Ernie's El Dorado Part 9 - Ecuador

Public Service Announcement: If any of you are thinking of entering the exciting competition to come up with the best sporting pun in a song title but have not yet done so, the deadline is tomorrow. Details of what to do and how to do it can be found here.

We now return to our scheduled broadcast. 

Its stop #9 on our tour of the Americas and the start of what might be a tricky stretch. No disrespect intended to the many fine musicians in the E-H countries of Latin America but I have struggled to accumulate the same quantity of music that I did on previous tours and earlier and later stops on this one. That said, there are still lots of goodies as this visit to Ecuador will hopefully demonstrate.   

Ecuador is one of those countries that I know less about than I probably should - the Galapagos, the Andes, Quito, Cuenca, the fact that Panama stole the credit for the straw hat that originated in Ecuador, and that is about it. But after reading about it for this post I have added it to my list of places to try to visit. It sounds interesting and varied, to use the travel guide cliche.

Interesting and varied can also be used to describe the music of Polibio Mayorga who with his trusty moog bestrode the local music scene like a colossus back in the 1960s and 1970s. As Wikipedia notes: "at one point Mayorga was so dominant in the Ecuadorian music charts that he started releasing music under pseudonyms, to give the illusion of variety".

Today's track is attributed to one such pseudonym, Ángel Y Su Banda, and comes from 'their' only album, "Te Invito A Mi Casa". That album isn't on Bandcamp but lots of his records are. The Analog Africa compilation "Ecuatoriana - El Universo Paralelo de Polibio Mayorga" would be a good place to start.

Another compilation you might want to check out is "Juyungo" which puts the spotlight on the Afro-Indigenous culture of the province of Esmeraldas. I was going to make a clever remark contrasting the beauty of Esmeraldas with the Quasimodo that is Quito, but it would be neither fair nor funny so I won't. Instead I'll just direct you to Papá Roncón.

If those two compilations whet your appetite then why not head over to Musicoteca Ecuador's page and admire their back catalogue. There are one minute extracts from 7" singles there which cost US $45 to post to the UK - I declined - but there some albums available for download as well. One such is "El Diablo Ocioso" by Diabluma's Brass Band. I kept it simple and went with the title track.

Bandcamp won't help you with Boddega, an ever so slightly psychedelic ensemble that came ambling out of Guayaquil in 1971 and hung around until the end of the decade. The selected track comes from an EP they released in 1974. I have no idea how it got to me from there. 

Also mildly psychedelic but much more modern is the track by H.O. & Los Bicivoladores, who was extremely prodigious between 2012 and 2020 - putting out nearly 40 releases in eight years - before seemingly finding something better to do with his time. This is a cover version of a song by Chilean folk singer Pedro Messone and you can find it on his self-explanatory album "Covers".

Next up we have Maria Usbeck, a singer-songwriter who is originally from Quito but is now living in Brooklyn. She started her career as the lead singer of the goth-lite Selebrities before going solo in 2014. This track is from her debut album "Amparo", her latest came out in April.

We're mixing old and new next with Paramo Cumbie who in 2019 gave us their dubbed up take on popular local music styles like bomba on the their EP "Magic Runa", and who can lead us seamlessly into this episode's MAR selection. That comes from Yuhuarsonicos and its taken from their 2011 album "Real". 

"El Comité" - Ángel Y Su Banda (Polibio Mayorga)

"Sanjuanito Chachi" - Papá Roncón

"El Diablo Ocioso" - Diabluma's Brass Band

"Muñequita de Porcelana" - Boddega

"Solitario" - H.O. & Los Bicivoladores

"Moai Y Yo" - Maria Usbeck

"Dub Healing Bomba" - Paramo Cumbie

"Amor Verdadero" - Yuhuarsonicos

Now on to the videos. In case Rol or any of his cancel culture crusaders read this I would like to make it clear that the first video is included despite not because of all the ladies wearing T-shirts with 'Sexy' written on the front. I felt that the presence of a hooded shirtless executioner in the TV studio justified its inclusion in the public interest. 

More Gigs-A-Go-Go

So I went to a couple of gigs last week, one in a church and one on a boat. That's just the way it is these days.

The church is St. John on Bethnal Green, which is literally down the end of my road here in swinging London. I've seen some memorable gigs over the years by the likes of Lonnie Holley, Gwynifer Raymond and a large man in a little black dress intoning the words to "Boys" by Sabrina while accompanying himself on the cello.

This one was pretty memorable too. We were there to see RÓIS, an Irish musician who caused a bit of a stir last year with their album "MO LÉAN" which combined traditional keening songs with electronics and a helping hand from Lankum producer John 'Spud' Murphy.

RÓIS arrived in their trademark black veil and matching outfit and performed some songs from the hit album and its predecessor "UISCE AGUS BEAN" (its all capitals I'm afraid), which I quite enjoyed.

After a while they left the stage while the support act Harry Hennessy and the drummer (both also veiled) filled in for a bit until RÓIS returned resplendent in red to express the fervent hope that we liked their new direction. I didn't. It consisted of some disco bangers, a couple of drippy MOR duets with Harry and a proggy power ballad. Despite that it was a fun night.

