shrivelled to nothing, he delivers the Coup de Grace. The Allen. Yes, he beats their song to death and then pisses on its bleeding corpse by inviting Lily Fucking Allen to join in his carnival of musical masturbation.

There’s a Jam cover in there too, but I honestly couldn’t even bring myself to listen to it. I swear, if any of you even considers for a second buying this album I am giving up and going home. It’s not even amusingly bad.

Mark Ronson – Apply Some Pressure
Mark Ronson featuring, yes, Lily Fucking Allen – Oh My God
Maximo Park – Apply Some Pressure

I really do apologise. If you listened to those, then you will never get those six or seven minutes of your lives back. It’s just wrong, isn’t it? Christ I need a gin.

And the, er, title was clearly a slight exaggeration.

Well, having reviewed a small number of the artists who particularly struck me at this year’s Homegame festival I thought it worth mentioning a few thoughts on the overall weekend, for those interested.

First, however, a little background. Kenny Anderson – a.k.a. King Creosote – was in a reasonably successful band back in the early 90s called the Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra. They released a couple of good albums but internal politics did for them, and Kenny was dropped by his record label. He continued recording, setting up a record shop in St. Andrews, and putting out self-released CD-Rs every now and then. To cut a long story very short, his two musical brothers, Lone Pigeon (of Beta Band fame) and Pip Dylan and a few other musical friends ended up clustering together to become what is now known as The Fence Collective.

Recently there have been some pretty high-profile releases from the Fencers as the whole enterprise has gathered momentum, including a couple of very well-received albums from King Creosote himself, as well as the lush and lovely fireside folk of James Yorkston. K.T Tunstall is also one of theirs, I think, but I don’t hear that much mention of her these days. Late last year Barbarossa released one of the most successful records on Fence Records to date, with Chemical Campfires – KC and James Yorkston release their stuff through larger labels. So the whole thing is starting to really take off, which is excellent because a more deserving bunch of people you couldn’t hope to meet.

Anyhow, once a year the Fence Collective and various other pals of theirs all come together back in Anstruther for a weekend (two weekends this time, due to popularity) and play lots of gigs shared amongst the local town halls, get pished as newts and generally have a right old laugh. The sell a couple of hundred tickets, and everyone spends the weekend in a lovely Scottish seaside town, walking from one gig to another, down to the seafront for fish & chips, or just generally dossing about and relaxing.

The music varies from bizarre electronic noodling to uber-hippy folk to immaculate indie pop and full on electro-disco-punk thrash. For the most part, however, the kind of introspective indie-folk of the likes of King Creosote tends to dominate – thoughtful, often slightly eccentric songs, largely acoustic, with threads of electronica and experimental accompaniments. Musicians turn up all over the place, wielding the washboard here, accompanying someone on guitar there, and then playing their own set somewhere later – I swear I even saw James Yorkston playing power chords on an electric guitar and pogo-ing around the stage at one point. There tend to be the odd surprise invitee as well, such as Blood Music and The Singleman Affair this year, and a couple of Scottish indie heroes, Malcolm Middleton and Ballboy, made appearances as well. By and large, though, this is just a bunch of old mates getting together and playing their music together. And we get to come too.

That is the best thing about this festival. Apart from the fact that it being in Anstruther completely avoids the bald, plastic glass-strewn fields and shitty campsites of other festivals, as well as giving indie widows such as Mrs. Toad something to do. Basically, the musicians are all attending the festival the same as you. They do all sorts of work on things like sound and dragging people’s hand-made CDs around so people can buy stuff from the bands they like. And I’ve never seen a bunch of people so completely unassuming and entirely tolerant of being accosted by drunken fans slurring incoherently at them. They were all up at Legends on the last night, getting plastered with everyone else and basically just enjoying the whole business.

And that’s the thing. As a fan, The Fence Collective starts to feel like something you belong to almost as much as they do, despite not actually doing anything yourself in particular. Perversely, I don’t want it to get too big because there is nothing in the world so pure and sincere that a marketing department can’t utterly fucking ruin it, but then if there was anyone in the world that you really want to see succeed then it’s these guys. So subscribe to your Fencezine, be sharp, and do your best to get tickets next year. Honestly, it’s easily, easily worth it.

