MIKE DAVIES COLUMN FEBRUARY 2022

ROBERT LANE makes his first appearance of the year with the self-released lazily strummed, dreamily McCartneyesque love song ‘Sick Of Me’,  the slightly Latin-flavour colours behind the walking percussion beat adding to the romantic miasma. www.robertlanemusic.com).

SWIM DEEP are also in soft tones mood for the equally dreamy, but more cosmic and catchy, The World’s Unluckiest Guy (Chess Club), the first taster from their upcoming EP, Familiarise Yourself With Your Closest Exit, the tempo gathering as the drums kick in and the keyboards swirl around Austin Williams' vocals as they interweave with harmonies from Australian singer-songwriter Hatchie. The EP will also feature guest female singers on the other tracks, including Phoebe Green for On The Floor.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN JANUARY 2022

Following on from her debut single, High On Hope, Warwick-based BIMM graduate  JULIANNE OC, the daughter from a family of Birmingham funeral directors,  releases her full album, White Camelia (Ingenius Music), a collection of melancholic, at times ethereal acoustic  folk mingled with dreamy electronica.  It opens with the slow-paced, wintry feel of Wait Till Dawn  proceeding into the similarly atmospheric melting icicles ambience of Eden where her airy voice soars to the clouds over keyboards and percussive clicks. 

The spare acoustic strum of From Elle keeps the mood whispery, building to a muted tinkled keyboards finale fade then, following the single, its  upbeat tempo remains with the acoustic pulsing notes and shimmering bells of Traces before ending with the handclaps static,  Spanish guitar and pulsing electronics bedrock to the intoxicating balladeering Ringadingding with her soaring vocals taking on a choral quality and Kate Bush meets Morricone colours  and, finally the five minute title track itself, again evoking a wintry yet warming soundscape  with her trilling crystal waters vocals and  dreamy acoustic music box pirouette as it builds to a muted cacophony. Like the flower, this is an early blossoming with a heady musical scent that promises to linger for months to come.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN DECEMBER 2021

And to see out the year, HARRY JORDAN blasts out a storm with Outlaw, a sleazy growling rockabilly guitar riff grinding blues about dancing with the devil that comes with the addition of Hell In High Heels and the relatively more sedate but still fist to the face Death Card. 

LIONS OF DISSENT continue to go from strength to strength, conjuring thoughts perhaps of  Sisters of Mercy with the loose-limbed bass, electronics and goth-shrouded motorik of Torch, a song they’ve just released to their social media pages, as they sing “We're down on our knees like beggars in a goldmine”. 

And, finally, MATT RYDER gets into electronica for his Escape EP, a six-tracker featuring the skittering beats of Before I Go, the ebb and flow echoey sung 6am, Awake, Run, Lips and the title track, all six flowing fluidly together into an extended chill miasma.

RECORD REVIEWS NOVEMBER 2021

 

Over The Moon

Chinook Waltz (Borealis)

Cowboy country from Canada, Over The Moon are Alberta duo Suzanne Levesque and Craig Bignell, the title being their home studio and, augmented by assorted guest players,  the music being a throwback to old school bluegrass and Western swing. Featuring fiddle and mandolin by Bruce Hoffman, it opens with the self-penned ‘Lonesome Bluebird’, a folksy bittersweet number about having dreams but never having the courage to stretch your wings.

It’s followed by the first of four covers, Denis Keldie on accordion and Levesque singing lead on Ian Tyson’s evergreen ‘Someday Soon’, Tyson’s late sideman Mel Wilson providing the impetus for the second, a stripped down, fingerpicked  take on the Everly’s ‘Kentucky’, a number he’d  always urged them to learn, with Bignell up front and Hoffman on dobro.

