This is a slightly revised and extended version of my original review in the Nottingham Post with setlist. Interesting to see this joint tour in the 700 seater Playhouse (where it sold out at lightning speed) rather than Billy Bragg’s usual haunt, Rock City. It suggests that this is a sit-down show, suited to a contemplative audience. And so it proves. Bragg is accompanied by old friend Joe Henry. He’s best known here as a producer (Aimee Mann, Allen Toussaint), but is primarily a prolific singer/songwriter. The duo have made a concept album, Shine a Light, mostly recorded in railway stations. The pair fit well together. They’d need to, in close proximity on those notoriously empty US trains. ‘65 hours, 3,000 miles.’ Two sets of…
1982. I’d bought ABC’s debut single, Tears Are Not Enough, on 12” a year before, when I was working. Adored Poison Arrow. My fixed term job was all but over and I was a year away from doing teacher-training. My girlfriend had a job at Kingsmill Hospital, near Mansfield. She’d bought a car but hadn’t passed the test yet, so I used to drive her to work then come home.My oldest friend, Mike Russell, had a job he hated, as a trainee accountant, but at least he was earning, so could afford to buy albums, some of which he’d tape for me. A cassette of The Lexicon of Love arrived a couple of days after its release. ABC are a Sheffield band, and we…
I normally do a holiday reading blog around this time of year. We’ve been unable to get away, although a weekend in Whitby beckons. However, I’ve been enjoying the sunshine and my last month running our UNESCO City of Literature, whose first director, Sandeep Mahal, starts today, which is very exciting. I’ve been helping sort out the publication of the Dawn of the Unread book, and I’ve also done plenty of reading, finishing a book I started nearly forty years ago (see the post below), dipping into numerous short story and poetry collections and devouring a few novels. Here they are, in the order in which I read them. Alison Moore – Death and the Seaside The third novel from one our UNESCO patrons is…
Thirty-nine years ago this month, I set off to hitch-hike around Europe. I took, as I recall, only three books with me. The Hitch-Hikers Guide To Europe, of course. Jack Kerouac’s Lonesome Traveler (I’d already read On The Road and Dharma Bums) and a notebook to write in. Back then, I wrote a lot of poetry. I’d been working for seven months after dropping out of university so had saved up enough to last for up to a month, depending on how well I eked it out, before returning to Nottingham, where I would study English Literature and American Studies. I’d long finished Lonesome Traveller by the time I got to Genoa, by way of stops in Boulogne, Paris, Digne and Nice. It was in…
The second night of Ryley Walker’s UK tour comes two weeks ahead of third album Golden Sings That Have Been Sung (no, that second word isn’t a typo) which only the illegal downloaders in the crowd will know. Walker was meant to appear in a duo with legendary former Pentangle double bassist Danny Thompson, fifty years his senior (Ryley is 27). But Danny is ill – at least that’s the official story – so we get his regular trio, featuring two musicians from Oslo. It’s hard to imagine how this show would work without terrific drummer Stale Liavick Solberg, whose flamboyant jazz chops propel the evening’s tight, spacey improvisations. Walker’s intricate guitar work soars, while understated bassist Julius Lovid holds it all together. They create…