Welcome to the ramblings of a man who really should have grown out of listening to "that sort of music" a long, long time ago...A place to share thoughts and photographs on music and related paraphernalia.
The Cabbage Patch in Twickenham is a great little venue, there are drums hanging from the ceiling and the walls are plastered with posters and artwork that pays testament to the many luminaries of the local 1960's British Beat boom such as The Who, the Stones, The Yardbirds, Downliners Sect and the Artwoods. We are a mere (Rolling) stone's throw away from the legendary Eel Pie Island and it's a fitting location to see The Moot as they probably have a lot of these influences stored up in the locker. Although bassist Mark Leech and vocalist Nick Stone used to be in the 80's Paisley Psych band The Onlookers, they pretty much leave the the trippy stuff to one side with The Moot and concentrate on a sound as stripped down and back to basics as you can get. It's vocals, guitar, bass and drums and the songs are taut and short and owe as much to New Wave and Post-Punk acts such as The Flys, The Nerves and Subway Sect as they do to the 60's R'n'B bands that used to frequent the area. Tracks like "Reggie Bags" and "My Sister Brenda" are catchy as hell and my favourite "My Fixation" should be snapped by a record company with any sense and released as a single immediately. Drummer Philip Pinch keeps things ticking over nicely and singer Nick seems to be growing in confidence with each performance. He looks out into the audience and I don't take it personally when he announces "If you have hair, we say let it down" and then the drums kick in followed by a funky Mark Leech bass line and it's the extended intro to the brilliant "Let Your Hair Down" which highlights Dave Clark's guitar style perfectly. The Moot are going from strength to strength and hopefully they will be treating us to some new recorded music very soon!
The Moot at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham
It's not often that I like a band before I even hear them play a note but as soon as I saw that Trees And The Slipway's front-man Stephen Wood was wearing a Dukes of Stratosphear T-Shirt, I knew immediately I was going to be a big fan. Actually, there is something about XTC's mind expanding alter-ego running through T&TS's music, it's catchy but slightly discordant Psych Pop music that crosses continents and time zones. In fact in thirty minutes or so they take us on trip from the 60's West Coast with Stephen's impressive jangling 12-string guitar and some great three part harmonies from him, bassist Karl Sabino and guitarist and keyboard player Matthew Lees. Then "Psychedelic Evolution" clatters along at a fair pace and transports us to the Velvet Underground's downtown New York and then we're off on our magic carpet to Avebury and Stonehenge to wave hello to Julian Cope, in fact interestingly Julian's brother Joss once played bass in the band.
Trees & The Slipway at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham
Added into the mix is a healthy dose of challenging Lo-Fi Krautrock on "9:52 Thursday Morning" and the crunching heavy Blues riff intro to "I Need Her" grounds us firmly back in the local Twickenham and Eel Pie 1960's British Beat Boom. It's certainly an intriguing and highly original concoction. While I'm videoing a song someone nudges me and says "I hope you're filming the drummer..." Indeed Talya is our new favourite drummer, she certainly has an idiosyncratic style that appears to defy conventional timing but there's no doubting it is effective! Unfortunately, Trees And The Slipway don't have any records out yet, something I really hope they'll get round to rectifying as soon as possible. In the meantime I urge you to check out the band live as soon as possible.
Trees & The Slipway at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham
Andy Hepburn opened the night's proceedings, alone with an acoustic guitar he played a short but well received set of bittersweet songs crammed full of clever and witty lyrics. My personal highlight was the excellent "We Don't Talk" which you can hear a version of at his Soundcloud site here. I chatted to Andy afterwards and found out that he used to be in a Post-Punk band called Fractured with Dave and Philip from The Moot. He then moved to China where the sights, sounds and experiences inspired him to make Ambient and Trip-Hop music under the name An Di Yi.
Andy Hepburn at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham
So, a thoroughly enjoyable night of free music courtesy of The Moot made even better with the addition of DJ Lambo spinning an eclectic mix of vinyl. I sincerely hope that they can make these regular events and if so please try and make it along, they deserve supporting. For more info on all the featured artists please click on the highlighted links above. There are lots more photos over at the Retro Man Blog Facebook page here and videos up on our YouTube Channel here.
Podcover - Hipsville Go-Go Girls Photographed by Zig Criscuolo
Retrosonic Podcast Episode 28 "The Easiest Person To Fool Is Yourself" is out now on Soundcloud & iTunes. In a decidedly non-retro Retrosonic episode we take a look at some of the new music that's found it's way to the Retro Man Blog over the past few months. We've got a great Hammond organ instrumental intro from French trio Gerry Bright & The Stokers, a song from Joss Cope's debut solo album and the opening track from The Galileo 7's forthcoming album "Tear Your Minds Wide Open". King Salami & The Cumberland 3 give us the great "Pineapple Mama" and we pick a song from Oh! Gunquit's excellent "Lightning Likes Me" LP. The Jack Cades are a kind of Garage Rock 'supergroup' featuring members of The Baron Four, Missing Souls, The Masonics and The Embrooks and there's a song from their "Music For Children" album. Talking of The Embrooks, they were on the bill at our recent sold-out reunion shows for The SolarFlares and there's one of the highlights of their set, the current single "Nightmare". Also on the bill were King Mojo who went down a storm and there's a song from their debut album too. Parsley from The SolarFlares also plays Hammond in The Mynd Set who have a new E.P. out now and we choose one side of a superb new 7" single from Jetstream Pony. Glenn Prangnell's Groovy Uncle have just released arguably their best album so far and we state the case with a great song featuring Suzi Chunk on vocals. We play the new split single in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust featuring cover versions of two Jam classics given a French twist by Popincourt & French Boutik and there's a track from The Kite Collectors new album "Shockerwick 135". Another superb night at Weirdsville introduced us to The No-Things from Edinburgh and the Spanish band Las Aspiradoras and to finish off there's the brand new single from Ebbot Lundberg & The Indigo Children. I hope you enjoy the great music in this episode, if you do please check out the highlighted links above for more info on the bands! Retrosonic Podcast has a valid PRS certificate. Podcover photo of the Hipsville Go-Go Girls courtesy of Zig Criscuolo at ZigPix.