Not as much fun as Saturday though which was when I paid my first visit to Theatreship, a converted cargo ship moored near Canary Wharf. Its an excellent little venue and I will definitely be returning in the future.

The occasion was one of a series of shows billed as the 'Legendary Folk Instrument Series' in which living folkies prise instruments from the cold hands of dead folkies and play tunes on them. The instrument on this occasion was one of John Renbourn's guitars, built by Martin to his own specification.

We were treated to some fine finger-picking by Dariush Kanani, Daniel Burne and Jules Smith but that wasn't really why I was there. The main attraction for me was the chance to see the excellent Angeline Morrison live. She didn't disappoint.

Accompanied by Mr Kanani on the famed guitar, Ms Morrison treated us to a set of songs taken from the two mid 1960s albums by the African-American folk singer Dorris Henderson on which she was accompanied by John Renbourn. The two of them did Dorris and John justice.

Here's a track from RÓIS back when she was still clad in black not red, an original by Angeline Morrison that gives me a lump in the throat ever time I listen to it and a song from "Watch The Stars" that was probably the highlight of the set on Saturday.

"Oh Lovely Appearance Of Death" - RÓIS

"Unknown African Boy (d. 1830) (live)" - Angeline Morrison

"There's Anger In This Land" - Dorris Henderson with John Renbourn

I couldn't find any clips of Dorris Henderson unfortunately but here are the rest of them.  

Single Song Sunday

The series returns after a well-earned summer break and I think it may have caught the sun because there are several things about this edition that are not quite right.

The first is that it is all reggae - does that mean none or all of them count as an MRV? I don't know. The second is that technically the ten tracks below are not a single song. Most of them have the same rhythm track as the original record but a few just sample its most distinctive feature. But Single Plinky Plonk Sunday sounded a bit silly.

The original is "My Conversation", released in 1968 by The Uniques, then consisting of the sublime Slim Smith on lead vocals with Lloyd Charmers and Jimmy Riley on harmonies. There are some decent straightforward covers out there by the likes of Delroy Wilson but I have not included any because, frankly, what would be the point? The Uniques were given that name for a reason.

Instead we will skip forward to 1974 when Bunny Lee, who produced the original record, sold the rhythm track to Rupie Edwards who used it as the basis of one of the first ever single 'riddim' albums, "Yamaha Skank". Shorty The President represents them today. There have been several trillion 'riddim' albums since but very few as good as this one.

After that the 'plinky plonk' motif became ubiquitous for a while. The good folks at Riddimguide have identified well over a hundred examples and I suspect their list is far from complete. I won't go through the rest of the tracks one by one but they are in chronological order with two more from the 1970s, four from the 1980s and Beres from the 1990s.

King Tubby's dub version comes last because as far as I can tell it was not officially released until 1996 on a compilation called "King Tubby's Meets Scientist In A World Of Dub". The following year it appeared as a bonus track on a reissue of his 1975 classic album "Dub From The Roots" so my guess is that it is a mid-1970s cut.

I'll shut up now and hand over to the mighty Slim and the rest of the plonkers plinkers.

"My Conversation" - The Uniques

"President Mash Up The Resident" - Shorty The President

"Barnabus Collins" - Lone Ranger

"Cricket Lovely Cricket" - Jah Thomas

"Jah Forgive Them" - Leroy Smart

"Rocking To The A-Class Champion" - Johnny Clarke

"Its Good To Have The Feeling You're The Best" - Tippa Irie

"Don't Ease Up" - Eccleton Jarrett

"Hey Girl" - Beres Hammond & Josey Wales

"Conversation Dub" - King Tubby

Pun Fun 1: The Theme

As Monday's suggestion for a new competition got such an enthusiastic response (rather too enthusiastic in some quarters) I thought I may as well strike while the iron is hot. We'll see how the first one goes and if it proves popular enough we'll do one a month.

As I explained then, the competition is to see who can come up with the best worst pun in a song title on a specific theme. I set the theme, you submit your song titles, I collate them all into a list for you to vote on and then publish the final 'chart' and announce the winner. 

Before announcing the first theme I will make an undoubtedly futile attempt to establish some ground rules. Here goes:

• Only one entry per person. We can review this restriction for future challenges if we only get a small number of entries but we'll stick with it for now.

• Please send your entries via email to leggies27@hotmail.co.uk rather than put them in the comment section below. All entries on the voting form will be anonymised in order to reduce the risk of partisan voting.

• Any reader can vote, you don't need to have submitted an entry to do so (similar to the Eurovision final when all the eliminated countries still get to have a say in the outcome).

• And finally, please don't: vote for yourself; attempt to get other entries disqualified on a technicality; or complain loudly that your fellow voters are idiots if you don't win. These are all things that happened when I used to do this live. Also don't object if a group of Finnish tourists at the next table ask what is going on and I let them vote as well (covered by the previous rule). 

With all that out of the way it is time to announce the theme for the inaugural Pun Fun (official theme tune: "Pun Fun D'Amour" by Manhattan Transfer - I considered "Pun Fun (Go For It)" by Wham! but rejected the idea because it would have meant rhyming 'fun' with 'fun' in the opening line).

We believe in healthy bodies as well as healthy minds here at 27Leggies, so the theme is: 

SPORTS AND SPORTING EQUIPMENT

Please get your entries to me by Saturday 15 November. The list of runners and riders will be published the following Monday.

