Stewart Lee All Tomorrow's Parties, Part 5: Sunday

I continue my long-winded account of my trip to the last ever All Tomorrow's Parties festival. If you want to you can see previous instalments here, here, here and here.

After my Saturday night perambulations I went to bed, carefully setting an alarm on my phone so that I would be up in time to catch Trembling Bells at 1.00 pm. After a bit I then cleverly decided to turn off my phone to prevent premature awakening from people ringing or texting me (which shows how confused I was, as no one ever rings or texts me). As a result I managed to sleep in till after the Trembling Bells were due to start. Disastro! I thought of throwing on clothes and running down to see at least some of them, given that they were one of the acts I was most looking forward to seeing, but ablutions and breakfast came first. I was still hoping i would catch them playing afterwards as backing band for old folkie John Kirkpatrick.

When I reached Stage 2 however Trembling Bells were still playing! And playing what sounded like their own stuff too. It turned out there had been a change to the running order and this John Kirkpatrick fellow was not playing after all, so Trembling Bells started late.

If you don't know the Trembling Bells, they could broadly be described as neo-folk-rock. They mostly (entirely?) play original compositions but the sound recalls that of folk rock outfits of yore. Their singer, Lavinia Blackwall, has the kind of soaring vocal style & ability of her predecessors in that world. What makes them bit unusual is that they are led by their drummer, Alex Neilson, a man of astonishing percussive chops whose background is in the world of improv and suchlike. In an interview recently, Trembling Bells chafed at the folk rock label applied to them. At a first listen to their music, their chafing is laughable as first impressions have them like something from the Steeleye Span, Comus or Fairport Convention era reborn. But there is something to their sound that makes them their own thing. A lot of this comes from the drumming but their is generally an unusual twist on the folk-rock sound to them.

Anyway, shortly after I arrived at Stage 2, I heard Nigel Tufnell's voice come over the PA to say "And oh how they danced". A load of morris dancers then appeared in front of the stage and did their thing while the band played one of those songs that seemed to be about dancers going into an irresistible maniacal frenzy. I think the morris dancers featured some of the people who just bob up and down to the music while wearing animal heads, though it was hard to see. I heard subsequently that they had been dancing previously outside this venue's Queen Victoria (every Pontins has a shit pub called the Queen Victoria).

After that the band played on, delivering what for me was another festival highlight. I must pay tribute to Ms Blackwall's amazing vampire lady outfit, which showed off her charms to good effect. I also salute her singing and to the drumming of Mr Nielson, something that it always worth being able to see live. I loved all the other members of this great band too.

There was a lot of improv at this ATP. I saw almost none of it because most of it was on up in Stage 3, a place I had resolved to visit as little as possible. I did however catch some Evan Parker, LR Thurston Moore, and some other blokes playing on Stage 2. It was good fun. I also saw a bit of Boredoms, but as I am the one person in the world immune to their charms I wandered off to buy a drink and get myself in pole position for Alasdair Roberts.

Alasdair Roberts was playing on Stage 2. As you know, he is a Glaswegian folk singer who plays both original compositions and songs of yore. Some of the songs he sings can be lyrically a bit dark, though he tends to offset that with a relatively cheerful delivery. He is also an astonishing guitar player, which makes seeing live all the more exciting.

He began with 'The Fair Flower of Northumberland', a song about a Scottish prisoner who seduces and then abandons an English girl to aid his escape north. It is odd in that it feels like it will end terribly for the girl, but instead [spoilers] it just become a character-building life experience, with her mother saying "you silly goose, don't do that again!" and the girl saying "I've learned my lesson and probably will not run away with any other disreputable Scot in the future".

The set got very dark later though when Roberts performed one of the 'Cruel Mother' songs. These seem mostly to be a thing from Scotland (land of cruel mothers), typically featuring repeated refrains with the name of a locality. The versions I have heard then follow the same pattern. A woman gives birth to twins in the woods. She suckles them and then kills them, leaving their bodies behind. But then later she sees two beautiful children and says to them "Oh if you were my children I would dress you up in clothes so fine" but they retort "But when we were your children you strangled us and left our bodies in a shallow grave. Now we are in Heaven and you will soon be going to Hell".

What always strikes me about these songs is that there is no mention of who fathered the babies. No one gives birth on their own in the woods for fun and I find it hard not to think that the songs obscure some terrible secret as to the twins' origin. I am reminded somewhat of the Irish folk tune 'The Well Below The Valley' (found on the Planxty album of that name), which is lyrically different but in some ways follows a pattern that makes if seem like it has evolved from a Cruel Mother song. In that one a stranger meets a woman at a well, and reveals that he knows her terrible secret: that the area is littered with the buried remains of the children she has had fathered on her by her brother, uncle and father. In that one too the stranger tells the woman that she is hell bound, though as with the Alasdair Roberts song she prays that she might be spared that fate.

So that is a bit of a digression into folk's dark corners. It is still interesting to compare Roberts to the likes of Richard Dawson. They both sing of unpleasant things but Roberts is much more restrained about it. I could be wrong but I think maybe that Roberts' delivery is more true to the folk tradition, though further research may be required. I definitely recommend that all readers seek out the music of Alasdair Roberts and see him live if they get the chance.

