MIKE DAVIES COLUMN OCTOBER 2025

Fronted by Maggie K De Monde, SCARLET FANTASTIC continue their comeback with From Montreal to Rotherham released next year by Last Night From Glasgow, co-written and produced by John Walters and featuring both him and Basil Gabbidon of Steel Pulse fame. It’s heralded by the first single, a hypnotic, moody, part spoken, electro-clopping cabaret with strings cover of Bowie’s Time from Alladin Sane though whether the line about falling wanking to the floor is more likely to get airplay than it was 52 years ago remains to be seen. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOSKelrE0bA)

KATHERINE PRIDDY gets into an early Halloween mood with new single Matches (Cooking Vinyl), which, the first taste of next year’s  sonically varied and adventurous These Frightening Machines, is set to a building lolloping rhythm with a driving drums battery  and hushed, conspiratorial vocals was, , inspired by the witch trials and, echoing the album’s, sees her reclaiming the voices of the women who have been silenced, persecuted and misunderstood throughout history.  Katherine will play Birmingham Town Hall on May 9.

Reverting to his VILLAGE GREEN MACHINE alias Marc Lemon’s revisited and reworked English Café, about a group of university students about to bid final farewells to one another, knowing realistically they will never see one another again,  a fine piece of 60s jangly folk pop that he says took Dave Davies as its inspiration, though anyone who’s into Vinny Peculiar or Cleaners From Venus  should embrace with open ears. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8z54-a3yp4)

ROB PETERS & THE SLAPDASH COWBOYS have also done a spot of revisiting, releasing a newly recorded single version of the staccato rhythmically  stabbing My Rende-Vous originally from and his first release since 2024’s Dreams album, the psych-freak out section now featuring demented fluttering guitar. He’s launching it with a gig at the Red Lion Folk Club, Kings Heath on Wednesday November 19th along with the expanded Slapdash Cowboys line up of Hannah Brown on drums and vocals, Kate Hall on bass, synth, percussion and vocals and Emma Reading on electric guitar and percussion with special guest Katherine Abbott.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN SEPTEMBER 2025

JOHNSON & FINNEMORE marks the debut duo teaming of Birmingham pedal steel guitar legend Stewart Johnson and Swampmeat Family Band frontman Dan Finnemore for Find A Love That Brings You Home (Gulf Coast) featuring, among others, contributions from Buzzby Bywater on bass, pianist Liam Grundy, fiddler Howard Gregory,  and Stewart’s daughter Hannah,  Julian Littman and Charlie Dore on vocals Johnson providing dobro and guitar alongside pedal steel,  it’s steeped in country but also embraces the blues and touches of 70s Laurel Canyon, opening proceedings with the Hawaiian colours of the fiddle and mandolin arrangement crooned country waltzer Babybird.  The equally country How Many Summers? takes a chugging rhythm as Finnemore sings about shining on everyone and giving your love away until it’s gone, followed by the more desert country soul paranoia and anxiety of Beady Eye. A compact 100 seconds, again with Hawaiian steel colours, the easy swaying How’s The World Treating You is the sole instrumental, staying in a laid-back JJ Cale groove with Ride High where Neil Young echoes seep into the slow shuffle. 

A love song, piano tinkling away, Ear To The Ground is another swayalong, the tone changing with the Johnny Cash cowboy chug of The Gun, a love song too but of a much darker hue, Stewart’s solo plucking out notes like silver bullets while Hannah duel vocals with Dan. It ends with the title track, a two stepping honky tonker with Mariachi brass flavours and percussive clicking.

Doing the rounds is also the documentary, The Many Lives Of Stewart Johnson tracing the man’s illustrious career that, a former army brat, has seen him play all over the world and in styles ranging from rock n roll and blues to bluegrass and country, even playing in  stage productions of Great Balls Of Fire and Jailhouse Rock as well with daughters Hannah and Sophie  in The Toy Hearts and the Hannah in The Broken Hearts.