You might want to look at this list of officially recognised sports to get you started - although perhaps don't pick a pun about vovinam or galli-danda if you want to attract a lot of votes. 

Or you might prefer just to listen to these songs which may or may not be about cricket. There will be another one on Sunday but for different reasons.

"Cricket On The Moon" - Lee "Scratch" Perry

"When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease" - Roy Harper

The Basin Brims Over

The good folks at Basin Rock records - the pride of Todmorden - have a fairly small but highly refined catalogue which includes albums by the likes of Jim Ghedi, Nadia Reid and Aoife Nessa Frances.

They currently have a limited period special offer on, with all albums except those released this year available for £5 on CD or £10 on vinyl. They don't specify how limited the period is, and it may turn out to last for several years like the DHS sales, but I was not taking any chances. Two CDs have been added to my collection and I may go back for more.

First in the basket was one that was been on my wish list for some time, Johanna Samuels' 2021 album "Excelsior!". The Basin Rock blurb says: "With a special knack for balancing bright pop melodies with a drifting sense of melancholy, ‘Excelsior!’ is a tender and honest document of the importance of companionship above all else". Ernie says: I like.

It was swiftly followed by "Not Even Happiness", the 2017 album by Julie Byrne. The Basin Rock blurb says: "Julie Byrne’s second album adds atmospheric instrumentation and electronic flourishes to her unusual guitar tunings and fingerpicked melodies, moving the songs from the front-porch into subtle anthemia". Ernie says: "I refer the Honourable Member to my earlier answer".

"The Middle" - Johanna Samuels

"Morning Dove" - Julie Byrne

Anyone For Pun Fun?

Good morning all. I'm looking for some feedback from you today. 

Inspired by the likes of Rol and John Medd with their fiendish quizzes and photo challenges I am thinking of introducing an interactive feature to the blog, but because it will rely on having enough people taking part to make it work I thought I would sound you out first.

The idea is to resuscitate a competition I used to organise for my work colleagues way back when I still worked in an office. It seemed to go down quite well then but that may mostly be because it provided an excuse for a few drinks after work, something that would obviously be missing from an online version. 

The competition would be to see who can come up with the best pun in a song title. How it would work is that I would set a theme, you would each submit one entry fitting that theme, I would compile them all for you to vote on and the winner will receive universal acclaim (or derision from embittered losers). 

In the old days they would also receive a prize in the form of a terrible CD from a charity shop, like this one by a group of German urologists full of tunes about urinary tract infections, prostates and the like (this is real). I'll try to think of something equally bad for an online version.

To be clear, we would not be looking for songs that are really about the theme as with Rol's Saturday Snapshots quiz but ones you have pimped for the ride. For example, we had a fish theme and the entries included delights such as "Trout" by Tears For Fears, "Promised You a Mackerel" by Simple Minds and - mainly for the artist's name - "Sole Man" by Salmon Dave. 

Hopefully that gives you the general idea. If you would like to join in let me know in the comments and if enough people are interested we'll kick things off later in the month.

In the meantime, feel free to sing along with these hits.

Newness Abounds

Regular readers will know from the title of the post that it is time for one of our occasional roundups of some of the new records that have been sent my way by the nice folks in Promoland over the last couple of months. There have been some goodies. 

The MVP award goes to Daniel at Force Field who shared three of today's five albums, with the runner-up spot shared by Chad (No Rules PR) and Mark (Clandestine Label Services - its possible I was not meant to reveal that). 

We will kick things off with the only one of the acts featured today with which I was already familiar. That is Sweet Nobody whose third album "Driving Off To Nowhere" comes out on 7 November. You can pre-order it over on Bandcamp, and I would recommend that you also take a listen to their 2021 album "We're Doing our Best" while you are there.

Their blurb says that "Sweet Nobody write anthems for the soft-spoken, the unassuming, the overlooked, and the underappreciated" so they may not necessarily appeal to the raging egomaniacs that make up our core audience. Which would be a shame.

I'm actually familiar with some of the folks involved in the next act, although I didn't realise that until I read their blurb. The Telephone Numbers hail from San Francisco and share some members with The Reds, Pinks & Purples and The Umbrellas, both of whom have appeared on these pages before. Their new album "Scarecrow II" came out earlier this month. Some obvious influences but they make a nice sound.

This particular track "maps the claustrophobic competition of a music scene onto the infamous-among-Literature-majors mystical showdown between Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats". So now you know.

We're heading up the West Coast to Portland OR for our next act, Katy & The Null Sets. Their debut album "Troublemaker" came out last Friday and is officially "an album seasoned with angst, sweetness and self preservation in equal measure and via unexpected arcs". Or to quote respected reviewer Mr E. Goggins "this track sounds like Hem in Brazil suffering from occasional bouts of radio interference".

I was inspired to come up with that after seeing an album described as follows: "as if The Shaggs had taken guitar lessons from Tom Verlaine in Montreal in 2025, before forming a band by divine accident". Which album is that you ask? Why, its Hélène Barbier's new album "Panorama". It comes out on 14 November and is a must for all fans of The Shaggs, Tom Verlaine and divine intervention. 