Nearly there! Come back tomorrow for more ATP action

More astonishing ATP pictures

[Live] Alasdair Roberts and Robin Robertson: "Hirta Songs"

This was an event organised as part of the Dublin Writers Festival, one of those things that always looks interesting but with which I never properly engage. It was the presentation of a song cycle about people who used to live on Hirta, an island in the St. Kilda archipelago. Alasdair Roberts is the Scottish folk singing sensation with whom I am increasingly fascinated. Robin Robertson is a poet who visited the island and who may have been the initial driver of the project. I think maybe that Mr Robertson must have written the words of the tunes with Mr Roberts then setting them to music, but they left their writing process opaque. At the event, Mr Robertson introduced each song and talked about the general subject and then left Mr Roberts to sing it, accompanied by his astonishing guitar playing; the only exception to this was when the poet read some of his own poems that had not been set to music.

St. Kilda is very remote. Apparently it takes several hours to get to it from the Outer Hebrides. The evening presented a portrait of the life lived by the St. Kildans from neolithic times to the 1930s. The people on Hirta lived not by fishing or farming but by predating on the gannets and other seabirds who nest on the other rocky islands of the archipelago. They would boat out to the bird island and then climb up the rock face to catch the birds in their nests. The first song tells the story of a man who lost his footing on the cliff, falling hundreds of feet into the water below. The St. Kildans never learned to swim, but the faller's death was delayed by all the dead seabirds stuffed into his belt, whose buoyancy gave him a temporary reprieve from drowning. His friends could do nothing but watch as he bobbed up and down in the water before eventually going under. What was striking about all this was that the song ran against the grim subject matter, with Roberts being characteristically jaunty in his singing and playing in the face of the awfulness. This would not surprise anyone familiar with his work.

Other tunes evoked different aspects of life on the islands. Something of a tension is created between the pagan ways of the islanders and the god botherers of the Presbyterian Church (or the Kirk, as it is known in Scots English). The Kirk did its best to stamp out pagan practices and enforce conformity to reformed Christianity. This conflict is explored in the song 'The Drum Time', about the Kirk's successful extirpation of the islanders' traditional musical practices. That is one of the few tunes on which Roberts' jauntiness cracks and the music mirrors the sadness of the lyrics.

Roberts' music also goes a bit sadface on 'Exodus', about Hirta's final evacuation in the early 1930s. By then the population of the islands had fallen below a viable level. Increasing awareness of what the world had to offer made the islanders less inclined to remain on a rainswept rock in the middle of the Atlantic, and they petitioned to be taken away to the mainland (which in this context might still have meant an island in the Outer Hebrides). 'Exodus' gives a sense of how terribly wrenching it must be to forever leave somewhere that has been the home to your forebears since the dawn of time. For me the sadness of the parting was conveyed by the grim detail that the islanders had to drown their dogs before departing, as they could not take the animals with them (for reasons that were not explained).

I have said more about Mr Roberts than Mr Robertson here, which is not too surprising as it was the singer's past musical form that attracted us to this event. I am also not known for my love of poetry. However, Mr Robertson deserves his own praise for the lyrics he has written to this. There were also a couple of poems he recited himself that were very effective; the unaccompanied spoken voice suits the bleak subject of life on Hirta. 'The Well of Youth', an account of a haunting, was particularly striking.

We bought the record after the concert and it is as beautiful listen, with the tunes featuring a slightly expanded line-up. But beautiful as it all is, I am glad that I am not living on Hirta.

map (St. Kilda, National Trust for Scotland)

Hirta Songs record cover (Stone Tape Recordings)

[record review] Alasdair Roberts & Friends "Too Long In This Condition" (2010)

This is another folkie record... what is happening to me, readers? On this one we have song performed by the popular Scottish singer and guitarist Alasdair Roberts. These songs are mostly trad. arrs arranged by Roberts. None of the songs are new Roberts compositions, though there is one by his dad.

Several things make this record. There is Roberts's vocal delivery and his guitar playing. There is also his ability with storytelling tunes. The overall production and the well judged interventions by his collaborators are also important. What I find so attractive about the tunes is the jaunty rolling character of the arrangements. Having tried singing one of his tunes at the Unthanks weekend I know that he favours rhythms other than the straight four-four beat, so his songs roll rather than plod along. This means that even when performing a grim tune like 'Long Lankin' (about child murder and then the harsh retribution for that terrible crime) it still manages to come across as an upbeat toe-tapper.

I also find that there is a cumulative effect to Alasdair Roberts' music. The first song or two by him I heard did not impress me that much, but once I had heard a few I was programmed into his aesthetic. I went back anew to the first song of his I heard ('You Muses Assist', from the brilliant Rough Trade compilation Psych Folk 10) and found myself far more receptive to its charms. But for all that wariness of approaching Roberts on a single song basis, I now present a performance of 'Long Lankin'.


image source

An inuit panda production

I sang with the Unthanks

I went to another one of those singing weekends hosted by popular band The Unthanks. We flew into Edinburgh and took the train down to Berwick on Tweed, noting how the town's fortifications are already being renovated in advance of the referendum's outcome.