The third takes them back to the late 1930s giving a  cowboy touch to Harry Roy’s big band swing number, ‘They Can’t Black Out The Moon’, a whimsical number about lovers making use of the moonlight during wartime blackout, a harmonising duet with embellishments from clarinet, accordion, upright bass and lap steel. Then, completing this clutch of covers, it shifts to Texicali flavours with Levesque on lead and bass for Buddy and Julie Miller ballad ‘I Can’t Get Over You’, Joshua Braca from  Grammy winners The Texmaniacs  providing the signature Tejano accordion alongside pedal steel, piano and nylon string guitar. 

Returning to their own material, the gently jogging ‘John Ware’ relates the story of an Alberta legend, the Black Cowboy who, born a slave in Tennessee, was hired for a cattle drive to Alberta and ended up marrying a Calgary girl and staying, becoming renowned for his horsemanship and an influential figure in the ranching industry.

Bergin’s back in the saddle for another swing style number with the whimsical ‘I’m Not Cool’, the narrator bemoaning how  nobody pays him any attention, but that heads start to turn when he takes up with a girl with the face of an angel and a smile to light the darkest night.  The last of the covers begins the final stretch with Bergin singing lead on another from the Ian and Sylvia Tyson catalogue, albeit written by Steve Gillette and  Tom Campbell, Levesque playing arco bass, Aaron Young on baritone acoustic and again featuring mandolin and fiddle on a lovely interpretation of ‘Darcy Farrow’ (taken at a slower pace than the Matthews Southern Comfort version).

Sung by Levesque, ‘When She Rides’ tells of a cowboy’s daughter and celebrates the bond between girls and horses and the freedom of riding away your heartaches, a bond not broken when she leaves for college and he waits for her return. And, finally, bookended by crickets chirping, there’s the five minute title track duet, an evocation of night at their ranch in the foothills,  the deer in the fields,  the dog curled up, a campfire, the coyotes howling,  the song of the birds and the peace and contentment they’ve found together. 

It doesn’t push any envelopes or break down any walls, but it’s a perfectly delightful listen that should see Over The Moon enjoying a well-deserved place in the sun.

Mike Davies

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN NOVEMBER 2021

LIONS OF DISSENT return with a new single, the distant vocals, loping Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! having a definite Iggy Pop Passenger feel coupled with In-Flight which, with its discordant opening,  effects coloured driving riff and echoey vocals is more of a Lennon psych-blues persuasion. It’s completed with a solid, moody live version of the lead track.

Singer-songwriter SHOSHANNA follows up her jazzy Unapologetic with a more soulful R&B groove on the laidback Sunflower Forest, offering a warm glow as the colder, darker nights set in.

Cherry Red have a stupendous 30CD collection of local rock acts from the late 60s/early 70s gathered together as Once Upon A Time In The West Midlands: The Bostin’ Sounds Of Brumrock  (1966-1974) tracing the evolution and development of that scene as, inspired by The Move, musicians embraced mod pop, psychedelia, blues, progressive rock, glam-rock and heavy metal. The usual suspects are obviously included, among them The Move, The Moody Blues, The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, The Idle Race, Slade, The Electric Light Orchestra, and Judas Priest, but there’s also a wealth of obscure or forgotten names as well as unearthing some rare recordings.

There’s a handful of the titles you might expect, among them I Can Hear The Grass Grow (The Move), Denny Laine’s Say Don’t Mind, No Face No Name No Number (Traffic), Mr Armageddon (Locomotive), Imposters Of Life’s Magazine (The Idle Race), Ball Park Incident (Wizzard) and Roll Over Beethoven (ELO), but otherwise these are likely to be things you’ve never heard, including some by the top names. 

With 69 tracks, I’m not going through them all, but of the familiar artists I should mention lesser known releases Life’s Not Life, the final single from The Moody Blues prior to Denny Laine leaving (taken from an unreleased album); Rocka Rolla the debut single from Judas Priest after Rob Halford joined; Brown Girl off Steve Gibbons’s 1971 solo debut album (there’s an Uglys track too);  Moonshine from the post Stevie Winwood incarnation of The Spencer Davis Group; When The Train Comes back off the debut Chicken Shack album featuring Christine Perfect;  Climax Blues Band with Like Uncle Charlie and the terrific One Way Hotel from Play It Loud, the first album by Slade under their new name and sporting a pre-glam bovver boys look (as well as an extended version of Security an almost never heard track by The N’Betweens. Former Move member Ace Kefford even gets two tracks, under his own name and as the Ace Kefford Stand (with Cozy Powell) with the hitherto unreleased Daughter Of The Sun.

