Where Am I?

You know that great idea I had at the beginning of the year? To be really sensible and structured in my music listening? 5 albums a week, blah, blah, blah...well I can't be bothered anymore to be honest. Mainly because I have decided I rather enjoy drowning in a sea of 12", 10", 7" vinyl, CDs, cassettes, mp3s and streaming. (I guess only the latter fits with the "drowning" metaphor, but anyway...).

So for the latter two thirds of the year The Truth Is Discovered will be a more laidback and kinda random affair, posting up stuff about whatever music tickles ones fancy and photos of lovely things. Like these, a couple of one's recent vinyl purchases.

TTID might even be arsed to write a bit about them as well at some point. But right now a bag of mini-eggs is all that one really cares about. Toodle pip.

Let's Off-Road - Part 4.

There was a point yesterday when I thought to myself "things don't get much better than this". It was a combination of:-
Seeing my favourite footballer scoring a goal.
Catching my favourite band playing in a church.
Meeting up with friends new and old.
And eating toast.

The Daintees arrived in Brighton after a reportedly very well attended London gig the night before. The "buzz" around this tour has been something very special and surely must have exceeded everyones expectations. It does leave one wondering "what next?" More of the same with this band gelling so well must happen at some point, but would we be hugely surprised if Martin threw in a career spannering alt.country/death metal crossover album? Errr no.

In St Georges church, Helen kicked off with her regular set, and it was apparent that Helen's voice has changed during the week. She was reaching the higher notes with complete ease and no sign of strain whatsoever. Afterwards, admitting that she was really tired, made me wonder if the body reacts in some way in such situations so as to concentrate itself on the bits it really needs to i.e. for a singer, her "voice". I wonder if this is usual in some kind of "road hardening" way. In short, her set was effortless and went down a storm. Helen's daughter in the audience, I'm sure, must have been very proud.

And then, Martin Stephenson And The Daintees. In summary, for me, the best performance of the three I have seen this week. Boat To Bolivia was played in its entirety, and played pretty straight in the main. The remainder of the set list was very similar to the earlier gigs plus we got to hear Left Us To Burn and Neon Skies. The latter, an absolute stormer. Oh and a cheeky little run through of the Maverick Waltz that seemed to take everyone except Martin by surprise. Martin's banter was very sharp, very focussed, and frequently very moving.

The sound was also the best of the gigs this week. Which, I guess, shouldn't be a surprise on the one hand given the natural acoustic properties of churches, but at the same time they are not used to rock bands making the sounds, so much kudos to the sound engineer. It did enable the audience to hear John Steel's guitar more clearly than the earlier gigs, and it was a delight to hear the subtleties of this great musician's playing. And Lou Short on bass. What a star. He absolutely nailed the job and his smile was Dainteely infectious.

But when I say the word star, clearly I am misleading you, dear blog reader. That accolade goes without doubt to The Daintees new 10 year old rhythm guitarist Alex. He was handed a guitar by Martin for Wholly Humble Heart and boy did he have the looks, the action, the whole geetar thing going on. Alex was to return to the stage again, triumphantly, to take part in the closing song Salutation Road, complete with longest, most elaborate audience walkabout of the tour.

Just look at drummer Kate's face on that photo. Sums up the whole week for me.

In conclusion. Daintees. "We want more".

Earlier in the day we had seen Hull City draw 1-1 at Watford. A frustrating performance, but we did see the mighty fine James Chester score a goal. From a corner. This, I have to tell you, is as rare as a Chefs single.

So TTID completes its tour of the b-roads and c-roads of music, with a very subtle and, I'm sure you will agree, totally unforced comparison with the finest football team the world has ever seen. We are officially knackered and if anyone is expecting a detailed review of the music listed a couple of weeks back - tough! Back in a week.

Oh sorry, final score? City stay in the Championship; Daintees go through to meet Barcelona in the Champions League final. Iniesta or Steel - whaddya reckon?

Let's Off-Road - Part 3.

And so to the Salford Lowry. Crikey - where to begin?

