No Depression #36 - Jay Farrar

 

No Depression - The Bi-monthly Journal of Alt- Country

#36 -  November - December  2001

Americana royalty this time round in the shape of Jay Farrar who alongside Jeff Tweedy were the leading lights in the legendary band Uncle Tupelo  one of the founding fathers of the Alt- Country movement and who recorded the song which gave the magazine its name.

Following an acrimonious spilt with Tweedy he went on to found another legendary Alt- Country band Son Volt.Tweedy. of course, went on to form Wilco.

The main article in this edition focuses on the release of his first solo album Sebastopol on the Atremis label.

The album got its name in a roundabout way.Vestapol is a form of guitar  tuning the name being taken froman early blues song Sevastopol named after a city in Russia (now in Ukraine). Sebastapol is a small semi- urban community located on the western edge of the Santa Rosa plain in Northern California and was chosen as the title by Farrar as it just sounded better .Keep up at the back.

An album I picked up in Stranraer in late November 2015 as part of my largest ever Charity Shop Americana haul. 8 albums in total for 75p each. Coincidentally No Depression by Uncle Tupelo was one of the others.

My ticket tin informs me thaat I saw him play at the 13th Note Club in Glasgow's Clyde Street on 31st March 2001 when he was presumably promoting this album.

It seems only fair to feature a  couple of tracks by the two bands of which he was a member together with a song from Sebastopol.

For the other arist from those name checked on the magazine's cover it was a toss up between Wayne Hancock and the Derailers. As  Wayne has featured more frequently here I have gone for The Derailers with a track from their album Full Western Dress which was also a charity acquisition.

Uncle Tupelo - No Depression

Son Volt - Last Minute Shakedown

Jay Farrar - Barstow

The Derailers - Someone Else's Problem

Seen at King Tuts - Josh Ritter

 

Josh Ritter

Saturday 12th June 2004        £7.50           Ticket Number GA5 43

When you get American acts touring Britain it is usually with a view to promoting a new album. However on this occassion this does not appear to be the case.

Hello Starling was released in September 2003 so it is safe to say that a good few songs from it featured.The follow up album The Animal Years was not released until March 2006 albeit it was recorded between March and May 2005. I suppose that there was a small chance that early versions of a couple of the songs featured.

I can't remember. I do remember though that a number of songs from his debut and my favourite 2002's Golden Age of Radio featured.I'm    guessing that one of The Felsons , The Radio Sweethearts or Sunshine Delay were the support act. They usually were whenever an Americana artist played at Tuts.

I've no idea what the reference to ROAR is on the ticket. Audiences at Tuts seldom need encouragement to make themselves heard.

Here are three songs which almost certainly featured.One from GAOR and two from Hello Starling.

Josh Ritter -Harrisburg

Josh Ritter - Kathleen

Josh Ritter - Man Burning

Shine Eyed Mister Zen

 

 2021 Charity Shop Purchases 65 - Kelly Joe Phelps -Shine Eyed Mister Zen

In May when we spent a couple of nights in Grantown on Spey we visited the Kingussie Community Shop for the first time. I came away with a few CDs including two by Blues guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps. A couple of weeks ago we visited  it for the second time I came away with another Kelly Joe Phelps album!

I strongly suspect that I missed it first time round and that it was sitting on the shelves waiting for me to return.

This time round it his third album Shine Eyed Mister Zen from 1999 and as with the others I have on the Rkyodisc label. The title relates to KJP's description of his playing and all the tracks were recorded at his house in single takes.

Bill Frater of Freight Train Boogie wrote this is peerless music that one hears with one's soul as much as with one's ears.

It looks as though there are at least 8 more albums out there so I will keep my eyes peeled on my next visit to Kingussie.

Kelly Joe Phelps - River Rat Jimmy

Kelly Joe Phelps - Train Carried My Girl From Town

The Distance

 

 Charity Shop Purchases 64 - Cake - The Distance - (CD Single)

The only other successful Charity Shop foray during our first week away was  in the pleasant Cairngorms village of Kingussie.

There is a community bookshop on one side of the street where the CDs are with the records being in the community shop on the other side of the road - go figure. The community shop also gives away free vegetables and other food which is a nice touch.

