[Dan from the Edinburgh University Settlement, who are currently administering the Roxy Art House and therefore the Bowery recently left a comment on Monday's thread, where we were discussing the fate of the Bowery.  Because this is something we're all rather passionate about I thought I would elevate his comment to a new post, so we can all read it and hopefully ask some questions.

I'd also like to say that I really appreciate his coming on the site to tell us what's going on, because it would have been easy enough to dismiss it all and just carry on with what they are up to, safe in the knowledge that people don't tend to hold grudges for long and that it would all be forgotten by 99%  of people within a few months.  So, in other words, please respect his willingness to chip in and if you ask questions keep them on topic and civillised.  Anything I consider out of order will be deleted.]

Just found all this, wow it’s great you all are so passionate about the Bowery, this is something I can totally respect and agree with. However there’s loads of conjecture going on here and I don’t think it’s helpful. I’m currently helping manage the Roxy and am employed by EUS. Some of you will probably know me from the place.

EUS completely support and respect the Bowery and what’s it has done and hopefully will continue to do. We’ve supported it so much we’ve essentially subsidised it’s existance over the past year as we also want to support this community and grassroots arts. The reason you didn’t get an answer out of the person you called is because you (both) spoke to the director of the EUS and believe it or not that was the first mention he’d heard of it, as EUS are not kicking the Bowery out of the building. He understood you were a journalist calling up about something he thought was incorrect. It was nothing to do with ‘the likes of you’ as the likes of you = the likes of us.

There are some changes going on (ie the general manager position) as for the building to continue to exist we have to increase revenue in order to pay the mortgage and upkeep etc so as not to lose it and get it turned into luxury flats (which is what we saved it from) however we aim to do this in the fairest, most open way possible and with the involvement and dialogue with the community using it.

I also manage other projects within the EUS and this place require someone to be focused just on it And yes there probably was some miscommunication with the Bowery about this and for this we are truly sorry, but we have really tried to be as open as possible.

As Jane says, the best way to support the place is to come down and drink there, go to gigs there, spread the word to other bands to play there, try and encourage touring bands and promoters to use the upstairs hall. It all goes to the same place – paying the mortgage and ideally helping more of us get work within the arts we love. Any other questions feel free to email me (my email address is the one on the Roxy website) or I’ll try and check back here.

Keep on keeping on, Dan

[The second part of this week's Sunday Supplement is a gig review written by (the other) Matthew, who helps us out with label work, for which we are hugely grateful, and is also working with Meursault, helping them organise and publicise their tour.  And in return for all this help we give him...  erm, we, er, give...  oh dear.]

This was superb. End of.

I thoroughly enjoyed each performance, though I don’t have much to say about Edward & The McCalls as this was my first real impression of them and I’d like to maybe take some time to get to grips with them a little more – though they did play some rather snazzy toe-tappers.

The thing I was particularly looking forward to was seeing My Kappa Roots perform. It would be really silly for me to try and describe how much I love this guy’s music. Everything about it is just perfect. There’s nothing like a good stroll with the iPod in playing The House of St Colme Burnt Down. I hadn’t seen Pablo play before so I was really fucking excited. He did not disappoint one bit. Each song was played with absolute perfection and at times I couldn’t help but let my jaw slip. I wasn’t aware if I was drooling or anything, but there’s a chance I was. Urgh. So. Fucking. Good.

The thing I noticed about Pablo was how good a guitarist he is. I’m really quite jealous actually. His songs are played so delicately and intricately with such a good balance between simple strums of emphasis and complicatedly plucked melodies. Beautiful.

Another thing is Pablo’s voice. If there is a sadder sound in the world I implore you to find it. I really, really love sad voices. I don’t know why. Perhaps my depressive tendencies make me a little more partial to them. Perhaps it’s because sadness is beautiful. Beauty is a sad thing. Was it not Oscar Wilde who said “all art is quite useless”? What a bloody distressing thought. Apologies. But it is very true. All things of beauty are useless – love, or indeed any emotion at all, music, literature. It’s all completely and utterly fucking useless. But we love it anyway.