Compared to Gateshead, the set list had a good game, in that the whole of the Boat To Bolivia album was actually played this time (according to John Steel, Martin had simply "forgotten" to play Running Water and Look Down, Look Down on Saturday night). Not in the original running order of course, that would be almost normal. In addition we heard Nancy, Slaughterman, Tremelo Men, Wholly Humble Heart, Me & Mathew, Home and Salutation Road (more on most of these later).

The social networking sites were on fire in the build up to this one, mostly due to the impending attendance at the gig of several of my family members and a number of hard core Martin Stephenson e-groupers. There was also a rumour that this lovely lady was a fan and might turn up...

...and as you can see, she did. She being actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, famous for her role as Coronation Street character Hayley Cropper.

The evening started (once pizza and beers had been consumed), with a brief set from singer-songwriter Eliza P, and a slightly longer one from Helen McCookerybook, setting the tone perfectly for the gig ahead.

Commencing with one of the great album openers Crocodile Cryer, (the attention to detail re the running order only starting to go pear-shaped later on), something seemed slightly amiss with the sound compared to Gateshead. Each instrument and Martin's voice were all crystal clear but somehow they didn't mix together properly, hence the result was a little clinical for the first three songs (through Coleen and Little Red Bottle). Also Martin seemed a little less than comfortable on the stage, unusually for him. This fan having seen him adapt to a wide variety of live environments over the years. However after a brief walkabout interlude to Tribute To The Late Rev Gary Davis, an absolutely belting version of A Piece Of The Cake, dedicated to Roddy Frame, seemed to coincide with Martin and the band relaxing and the various disparate elements of the sound clicking into place, and from here on in it was upwards and onwards.

Caroline, preceded by a story setting the context for this highly emotional song, and Slow Lovin', were the standouts from the remainder of the album, and the initial intensity reached a peak with Running Water and Look Down, Look Down, played back to back.

A word at this point for drummer Kate Stephenson. Now, it shouldn't be, but somehow it is, really difficult not to sound like a right sexist twat when talking about a female drummer. You know, "the lass can actually keep time and hit those big horrible animal skins as well as a bloke" blah, blah, blah. So hopefully with that out of the way I can make myself clear...the energy levels Kate drives the band to throughout the fast paced numbers is phenomenal, but equally wonderful is her sensitivity during the slower, quieter songs and, most importantly, she has her eyes fixed to Martin's body language to pick up on the slightest changes to tempo, volume, stops/starts etc. I really hope Kate and partner John continue their roles in the Daintees for many years to come. Their contributions to California Star have already been alluded to on this blog, but no harm in repeating that one. An excellent album by any measure.

So after a lovely story about his maternal Grandad, Mathew Carlton, Martin and the band pressed on with Me & Mathew, a vibrant Wholly Humble Heart, and a solo version of Home dedicated to Martin's late Mum, Frances. That album review (actually for the 2nd album Gladsome, Humour And Blue) by Len Brown of the NME all those years ago, really did nail it - "he...builds bridges between love and hate, between cradle and grave, between folk and pop, between the past and the present". At a time when writing about one's family history wasn't deemed to be particularly cool, Martin did just that, and thankfully he still is, putting a lot of things into perspective for an audience of 40 and 50-somethings, many of whom are rediscovering this wonderful music for the first time in nigh on a quarter of a century.

That is one thing that is making this Daintees tour more special than ever; the higher profile brought about by linking in with a major promoter for the first time in 20 years doesn't so far appear to have any down-side to it. The bigger venues are pulling in the forgotten fans as well as the die-hards, and hopefully this means Martin and the band will get something close to their fair share of the attention and plaudits "we" all know they deserve, without any of the horrible business elements in this most horrible of industries, ruining things.

Before we knew it the best part of two hours had passed and Martin and the band, supplemented by the Girl Power of Helen and Eliza, took off on the customary walkabout to Salutation Road, finishing up in the bar and very naturally just slipping into relaxed conversations, photos and such-like with the fans. That complete lack of "we are the stars, you are the audience" is a truly great and unique thing about these people. They love the playing and they love the people they play to.

Oh and that daft Daintees v Hull City thing? 2-1 to the behatted one and his gang.

We roll on to Watford and Brighton on Saturday. If everything goes according to plan then expect a rather emotional Part 4, sometime very late on Sunday.

Let's Off-Road - Part 2.