The final new album we're featuring today may well be the pick of the bunch. Its "In Your Long Shadow", the debut album by Lillian King. Like Katy's album it came out last Friday; unlike that album there is no bossa nova. What you get is "slow-burning indie, folk rock, and atmospheric Americana that may appeal to fans of Sharon Van Etten and Big Thief". At last, something I can both understand and agree with! It has been on regular rotation here in Leggies-a-Lago.

"Revenge"  - Sweet Nobody

"Ballad Of Blythe Road" - The Telephone Numbers

"Last Time/ Next Time" - Katy & The Null Sets

"Plastique Couch"- Hélène Barbier

"Context II" - Lillian King

Room With A Vieux

Last Friday night found me at Troxy in London's lively Limehouse being blown away by the mighty Vieux Farka Touré and his band.

Vieux is very much the son of his father Ali, both master guitarists in the desert blues tradition (although some say there wasn't a tradition until Ali and a handful of others invented it). But while Vieux never separates from the past, as Chicory Tip did, he does change and rearrange it into something new, collecting and selecting independent views.

This is more evident on stage than on record. I doubt Ali ever indulged in a bout of heads down no nonsense boogie followed by an extended wah-wah freakout of the sort we were treated to in the final song of the main set.

Vieux was very ably assisted by his three piece band. The bass player was Marshall Henry who is a regular collaborator. I didn't catch the names of the drummer or ngoni player but they were both excellent. The latter had a big old grin on his face most of the evening and was clearly having even more fun than we were.

Here is one track apiece from "Salsa" (2017) and "Ali", the 2022 album on which he teams up with Khruangbin to rework some of his father's old tunes. To complete the circle I've add something by his dear old Dad. 

"Homafu Wawa" -  Vieux Farka Touré

"Tamalla" -  Vieux Farka Touré & Khruangbin

"Penda Yoro" -  Ali Farka Touré

Before we go, a special shout out to my new friends Natalie and James the Ululator who I met at the gig and who very kindly bought me a shot. Admittedly it tasted like cough syrup but its the thought that counts.

If you want to recreate the evening in the comfort of your own home grab the Night Nurse from your bathroom cabinet and settle down to enjoy this hour-long concert by the same line-up recorded a few months ago.

Ernie's El Dorado Part 8 - Costa Rica

This time out we are in Costa Rica, a country I have very fond memories of having been lucky enough to spend over a month there way back in the mid 1990s.

Costa Rica is considered to possess the highest density of biodiversity of any country in the world and is home to over half a million species of flora and fauna. Mountains, volcanos, swamps, rainforests, coral reefs, golden beaches - it has them all and much more.

I didn't have a digital camera back when I was there and I have only been able to find a few old snaps. They don't remotely do the place justice, but here we have: a parade of the saints in Tilaran, the beach in Puntarenas and finally the mean streets of Puerto Limón.

Limón was a rough old town when I visited back in the 1990s and by all accounts it still is. It is Costa Rica's main port and has all the fun and faults that go with that. It is the only place I have ever been where a lady introduced herself with the words "Hello Sailor". But it was where you had to go to pick up a dory that would take you north through the rainforest to Tortaguero to see the leatherback turtles lay their eggs - possibly the single biggest highlight of my visit.

If I had kept going north towards the border with Nicaragua I might have bumped into a member of the Moskito people. They are of mixed African and indigenous ancestry and mostly live in Nicaragua but some of them can be found in Honduras and Costa Rica. 

One such is Johnny Hall who with his fine band (whose name translates as 'Coconut Milk') released an album of their traditional music in 2020.

On the other hand, if I had headed south from Limón I may have met our next artist. Walter Gavitt Ferguson hailed from the small village of Cahuita down by the Panama border and lived there for most of his 103 years before passing away in 2023. 

Mr Ferguson was by some distance Costa Rica's preeminent calypsonian, performing mostly in the local Creole language commonly spoken on the Caribbean coast. You can find today's selection on a compilation called "The Legendary Tape Recordings Vol.1". 

Other former residents of Cahuita include Bocaraca who were making some fine funky sounds in the mid 1970s. Isidor Asch and Luis Jákamo from the band went on to have success with a number of subsequent groups including Marfil who you will find in the videos.

Before Bocoraca there was Los Gatos, one of many bands of that name to be found across Spain and Latin America (Rol may wish to bear that in mind for his Namesakes series). According to the original drummer they were the coolest cats in Costa Rica back in the 1960s, releasing a series of singles on the Indica label of which this is one.

We leap forward to modern times for the rest of today's selections, and a varied bunch they are too. Guadalupe Urbina is a folk musician from the Guanacaste Province in the north-west of the country. Guanacaste has a fancy international airport for tourists these days but it was still being developed when I was there so I had to fly to Tamarindo Airport instead. This was it.

Enough of me, back to Guadalupe. She has been active since the 1980s and during her career has hung out with numerous well known artists, as her Wikipedia entry explains, as well as overcoming brain cancer and other challenges. This track comes from her 2016 album "Cantos Simples del Amor de la Tierra". 

From Guadalupe we move to on a different kettle full of an unfeasibly large number of fish. It is the self-styled post-punk luminaries Mal Visto. This track is from their second EP "Fuera De Juego" which came out last year.