I think I went a bit off the point there (though I hate people with “points”, I want to break their fucking point off and shove it…(yeah, there I go again)). Right, what was I saying? Oh yes. It was bloody good.

I’d actually only heard Glaciers maybe a week before this gig so it was still really fresh in my mind. I was really eager to see Nicolas play because I couldn’t – and still can’t – understand how someone can be so talented. Not only is he a damn good song writer  and amazing illustrator, he’s a bloody good performer. I’m about sick of falling in love with a band’s recorded work and then being disappointed by them live. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just so unfortunate I keep catching them on an off day or something. But anyway, Glaciers was brilliant, to say the least.

Nicolas came across as a really lovely, patient chap with a… a, well I don’t want to sound clichéd, but a nice glow. He glowed with enthusiasm and real character, and it was a pleasure to watch. He also had his friend Will with him who played the organ and belted out some really beautiful singing. They made quite a lovely pair.

They started off with some really nice and quiet ukulele songs, which happen to be Nicolas’ interpretation of some found rugby songs. Quite brilliant. Then they moved on to his own songs which, I think, were played with a wee bit more confidence and presence.

The Bowery really is my favourite venue. It’s the perfect place to see these sorts of performances. It’s quiet, small, personal, upfront, modest and just plain wonderful. I love it. It’s the sort of place these sorts of bands can come out of their shell and feel comfortable enough to really get into their show without feeling too overpowering and obnoxious. It feels like you’re just in a room with your friends having a great time, whether it’s relaxing or partying, laughing or crying. I’m so glad it’s there.

 As for the gig itself, I’m not sure I have much more to say about it. Hmm. All I can think is that I wish it went on for a bit longer.

Oh yes. Check out Nicolas’ art stuffs. He’s a genius.

Glaciers – The Horse and Cow

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

After rather unfortunately having to cancel a fully-blown Toad Night, it looks like Saturday will be replete with quality musical entertainments after all.  Ruth, Dylan from Blueback Hotrod and myself have been concocting a really nice evening of musical fun, with four (at least) acoustic sets in the bar, DJing (ie choosing some songs for the stereo, nothing fancy) from some of Edinburgh’s finest music snobs, and a generally convivial atmosphere at the Bowery all round.

Musically we have acoustic sets from two Toad Records bands, one of which is a secret and one of which will be Meursault at about 7pm, on their way through to Glasgow to play at the Arches.  We have the recently (and mercifully) renamed Team Turnip making an appearance under his new moniker of Mammoth, and Thomas Western, who has recently moved up here and will I think be making his official Edinburgh debut.  His music is gentle and folky, but sounds very promising indeed, so this should be a nice new treat for everyone.  Ruth has booked him to play a full set at the Bowery in November, in case anyone was considering a sort of try before you buy approach.

So please come along.  It’ll be free entry, and the sets will be relatively short and interspersed throughout the night, so it won’t be like going for a pint in a library where fun and conversation are frowned upon.  And the Bowery closes pretty early anyway so if you really want to get shitfaced and shag whoever the hell you’re prepared to make do with at 3am when you’re so drunk you can’t even pick your own nose without poking yourself in the eye then there’ll be plenty of time for that afterwards.

Team Turnip – Wendy House

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This was a low key and extremely welcome return for my favourite Edinburgh venue, after a hiatus enforced by the Festival cider whores.  There’s just something nice about the Bowery, probably because it’s such an unlikely space.  It doesn’t actually feel like a bar or a venue in the way that you might have such places in your head, it’s a little more accidental than that.

Ruth and Jane who run the place have an enduring fascination with all things New York, and their ongoing mission to bring everyone from that city who has ever so much as heard the term anti-folk to play over here must surely be nearing completion.  The latest was a chap called Dan Costello, who I have to confess I had never heard of before this evening.