Joss Cope has just released a superb solo album entitled "Unrequited Lullabies" on Gare Du Nord Records and if you like uplifting Psych-tinged guitar pop then this will be right up your street. There are some beautifully crafted songs crammed into just under forty pure unadulterated melodic minutes. The album starts off strongly with the insanely catchy two-song salvo of "Learn To Float" and "Familiar Faces" which are both shot through with memorable guitar riffs and backing vocal harmonies. Next up is the dreamy "Cloudless Skies" which at first reminds me of Roxy Music's "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" before it builds and swells into a powerful crescendo. The moving, lovelorn "Your Broken Heart Is Not For Sale" really tugs on the heartstrings and is one of the album's highlights of which admittedly there are many to choose from. "Guy Like Me" and "What's The Plan" are both perfect upbeat pop songs that would trouble the top of any decent singles chart and "Started Something" has a twist of Syd Barrett. It's difficult not to mention the big brother as "Unrequited Lullabies" does indeed conjure up memories of Julian's excellent first two solo albums "World Shut Your Mouth" and "Fried" and if you like the intelligent pastoral Psych of acts such as XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, The Blue Aeroplanes and Stephen Duffy then I can certainly recommend this.
Joss Cope - Photo courtesy GDN Records
Here's some background info on Joss and the album and then you can enjoy the superb opening track "Learn To Float". Born in the Midlands at the start of the swinging '60s, Joss Cope followed elder brother Julian to Liverpool aged 14 and got rapidly sucked in to the nascent Post-Punk scene there, meeting and playing with such future musical luminaries as Les Pattinson (Echo & the Bunnymen), Peter Wylie (Wah Heat) and Mike Mooney (Spiritualized). He would go on to form the short-lived but influential Freight Train with Donald Ross Skinner and Barrett Douce (later of The Mighty Lemon Drops) before he moved to London in 1985 and became part of the emerging Creation Records scene playing with Crash, The Weather Prophets, Rose McDowell and Biff Bang Pow before putting out two albums of his own work with Something Pretty Beautiful. Joss also contributed to his brother Julian's albums "Fried" and "St. Julian" and co-wrote the songs 'Pulsar' and 'Christmas Mourning' with Julian and Donald Ross Skinner. In 1991 he formed psych band The United States of Mind with Ashley Wood (Chemistry Set), Dave Morgan and Greenwood Goulding (Rockingbirds). Only one eponymously titled album of blistering British psychedelia was released on the appropriately titled DyscFunctional imprint, before the band split in 1994. From the mid-90s to the noughties Joss art directed music videos for MTV, edited and voiced the BBC TV children's animated series Yoho Ahoy (2001) and, as a long term committed environmentalist joined Greenpeace as an online producer to work on key campaigns against over-fishing, deforestation and airport expansion.
Joss Cope - Photo courtesy GDN Records
In more recent years he's played guitar with Psychedelic soulsters Dexter Bentley and bass with Sergeant Buzfuz, as well as becoming inspired to write songs for himself again. He spends part of each year in Finland with his current partner - cartoonist Virpi Oinonen - and in 2016 he began a collaboration with a trio of top Helsinki musicians: guitarist Veli-Pekka Oinonen (Nights of Iguana, Leningrad Cowboys), bassist Esa Lehporturo and percussionist Ville Raasakka. Early in 2017 the addition of Irish keyboardist O'Reilly O'Rourke (ex-Freak Outburst) completed the line-up, and the band went into Taajuusvarjostin studio to record with producer Arto Nevalainen. Unrequited Lullabies is the result. Here's what Joss has to say. What's it about? "The psychedelia of every-day life, for one thing. I don't think enough of us, enough of the time, appreciate just how miraculous and weird everything going on around us (including ourselves) actually is. Love songs to the children I never had is another, plus a few warnings about what to expect from the good and the bad of life in this magical place, wrapped up in melody and riff." What's it sound like? "It's been likened to Syd Barrett fronting The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, which is absolutely fine by me." Here's "Unrequited Lullabies" superb opening track entitled "Learn To Float"...
"Unrequited Lullabies" is released on Gare Du Nord Records and you can order the album on vinyl, CD or download from here. Thanks to Jon at No Other Publicity and Ian at GDN for the photos.