Next, the bastard sons of Bocaraca, better known to their many fans as Cocofunka. I considered using them in the MAR slot as reggae numbers feature regularly in their repertoire but personally I favour their funkier side. "Mundo" is from their 2012 album "Hacer Ecoo". They are still going strong and playing regularly in Costa Rica and beyond.

For the actual MAR slot we have Earthstrong, whose new single "Lonely" was issued a whole ten days ago. If you like it you might also check out their album "With Love From Costa Rica". I am sure they speak on behalf of all the artists featured today when they say that.

"Sirpiki Mairin" - Johnny Hall y su Banda Kuku Suban Laya

"Long Tongue Man" - Walter Gavitt Ferguson

"Talvez Mañana" - Bocaraca

"Ven Que Estoy Hirviendo" - Los Gatos

"Cancioncilla Simple de Hojas Secas" - Guadalupe Urbina

"Fiesta Para Uno" - Mal Visto

"Mundo" - Cocofunka

"Lonely" - Earthstrong

We start off the videos with Marfil, the band built from the ashes of Bocoraca. Judging by the video a law was passed in 1987 requiring all men to have identical haircuts with only the decision on whether to have an accompanying moustache left to the individual.

If you enjoy that and the Costa Rican Jive Bunny that follows then I suggest you check out José@DJ Mix's excellent YouTube channel. Hours of fun for everyone.

On The Other Hand

Following Wednesday's post featuring songs with 'left' in the title here are some 'right' songs. In an effort to create the illusion of coherence they include some vintage Nigerian highlife (see Monday's post).

That's all. Have a good weekend.

"Doing It Right" - The Go! Team

"Jump Right Out Of The Jukebox" - Onie Wheeler

"Right, Tight, And Out Of Sight" - Branding Iron

"Right Now Train" - Dewey Martin & Medicine Ball

"Nigeria Drive On The Right" - Bola Johnson

Sinister Sounds

I have a Saturday morning routine. I set the alarm for 7.30am then make a strong coffee to make sure my brain is wide awake by 8.30am. That is when I join all the cool kids over at My Top Ten in our collective effort to work out the answer to Rol's fiendish Saturday Snapshots quiz.

Last Saturday Sir Rol very kindly allowed me to have a go at setting the quiz. It was a great honour and one that left me even more in awe than before of his ability to maintain the high quality week in week out. 

My theme was songs with 'left' or 'right' in the title. There is no shortage of them so after selecting the ones for the quiz I had a load remaining. Rather than let them go to waste I decided to make a couple of posts out of some of them. Left songs today, Right songs on Friday. 

"Two Left Shoes" - Left Cassette

"Third From The Left In The Top Row" - 2 Belgen

"Left-Handed Angel" - Courtney Marie Andrews

"That's All That's Left" - Z.Z. Hill

"The Girl I Left Behind" - Freddie McKay

Our left-sided videos will be introduced by Ms Dolly Parton.

Culture Corner: Nigerian Modernism

Last Friday I went to the Tate Modern with my pal the noted polymath Mr Perfect (real name) to see a new exhibition of Nigerian art of the last century which opened earlier this month. Titled 'Nigerian Modernism', the exhibition runs until May next year and it definitely worth seeing if you have the chance.

My reviewing skills are slim to non-existent, being as I am very much in the "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" camp, so I will refer you instead to this Guardian article which includes an interview with the curator and this one on the BBC website with lots of photos of the exhibits.

My own photos of the exhibition are on Flickr for anyone who might be interested. Here are some of my favourite exhibits plus a small display of early highlife albums that was tucked away in one corner, presumably as a nod to the cultural revolution in Nigerian music that was happening in parallel with that in Nigerian art.

Eagle-eyed readers will spot that the display includes three albums by Cardinal Rex Lawson and one by Dr. Victor Olaiya. They will be providing the music today.

On the subject of musical movers and shakers, while at the exhibition we bumped into Allan Jones of Melody Maker and Uncut fame. It is only a few weeks ago that I was pestering him at the Slow Motion Cowboys gig in the Betsey Trotwood. The poor man will be taking a restraining order out on me at this rate.

"Mekine Wa Bo Te" - Cardinal Rex Lawson

"Ekwe Ngbaduga" - Dr. Victor Olaiya

Live clips of Cardinal Rex are hard to find, probably because he died in 1971 aged only 32, so instead here is a record by Idahams from earlier this year which samples him extensively. Dr Victor left us only five years ago at the grand old age of 89 so had the chance to collaborate more actively with the newer generation of Nigerian musicians.

The Rough And The Smooth

I went to two gigs in successive nights earlier this week and they were quite a contrast in terms of both venue and music.

On Tuesday I was at my regular haunt The Shacklewell Arms in Dalston for one of their free gigs. This one featured three bands: Great Silkie, marcel (no caps please we're belgian) and Bureau de Change.

I'm not sure any of them will live long in the memory to be honest but the pick of the bunch were probably Bureau de Change. They are a bit hackneyed but were shouty, energetic and quite fun. They also kindly make their music available on a 'name your own price' basis - click on the links on each band's name if you wish to explore further.

After a quick scrub up and a wash behind my ears, the next night I went up west to the far famed London Palladium to see the great Al Stewart on his farewell tour of UK and Ireland. 