He was supported by local gentleman Wounded Knee, who uses a loop pedal and a microphone in place of what might more traditionally be called instruments.  There’s no thinness to the sound at all, but Drew’s music is probably what you would describe as being at the experimental end of things, and I have to confess I am yet to really understand it.  I’ve not seen him that often though, and I get the impression his is a sound to which you have to acclimatise a little before you can even tell if you like it or not, so I’ll withhold any kind of opinion until I’m a little less green, I think.

Costello himself was charming and entertaining.  His performance was full of child-like innocence, although his lyrics had more than enough sharp humour to them to suggest that he is more than just a wide-eyed ingenue.  He sang some straightforward anti-folk stuff – a performance somewhere inbetween the likes of Adam Green and Turner Cody, albeit far less arch than either – read a story in which half the room had to pretend to be the wind and half a little yellow cat, sang a rap song imagined in the style of Woody Guthrie and read aloud from a manual on avoiding ambiguous writing.

I think it was these random leaps of attention which made the show, for me.  Too much of any one and I might have begun to weary a little, and started to think of his performance as a schtick of some sort, but the light and breezy way he flitted from one topic, one style, one random thought to another, and the charming sincerity of the man meant that his set never lost its verve.  I enjoyed his music, particularly liked his way with a lyric, and generally enjoyed the show a great deal.  I may not have become an impassioned convert exactly, but this was a good evening, and really nice way to get back on track after the whirlwind of the festival.

Dan Costello – Hey Mister

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Website | More mp3s | Buy stuff direct from the artist

Yes, it’s that soon.  And it will be bloody good.  The Bowery is closing over the Festival to be taken over by the usual commerical shitfest which swamps any semblance of culture in this city during August, and next Saturday will be its last night until the Autumn so help us celebrate the amazing work they’ve put in this year in some style.

As it’s the Summer and is allegedly (stop sniggering in the cheap seats) going to be a good one for a fucking change I thought we could all dress in flowers to celebrate.  In fact, I thought it would be such a good idea that I am going to buy a shitload of weird flowery things from charity shops and make you wear them if you turn up without anything floral on your person at all.  So you’d better make an effort, if just to deprive me of the opportunity to embarrass you.

For the open mic bit at the beginning – strictly 7pm-8pm – we have some splendid treats lined up, including a couple of Meursault songs played entirely on the omnichord and a couple of other special musical treats I am currently still working on.  As per usual, if you want to take part in the open mic bit email me on the address shown on the contact page.

For the main bit we have the truly outstanding Yusuf Azak coming through from Glasgow.  I am trying to prize him away from a sexier and more glamorous record label and persuade him to release on Toad so you shower of bastards had better be nice to him.  And headlining, we are going to have Tommy and Ziggy from Found reprising their Toad Session set which they recorded a few weeks ago for us because it was bloody brilliant and I think lots of people should hear it if they possibly can.

So there you go, a finer evening’s entertainment you couldn’t possibly wish for, so get yer jacksies down to the Bowery next Saturday and watch me make a tit of myself because of too much gin once again.  You know it’s bound to happen.

Yusuf Azak – The Key Underground

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Haggard the Listener Group – Anti-Climb Paint

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ten Tracks is a new download service which has been launched recently, by a friend of mine Ed Stack, in collaboration with local arts paper The Skinny.  Bascially, they release specially curated bundles of ten songs once a month, which you can subscribe to for a tenner for the whole year, or simply buy as a one-off for a quid.

Ed does a really good job of finding local bands and getting local musically involved people to participate, and on Valentine’s Day they hosted their first official gig night at the Bowery.  Regular readers will already be familiar with the Rob St. John and eagleowl videos from this splendid evening but, if not, here’s a summary of the night as a whole in video form.

And for those of you who like the look of this, swing by the Bowery again on Saturday, where Found, the Joe Acheson Quartet and Emily Scott will be playing another Ten Tracks gig.

