BIGGER STRINGS: CHOPPER

Should you ever wish to seduce me, let me give you a tip: whilst food would help, and I am really quite flexible in my tastes there and needs, likewise with the alcohol I would also expect to be plied with, when it comes to the music, one sure fire guarantee is the cello. I adore the warm mellifluous tones of a cello, sweeping emotion into my breast and out through my heart. No great fan of the classics as a whole, it all being a bit too clever for me, a Bach cello concerto can fully stir my loins. and, for a long time, that was the only place you could find this instrument, in orchestras and string quartets.

Things sort of got better in the whatever it was, as Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne revoked the Move and came up with the Electric Light Orchestra. I confess I loved much of the debut, ahead of Wood jumping ship. I then found the band all bit much, sawing away in abandon, substituting schmalz for the searing angst the instrument can evoke, all the songs sounding, ultimately, the same, orchestral gloop. Never mind, nice try, thought I, going back to guitar and keyboard based musics. Folk became my go to as the 1980s beckoned, and I became a subscriber to influential magazine, Folk Roots. (Later FROOTS, and sadly, as of a year or so ago, no longer.) They had a flexidisc on an early edition, a thin bendy 45rpm record, which included a bevy of artists from the nascent Cooking Vinyl record company, including Oysterband and Michelle Shocked. Each appealed enormously.

Moving ahead a little, as I have touched on this band a few times before, as it is but one part of their joyous clatter I wish to concentrate on here. And that is the part of one 'Chopper', or Ray Cooper, as his mother called him, not, by the way, the percussionist, had to play. Oysterband have always had an issue with their rhythm section. Initially drummerless, once they added drums, they have got through a number, the current incumbent being number, I think, five. Bassists have fared slightly better. Chopper was their second, in the band between 1989 and 2013.

Let's retread a little. Prior to joining the Oysters, Chopper had been part of the extraordinary faux-balkan world music collective, 3 Mustaphas 3. Predominately the brainchild of Ben Mandelson and Lu Edmonds, together with a changing cast of additional musicians, they played a bizarre blend of ethnic musical styles, often from the eastern Mediterranean and beyond, treating the concept as part parody, yet tackling the core of the music with all seriousness and with an obvious affection. Sort of if the Bonzo's came from Albania. Chopper, if then under the pseudonym Oussack Mustapha, was their cellist for a while, including on the song above. Perhaps an acquired taste, they were then only on the fringes of my awareness. (Edmonds, who had earlier been in th Damned, is now the extravagantly bearded guitarist in John Lydon's Public Image Ltd.)

So, no surprise, when he was drafted into his new band, he brought his cello with him. I must have seen them a dozen of times during his time with them, increasingly playing more and more cello, rather than the bass he had been employed to play. A wonderful sound, and, I believe, contributory to the increasingly common presence of a cello in rock, folk and, increasingly, even country music. Here, below, are a couple of songs that well display his mellow tones. Unsurprisingly, when he left the band, they, clearly, had to be able to replicate that part of their repertoire, and it actually took two musicians to fill his gap on stage and on records, one on bass and another on cello.

Was that the end of Chopper? Or Ray Cooper as he was increasingly again becoming known, and the answer is a definite no. A resident of Sweden, he has now released four records in his own name, all sturdy singer-songwriter fare of a recognisably rootsy origin, at times not dissimilar to his old band, but encompassing a wider range of influences, often those of his adoptive Scandinavia. Again, a couple of clips, the first to show off his stellar technique on a traditional air, the second a song, the title track, from his latest project. I had been due to see him a month ago, my first projected post lockdown concert. Sadly, it had to be postponed, given the still travelling embargo  between Sweden and the UK. Pity. I have a ticket, instead, for next year.

Mustaphas

Oysters

Cooper

VALENTINES: VALENTINES DAY IS OVER

Answering to the earlier post, oddly I think it apt we cover the event after the event. Valentines Day, or the Feast of St. Valentine, has never quite resonated for me. Yes, I have received cards over the years, nearly as many as I have sent, but it has never been a delivery that would damage the postie's back. And, as my wife pointed out this year, we seem somehow to be missing the point, babysitting the grand-daughter this year, and entertaining my brother last year. Somehow you old romantic not.