In broad terms this singing weekend worked like the last one (an account of which is linked to below). Attendees hung out with the Unthanks, Rachel and Becky Unthank taught us songs and got us to sing them in three part harmonies, other members of the Unthanks cooked for us, we went for a walk, sacrificed one of our number to Gruad, had sing-songs, and so on. This time the weather was good enough for us undertake a good long walk, that brought us by the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle, where we sang a song; then we walked on to Newtwon-by-the-sea to visit a pub called The Ship Inn, where we drank pints and sang sea shanties, to the delight of regular attendees. Yarrrr!

There were some novel elements this year. As well as having George Unthanks (father of Rachel and Becky) and shanty superstar Jim Mageean along, we also had as guest stars the local geordie singing group The Young'Uns. These fellows are amazingly good at the vocal harmony business and are also of the roffler persuasion. What was most amusing about them, however, was that they look like three young hipsters, the very last people you would expect to be singing songs about mythical personifications of Newcastle industrialism or mediaeval radical priests until they open their mouths and do just that.

The other innovation was the addition of an early Burns Night element to saturday night festivities (combined with a bit of wassailing and the like). We were treated to not one but two separate instances of Scottish people performing Burns' haggis poem. The combination of highly deliberate delivery and extreme actions had me wondering whether this was something that all Scottish people learn in school. Hearing a series of Burns poems (including the one about the mouse and all that) had me thinking that maybe there is something to this national poet of Scotland; I also found myself wondering some more about Scots English.

Saturday night also saw some unusual festivities. I was secretly pleased that there was no Finnish Sailor Wrestling this year, but there was a re-run of Face To Face. This game sees two people stand very close together, eyeballing each other, and they then both sing at each other until one of them forgets their words or is disqualified (for jigging around, smiling or being over intimidating). It is a popular diversion in a certain folk club of the North East. I gave it a go, psyching myself up to sing 'Your Party' by Ween in as deadpan a manner as possible and was I think on the brink of winning when I had a blank with the words; oh well, a clear moral victory. My beloved, on the other hand, treated her opponents to some terrifying Georgian yodelling tunes, bludgeoning them into submission until she won the coveted prize: a mug made by Becky Unthank herself. As I won such a mug myself at the Finnish Sailor Wrestling last year, we are now a two mug household and I am thinking how we can have a competition to establish which of us is the greatest champion.

I will mention a couple of the songs we practiced over the weekend. One of them was the simple round 'The Waters of Babylon', which I remember from folk masses of yore. It has the same words as the Boney M classic but a different tune. The god bothery theme continued with 'Dark December', a Graeme Miles tune that starts off being about how winter is rubbish before suddenly reminding us that the little Baba J was born in December. Then there was an odd Alasdair Roberts tune called 'The King's Hand', about meeting the King on the beach alone, drinking his wine, touching his hand and then snuggling up to him. What King, was this, I wondered. In some ways it was like a continuation of the religious stuff, with the King a divine figure, perhaps Christ returning to the world. But the lyrics had the King bearing a wedding ring on his finger. Perhaps the sense of the lonely King still having this aura of quasi-divinity is an evocation of the mediaeval sense of monarchs as above lesser mortals. Either way, this song was a bitch to sing, with odd phrasings and harmonies that jumped all over the place.

Alasdair Roberts sings 'The King's Hand', without the harmonies

I think that the real star tune was 'The Magpie', a composition by David Dodds. The cunning corvid is here presented as a clever and mocking presence who must be placated lest she bring terrible bad luck down. If you are singing the low parts this was a real corker as the chorus features a repetition of the line 'Devil, devil, I defy thee'; on the third repetition the low part goes low that it felt like I was no longer singing but channelling a subterranean vibration. The effect was rather eerie, which is funny for a line that is meant to express defiance of the Evil One.

The Unthanks - The Magpie from Anthologies on Vimeo

Another memorable tune was 'Shallow Brown', where we sang the refrain ("Shallow, Oh Shallow Brown") while Becky Unthank sang the verses. It is a simple enough tune and I think we sang it with it without any big harmonies or fancy stuff like that. It did not need them, such is its beauty. The words tell of a sailor bidding farewell to his true love as his ship departs for the sea. While we all know what sailors get up to while away from port and we all know the stories of their having an endless series of lady friends in every port they visit, yet there was something wonderfully poignant about this piece, largely down I think to Becky's subtly expressive delivery.

I had a crack at singing myself when it got to party piece time on the Saturday night, treating the assembled throng to my rendition of US Civil War classic 'The Battle Cry of Freedom' (Northern version). People joined in a bit and someone asked me about it the next day, suggesting to me that I did not completely butcher it.

So it was all good fun. I was particularly pleased to renew acquaintances from the previous year, and so on.

Links:

Previously

Your Party

An inuit panda production; this post appeared in issue 138 of Frank's APA.