 

A taster for his next album which charts his experience travelling in Nepal, GEORGE BOOMSMA channels the choppy percussive handclappy style of Stealer’s Wheel for the ‘Pokhara Line’ which,  set during a bus journey from Pokhara to Kathmandu, picks up the story midway from when his travelling companions left and he  continued the journey solo, the song capturing both the excitement of what lies ahead and the underlying uncertainty faced by a now lone traveller. The title refers to one of the world's steepest Zipline which, in Pokhara and over a mile long can reach speeds up 62 miles per hour.(www.georgeboomsma.com)

Basking in the glow of great reviews for his 2018 debut album Santiago, AMIT DATTANI was brought crashing down to earth when he was diagnosed with a degenerative nerve condition and told that, within two years, he would no longer be able to play. Refusing to accept such a  fate,  he learnt an entirely new way of playing and now, seven years on  armed with a custom-built guitar, he defiantly returns with The Wrong Kind Of One which, recorded live with Steph Sanders on drums, again showcases his folk-blues fingerpicking style, mixing songs and instrumentals, it embraces self-penned numbers and traditionals alike.

It opens with the title track’s skittering notes, scampering drums, and extended picked play out which, reminiscent of  Will The Circle Be Unbroken, addresses refugees and the journeys they’ve made to escape violence, hardship, war and destruction only to find themselves  dehumanised and mistreated in the lands where they sought refuge. 

That’s followed by  his take on Make Me Down A Pallet On Your Floor, a traditional blues about homelessness that continues to have resonance in today’s social climate, returning to a theme of resilience and paying attention to your mental health in times of dark days and anxiety with the slow sway of Steady the Boat. The first of three instrumentals, the melodically circling Gathering Acorns was written during covid after watching his young son picking up acorns in the  local park, the childhood theme continuing with the ragtime touches of Golden Days, inspired by their walks to school, singing songs together.

As you might surmise, turning to electric guitar, the steady marching beat Now I Can Play On with its  hints of Richard Thompson is about his new guitar  and being able to continue making music, it getting a second nod in the brief instrumental Tony, referring to both its name and his father’s nickname. The last of the vocal tracks is his  slower tempo  cover of his favourite Dylan song, One Too Many Mornings, , ending with the third instrumental,  bringing blues colours to the traditional gospel hymn Just A Closer Walk With Thee,  a thank you to whatever divine power brought about his prognosis defying living musical resurrection. 

The second taster of the upcoming Live Freaky! Die Freaky!” psych-rockers SOLAR EYES  release Time Waits For No One  (Fierce Panda), a churning, heavy drumming   groove monster that, opening with a sample of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear And Loathing in Los Angeles, is about being stuck in a rot and desperate to get out and live life in the best way possible, Glenn Smyth spitting out “no, no, no, no”.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN AUGUST 2025

A sort of stop gap until next year’s studio album, Songs of Love and War,  CRAIG GOULD & THE NOBLE THIEVES release Live at Beckview Studios, a 6-track EP pairing three new songs with three fan favourites off  their 2023 debut Songs from the Campfire, released in both audio and visual formats.

It kicks off with one of the latter, a near six-minute strum through Out Of The Woods, followed by two of the new numbers.  The trotalong Old Days is a wistful reflection on  getting older and wiser, disembarking from  the “amber sea” as the narrator  tells how he “ danced on bars and under stars” but also “slept in parks and back of cars/Been awoke by law/Been shown the door”. It’s a realisation that “I’m not without knowing, had to change my ways before I die”  and that “I’ll never go/That way again”. Even so, while “Time, on my face is showing” there’s a sense of pride that “I’ve lived a life and not a lie”. The twangier country chug My Front Porch Neighbourhood is also reflective, looking back on a life looking for direction and a purpose (“all us kids born back in ’83/Made to pick a career at 15/Didn’t know what the hell we wanna be”) with a string of  dead end jobs in the rearview mirror (I’ve been a builder, building things I’ve never built/Just watch YouTube videos that’s my skill/Attended lanes, fixed frames and tendered bars/I worked in science laboratories and condom packing factories/Been a ticketing guru, railroad big-shoe, crocodile making man/I met the queen and the duke, and delivered fresh fruit, to the 100s locked away/Dressed in style, for a while, swept cinema aisles, and fanned the flames of political game/Once a gold crown shaping, furniture creating, bin-man extraordinaire”), with music the rock (“Singing songs of love on our front porch neighbourhood”) even if “me and a guitar seems a world too far for philosophy to comprehend”, as he notes “ It worries me how you judge by employee/

When you can celebrate the songs that we sing”.