My defence is that, in restaurants, Feb 14 is a date to avoid, all pink prosecco, heart shaped salmon pieces and blood on the carpet. (Blood on the carpet? Well, there's always at least one couple whose sense of duty has overshot the tint on their spectacles.) Nope, like New Years Eve, Mothers Day and St Paddy's day, I'm staying in, ta!

The song featured is by an artist I have mentioned before, making no apology there around. Hell, I even used this same song, for which I will have to apologise, but read on, I will explain. From agit-prop spiky solo bard of Barking to the only slightly less spiky older statesman of political song commentary, Billy Bragg has always lightened my heart, both musically and intellectually. Having little time for Twitter myself, his feed is actually a presence worth following, being, variously witty, acerbic or just plain right. (Sure, it helps if you are a goddam lefty pinko as well, to keep the Valentine colour theme alive.) Coming from his 1988 LP, Worker's Playtime, it is a rancorous song of bitterness. Confession time, I always took it be allegorical: the phrase is often used to describe the bursting of any bubble, but it is a much darker piece, as I learnt from this excellent article. Gulp. 

Little more to say than that, really. And, should you not have found the above sufficiently chilling, here is a sparser still version, from a John Peel session.

Unable to leave you staring bleakly into your consciences, not all injuries being just physical, here's another favourite, two really, June Tabor and the Oysterband, from the first of their occasional collaborations, an altogether more upbeat version of the same song. But it is the same song, and I really must learn to listen harder to the lyrics.

Um, I hope you all did have a good day, if the opportunity arose. After all, the card industry can't support itself.

Fifteenth of February, dawn.

(Postscript: I noted the link to the earlier Tabor/Oyster piece commented on the two of my weddings. I have since had a 3rd, so maybe the old romantic after all, yes? Maybe we should go out next year...)

FAMILY: BLOOD WEDDING/OYSTERBAND

What could reflect the joy and terror of families better than a wedding, especially after a few gargles have been downed? It was only during the penning of my last piece I realised how little these pages have featured Oysterband, possibly the band I have seen live the most, from a small folk club gig in about 1986, to a classy arts centre last month, by way of myriad gigs and festivals in between. Yup, I love this band, even if I occasionally don't, citing enough is enough, they then pulling some trick or other to haul me back. Bastards!

Anyway, this song comes from their 1983 record Holy Bandits, and is a glorious amalgam of Fisherman's Blues era Waterboys and the thrash folk-punk of the Levellers, back-filtered with a bit of a lick and a polish: at the time the Oysterband were described as "like the Levellers after a good wash", a somewhat back handed compliment to either band. Still a staple in their live shows, it reflects the more boisterous part of their repertoire and acts as ballast against some of the more thoughtful material. It is a glorious hooley.  As anyone who has been to lots of weddings can confirm, and I have had three of my own, the combination of booze and bonhomie can bring out the best and worst of individuals thrown together by dint of circumstance. If the adage is that you can choose your friends, but never your family, so too you can choose your spouse, but as with your own, the family comes gratis. And how often has the proud son of Mr Oil met with the beautiful daughter of Mr Water? The nuptials of the Petrol family with the family Flames come also to mind. (Mind you, it can and does work the other way too, my first wife and I always saying we could never divorce because of the parents, as in them getting on so well. Until, um, we did.)

"do you take this woman? 
 said yes I do 
I love her like crazy
and I think she loves me too 
but we'll do without the family 
if it's all the same to you 
happy ever after 

your mother is a flake 
my father's full of shite 
your sister says you married me 
in white just for spite 
well a party's not a party 
till it ends up in a fight 
happy ever after 

and there was my lot and your lot 
and us two in between 
this is the last time I get married 
this is the last time I get married

my brother's never short 
of a substance to abuse 
rum & glue & Thunderbird 
& wizz & Special Brew 
any minute now he'll show us 
all of his tattoos 
happy ever after 

nephews are obnoxious
nieces are too tall 
a dozen drunken uncles 
are pissing up the wall 
grandad is grinning 
but there's no one home at all 
happy ever after

for richer, for poorer, 
for better or for worse 
now we are married, a blessing or a curse 
kiss me & don't forget 
what you see is what you get

and the best man is the worst man, 
the best man is a beast 
underneath the table 
with the sister of the priest 
the way he's going at it 
she is probably deceased 
happy ever after 

granny's on the brandy
getting bleary-eyed 
guys I went to school with 
want to see me outside 
someone's pulled the bridesmaid 
anyone seen the bride? 
happy ever after

and there was my lot and your lot 
and us two in between 
this is the last time I get married 
this is the last time I get married "