Hull City 2 Middlesbrough 1. A storming 2nd half come back from the Tigers saw them snatch victory from the jaws of a 6th successive defeat. A truly classic goal from Josh King and an 88th minute winner from Matty Fryatt sent us home soaking wet in the rain, but singing.

Daintees 1 Tigers 1. Roll on Wednesday and the Salford Lowry.

Let's Off-Road - Part 1.

The Truth Is Discovered is allowing itself to veer off its original agenda somewhat for a week, as it focuses on a short tour by one of our favourite bands, Martin Stephenson And The Daintees.

For a deeper understanding of our obsession  errm I mean love in this regard please check this out. 

And please humour us as we also take some time out to discuss in parallel, in a rather forced pretence that it is some sort of a contest between Daintees and Tigers, the recent fortunes of TTID's other love - Hull City. I think it is fair to say that the week will feature some "mixed" results.

So...we headed off up to the North East - specifically Gateshead as The Daintees readied themselves to play the 2nd gig of the tour (after a reported stormer at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow the previous night) at the very nicely appointed Sage.

After an afternoon spent nervously mooching around the Metro Centre with furtive glances to phone to check the Tigers' starting line-up away at Millwall, and progress throughout the 90 mins (more of which later); pre-gig drinks and meet ups with old friends were the order of the evening. A final glance at the merchandise stall and we were in our seats to listen to support act Helen McCookerybook (yes, she of The Chefs and Helen And The Horns fame).

Helen played a lovely 30 minute set of songs from her solo albums and a new one, Mr & Mrs Songsmith, from her recent collaboration with Martin, Cafe Of Tiny Kindnesses.

And then Martin and The Daintees hit the stage, in a riot of denim, cowboy shirts and Geordie jocularity, diving straight into a luscious version of Crocodile Cryer. You see the tour is in theory meant to involve them playing classic 1986 debut album Boat To Bolivia in its entirety for the first half, and then songs from later albums including the latest California Star etc. However TTID has a theory that it is impossible for Martin to play the same set twice, no matter what, as his need to go with his creative flow always overrides such petty pre-planned directives. TTID was right.

But, before we get into the gig in detail let's take a step back and look at this 2012 Daintees line-up. Firstly, John Steel on guitar, pedal steel and harmonica, and in many ways the star of the Boat To Bolivia album back in the day. John left The Daintees in 1986 and "went missing" for around two decades before re-connecting with Martin again after some amazing chance encounters. John is a great musician and is the driving force behind California Star. And he wore the best shirt ever. On drums, is John's partner Kate Stephenson (no relation, err to Martin). And on bass Lou Short, a collaborator with Martin since the late 90's. As anyone knows, the greatness of a Daintees line-up can be measured by how much they smile at each other during the gig. Daintees 2012 are like Cheshire cats.

So on they went as Coleen followed Crocodile Cryer, with Martin on top story telling form. A quite ridiculously storming Little Red Bottle led into the first off-stage action of the evening as the band followed Martin through an audience walkabout to the picking of Tribute To The Late Rev. Gary Davis, which was reprised on the instructions of a young boy in the audience who shouted "again!". Indie-pop classic A Piece Of The Cake was next, then Candle In The Middle with John on a pedal steel specially brought in for this song, through Slow Lovin', Caroline, Rain (played solo with every light in the room switched off) and the title track; the latter featuring a rap exulting the brilliance of fellow Kitchenware band Hurrah!

There was no break as Martin led the band away from the planned list (no Running Water or Look Down) and into Me & Mathew, Nancy, Slaughterman, Wholly Humble Heart, the very early instrumental Tremelo Men, a solo Charlie Poole song Hungry Hash House and Cab Attack (for Andy Semple). The audience loved every bit of it, the stories were being told in an increasingly strong North East accent (that's what being on home turf does to you I guess), and we finished up with Martin's old friend Shippy on stage playing along to Salutation Road and then he and Helen joining in with...another audience walkabout that eventually saw them disappear out of the venue and...despite several minutes worth of loud applause and calls for more...the house lights came up and the gig was, rather suddenly, over. One can only assume the venue jobsworths either weren't keen on this off stage malarkey and/or time was, pretty much, up.