The two other Campfire tracks, Dreamers, from whence the band name comes, and the  jaunty country romper Burned, sandwich the melancholic deep twang slow waltzer Red River, where Rosie Faith steps into the spotlight, a love song (“just believe me/Just run away with me!/Never let go, and run away/The dance never ending”) with Neil Young undertones.  Fully capturing the fire and passion of the live shows, this radiates the band’s power and confidence, and cranks anticipation for the album to the max.

Following on from last year’s debut album,  Old Tall Stories,  KINGS HEATHENS  - Evan C Ritchie and David Fisher, return with  Of Wind and Tide, another collection of self-penned  shanty and traditional folk, many numbers inspired by their trips to Cornwall  

Fisher leads off, Ritchie on bouzouki, with  the swayalong stomp Pilgrim Song,  a tribute to all who undertake pilgrimages, be  they of a religious nature or Harry Potter fans paying their respects to Dobby the House-Elf at the Freshwater Shrine in Pembrokeshire    as he sings “So here's to the traveller, the ones who set out/To find and discover what life's all about /Here's to the wanderers, the waifs and the strays/And those who hold on to the old-fashioned ways”.

 Swapping vocals,  Ritchie’s first is Shantyman, a song in celebration of those who lead shipboard singing “to lift your spirits/And sometimes to make the capstan go” sung in the person of a master of his trade and with a definite  wink in his eye as the crew go about their work  (“You might think a shantyman would never strain his arms/But I'll tell you, they get heavy, boys, when I'm playing this guitar/So save it with your envy, there's a/Reason it looks like I'm living high/While you haul the ropes on by”).

The first of five traditionals,  fuelled by urgent banjo, guitar and harmonica, Fisher sings Blue Cockade, the version here inspired by  Frank Blair’s uptempo interpretation, while Ritchie takes charge of  the sturdy strummed swayalong Maid on the Shore, the arrangement borrowed from the iconic Stan Rogers. It’s back to originals with Fisher on banjo and Ritchie on slide for his self-penned  Liskeard Lights about an old salt who’s married the barmaid and settled down, his wife wise enough to give him space to go to sea when he feels the need, but always looking to return to see the lights of the title, even if Ritchie never has.

Written some years back, Fisher’s banjo bouncy Down By the River is, as you might guess, about the serenity of sitting on the riverbank (in Worcestershire here) and watching the world go by, then, sung unaccompanied with Ritchie on lead,   Song of the Western Men is the unofficial Cornish national anthem, a stirring patriotic number with  lyrics from a poem by Robert Stephen Hawker published in 1826 and set to music in 1861 by Louisa T Clare.

Another setting of a poem, this time by William Wilfred Campbell to a tune by  Fisher  who sings lead while Ritchie provides slide and whistling, the lightly fingerpicked bucolic domestic bliss Margery (“The cattle are housed in shed and byre/While singeth the kettle on the fire”) was originally titled Canadian Folksong with Campbell, like Rogers, hailing from Ontario.

 Being inspired by Cornwall, there’s inevitably  song about smuggling, this, titled for the cove in west Cornwall,  being Ritchie’s Lamorna, the story of a man who finds escape from life’s oppression (“The price of grain is rising again/But no compensation for the hardworking men”) through smuggling and  partially inspired by the history of the Carters of Prussia Cove. 