I also feature (above) a video of this song, from barely two years ago, band, and audience for that matter, despite english being their second language, clearly still revelling in the song, as well showing the curiosity of melodeon, cello and fiddle in a six piece rock band. (OK, folk-rock band.) Together (below) with an example of the 'more thoughtful material' alluded to above, and probably the song, 'London City', they sing after leaving the stage following the featured, their traditional closer and encore for many a long year. And, in their 41st year, hopefully still to come.

Whet your thirst!

FAMILY: DRUNK BY NOON/THE HANDSOME FAMILY

Well, I couldn't possibly say whether this post is a reflection on esteemed turkeyfest Thanksgiving, normally featured at this time of year, or not, being no celebrant, turkey being next month for us over here in Blighty, and, anyway, aren't you celebrating your freedom from "us"? (Which begs the question as to whether, in exasperation over the Greenland snub, your guy elects to take up our tousle-headed lookalike leader's offer to flog us off, or our health, lock, stock and barrel. Give or take an election in a fortnight, or two of your weeks, which ever is shorter.)

Drunk By Noon

So, the Handsome Family, or Mr and Mrs Sparks as they are known to friends, a little known institution until a recent stroke of luck, courtesy the first series of 'True Detective', launched into every living room in the land with the song that opens each episode. In these days of streaming, downloads, legal and otherwise, and youtubetomp3 software, money in music biz land is tight, the only real resource being touring, with then the merch table as profitable as the tickets. But you need money to tour too. Luckily, although they may dislike the concept and deny the vanity, the Handsome Family are cheap, basically husband and wife Rennie and Brett, she on bass, banjo and lyrics, he on guitar, keys and tunes. Both sing, but it is Brett's basso profound that is their main calling card. Over about a quarter century they have built an enviable body of work, with 11 albums, plus compilations, built on the back of solid touring, in the US and overseas. I first caught them back in about 2004, when they were part of a rolling roadshow, with and organised by venerable agitprop UK folkies Oysterband. The bleak mix of dark country and murder ballad that they revel in had me hooked.

When the Helicopter Comes

Always sort of a hidden gem, a secret passion, it must have been a huge boost to their profile and, I hope, to their income, to have the kudos of a boxset bonanza. (Here is an interesting article about the economics of such.)

Far From Any Road

Above is the song in question, but go search the back catalogue, there are myriad equivalent gems. As to 'Drunk By Noon', Rennie's lyrics are broadly unhelpful in interpretation of the absolute meaning or circumstance, but, if you are having the family over, and need to be, be my guest. To some decent music, of course......

Handsome....

GIRL : New York Girls

I suppose I may be the exception to the rest of the blogging parade here in that I don't know any New York girls. Girls from York, sure, one or two, yet how is it that this most english of songs relates to the women across the pond? To answer this question I consulted all my usual sources of education and edification, aka Google, and the fabulously entitled Shantypedia was the best I could find. (As a swift digression, don't you just love how any manual of information nowadays is a hyphen-pedia, and every crisis a hyphengate-gate? If there were a massive fallout between Jimmy Wales and his team, would it be pedia-gate? Actually, probably Wiki-gate, but anyway.......) So, moving on, we establish it is a sea-shanty, a song sung by jolly jack tars as they avasted landlubbers ahoy, or, more likely, suffered in the  bowels of an unforgiving galleon, gnawing on rancid ship's biscuit. In another twist of fate, such songs of self-encouragement to lighten the curse of a sailor's life are now sung by choirs of earnest townsfolk in striped pullovers, a glee club for the vocally seasick. But, again trying to stick to the point, has this song ever been sung in an american tradition or do the US maritime corps sing of Old York girls? In the absence of me providing you with an answer, can any of my reader supply the answer?