It was an excellent show. Al was in fine voice for a man of 80, with great backing from The Empty Pockets and special guest Peter White, the man whose nifty guitar licks enhanced "On The Border", "Time Passages" and many more back in the day. Al has written so many fantastic songs that he could never fit them all into one set but I was pleased to hear some favourite 'deep cuts' (or album tracks as we called them then).

Another point of contrast between Al and Bureau de Change - at least in today's selections - is song length. The two tracks together clock in at 20 minutes; Al accounts for 90% of that.

They do have something in common though. Bureau de Change are very sweary. Its not big, its not clever, and its not original either. Respectable Al was doing that way back in 1969 when he traumatised the nation by putting a rude word in "Love Chronicles". It is believed to be the first time this word was committed to vinyl. I won't mention it but its roughly sixteen and a half minutes in, shortly after he says "plucking".

 

"Shaken Not Stirred" - Bureau de Change

"Love Chronicles" - Al Stewart

Listen To The Voices

Guided By Voices have their latest album coming out at the end of the month. It is called "Thick Rich and Delicious" and having been sent an advance copy by the excellent Jack at Tell All Your Friends PR I can assure you it is an absolute corker. You can pre-order a copy over at Bandcamp. Actually, delete 'can' and replace it with 'should'. 

Robert Pollard had been the guiding light and only constant of Guided By Voices for 40 years now. During that time they have churned through almost as many members as The Fall, but they have had the same five man line-up now since 2016. Familiarity is clearly breeding whatever the opposite of contempt is as the recent run of albums is as good as anything in the back catalogue. 

And it is a big old back catalogue too. "Thick Rich and Delicious" is the 42nd studio album released by Guided By Voices, with 13 of them in the 2010s alone. In addition Mr Pollard has released 23 albums under his own name, 16 as Circus Devils and over 20 others using different aliases and with various collaborators. He is so prolific that he will probably have issued another album by the time you finish this sentence.

Here is one of the two advance tracks from the new album and golden oldies from "Mirrored Aztec" and "Its Not Them, It Couldn't Be Them" (in 2020 and 2021 respectively).

"(You Can't Go Back To) Oxford Talawatha" - Guided By Voices

"To Keep An Area" - Guided By Voices

"High In The Rain" - Guided By Voices

One of the members of the current line-up is Bobby Bare Jr, who as some of you will know has had a pretty good career in his own right. While he's nowhere near as prolific as Mr Pollard he has been working even longer. Here he is way back in 1973 helping his dear old Dad to #2 in the country charts.

Monday's Long Song

I don't often participate in the multi-blog phenomenon that is Monday's Long Song, but I recently acquired a piece of music that I thought would be a good way of testing the concept - possibly to destruction.

Junior Brother is a man whose voice was described by the woman from Manchester I found myself sitting next to at a recent live performance as "grating". I wouldn't agree but it is certainly wayward and lacking in some of the conventional virtues like hitting all the right notes. 

For me that is part of JB's charm. But can that charm by maintained over nearly twenty minutes and can you the listener make it all the way through? That's the test today.

I strongly suspect that George will be the only person to even attempt the task so let's rephrase the question using his famous 2B scale - is this bobbins or bifter?

Sock it to 'em, JB.

"Junior Brother's Favourite" - Junior Brother

Colombian Cover Up

A brief follow-up to my post on Colombian music earlier this week (Part 7 of our El Dorado series). Here are a couple of songs that were on the long list for that post but were cut because they are cover versions. But they are too much fun to deprive you of them completely.

"Combate A Kung Fu" - Wganda Kenya

"Cumbia Del Pichamán" - Meridian Brothers

Watch out for some bonus Biddu in the first video (or viddu).

Ernie's El Dorado Part 7 - Colombia

We are nearly a third of the way through our tour and we have arrived at a real musical hotspot. So hot that if you linger too you'll get third degree burns.

So for health and safety reasons, as well as the fact that real life has got a bit busy, we are going to forego the usual long introductions and go pretty much straight to the music.

Musically Colombia is in the import-export business (you can insert your own reference to other less salubrious exports here if you wish). Cumbia originated on the Caribbean coast of Colombia but has spread across all of Latin America, and there are many other indigenous styles. Wikipedia gives a good summary.

But back in the 1970s the locals fell heavily for Cuban and Puerto Rican salsa and to a lesser extent to the rock, pop and funk sounds heading down from up north. More recently there has been explosion of hip-hop, with a local twist, and Mandatory American Reggaeton (MARton?). It all adds up to a dock load of disc-based fun.

The waterfront is too broad to cover but today's selection was chosen so you can dip your toes into a range of styles. In order, we have two cuts of cumbia, two salsa and one each of champeta, música llanera, 1970s pop, afrobeat, hip-hop and MAR. Where the album from which the track comes or the artist is on Bandcamp I have added a link in their name.

Special thanks to the excellent Vampisoul label for reissuing several of the albums featured below (and many more excellent records).  

The videos kick off with undoubtably the biggest global Colombian star of recent times. Unfortunately she seems to be one series behind but at least she has made an effort. 