Anyone wonder where those eagleowl videos from their Valentine’s Day performance at the Bowery got to?  Well wonder no more, here they are. Any comments appreciated. Is this kind of thing helpful for bands? Apparently people are increasingly using YouTube instead of MySpace as a way of exploring new bands, so any feedback on that phenomenon would be good. How about the picture and sound quality – they’re a bit scratchy at times, but good enough I think. What do you reckon, Toadlings?

In the absence of Mrs. Toad I have to thank Jake for his work wielding one of the cameras, incidentally.  Given we had absolutely no chance to discuss what I was looking for he got it spot on and shot some very nice footage.  Thanks old chap.

Samamidon – Wild Bill Jones (Live at the Bowery, Edinburgh) from Song, by Toad on Vimeo.  If this is loading too slowly, click the little ‘HD is On’ button on the right of the picture and it will turn of High Definition, which should be a lot faster.

This live review is mostly going to contain video footage.  Partly because I reviewed a live Samamidon performance at this very venue really quite recently, and partly because the videos will explain so much better what I actually have to say myself.

When Samanidon plays it reminds me how narrow our perception of music and the performance of music can become.  As he plays, Sam interrupts the songs with asides, surreal anecdotes, bits of other songs, and all manner of other bits and pieces.  Maybe it’s because in the folk traditions in which he was raised, where the music is frequently part of the conversation, not some separate, sacrosanct entity to be treated with kid gloves and a false sense of idolatry, but I can’t speak for him on that score.

Neil from Meursault suggested that his unpredictable conversational detours actually fit quite well with the way he plays the fiddle – as rooted in free jazz as in the traditional reels he uses it to explode so brilliantly.  The anchor for all this eccentricity is provided by the simple loveliness of his reinterpretations of old folk tunes, almost as if there is only so much uncertainty we can collectively cope with. Read the rest of this entry »

Blimey, this was lovely. There’s something about this kind of spare folk music that people seem to fail to quite capture on record, and which is truly at its loveliest when performed live. I there’s something about hearing each individual note break the silence and then collapse in on itself which can’t really be replicated on CD, but is so evident when seen live.

The Bowery is shaping up to be a gorgeous venue, and it suits this kind of music perfectly. Sam was perched on a stool in the middle of what looks remarkably like your Granny’s living room, and the rest of us sat and stood around him as he sang. And what songs he sang, too. His music is informed by a fascination with really old folk, and his reedy, charismatic voice really brings home the pathos and the sadness of that style of music.

Just when you think you’re going to get a standard show of lovely old fashioned tunes, sigh contentedly to yourself and go home all warm and fuzzy, things take a turn for the weird. After an outbreak of break dancing, followed by some land surfing (never mind) Mr. Amidon picks up a fiddle. And starts scratching away at it. Really, scratching. Personally, I assumed that there was no bloody way he would pick up a fiddle at a live performance, much less borrow someone else’s which is what he had done, without really being able to play the thing, so I sat and waited as the tortured wail cracked, splintered and then finally broke into a furious reel, performed with pretty considerable virtuosity. It was fucking brilliant, too, and really broke up the set and made a wonderful counterpoint to the quieter, lovelier material either side of it.

This kind of interjection, the low-key, yet engaging between-songs chat and the occasional switch from guitar to banjo brings a lovely variety to the set, but variety of a similar gentle friendliness to the performance itself. Between the show and the general chat in the bar afterwards Sam comes across as a really bright, unassuming, interesting guy with nothing in the way of airs or graces. He talks about the relief of the US elections, the fear of a Palin candidacy in 2012 and the shift there has been in the New York scene recently following the closure of a couple of venues.

In terms of a night just full of goodwill, the performance and the atmosphere of this whole evening was bloody brilliant. Great show, amazingly attentive audience, great place to go and hear music.

Samamidon – Little Johnny Brown
Samamidon – O Death

Samamidon’s website | Buy his albums from Amazon