Let's have a version:

I hope you stuck with that, if only to read the lyrics, as it saves me cutting and pasting elsewhere, itself no mean challenge, as, similar to most songs in any folk tradition, there are as many versions as, um, versions. I accept it hasn't aged well, as in from 1975 to the present, rather than the 200 odd years of the song being known, but, back then, this toothsome band were almost quite the big thing in one of the regular sightings of a predicted folk music revival, vying with the better known Fairport Convention to be at the forefront. (And, actually, still are, as seems compulsory for all bands of that decade. 'Commoner's Crown', the LP from which it came was their big budget breaker, or would be breaker, reaching 21 in the album chart.) The song is actually far from typical of their style, perhaps trying a introduce a levity into their otherwise very serious and strait-laced fusion of traditional folk with electric rock instrumentation, and features no less than Peter Sellers on ukelele and vocal asides. Again, hard to believe now, but he was the only uke player anyone could think of at the time. No such shortage now, eh, and more's the pity.

Fast forward to 1989 and it is (the) Oysterband, featured here by august sometime colleague Boyhowdy in 2008, who are having jolly japes with the tune. I like to think it has a little more muscle than Steeleye, but it is still a fairly overt bid for crossover commercialism. Failed, of course, but still, to this day, a staple of their live show, they too still plugging away valiantly.

As a bit of a diversion, even if not answering the question of my first paragraph, with Finbar Furey being irish through and through, but, for the purpose of its place in Martin Scorsese's 2003 film, 'The Gangs of New York', this is defined as close an imagining of how the native New Yorkers of 1863 caroused. (Come to think of it, most native New Yorkers of 1863 were probably irish through and through too.) I guess you had to be there?

My final offering is from only just recently defunct folk big band Bellowhead, darlings of the last predicted folk revival. Somehow this grabs bits from all the 3 earlier examples, filtering them through a venn diagram of weird versus trad, with a side order of shake vigorously.

So, me Santys, New York girls or Tarrytown men, can YOU dance the polka?

Steeleye, Bellowhead I can point you to, but for Oysterband get this, even if the song isn't included, and for Finbar, get the film.

WEDDING: SUSIE CLELLAND

"there lived a lady in Scotland
o my love, o my love
there lived a lady in Scotland
o my love so early
there lived a lady in Scotland

she's fallen in love with an Englishman
bonnie Susie Clelland's to be married in Dundee"

And there you were, thinking that fireworks were clearly as part of the marriage nuptials as they are now.

Sadly I can not reveal that the above story ended well. In this week after a United (!) Kingdom general election, wherein 56 of 59 available seats in Scotland went to the would-be separatist Scottish National Party, perhaps it is no surprise that an Anglo-Scottish liason could or should end in tears. Based on a traditional folk song, this was a highpoint of 1990s "Freedom and Rain", a groundbreaking album bringing together progressive folk-rockers, Oysterband, with the doyenne of a more austere and frosty folk tradition, June Tabor. I have mentioned the former before, but Ms Tabor might need some introduction. Lauded by Elvis Costello: "If you can't appreciate June Tabor, you should just stop listening to music," she has proven herself to be a potent and original force within the traditional folk movement of the UK. Stirred into action by hearing the work of Anne Briggs (herself worthy of greater recognition and a piece on this site) in 1965, she has been an active and acclaimed singer now for 40 years, with 12 solo recordings, and many a collaboration, gradually introducing a chamber jazz sensibility into her interpretations. Her style has seemed sometimes a little severe, with a stark beauty, so it was a refreshing surprise to see her letting down her hair with the Oysterband, to produce, for each of them, their best-selling record, a trick later repeated again, 21 years later, with "Ragged Kingdom," folk album of the year in 2011, as judged by UK World Music magazine FROOTS (originally Folk Roots).

I love this song, the combination between the churning beat, evoking horseback, and the clinical vocal, underpinned by cello and violin, easily surpassing an earlier version by the band alone, on 1985's "Liberty Hall," when they were a very different proposition, yet to introduce the sin of drums, shock, horror, echoes of Dylan in 66, to their traditional canon. (Unfortunately I can't find this on YouTube.) But, as the story progresses, so too does the chorus, as it becomes clear that maybe the arrangements may yet be subject a hotter outcome than originally anticipated.....