There is only one CD by Cake on the shelves namely Prolonging the Magic their 3rd album from 1998.It has now been joined, albeit in a different section on the other side of the room, by The Distance the second single from their second album 1996's Fashion Nugget on the Capricorn label

From Sacramento, California they have always struck me as being a wee bit quirky and not unlike They Might Be Giants. Alright in small doses. I was quite surprised when I listened to it that I was familiar with the title track. I've also got a download of Jolene, although not a live version. Not to be confused with the Dolly Parton classic

Cake -The Distance

Cake -Multiply the Heartaches

Cake - Jolene (live)

Cake - It's Coming Down

The Fool

 

2021 Charity Shop Purchases 63  - Warpaint - The Fool

Warpaint are a band that I am only very vaguely familiar with and even then that is only because they have made a number of appearances at Swiss Adam's place.

I was intrigued enough to take a punt on their 2010 debut The Fool on the Rough Trade label in a Fort William charity shop and I'm really glad that I did.

From Los Angels and often described as dream pop the line up on the album is Emily Kokal on vocals and guitar, Jenny Lee Lindberg on bass,Stella Mozgawa on drums and Theresa Wayman on vocals and keyboards. The album is produced by Tom Biller with two of the songs mixed by Andrew Wetherall  with a subsequent Record Shop Day re-release with mixes of all the songs by Wetherall

The album was critically acclaimed with an average rating of 7.5 out of 10 which sounds just about right to me. Laura Snapes in the NME gets somewhat carried away writing that the dark purple rumble and hypnotic coo of their vocals swim along, dragging the listener beneath its beguiling surface into a swathe of subtle time changes and guitar prone to sudden swan dives into heart-stabbing gold arcs from oil painting-thick landscapes. In layman's terms - worth a listen.

Warpaint - Set Your Arms Down

Warpaint - Undertow

Fevers and Mirrors

 

2021 Charity Shop Purchases 62 -Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors

We are back from our travels and I'm pleased to report that I have amassed a large and eclectic haul to subject you to over the next few weeks.

Our first port of call was Fort William en route to our first week cottage just outside Spean Bridge. I struck lucky in the third charity shop.

Fevers and Mirrors is a 2000 album on Wichita Records (a subsiduary of Saddle Creek) by Bright Eyes. It is one that I had in my hand in Waterloo Records in Austin when it first came out but I never got round to pulling the trigger. Better late that never I suppose

Bright Eyes as many of you will be aware is one of the many projects and nom de plums of American indie folk artis Conor Oberst.

Like most of his albums Fevers and Mirrors is a curate's egg - good in parts  and pretty pretentious in others. He usually comes up with  just enough good stuff to keep me happy. 

Pitchfork seem to like it as they rate it as number 170 in the top 200 albums of the 2000s

It's now the fourth of his albums on the shelves and the 5th if you count the brilliant Better Oblivion Community Center my 2019 album of the year.

Bright Eyes - A Scale, A Mirror and These Indifferent Clocks

Bright Eyes - The Calendar Hung Itself

What's It All About?

 

On the second week of our holidays we found ourselves staying near the lovely village of Beauly. Given it's close proximity to Inverness it seemed silly not to take the opportunity to meet up with Alyson of What's it All About? fame.

As you can see  from the link Alyson has already posted about our meeting and many of you have commented positively about it. It was great to catch up with another blogger and we had a lovely lunch with Mrs CC and Mr WIAA.

Even if you have never met with a fellow blogger chances are that if you have been reading their blog for a while you will know a great deal about them. This was certainly the case here and meant that there was none of the social awkwardness that you sometimes get when meeting someone for the first time.The four of us chatted away for ages and some of your ears may well have been burning when we got round to discussing your blogs!

I took along Absolutely by Madness which I bought in a charity shop  in Kingussie for means of identification (and Alyson had her sign!) but we worked it out fairly quickly.

Alyson posted Return of the Los Palmas 7 which is the highlight of the album so here is Baggy Trousers instead.I was somewhat jealous that she has seen them not once,but twice. I would imagine that it would be a great night out.

The picture is our attempt at a Swedey McSwedeface but as Alyson pointed out it is a bit more problematic when two folk are involved!

It was great to put a face to a name and hopefully as things slowly pick up there can be more, and hopefully bigger, get togethers with members of our wonderful little community.

Madness -Baggy Trousers

Rumer -Alfie