For an introduction to the Fence musicians, get down to your local independent record shop and buy their sampler, Don’t Fudge With the Fence Made. Here’s a couple of highlights from that CD, plus a couple of songs from the mainstays of Fencelyness:

King Creosote – Circle my Demise (It’s miserable, this one, but gorgeous)
King Creosote – Klutz (A bit more cheerful for you)
James Yorkston & the Athletes – St. Patrick
Barbarossa – Aeroplanes
The Pictish Trail – All I Own
Adrian Crowley – Northern Country

Would it hurt anyone’s feelings if I said that I just wasn’t convinced by this album, particularly? Which is not to say that I don’t think it’s superbly done, more that it is now just an excellent pop record whereas previous Bird efforts have been right up there at the top of my pantheon of wondrousness.

When I first got into Andrew Bird the thing that pulled me in more than anything – even more than the brilliant violin, the intelligent lyrics and the, erm, well yes, the whistling – was the slightly ramshackle eccentricity of the whole thing. Weather Systems and Mysterious Production of Eggs had a sort of scatterbrained meandering quality which I loved. It was sort of like listening to a folk version of Howe Gelb at times. This aspect of the music is all but gone here, and inasmuch as it doesn’t influence his capacity for writing brilliant tunes, sweeping, emotionally captivating violins and some of the cleverest wordsmithery around, it somehow does take away from the garden shed folk genius aura he had before.

Ultimately though, this feels like an incredibly churlish complaint. This is slick record of intelligent, catchy pop perfection. Very few people out there can come close to matching his ability to generate a single-finger desk drumming pop-along rhythm. Nor his now quite expansively orchestrated musical backgrounds – still a little unusual, despite the sheen. I am going to see him live in London shortly and, assuming he won’t be bringing a whopping great band with him, I am guessing I’ll get to see the scruffy heart of these songs then. Until then – pure pop perfection from Mr. Bird, although I do sometimes miss the shambolic folk weirdo. But maybe that’s just me being a bit too precious.

Andrew Bird – Heretics
Andrew Bird – Scythian Empires

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Adrian Crowley is a pretty long-time Fencer from the looks of it, but one of whom I have never previously heard. Well he had a fairly prestigious slot at Homegame, so he must be well-respected there, and he filled it with aplomb.

Mr. Crowley plays a kind of moody, atmospheric folk that often has a sort of underlying tension to it that is rather captivating. He’s quite a poetic writer, with plenty of lyrical cues taken from old poetry, and his storytelling using all the traditional sort of templates. I suppose this is why you’d describe him as ‘folk’ really – the formal content of the lyrical writing.

Underpinning these lyrics is a suggestive, bare sort of music. Emma Smith played the violin for him at Homegame and was absolutely outstanding. She had played the previous day with James Yorkston where she played a more traditional (i.e.: more notes) sort of set, and on the second night with Adrian Crowley where it was all quite difficult atmospherics. She made the transition with barely a blink – I would say (with no technical knowledge it’s not my place to judge these things) that she is probably a really rather talented musician. And her rather splendidly cute blond ringlets didn’t hu.. Ouch! Sorry, darling. Never mind. She was good, anyway.

I bought one of Adrian’s albums at the gig, and as much as I am enjoying it, I am not that familiar with it that I can really offer a valid reaction just yet. I have a wee sample song for you to hear though, so if you want to investigate further then CDBaby – one of my favourite music shops on the internets – has a couple of his albums with plenty of opportunity to preview songs. Click here for his catalogue on their site.

Adrian Crowley – Long Distance Swimming

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I may be very much in love with Mrs. Toad, but if the opportunity to get a quick divorce were to present itself I may consider it, if just so I could run away in the dead of night with this album. The problem is, it’s so primal it would probably make me its bitch and I would be condemned to a life of gimp masks, beatings and sexual subservience. Mind you, one listen to Go Tell the Women and actually that doesn’t sound too ba… no, no, I’ll stop there.

