Summer, it’s gone

If you think it’s been quiet around here lately, that’s because I’ve been posting mainly about political stuff, not least party conferences, and you can get that content over at The Common Weal.

Personally, I’ve got little to add other than my dismay at autumn sneaking up on us. This week I’ve had to have the kitchen light on to cook my tea for the first time in months. I don’t mind autumn itself but it’s a prelude to winter, and that can’t be a good thing.

Actually, I suppose I can add to that with a TV recommendation: you’re now probably too late to get into this, but ITV4 has been showing the excellent American series Jericho. It follows the fate of a small town after nuclear attacks wipe out most major American cities and the country descends into lawlessness – if you follow it through, it’s engrossing and rewarding. They have only half a dozen episodes left to show (it was cancelled after a truncated second series), so you may as well get it on DVD. Seriously – if you were drawn in by Battlestar Galactica, you’ll like this.

Talks are apparently ongoing with other networks to revive the show, but I’m not holding my breath.

Change, my dear, and it seems… bonus anorak points for anyone who can complete the quotation

As you might have seen, there are changes round these parts: goodbye Blogger, hello WordPress! Also, don’t expect to find any more political posts on here – that line of things has been moved across to my new political blog, The Common Weal. WordPress offers a lot more flexibility than Blogger, though equally there are some things I haven’t worked out how to do yet, so bear with me for the next week or so!

A small point: if you have bookmarks or links to either the Blogger site or to www.kingofquiet.co.uk, please update them: the Blogger pages will remain, but the King of Quiet domain will not be renewed when it expires.

Curse of the Old Crow

I try be rational, apply reason and avoid superstition in my life, and at times it’s probably just as well. If this wasn’t the case I would have developed some aversion to listening to the Super Furry Animals while travelling through the Midlands by train, as the only two times I’ve ever been on a train that has completely broken down, that’s what I was doing. I would also have come to believe that any contact between me and bluegrass quintet the Old Crow Medicine Show is cursed: I was unable to get to their gig on July 21st 2005 owing to the transport ramifications of that day’s failed terrorist attacks; the first time I ever saw them (supporting Gillian Welch in 2004), I found out the following day I’d been turned down for funding for an MPhil; and I received some unwelcome news this week in the run-up to their show on Saturday at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

It’s just as well I’m inclined to write these things off as coincidence and chance, as if I took them seriously I would probably have denied myself a seriously enjoyable gig. Five men standing in a line across the front of a stage, playing songs very firmly and self-consciously within the bluegrass idiom doesn’t sound like a recipe for top-quality entertainment… but that’s exactly what it turned out to be.

For one thing, the crowd absolutely loved them from the moment they strode on-stage at about twenty past eight, with no support act. There was a real mix of greying beardie types who had brought their wives along and younger folk, many – but by no means all – evidently American. I’m a bit stumped to explain how OCMS have drummed up such popularity – perhaps a lot of people who saw them on the Welch tour took to them, as I did – but it’s good to see.

For another, the faster bluegrass songs can put across a hell of a lot of energy. Granted, musically they all sound more or less the same, with frantic fiddle and banjo providing a treble-heavy rhythm. One of OCMS’s virtues, however, is that they sing high-quality songs: when the lyrics kick in, usually delivered with tasty two and three part harmonies, the songs distinguish themselves from one another. The band are also able to hold the crowd’s attention during the many downbeat, dustbowl songs they peddle; some taken from old blues players, some original.

After an interlude, they rip into Tell It To Me, and towards the end of the second part of the set unleash the other highlight of their debut album, Wagon Wheel. After this – a ginormous singalong – the crowd bays for more after every song. This extends to two encores, the second evidently unexpected even for the band, as the house lights briefly come on before they return to the stage. The show is kept going admirably by the fiddle-player who looks alarmingly like John Barrowman, and who does a lot of the talking. All in all, a pretty magic show on “a rainy night in London town”.

They’ve got no regrets

Line-up changes can be awkward for any band. but when the band in question hangs its appeal on three joint frontwomen and two leave in one go, it’s particularly dicey. But that’s the situation with The Pipettes: Rosie has left to work solo, reportedly after getting fed-up with the extensive touring of America the band did last year, while Becki was reportedly kicked out for being a pain in the arse. This means, technically, that none of the original line-up are left: sole surviver Gwenno was herself a replacement, albeit very early in the band’s existence (my first Pipettes show was also hers) – so the group that recorded the first album should, I posit, be called the “classic line-up” rather than the “original” one.

Anyway, what difference, if any, will new Pipettes Ani and Anna make? The question was answered during the band’s residence at the wretched city-centre branch of The Fly; I made it down on Tuesday September 2nd. The basic answer has to be: the dancing is a bit tighter, and the singing a bit less so – net result is that the band remain enormously enjoyable.

The other big difference is in the new material, of which there is buckets: in short, the band seem to have zoomed from 1962 to 1977, and gone substantially disco / pop. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise: Anna is a co-writer of the Sugababes’ forthcoming single and had an electro / dance solo project going before joining the group, as did (and, I think, does) Gwenno, whose sister is… Ani! As well as disco, there is reggae and later Motown thrown into the mix in the new sound: it is recognisably the same band, but the shift is also clear. The new material is all good, but some is downright excellent: song selection is going to be the key to the success or failure of the second album, but they certainly seem to have the material to make it an excellent record.

Old material is also nicely in evidence, alternating with new ones for the first twenty minutes before being relegated to the occasional old favourite: predictably, the old ones – It’s Not Love, Dirty Mind, Pull Shapes, Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me – are the ones that the crowd go mad for, although by the end the newer ones seem capable of whipping up equal enthusiasm. Ani bravely sings Judy pretty faultlessly without any rehearsal at all, ever, while the only time the old material seems to be let down by the new line-up is on Tell Me What You Want, where Anna doesn’t quite cut it on lead vocals. I was surprised to find myself thinking back to how the old line-up used to do it during the old material; it dawns on me I must have seen them quite a lot of times (top-of-the-head count: at least seven).

All told, the show reassured all present that The Pipettes will continue bringing fun, harmonies and polka dots to the masses for a good while yet. Roll on the second album – I dare them to open it with a track called “We Are The Pipettes (Arguably)”. But I’m sure they won’t.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering why my picture is bizarrely split in two halves… I have no idea, that’s just how it came out of my phone.