I have followed it up with the great Joe Arroyo's tribute to Barranquilla, the only place in Colombia I have been to - I had one night there after my plane to the country we are heading to next got rerouted. A proper trip to Colombia is on my (very long) list to places to see. 

"El Tiburon Del Aire" - Aniceto Molina

"Que Te La Pongo" - La Sonora Dinamita

"Ténguere Que Tengue" - Fruko y Sus Tesos

"Micaela" - Sonora Carruseles

"Tungalala (El Sapo)" - Son Palenque

"Dueña De Mi Amor" - Tirso Delgado

"Soy Una Nube" - Elia y Elizabeth

"Tifit Hayed" - Wganda Kenya

"Pescao Envenenao" - Choc Quib Town

"Wayo" - Hety & Zambo

The Great Dictator

That is a cleverer title than I suspect you are going to give it credit for. And that's a badly constructed sentence, as English teachers out there might notice. Anyway...

Charlie Chaplin the comic actor and director seems to be one of those Marmite performers. People either love him or hate him.

There is no such division of opinion about the reggae DJ Charlie Chaplin (Richard Bennett to his Mum), although admittedly that may be because many people have never heard of him. Hopefully these two tracks from 1982 and 1983 respectively will encourage you to join the pro-Chaplin 2 camp.

Chaplin 2 was fairly successful in the 1980s in Jamaica and is still about although according to Discogs he hasn't released any new material since 2006. When I looked for him on Bandcamp I found a single from 2016 released by Operation Sound System with Charlie Chaplin credited on vocals, but it turned out to be a sample of Chaplin 1 from the film in the title. 

The credits on "Dictator" are pretty confusing all round. I assume Razzle and Sasquatch are not related to the saucy magazine and hairy mythical creature with whom they respectively share their names.

"Jamaican Collie" - Charlie Chaplin

"Unity Is Strength" - Charlie Chaplin (with Don Carlos)

"Dictator" - Charlie Chaplin, Razzle, Sasquatch 

Chaplin 1 also turned his hand to music, writing a lot of his own film scores. One instrumental theme from his 1936 film "Modern Times" had some lyrics added in the early 1950s and became a standard. Chaplin 2 hasn't done a MRV of it, which seems a missed opportunity, but he isn't averse to adapting an old Peter Tosh tune.

Ilectro Boogie Woogie

Some 1980s Tamil film music for you today. Not that old chestnut, I hear you say. I'm afraid so. 

I was rooting around in the bargain bins of a local second-hand record shop recently when I found a copy of "Ilectro!: Euphoric Electronics and Robotic Funk by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja", released on the always interesting Finders Keepers label in 2013. The cover alone was enough to persuade me to hand over the money.

To quote from the liner notes: "This compilation focuses on Ilaiyaraaja's growth in the mid-1980s as a confident young composer adding freak pop fuel to the flickering flame of Kodambakkam’s [an area in Chennai where studios were located] Kollywood film industry, while embracing domestic synthesiser technology and fusing the power of electro and synth pop to his Carnatic canon". So now you know.

Ilaiyaraaja is still going strong at 82 and earlier this year became to first Asian film composer to have a symphony performed in London (with the Royal Philharmonic). Very impressive and a far cry from his 80s days.

But we're here to dance. Let's gather together the cast of thousands and get the show started.

"Unithaan" - Ilaiyaraaja 

"Aththi Marakkili" - Ilaiyaraaja 

Ilaiyaraaja had perhaps the biggest hit of his illustrious career in 1991 with his music for the film "Thalapathi". The soundtrack was included in The Guardian's list of "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die" and the song "Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu" was placed fourth in a BBC World Service poll of "World Top Ten Popular Songs of All-time" (although with "Believe" by Cher at #8 I'm not sure how much faith to place on this list). 

Here are the hits.

Legendary Cowboys

Last Wednesday night found me and Mr F in the tiny upstairs room of the Betsey Trotwood public house in London's fashionable Clerkenwell for what turned out to be an excellent double bill. Famed music journalist and editor Allan Jones was sitting just a couple of feet from us and he seemed to enjoy himself so that is good enough for me.

The headliners were Slow Motion Cowboys. I have their 2013 album "Buzzard Songs" and their latest, "Wolf Of St. Elmo" has been very well reviewed so I was expecting them to be good and I wasn't disappointed. They are touring the UK until the weekend and if they are playing near you I would recommend popping along.

The band have been compared to all sorts of people - Townes for the oldies, Sturgill for the kids - but what some of the new songs reminded me of most was "American Beauty" era Grateful Dead. Or maybe I'm just making that connection because head honcho Pete Fields and much of the band originally hail from San Francisco. 

A special shout out to guitarist Barstool Brown for having what may be one of the greatest country names of all time.

I knew nothing about support act Legends Of Country but they were great fun. The Legends are essentially Jof Owen (ex The Boy Least Likely To) and assorted chums gone country. Some of the lyrics are a little tongue in cheek but you can tell its true love.

They have released two albums to date, "Anything But Country" (2022) and "Talk About Country" (2015). When I bought the most recent album after the show Jof very kindly added the other one for free - an act of generosity that as he noted may explain why he hasn't made a fortune yet. I'm enjoying them both.