"there lived a lady in Scotland
o my love, o my love
there lived a lady in Scotland
o my love so early
there lived a lady in Scotland
she's fallen in love with an Englishman
bonnie Susie Clelland's to be buried in Dundee"

Lest all this tragedy has spoilt your day, let me cheer you up with a perhaps more typical wedding, this time successful, at least on the day. Again this is Oysterband, and it reminds me of both of mine:

Vacation: Day Trip to Bangor

Day Trip to Bangor: Fiddler's Dram

Purchase


OK, uncertain about this one, vacation, or holiday, as we call them over here. So, I haven't had one for a couple of years, which I could blame entirely on the economy, the 3rd dip of the global crisis, blah, blah, blah, but, in truth, whilst it is true I am broke, this smacks more of circumstantial mayhem in the life of Retro than the bankers and sub-prime. So I can't and won't wax wistfully over my last bijou jaunt, seeking more, as is my wont, to educate and advance. (I should insert an ironic smiley here, but I am uncertain if they are still currency amongst the cerebrality here....) And all this over a song I don't even like.

Don't even like? Jeez, I'd go way further, I hate it, and always did, have and will. It is a travesty of a din, with screechy and shrill vocals and a plodalong dirgy beat, appealing only to the ill and the old. Yet it did very well in the UK charts way back when, as if they were ever an arbiter of taste. So why here? Well, nominally it is a holiday, theme ticked etc, and, topical or what, in line with the economy, not only is/was it a "stay"cation, but began and ended on the same day. How very 2013!! But....

My real purpose here is to show how these apparent no-hopers went on to become much admired practitioners of a credible 21st century political folk fusion, world famous in, well, nowhere really, yet big if not huge in my mind. Even if they have never had a pay cheque quite as large as the song I ask you to dip in to. (Please, worry not if you can't finish, it's the other songs I want you to really explore.)

Fiddler's Dram. Even the name is awful, but from their saccharine remains sprung The Oyster Band, later abbreviated to Oysterband. Go back to the video clip, if you dare, and reappraise the nodding guitarist with the large hair and the fresh faced pre-teen on fiddle. Look ahead to this 2nd clip from last year, and see if you can spot them. And compare and contrast this masterclass in interpretation of ye olde english folke canon with the earlier. OK, to be fair, a lot of the gravitas is gratis Ms. June Tabor, doyenne of the english folksong tradition, who has twice guested on Oysterband recordings, albeit 2 decades apart. But, in the myriad years since "Bangor", it is as if everything they have ever done since has been to make up for it. Do yourselves a favour, search 'em out. And here's a fast one, perhaps truer to the tradition, from a relatively early compilation.

And what of the singer from the first clip? Well, dear reader, even she redeemed herself, going on to become a respected singer in ex-Fairport Convention bassist, Ashley Hutchings', ever evolving Albion Band. I tried to find a decent clip but I'm afraid I couldn't. Still too shrill for my ears.

Could have been worse, tho', my first thought was the Dead Kennedys and Cambodia........ (By the way, the Bangor is unlikely to have been the one in Maine, some argument as to whether it is the one in Northern Ireland or in Wales. I wouldn't bother with either, either.)

Summertime: Mississippi Summer

June Tabor and the Oysterband: Mississippi Summer

[purchase]

The original recording of this tune from American folksinger Si Khan drips with social justice and the sweat of the fieldhand. But in the hands of British folk superstars June Tabor and the punk-slash-tradfolk combo Oyster Band, who came together in 1990 for the fine collaborative effort Freedom and Rain, the tune takes on a traditional UK folk rock vibe, upbeat and driven.

The conceit seems anomalous, at first - what could a British folk tradition know of the desperation of the Southern-bred dust field farmer? That the song works is a testament to the successful tradition of historical distance between the pastoral, pre-technological lyrics and the modern electrified bass, guitar, and drums that frames the British folk rock genre. Seems the combination of old world and new can just as easily transcend space as time. And so goes a bone-dry Mississippi summer, far, far from its native fields.