Elsewhere, there’s also lesser known offerings from names that never quite achieved the same level of success, such as Trapeze, Deep Feeling (who featured  Jim  Capaldi and Luther Grosvenor), Dave Morgan (who replaced Dave Pegg in The Uglys), harmony pop outfit The Californians (with their version of the hit by fellow Brummies The Fortunes, You’ve Got Your Troubles) and the similarly inclined The Montanas. There’s even a welcome inclusion of cult progressive outfit Bachdenkel with Donna plus the ultra obscure An Apple A Day by their earlier – and distinctly very different bouncy beat pop sounding- incarnation as The U-Know Who.

The real collector delights though come from names I suspect will be unknown to even diehard devotees of the era. Disc one kicks it all of with the freakbeat I Must Be Mad by Craig (though the opening threatens to turn into the Bonanza theme)  featuring 15-year-old drummer Carl Palmer and voted by The Observer as second only to Pink Floyd's Arnold Layne as the best psychedelic single of the 1960s, two of the band going on to form Galliard, also represented here with the far folksier psychedelia of A Modern Day Fairytale. Palmer’s not the only formative rock star to be found in their more youthful days. The unimaginatively named The Doc Thomas Group were a Hereford R&B outfit whose line-up included future Mott The Hoople alumni Mick Ralphs and Pete ‘Overand’ Watts, here with their cover of Fontella Bass hit Rescue Me. 

From Shard End came The Bobcats, their career never extending beyond the one single featured here, the R&B pop of Let Me Get By  which never lived up to their assertion they were “the new generation”. Elsewhere on Disc One you’ll find West Brom’s The Extreem whose On The Beach was released on the cult Strike label; Deram signings Double Feature with Bob Lamb on drums covering Cat Stevens’s Baby Get Your Head Screwed On; formed in Erdington, Capitol Systems were fronted by Bob Catley, later of Magnum fame, their hitherto unreleased On Time a particularly strong number; having enjoyed success with things like He’s In Town and Poor Man’s Son, The Rockin’ Berries were on their way out by the time they recorded Yellow Rainbow, co-penned by Graham Nash, the track never getting a release; Young Blood (Don’t Leave Me In The Dark) was another outfit with Cozy Powell on drums; again previously unissued, Ideal Milk were basically a Cream tribute band, hence their  cover of NSU; also seeing the light of day for the first time, the demo of I Know What Her Name Is offers a handclappy goodtime number with Tremeloes echoes by Simon’s Secrets, a Stourport outfit whose singer Cliff Ward later found fame as Clifford T Ward; Cherrywood Green is named for an area of Bilston from whence came Just William, pseudonym side project from their day job as Herbie’s People; hailing from Wolverhampton, Giorgio & Marco’s Men offer the R&B Baby I Need You, the band going on to become The Sad and record cult classic It Ain’t Easy; which leaves the psychedelic organ-driven Yellow Cave Woman by Velvet Fogg.