There’s three further traditionals, first up, Ritchie on lead with additional vocals by Pete ‘Howlin’ Bush’ Smith, being the evergreen tale of a cannonball at sea tragedy Mrs McGrath, the second is the album’s sole instrumental Ievan Polkka/Newlyn Reel which mixes the Finnish former with the klezmer-like Cornish latter, while it all rounds off with the acapella Padstow Farewell Shanty.  The remaining track, and arguably the album standout, is Fisher’s banjo-dappled  tongue in cheek Generic Folk Song which, as you might gather, takes the piss out of trad folk cliches with May morn walking, false hearted pretty maids and a gallows (“And the sad end to this sorry tale/Is that everybody died”) as he invites “Come sing along with me/With a fol-a-lol-a-lol and a too-rye-aye/And without the copyright fee”.   Definitely one to haul away.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN JULY 2025

Editors frontman TOM SMITH  makes his solo debut with Lights Of New York City (Play It Again Sam) which, opening and closing with a greasy late night, neon-washed sax, is a slow-paced introspective ballad recalling “Losing ourselves in the East side cliff/

Caramel sunset nothing to care/Falling into fairground, sugar on the air” and a lament for the fleetingness of youth (“I wanna run those hotel corridors again/That spill out to a skyline, bloated by the rain/A cold night air meets steam from a train/Hear them gone, just a subway train/Speaking your name…it's such a pity/We can't meet again when we were young/It's right there in your hand, and then it's gone”).

Produced by and featuring Dan Whitehouse and Peter Millson with Harriet Harkum on backing vocals, Wolverhampton’s ANGELLA CORRINA releases her second EP, Nature’s End, the jaunty, poppily acoustic  title track inspired by a 2025-set dystopian 1986 novel by  Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka that proved remarkably prophetic in its narrative of ecological disasters, poverty, hunger, society collapse and the extremes of politics, the track concluding that “the elite shall inherit the earth”.

The thinly veiled sarcasm of Safe Brown Token draws on her personal experiences while working as a ‘diversity hire’, expected to be   a model employee and not  challenge the discrimination she encountered, the chorus with its rallying cry to  ‘sing our songs’ and ‘dance our dances’, inspired by both Diversity’s dance performance about the death of George Floyd  and the resulting flood of complaints and Billie Holiday classic protest song Strange Fruit.

Personal experience also informs the echoey keyboards-backed The Assimilation Game which relates how, as an ethnic minority employee unsure of her own identity, workplace bullying and racism had a devastating effect on her mental health as she fought to find her authentic self. Strummed on guitar, Propaganda & Conspiracy Theories looks back to the COVID pandemic and how some people were ready to follow whatever regulations the government drew up without question while others were up in arms about the idea of wearing masks and social distancing, and the inevitable conspiracy theories that ensued;  basically, it’s about assessing the evidence and making up your own mind. Finally, there’s A Song For Humanity, a recognition of  the primal urge to come together through the unity of song and music as a way to understand others and ourselves and become one voice in a time of division.

John Napier wears a variety of musical hats, a folksy singer-songwriter, purveyor of Italo Disco as Real Velour and, sporting Kneecap-like balaclavas,  alongside bassist Andy Kearney and drummer Olly Forrester,  one third of New Wave outfit  THE LINE MANAGERS. The trio’s new EP, The New Normality, is a cocktail of PiL, The Clash, The Pistols and Big Special, the echoing, chimed guitar, slow, spoken title track (“resignation disguised as optimism”) getting things going,   followed by a new wave rework his previously folksy Not Your Enemy. There’s a similar thundering propulsive drums and scratchy guitars urgency to the staccato  Kings, a studio version of a Claptrap live track released in January, with its world turned upside down lyric (“It's not our fault the culture changed/No one told us no one explained/We weren't ready to live this way/Some say we got what we deserved/Others told us it could be worse/But indifference is what really hurts”), ending with a live version of the Big Special-like bench-pressing drums, snarly guitar and spat out spoken vocals of This Is Not A Showcase. They fully deserve to follow in Hickling and  Moloney’s footsteps into  national recognition.

From Lichfield, JAYLER are a blues rock quartet of 19-year-olds with a clear hard-on for  Zeppelin, right down to frontman James Bartholomew’s hair and trousers and  Tyler Arrowsmith’s Page guitar licks and posturings. They do it well, however, and new single Riverboat Queen, recorded at Vada Studios in Birmingham, is a solid 70s riff belter complete with obligatory guitar solo breakdown. With an EP already under their belt, hopefully a debut album should be along sometime next year.

