Twisted Folk

Somehow we were hovering around the fringes of a folk revival in 2005. I should probably say “another folk revival,” there’s always one going on somewhere. Rob Challice organised a tour called Twisted Folk, he ended up doing one every three or four months for a while. The first one was Twisted Folk presents The Earlies and Hem. I think there was a bit of Arts Council money involved, it certainly felt like there was a bit more budget than previously. The bus looked a lot nicer, the driver was marginally less psychotic. The venues were a lot nicer, I’d say we were all quietly shitting it when we had a first read of our laminated and spiral bound tour itineraries. Check these venues out:

• Bristol St Georges Theatre (Feb 17)

• Edinburgh Queens Hall (Feb 18)

• Leeds City Varities (Feb 19)

• Northampton Royal Theatre (Feb 20)

• Gateshead Sage Theatre 2 (Feb 22)

• Sheffield Leadmill (Feb 23)

• Sale Waterside Centre (Feb 24)

• London Queen Elizabeth Hall(Feb 25)

• Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall (Feb 26)

• Bracknell South Hill Park Theatre (Feb 27)

As much as anyone might have been feeling a touch of imposter syndrome one person really spent a few days at the razor’s edge. “Big” Nicky Madden, now a civilian for a mere six months had to step up and claim greatness in the days leading up to the tour. For some reason UK immigration weren’t up for having JM and Brandon back in the country, I think they struggled to board a flight in America and then I think they were turned back at Heathrow. I can’t remember the details, I only remember feeling powerless. We were told that Warner Brothers finest minds were on the job, if you’ve walked through their offices that wouldn’t fill you with confidence but I suppose in 2005 they weren’t all sat around playing with their balls and looking at Tiktok. We needed a plan B as it looked like we wouldn’t have a singer, at least for the first gig. Billy suggested Nicky should just practice being the lead singer and we could stick posters up everywhere at the Bristol gig apologising and offering a refund to anyone who might feel aggrieved. Poor Nicky stood at the front for a run through, “having a go” while we waited to see if the UK government would play ball. He’d only had a few months of singing BVs, it was definitely a leap of faith to front an act at Bristol’s St. George’s Theater. I feel sorry for what we put him through now I think about it. Well, I feel sorry for that version of Nicky. Twenty five year old Nicky. Forty five year old Nicky would fucking love it.

His baptism of fire as a lead vocalist would have to wait, JM and Brandon were allowed into the UK at about midnight the night before the tour started. They got to the rehearsal room we’d hired at the Beehive Mill at around 2am so we rehearsed till 4am then got picked up by the bus, loaded our stuff on and then got pissed till about seven. That had to suffice as preparation for our tour of illustrious theatres, we hadn’t even seen each other in four months but we brushed a set up and learnt a cover. Come to think of it we didn’t even have Semay, we had to rehearse up a stand-in cellist called Caroline for the gig too. It’s the kind of thing that would scare off every other band I’ve played with since but we just learnt a set in the middle of the night and then went on tour. We were exhausted and slightly paranoid at that first gig, it was completely sold out and quite a lot of the audience seemed pretty old. We felt exposed and woefully unprepared but you know the Earlies, we pulled it off.

It ended up being a really lovely tour, mostly sold out in lovely venues. They all felt massive at the time but now looking back they really weren’t. They were certainly a good deal more prestigious than all the Barfly and Academy dumps bands of our stature had to play. You could park your bus at them all, you could load your gear in up a ramp onto the stage. You could even have a shower at most of them. Not Bristol like, I remember being caught in my underpants washing in the sink of the ladies toilet. I know that sentence reads poorly but it’s what I was doing. I didn’t realise the venue doors were open yet. Your honour.

Hem were an amazing band to tour with, premier league session players throughout their squad. They’d all played with a catalogue of legends and were delicate, tasteful virtuosos who also happened to have a good sense of humour. We stayed friends for years after this tour, always watching each other when we could on tours which was particularly helpful when the Earlies got to New York. Mark the drummer even lent us half of his gear for our tour of North America. Dawn would become a long lasting friend who we’d collaborate with in all sorts of ways. That was all in the future though, when it started we were of course completely awed and slightly threatened by their brilliance.

Nathan was of course on the tour. Back then he’d find a way on to each one somehow. On the October tour he’d played in Micah’s band for a dignity sapping fee, on this one he decided to be the merch guy. I’ve no idea how good he was but whenever we were signing albums or posters Nathan would be in on the act, writing “Thank You Very Merch” or “Merch Appreciated” above his name. If you walked away from the Twisted Folk tour with an album have a look at it. You’ve still got it haven’t you?