Moving to Disc Two, you’ll find further forgotten gems such as Like A Tear by psychedelic outfit World Of Oz, perhaps better known for should have been hits Willows Harp, The Muffin Man and King Croesus;  The Exceptions (Don’t Torture Your Mind) featuring Dave Pegg with tambourine courtesy Robert Plant; Walsall’s Jardine with the previously unreleased gloom rock Masochists Of Strangulation (the title might have had something to do with that); former Deep Feeling man Gordon Jackson with the Tim Buckley-influenced Me And My Dog featuring Robbie Blunt on sitar; Cinnamon Quill with the organ-based R&B of Candy; clearly influenced by The Small Faces, Imagination was a Revolver B-side; still featuring Paradox (Imagination) was the new but no more successful name for Capitol Systems; a spin off from World Of Oz and sounding like Robin Gibb fronting  Procol Harum,  Kansas Hook are represented here by a cover of an abruptly fading Dance In The Smoke, better known via Argent; psychedelic blues rock outfit Hard Meat were once big hopes for Warners,  Ballad of Marmalade Emma and Teddy Grimes a lighter and country blues sound than the band name suggested; The Ghost (initially The Holy Ghost evolved from the ashes of Velvet Fogg, but the urgent, clattering When You’re Dead  failed to spook anyone’s interest; Cathedral turned down an offer of management from Don Arden, hence perhaps why The Hard Way never progressed beyond the acetate version included here.  The disc also features offerings from the slightly better known likes of Trapeze, Bakerloo (featuring ‘Clem’ Clempson and initially The Bakerloo Blues line with the only instrumental, Big Bear Ffolly, a nod to Jim Simpson), Medicine Head (the raw single version of His Guiding Hand), and, a band that really should have made it,  Tea & Symphony (Boredom), ending with Big Bertha (the remains of the Ace Kefford Stand after he quit) making a decent fist of Time Of The Season.

And so to Disc 3 which kicks off with Penny Farthing signings Fable and a cover of The Honeybus song She Said Yes, proceeding through the country tinted Lamp Lighter Man by (Mike) Sheridan & (Rick) Price, two stalwarts of the Birmingham scene; We’re Gonna Change All This, an unreleased demo by Fred’s Box featuring Bob Catley and Dave Morgan (who  also has his own  spooked protest folk Ill Wind included); progressive rock trio Luv Machine; Salamander (a psych folk pop mutation of Revolver with People from their ill-conceived concept album The Ten Commandments); Ptolomy Psycon (a bunch of students from Wrekin College, fuzzed folk blues swayer Shadow Bright from their limited edition and ultra ultra rare  10” Loose Capacitor; Cannock outfit Mail with their Move cover Omnibus; the previously unreleased Dishearted and Disillusioned by Possessed featuring Band of Joy co-founder Vernon Pereira; Fairfield Ski (featuring Nigel Wright from Top 40 hitmakers The Cheetahs with the glam-flavoured Circus); regular Radio One sessioners Ironbridge (from guess where) with  their George Harrison guitar sound; and Bedlam, a heavy blues outfit featuring Dave Ball and Cozy Powell from Big Bertha. 

Also to be found, are tracks by bigger luminaries Roy Wood (Dear Elaine), Jim Capaldi (Eve), Selly Oak’s Jimmy Powell (growly German B-side Talking Progressive Blues) and, rounding it all off in appropriate manner, Blackfoot Sue with the stomping Slade-like boogie Bye Bye Birmingham. Licensing issues means there’s no Sabbath, Plant or Froggatt with The Fortunes, The Applejacks, The Renegades (massive in Finland), Small Heath spawned  The Ivy League  and Finders Keepers also disappointingly  absent, while nitpickers will also cite Danny King and The Dukes, Denny and the Diplomats, Carl Wayne and the Vikings and Gerry Levene and the Avengers; however, featuring well-researched notes by David Wells, this is still an indispensable addition to anyone with an interest in the formative history of Birmingham’s rock n roll.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN OCTOBER 2021

Producer, songwriter, singer, engineer, and quizmaster of this parish, ROB PETERS has released his first solo album in 15 years, albeit greatly aided and abetted by Dermot ‘Dog’ Walker on electric guitars, the tracks recorded over recent years in an assortment of studios. Titled The Moon That Thought It Was The Sun (Wafer Thin), it bears his familiar Lennon influences, opening with the echoey strum of When We Fall harking to late 60s progressive folk and from whence the title comes and a song about perhaps how limitations or circumstances prevent us achieving our aspirations (“The moon that thought it was the sun/So wanted to shine on everyone/But it was so dark it could not dee far/and lost its way amongst the stars”).