 

In 2018, AMIT DATTANI, acclaimed for his fingerpicking guitar work, was diagnosed with a degenerative nerve condition and the prognosis that at best he had  two more years of playing guitar before his hands would no longer cooperate. He refused to be defined by his condition. Seven years and much perseverance later,  armed with a custom-built guitar and an adaptation in his playing style, he returns in splendid vocal form with ‘Wrong Kind Of One’, the sprightly and intricately fingerpicked (showcased on a lengthy play-out) title track of his forthcoming album, which, with a melody that I suspect deliberately recalls ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’, addresses refugees who have had to make terrible sacrifices and journeys to escape violence, hardship, war and destruction (“Where’s my home now, dust and rubble”) , only to find themselves  dehumanised, left aside and mistreated (“they say I’m, I’m unwelcome, and they turn out all the lights…I will stay here, in the shadows/I’m the wrong kind of one”)  in the lands where they sought refuge.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN JUNE 2025

 

Having reviewed tracks by former Quads members Josh and Terry (Johnny) Jones, I’m completing the siblings set by drawing your attention to lead guitarist COLIN (Jack) JONES who has several numbers up on YouTube (www.youtube.com/@colinjones9700).  As If (You Can) is a midtempo West Coastish ballad with a lilting melody, I Think I’ve Learnt My Lesson a more driving rock number with his distinctive chiming guitar making its presence felt while the climate change themed  Scared! is a moodier slow chug with samples from two Greta Thumberg speeches. The Quads have become something of a cult, but the three brothers deserve to be also feted for their current music too.

Celebrating the first anniversary of his The Promise Of Spring breakthrough album, GEORGE BOOMSMA has now released The Promise Of Spring Live recorded at two shows at the  Green Note and The Regal Theatre in Tenbury Wells backed by Will Looms and electric guitar, bassist Bart Debney Davies  and drummer Ally McDougal to bring a much fuller (listen to the percussive textures of Open Curtain) and at times, as on Johnny Walker Guy, rocking out sound.  As well as all the songs from the album (How High The Mountain having been revisited from his self-titled 2016 album) save for Fallen, there’s also live recordings of two others,  the ironic Streets Paved With Gold from 2017’s sophomore  Do Something With The Night and the twangy chugging autobiographical My 60s Weekend, a brand new number that lays the ground for where the next album’s direction might lie. His musical development over the albums comparable to that of Chris Cleverley, his standing should follow a similar path.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN MAY 2025

Longtime followers of the Brum music scene will have fond memories of THE QUADS, formed by brothers Josh, Jack (Colin) and drummer Johnny (Terry Jones) with bassist Jim Doherty,  whose 1979 Big Bear debut single There Must Be Thousands’ became a Peel favourite (he declared it his single of the decade) and a minor hit, reaching 66. Sadly, none of the subsequent releases fared as well, but they were all impressive and distinctive New Wave numbers, especially characterized by the unique echoey guitar sound of  ‘Jack’ Jones the likes of which I’ve never hear since.

After four further singles, they eventually called it a day in the mid 80s following Doherty’s departure, briefly reforming in the 90s and recording a  series of tracks for Don Arden that were never released.

However, I learn they are in fact actually available via  Bandcamp (https://joshjonesnz.bandcamp.com/album/the-quads-ep) where they surfaced in 2019 as The Quads EP, four tracks that open with the hazy ballad It Will Be Alright that builds to a slightly psychedelic feel. The spacey narcotic Feel The Need For More follows along with the equally cosmic almost proto Stone Roses vibe of  the instrumental  Radically Free and finally the similarly inclined fuzz and feedback Night Into Day.