What sticks in your mind twenty years after a tour? Sometimes nothing at all. Sometimes the gigs are reduced to a sentence or two of talking points for when you’re jointly reminiscing over a pint.

“Do you remember standing on the raked stage at Leeds City Varieties feeling hungover and confused?”

“Do you remember how the Gateshead Sage was brand new and their was something going on with the stage power? How my MS2000 got fried?”

“Do you remember picking up that 70 year old metal fan/roadie in a goth bar in Wolverhampton and putting him on the guest list? He thought the gig was shit”

I feel like I can remember the Queen Elizabeth Hall gig in London the best of all. It was probably the pinnacle of our touring life, which feels a shame to admit to myself but there you go. It had a capacity of 912 which I’m sure is smaller than the guest list at some of the Liam Gallagher gigs I’ve done but that night it couldn’t have seemed any larger, we felt like we were playing in front of the imperial senate in Star Wars.

The cover we were doing as an encore every night was the Tim Buckley song I Must Have Been Blind that we’d recorded recently. Brandon sent me a file of it the other week which sounds like somebody in the audience recorded it, pretty well too. I think you should listen…

We sound amazing, I wasn’t quite expecting that to be as good as it is. Speth is doing a world class job of the sound too, you can hear everything. Twenty years later listening on an mp3 on a phone it still seems huge. My Hammond sounds gorgeous, Nicky’s flute is brilliant, the bass harmonica is thunderous, the psychedelic effects and samples swirl and mesmerise, the vocals are beautiful….

Fuck imposter syndrome, how lucky were those people to see the eleven of us in the prime of our lives? When we were young and not exactly beautiful but as beautiful as we’d ever be. When our lives were an open book of possibilities and we put them on hold to make something bigger and more valuable than we could even understand ourselves. In a grand but, unbeknownst to us, intimate venue like the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

London, you never had it so good. Nobody would have it that good again really.

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Heartache In Room 14

Album of the week goes to the Altons for Heartache in Room 14. This isn’t something I’ve really tested the credibility of, I’m sure some other belters came out this week but I’ve listened to this a few times whilst driving to and from Cheshire on England’s broken backbone, the M6. This is beautiful production of the sort you expect on Daptone recordings, it puts me in a similar emotional space to the one that the Five Stairsteps took me to when I was younger. Rhianna said the other day that they look like the kind of people you’d want teaching your kids in primary school. It’s accurate, they seem like lovely people so let them sing to you.

Sly Lives!

Speaking of people you’d like teaching your kids in primary school…

I enjoyed Sly Lives (aka the Burden of Black Genius), mainly because I love Sly Stone. I think since watching Get Back the other year I’m resentful of the talking heads that are wheeled out for these things, Get Back was a breath of fresh air for letting the music do the talking. That wouldn’t have worked for Sly Lives, there’s definitely a story to tell but nowadays I wish they’d just give me more unabridged music footage. The talking heads are all people I love and respect so there’s nothing wrong with hearing from them but sometimes it feels like they’re skirting round the obvious, that things really went wrong because he spent all his time and money on incredibly addictive drugs that did nothing for his creativity. He fell out of fashion while he was high and he never pulled it back. Sly’s absence hangs over the film a bit, after doing a book he probably couldn’t be arsed sitting still for a film. They’ve done a great job of getting all his former band members in though, plus his kids who really do have some unique perspectives. It’s good, great even but you should really read the book first.

The Hammond Song

Nathan sent me this the other night saying “Have you heard this? It’s got nothing to do with Hammond organ but you’ll like it…” Weirdly I had heard it, I ran into it through algorithmic serendipity a month ago and felt quite captivated. I didn’t read anything about it, I didn’t find out who they were or even what era it was from. I just really liked the song and listened over and over again. There’s a kind of unpolished innocence to the way they’re just belting it out that I found really refreshing, the harmonies are wonderful and they’re given centre stage in all their unadorned glory. Forgive me if you’ve heard of the Roches and this is all obvious but they’ve just never been on my radar. I now find out that this was produced by Robert Fripp and that Tony Levin and him are playing on this tune, I wouldn’t have guessed that in a month of session guessing. Paul Simon had them as backing vocalists on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, he tried dragging them along in his slipstream by getting them on Saturday Night Live. It looks like they’ve recorded quite a bit but it never quite stuck. It’s a shit business. I’ll be giving the Roches more time this week, it sounds like they deserve it.