Alive, one of my favourite tracks,  is another strum, slower,  here with a slight waltztime melody, a reflective, plaintively sung love song about standing by him despite his screw ups  (“punctured by idiocy I fall down again … all that I’ve promised you will be there in time… all that we sacrificed will haunt us for the rest of our lives/But you and your persistence has kept us alive”).

The musical mood shifts to take in medieval colours for another stand out, the 6os (and,  slightly Bowie) psychedelic  folk shaded Madam Misery, an old Peters and Dog number guessingly about bullying those who are different or with mental health issues (“mercurial and agile, they took the piss when he was fragile”),  with its woodwind simulating keyboard notes and catchy chorus. A shuffling jazzy blues groove underpins Suse Loves Cooking, a relationship in crisis number (“what has happened to our heart? We were lost in love now we’re drifting far apart”) because “You’re not listening, you only see things your own way”, but looking to try and work it out. 

It’s back to70s  progressive psychfolk territory for tale of The Bearer Of The Poisoned Chalice (Part One: Descent From The Mountain), another Peters and Dog number,  with its pulsing distorted guitars  and which, telling of a sorceress “who swept down from the mountain” and “fell upon the village/Like an ancient curse” so that “All children later born were strangers to their kin/The adults withered from within”.

Taking a lazing blues lope  with Lennon/Oasis tones, Scapegoat delves into New Testament territory (“leave us with your sorrow but don’t desert us in our hour of blue/Believe us when we tell you that the mystery of this wilderness is you”) with its chorus of “when he comes from back from the darkness he will shine with the stars up above”.

Another infectious folksy strum with a singalong chorus, Long Island, Long Island is  a slow shanty call for emotional salvation (“you were my only hope when lost at sea”), followed by A Little Box Of Forgetfulness, a  bluesier introspective reflection of getting older (“I was born after the war, then spent my youth lost in the Sixties… Older I took my time to wander/Long hair and drugs were all the rage/Playing music was an answer/I felt that I had come of age...these days…my hair is long once more but greying”) with its nod to current climes (“we live in stranger days than ever/We sing this song to stay alive”).

Given the notes of disillusion, disappointment, despair and desperation that inform several of the songs, a swaying strum heads to a close with hope in the vanguard to take A Leap Of Faith  on the wings of love and friendship (“I will walk the Earth if you want me to/I will never leave you ‘cos you’re my soul/I will hold you in your darkest hour …keep me in your thoughts ‘though we’re far apart/I’ll forever me there by your side/I will be the one who halts the tide”), ending with Inside Out,  John McQueen on double bass and wurlitzer-like sway as the ripples of time wash up memories and whatever the distance in years or miles “Here in your sigh/We’re entwined/And in my mind/There is treasure inside/For us to find”. Shine on.

Originally one of Birmingham’s great rock hopes of the 80s, DAWN AFTER DARK released three EPs on the nigh legendary Chapter 22 label before imploding in 1991.  In 2019, however, they were approached to see if they’d consider getting back together to open for reformed former fellow touring outfit Balaam and The Angel. Such was the response that Chapter 2 owner  Dean Brown resigned them and now, with founding members drummer Tony Henderson and singer Howard Johnson alongside new recruits Ollie on lead, Russ Frame on rhythm and bassist Drew Gallon, they’ve released their first music in 32 years, a new updated version of Maximum Overdrive originally produced by AC/DC guitarist Stevie Young, and the all new heads down, hard rocking riff driven Nothing Can Fulfil Me (Without Your Love), sounding like they’ve never been away. A long belated debut album, New Dawn Rising, will be released in December.

Having released her debut single in mid-2020, GABY KETTLE finally has a follow-up with Jamaica (GK Records), an assured slice of jazzy soul that starts of slow before hitting its slinky, prowling  piano backed funky groove as she sings about “standing in Jamaica wearing no make up”.  Potentially of Knight and Mvula levels, someone should invest in putting an album together.