In conclusion, a fantastic, joyous gig, to a sell out audience, many of whom seemed not to have caught up with Martin for many years. One of the benefits of this tour being a high profile promotion, for once.

The band and crew moved on to Leeds (last night) and then it's Liverpool on Tuesday. TTID will be catching up with them again at the Salford Lowry on Wednesday. We expect some of Boat To Bolivia will feature, but who knows in what order and what else? We wouldn't want it any other way.

Oh and Hull City? Got beat 0-2, in an insipid performance at the New Den. They are at home to Middlebrough later today, bidding to stop an end of season decline that has seen them lose the last five games on the trot.

As we type, Daintees 1, Tigers 0.

Week 14/15

Ok so the latest 5 albums will take a couple of weeks to be inwardly digested. Mainly because I can't see me getting much time to to do the writing. Not much work, much travelling, much Hull City watching, and lots of gig attendance will mean plenty of listening opportunities, but getting the chance to turn it all into some allegedly sensible wordage will take longer than usual...

Martin Stephenson & The Daintees/California Star (last12mths)
Kevin Coyne/Millionaires And Teddy Bears
The Portico Quartet/The Portico Quartet (new2me)
King Creosote & John Hopkins/Diamond Mine (last12mths)
Happy Mondays/...their 12" singles...

The latest album from an all time favourite; a 1978 album from an underappreciated legend; a new weirdy jazz thing; one of the "best of 2011" listers; and a bit of a diversion as I dig into the Mondays' singles. Lotsa fun to be had.

Back in a fortnight...

Wire/Red Barked Tree

Ah Wire. I remember being utterly confused by their first album Pink Flag when I bought it in 1977. It had 21 very short songs on it, none of which really followed any song structure that I had, up to then, been familiar with. But for some reason, probably a combination of a lack of anything else to listen to, and not wanting to admit to wasting the £2.99 of hard scrounged money it cost me, I persevered. Until it made its own weird (wired) logic. And when it clicked, when my boundaries of what I could understand musically had been suitably stretched, I found I loved it to bits. The two albums that followed it, Chairs Missing and 154, were even weirder and even better. Incredible times, musically.

Red Barked Tree sees Wire back together as a trio, minus Bruce Gilbert. They have been busy over the years as Wire, Dome, solo and various other combinations of the original four members. I have picked up bits and pieces but still have plenty to hunt down in that particularly varied back catalogue.

This new album (well new as it was released in January last year), seemed like a must-have though, being the first proper Wire studio album for a few years. And it does not disappoint. I have no idea how the minds of creative types work when they have been making music on and off for 35 years or more. Do they still have the same urge to create new stuff or do they "time-travel" back in their heads to re-imagine themselves as 20-somethings to recreate that burning desire to communicate?

Listening to opening track Please Take, it certainly feels like it is the former. They sound like they really mean this stuff - "So please take your knife out of my back", "fuck off out of my face, you take up too much space".

And they still sound like Wire. That ethereal sound floating behind the guitars, bass and drums, just like it did on Outdoor Miner and French Film Blurred etc, is still there and plays its part in framing Colin Newman's vocals perfectly. Yes they are still working within the framework of what we know and love as being Wire, there is no great widening of boundaries here (they have previously used their other identities for that), but what there is as good as anything I have heard in the last couple of years by anyone.

Album of the week. By quite some distance.

Tindersticks/The Something Rain

Crikey this is good. I never really noticed Tindersticks back in the day, despite lots of people whose musical tendencies I tend to align with, liking them very much. So I came to this with zero preconceptions really, as I could barely remember what they used to sound like.

The first track, Chocolate, is very different to the rest of the album, being a 9 minute spoken story ala The Gift. I won't spoil the ending for you. It is very well done though both in terms of the build up and the "reveal"!

The rest of The Something Rain is best described as indie-soul I think. Hmmm no that sounds a bit crap. Singer Stuart Staples does have a very deep soulful voice though and when you add in some of the female backing vocals on a track such as This Fire Of Autumn, hopefully you can see what I mean. Whatever the hell it is I like it very much and if it weren't for the subject of the next post in this blog it would, on most other weeks, be album of the week I reckon.