They’re posted via Josh’s New Zealand site where he now lives in Auckland  as an Anglican priest in which capacity he’s released Songs Of Grace, Hope & Lament which, as you might imagine, are deeply rooted in his beliefs and faith and that, however we understand the concept of  'God',  most   have a sense of the sacred and the divine.  There’s six tracks, built around guitar, drums and keyboards and ample evidence that his voice has lost none of its character or power and he can still knock out an infectious melody.  This Is The Day is a celebration of Christ’s birth,  with the strummed and simply picked Let Your Kingdom Be and its call for a better world,  the softly puttering bluesy folk Lord, Giver Of This Day while piano ballad I Am In Christ is pretty much a self-explanatory devotion.

Featuring violin and delicately played acoustic guitar and understated drums, Salt is a stunning near six-minute, slowly building epic while it closes with the anthemic, guitar chiming and very Quads-like (and early Psychedelic Furs) Lost In Awe And Wonder that should take hold of your whatever your faith may be.

What prompted these discovers was reconnecting with Terry John Jones who now lives in Stratford, where for six years  he served as a Town Host at the Stratford Business Improvement District  supporting local busker, and is now reviving his own music career. Last year he released the acoustic ballad You Are The Love Of My Life featuring Torie Rushton  on cello and Gracie Shepherd on violin,  and follows up now with You Don’t Believe that, as Josh has observed, while a new song, might have written a whole different story for The Quads had it been the follow up to Thousands. 

It’s about time the band were accorded the respect and audiences they’ve always deserved and perhaps Terry’s re-emergence might just be a spark that lights the flame. Now, what’s Jack up to?

 

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN APRIL 2025

Two years on from Walk In Shadow, CERI JUSTICE returns with the self-released Cut Loose,  eleven tracks that, written by Justice and Paul Johnson (who plays guitar, mandolin, bass, keys and drums), and musically variously aided and abetted by guitarist  Tony Kelsey, steel player DB Smith  and   Marion Fleetwood on strings, ably showcase her voice and stylistic range, from swaggering rock to blues and country. It kicks off in twangy style with the swaggering country inflected, chorus catchy  Show Me What You’re Made Of, slowing down for the steel-stained and steady drum patterned Americana-balladry Looking For A Lover, another with dramatic big chords.

Still with country roots, Got This Feeling has a poppier feel to its tumbling chords, Fleetwood’s violin bringing mournful notes to the folksier sound of the spare, hypnotic swayer  Fragments (Jeannie’s Escape) before Just A Fever taps into her bluesier rock groove with both Kelsey’s growling electric lead guitar and angsty acoustic, heavy drums, wailing fiddle and a steady steamrollering ebb and flow rhythm.

Switching the mood, Miss U Mantra is founded on fingerpicked guitar before the electrics and heavy drums roll in and even a 60s psychedelic blues touch. Offering her quieter side, Love’s Let Me Down is an acoustic guitar, steel-stroked slow swayer that gradually builds into a soaring crescendo.

Opening with fingerpicked acoustic, bluesy country and a trace of Texas heat are the threads bringing the organ underpinned Sometimes I Wonder together before the title track brings her back to urgent blues and metal rock that melds Quatro, Raitt, Elles Bailey and Joanne Shaw-Taylor. There more big noise blues riffs and chords for the penultimate, handclapping power-burning All In My Dreams the  album ending with the near six-minute The 21^st  Day, a cinematic opening sweep giving way to resonant single picked guitar note and a feverish desert blues mood to the slow, steady snaking voodoo queen rhythm before it fades away into the trembling distance. There is, though, a bonus track, an inspired slow and acoustic cover the Eddie & The Hot Rods classic Do Anything You Wanna Do. As indeed she can.  Exuding a fierce confidence to match the heat in the music, to quote the Kenny Loggins classic the title evokes, it’s time for her to tear up this town and beyond.

When not playing his trade as an acoustic contemporary folk singer-songwriter, John Napier has a parallel musical identity as  frontman for Big Special-like (with Kneecap hood) punk-rap outfit THE LINE MANAGERS alongside bassist Andy Kearney and drummer Olly Forrester,  new single The Black Post  a rant against the stagnation of post-millennial culture set to a relentless punk, garage rock groove while If' is  a spoken word call-to-arms set to angular punk funk. (www.thelinemanagers.bandcamp.com/album/the-black-post