You should be familiar with the name JACK RUBINACCI from his six albums, most specifically the first two, 2008 debut  The Boys at Twilight and follow-up The Opal Tree. What you might not know is that the Anglo-Italian singer-songwriter was prominent on the Birmingham scene  in the 90s as part of Honeyman. Now based in Norway, he’s just published Songs & Stories, a memoir of his life and career to date with a background to some of his songs that makes great reading, especially for those who were around Birmingham at the time. The good news is he’s also working on a new album, meanwhile the book can be found at Amazon.

MIKE DAVIES COLUMN SEPTEMBER 2021

The spirit and sound of vintage Dexys Midnight Runners is alive and well with That’s Me, (Shoestring) the infectious goodtime bouncy new single from COLIN HALL, not least since it features   trombonist Big Jim Paterson from that classic line-up. Guaranteed to lift the spirits, you can find it at  https://colinhall.bandcamp.com/track/thats-me.

A guitar and drums duo from Wolverhampton, BROOZER tag themselves as Anti Silence Pioneers. Well, they may not be pushing any envelopes, but new single All The Same is solid chug and fizz punky pop with more than a touch of The Only Ones about it. Which is no bad thing. CHARTREUSE are a jazzily soulful four piece with a fondness for fractured time signatures, as made evident on the forthcoming Is It Autumn Already EP, trailed by Things Are Changing Too Quickly and their rather fine recent piano and strings-based single Only You which, sung by frontman Michael,  musically references  Alicia Keys Empire State Of Mind while also calling to mind the early albums of Richard Hawley.

Also of a jazzy persuasion GEORGIA BRAY has been likened to Corrine Bailey Rae and new EP Forget Me Not should certainly get her much wider attention, opening with the Latin bossa nova feel of Dirty Little Secret and sustaining the groove with Over Again, the smoothe horny funkiness of Think About You and, catching slower Girl From Ipanema breeze, the breathy, kittenish-sung Tease Me. Ronnie Scott’s should be on the phone.

It’s hard to ignore the Verve influences evident on Medicate + Alleviate from Wolverhampton’s LIONS OF DISSENT, which clearly has a thing for Bittersweet Symphony, while the narcotic otherworldy influence of Ashcroft can also be heard on Kubrick. A little obvious perhaps, but they weave gold rather than copper from the melting pot.

Described as a love letter to a dying planet, electronica, jazz and avant-pop alchemist ROSIE TEE releases her new EP, Earth, Embrace Me, next month, trailed by the singles Lungs, 99-seconds worth of bleeps, keyboards and cosmic atmospherics, and the pulsing otherworldy Anchors which conjures a cocktail of Bush and Bjork. 

From Rhino & The Ranters to a solo spotlight, R John Webb now surfaces under a new guise as DANDY THE VANDAL who, backed by The Godforsaken Sweethearts, offers debut single Dandy The Vandal, a snapshot of his very own bohemian chic Ziggy Stardust, a steady driving drum beat propelling the rhythm as he parlays Reed, Jagger and Bowie  (and, of course a nod to Bolan’s Dandy In The Underworld) as he sings “They all want some of his rock n roll/He's the trigger to the lock and load”. He may well be.

Drum set a walking beat with the piano joining in for Sinking, EUAN BLACKMAN nicely lives up to the Facebook blurb about writing “introspective and evergreen songs for rainy road trips with wistful gazes”, which sits nicely alongside previous release 24 Hours 7 Days, though it would be interesting to hear him on something with a little more muscle to it.

Featuring Ange Lloyd on vocals, the latest rising talent to be showcased on their releases, produced with customary magic touch by Gavin Monaghan, Wolverhampton’s gloriously retro pop collective CERTAIN perfectly capture the sound of 60s Spector girl pop balladry on Whatever I Do, a song that vividly conjures thoughts of The Ronettes, The Crystals or, on a  UK note, even Cilla Black. Terrific. Bring on an album.