Jof mentioned that they don't play live very often and I'm not sure there is a fixed line-up, but on Wednesday it included all three members of Girl Ray, who as regular readers will know are one of my favourite bands of recent years. It turns out that Sophie from the band played bass on "Anything But Country" and she and Iris provided backing vocals on a late era The Boy Least Likely To single.   

Sophie has unfortunately broken her foot in a traumatic cycling incident so had to play sitting down. The upside for her was that she was able to wolf down a burger and a large portion of chips during the set. Maybe some vinegar on the bass strings adds something to the timbre. I'm not an expert.

If you want to recreate the evening in your own home just fall off a Lyft bike, invite Allan Jones round, order in some chips and beer and then play these tracks loud. There is one from each of the albums mentioned above.

"Trees Of San Francisco" - Slow Motion Cowboys

"Catch And Release" - Slow Motion Cowboys

"If That's What It Takes" - Legends Of Country

"(That's What We Talk About When We) Talk About Country" - Legends Of Country

Danny Thompson RIP

As already mentioned here and elsewhere the Danny Thompson left us last week. Danny was a man of both quality and quantity. Discogs lists over 750 credits - and that isn't all of them - and he is possibly on more records in my collection than any other musician. He shines on every one.

I was lucky enough to see Danny live in various combinations over the years. The standouts include a duo of him and Richard 'No Relation' Thompson at Cropredy some time back in the Days of the Ancients and what turned out to be Pentangle's last ever gig (at the Royal Festival Hall in 2011).

Swiss Adam has written a very nice tribute over at Bagging Area - he is much more eloquent than what I is - in which he highlights Danny's work with Pentangle, Nick Drake and John Martyn. If you wade through to the end of my post on the Incredible String Band last week you'll find Danny there as well.

I have avoided all those artists in the selection below. These tracks are all taken from records I happen to have lying around and hopefully give you some idea of Danny's range and quality. They are in chronological order, from 1969 to 2012. I have included a track from "Industry" (2003), an album jointly credited to Richard and Danny, 

I couldn't find any decent quality clips of the 2011 Pentangle concert but have shared a performance of "I've Got A Feeling" from three years earlier on 'Later'. Danny lets loose at about the two minute mark. The second clip is him and Richard in 1996, also on 'Later', and we finish in the same year with Kathy Mattea joining him and his old mucker at the Transatlantic Sessions. 

RIP Mr Thompson. Thanks for everything.

"Goodbye To Monday Night" - Michael Chapman

"City's Cry" - Shelagh McDonald

"Interstellar Soul" - T. Rex

"China Doll" - Julian Cope

"King Strut" - Peter Blegvad

"One String Violin" - Heidi Berry

"Jojoh Yalah Jo" - S.E. Rogie

"Drifting Through The Days" - Richard Thompson & Danny Thompson

"Miracle" - Baaba Maal

"Still England" - Viv Albertine

This Moment Is Different From Any Before It

Last Saturday afternoon I was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London's fashionable South Bank for a celebration of the Incredible String Band. I have been a massive fan of the band for over 40 years so I wasn't going to miss the party.

As you can see from the photo there were a lot of celebrants. I counted 18 in total over the course of the concert. Most were from the current generation of what sometimes get called 'freak folk'. I recognised some like Milkweed and Junior Brother but there were no introductions so I'm still none the wiser as to who many of them were.

 

There were one or two moments that did not quite work but overall the kids did a great job of putting the show on right here. One of the stand-out performers was Mary Hampton, of whom I had not previously heard. She did lovely renditions of "Seasons They Change" and "God Dog", the song Robin Williamson wrote for Shirley Collins (and the only non String Band song of the show).

However, as good as they were, most of us were there for Mike Heron. I have been lucky enough to see him many times over the years, both solo and in a couple of String Band reunions way back around the turn of the century, but he is in his eighties now and has had health issues so there are unlikely to be many more chances. 

Mike joined the gang for the last stretch of the show. He was pretty frail physically and initially vocally, but being on stage doing what he loves with a room full of people who love him had a rejuvenating effect on his voice. By the time he led the ensemble in a moving rendition of "Air" he was sounding great. I'm sure I wasn't the only old fart who was slightly damp around the eyes when that ended.

Here are the originals of "Air" and "God Dog" plus something by Mary Hampton from her 2011 album "Folly" (available on Bandcamp with a revised running order). I have also added "First Girl I Loved", one of my favourite records of all time. It features on double bass the great Danny Thompson who sadly left us a few days ago. I will try to do a proper tribute to Mr Thompson next week; consider this a down payment.

The videos feature some of the other fine (freak) folks who were on the bill, plus of course the golden boys (and girls) themselves.

"Lullaby For The Beleaguered" - Mary Hampton

"God Dog" - Shirley & Dolly Collins

"Air" - The Incredible String Band

"First Girl I Loved" - The Incredible String Band

Model Employees

Yesterday I visited Mannakin Hall near Grantham with the King of Cool himself, Mr John Medd. Why? To quote Gob Geldof, "what reason do you need?".

Here are some of the residents, including a group apparently attempting to recreate Manet's 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' (but not very successfully) There are loads more photos over on Flickr if you are so inclined. 

I will be taking no further questions.

"Showroom Dummies" - Señor Coconut

"Mannequin" - Ducktails

"Mannequin Lies" - The Shop Window