Cute dog on band's website

The Gil Evans Orchestra/Out Of The Cool

Another delve into the world of post-bebop jazz. To cut to the chase, this album features a track called Stratusfunk. Need I say more? End of review? Add that to the fact that it is on the legendary Impulse! label and I really don't need to say a lot else.

In some ways it reminds me a bit of Miles Davis' Sketches Of Spain (minus the Spanish influence) and his Porgy and Bess, which shouldn't have been a surprise as a quick glance at the sleeves of those two confirms that Gil Evans was responsible for production and orchestration.

This is quite a heavily "orchestrated" example of early 60's Impulse! jazz, but it never sounds over-arranged. It veers between the classic "group" structure of jazz sessions of the time where the basic melody of the tune is played straight for 16 bars or so before the soloists kick in and take us to some other place, before returning at the end to the theme; and the orchestral type stuff of Sketches etc where things get a little heavier and more complex.

The skill is in the way Evans arranges all of this. The fact he has such top notch "raw material" to work with in the shape of such as Jimmy Knepper, Elvin Jones and Ron Carter must have helped enormously, but not only does he end up delivering an album of post-Ellington orchestral brilliance, but he actually takes things further, looking ahead to some of the blissed out grooves of the late 60's Davis' classic work. Jazz excellence, baby.

Out Of The Cool

Bap Kennedy/The Sailor's Revenge

Back in 2000 Bap Kennedy released an album called Lonely Street, which has gradually become one of my favourite albums of recent times. All the songs were either about, or very much influenced by, Elvis Presley and Hank Williams. Bap demonstrated an ability to write about such incredibly famous artists from a unique angle, and in doing so bringing new and different perspectives to their lives e.g. on the song Gladys and Vernon, he writes from the point of view of Elvis' mother as she wonders what will become of her poor little boy, the twin baby that lived.

One of Lonely Street's songs, Moonlight Kiss, brought Bap some of the reward and recognition he so clearly deserved when it was used on the soundtrack of the film Serendipity.

His latest album The Sailor's Revenge sees Bap taking another bunch of excellent songs into the studio, this time with Mark Knopfler as producer. The obvious respect his peers have for his talents isn't a new thing, with luminaries such as Herbie Flowers, Shane MacGowan and Van Morrison no less, having worked on previous albums.

This is a really easy album to listen to, as Bap and Knopfler combine to produce a laidback, nostalgia-tinged set of Irish folk tunes. Just occasionally I wanted them to kick out and up the tempo a little. And some of Bap's ability to intrigue in his lyrical approach isn't quite what it was on Lonely Street. Perhaps he needs that inspiration of a unique theme or angle to inspire? I don't know and I am probably doing him a mighty injustice in comparing this to the earlier album as there is nothing fundamentally less than excellent about The Sailor's Revenge - it just doesn't grab me in quite the same way. I guess albums like Lonely Street only come along so often. That's the bloody point after all!

Bill Nelson/Model Village

I have enjoyed Bill Nelson's music ever since I saw Be-Bop Deluxe on a late night ITV concert programme in the 70's. They were a rock band but with unique twists, as well as having some great pop melodies e.g. Ships In The Night. His "new wave" band Red Noise were good but something about that sudden change to fit in with the post-punk sound made me suspicious. Quite why I was suspicious I am not sure, as many other musicians similarly reinvented themselves around that time - Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Joe Strummer, The Stranglers for starters.

Post Red Noise I lost touch with him for a bit until I started picking up some of his solo albums in second hand and charity shops, mostly many years after they had been released. There seemed to be a lot of them. And they were never less than interesting.

Bill's current methods of working and interaction with the music industry are far better understood and documented via his excellent diary on his web site William's Study (Diary Of A Hyperdreamer), than anything I could possibly cut and paste together.

Anyway I decided I was long overdue a dip into Mr Nelson's music and the chance of grabbing his recent album Model Village seemed like a great idea. And indeed it was. It is completely instrumental and sounds like the soundtrack to a wonderful sunny Sunday morning (least it did earlier today). What I assume are predominantly synthetic sounds are embellished with acoustic pianos, plus woodwind instruments and birdsong combining together to make a most delightful noise.

I recommend you listen to Model Village whilst in a shockingly bad mood, overtired and niggly at the world in general. This, plus a cup of coffee, will sort you out.