It’s like that though, this album. Sexually charged, brutal, visceral; it reminds me of those vicious old folk tales of rape and torture and pillage. And it’s all delivered in a festering, menacing piledriver of scabrous blues-rock that quite frankly makes me want to subject myself to its nefarious will for ever more.

Really, given how generally poor the major releases have been so far this year, and the absolute dearth of people continuing to produce excellent music into their dotage (well, musically speaking anyway) this is an absolute rocket delivered squarely up the arse of the rest of the industry. Why the fuck aren’t any of the rest of you this good?

It’s not all the explosion of angry guitars that I was expecting though, although it is a hugely guitar-dominated record. Actually, there’s more simmering menace than there are mental wig-outs. Songs like the smouldering Grinderman, Electric Alice and Go Tell the Women are tense, brooding and threatening. But when they do cut loose and go for it you really get your money’s worth, with tracks like the brilliant single No Pussy Blues – probably Nick Cave’s best raging stalker anthem since the towering Loverman (for ’tis his band, don’t you know – explanation here).

Honestly, I’d post half this album if I thought I could get away with it. If you want feral music with huge fucking balls that you are pretty sure would slam you over the desk and shag you hard up the arse if you turned your back on it for a second, then this is your baby.

Grinderman – Go Tell the Women
Grinderman – Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)

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Yes, Gummi Bako. Nuts he may be, but he can certainly write music. If you’ve ever seen him live, then you’ll know that during performances Mr. Bako has the habit of morphing into something akin to Beeker from the Muppet Show with ten thousand volts coursing through him. There’s a sort of deranged, wild-eyed squawk that makes an appearance from time to time and can be, for the first little while, rather terrifying.

I first saw a Gummi Bako solo slot at last year’s Homegame and although I thought he was nuts, there was something oddly compelling about the music, and certainly the performance. The full band performed at the recent Fence Night at The Caves in Edinburgh and although the oddness was still there, it was a slightly less prominent due to the presence of guitars, which resulted in a rock ‘n’ roll performance that was a little easier to grasp. Then he played again this year, again a largely solo set, with Elle and Uncle Beesly joining him on bass and guitar respectively and some splendid washboard percussion. Something strange was happening to me; I was really starting to like this stuff. The weirdness just seemed to melt into the music and the whole thing was making sense all of sudden. Don’t ask me how this happened, but I blame some sort of wicked Fife spell myself.

Anyhow, on his page on the Fence site Gummi Bako is described as wonky-tonk, and I think that fits pretty perfectly. There are a couple of CDs, amongst other things, available on his site, and I can definitely recommend Sticky Wicket as a good place to start, although there’s a new single out soon too. Sticky Wicket is a much more straight-up pop record than I would have expected, and although at times you may find some of the eccentricities a little odd, that will fade and you will left with a really good record. Well it’s taken me a little time, but I’ve got there eventually.

Gummi Bako – Underground
Gummi Bako – She’s the Carrot
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Well I never expected this lot, that’s for sure. Karl-Jonas Winqvist and his cohorts are not exactly the gentle Fife folkster you generally associate with the Fence Collective stereotype, more an electronic Ben Folds from Sweden. He sits behind his electric piano in the middle of the stage, flanked by guitar and trumpet, and proceeds to chatter on for ten minutes about his high school reunion party before even letting you in on the fact that he is actually introducing his first song.

The gig continues like this all night – completely dominated by Karl-Jonas’ hugely engaging and utterly unaffected stage personality. Even the music is just like him – energetic, completely likeable and bristling with good things. It’s like listening to someone discovering music for the first time – lyrically and musically you almost feel as if he’s just happened upon all these new things he can try and just flings them into the songs, almost as you watch. In fact, he’s such a liberated performer that you could almost have imagined that he was making it up as he went along.

Musically this is pure pop, with wit, charm and abundant playfulness. Pianos, clarinets, pretend mandolins, trumpets and electronic beats all jump about all over the songs, making an appearance here and there and then vanishing again, only to reappear again when you least expect them. It’s bonkers, but it’s brilliant.

Blood Music – I Am Your Taxi
Blood Music – There is a War in Almost Every Corner

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