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Former Afghan Whigs front man Greg Dulli – the once infamous, self-styled lothario of grunge – stands centre-stage like a youthful Johnny Cash, dressed in black and playing a Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar. A commanding presence, he is flanked only by Dave Rosser on guitar and Polyphonic Spree’s violist, Rick Nelson. Billed as “An Evening with Greg Dulli”, it marks a change of atmosphere from his recent shows with Mark Lanegan which were, to say the least, both brooding and sobering.

Tonight there is an unavoidable awkwardness to the idea of an acoustic Greg Dulli solo show, which isn’t there in the solo acoustic shows of, say, Jeff Tweedy, Ryan Adams or Mark Eitzel. Those mentioned hold American roots music so familiar that they can effortlessly tap into various traditions and styles with only an acoustic guitar. In doing so, they breathe new life into songs that they have played throughout their careers. In contrast, Dulli’s heroes were always soul musicians such as Marvin Gaye, Al Green and Steve Wonder; music that would seem less fitting on folk instruments. Along with Dulli’s limitations as a guitarist, this doesn’t bode well for the evening.

Dulli, however, plays to his strengths. He elicits moods and atmospheres from the wealth of material he has accumulated from his stints in The Afghan Whigs, The Twilight Singers and The Gutter Twins. The set leans towards his work with The Twilight Singers; ‘The Killer’, ‘Candy Cane Crawl’ and set closer ‘The Twilight Kid’ are all aired along with a stunning version of ‘Teenage Wristband’, which incorporates a verse from The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’. Predictably, the songs that provoke the most sing-alongs are those by The Afghan Whigs. ‘Uptown Again’ and ‘66’, pure pop songs from The Afghan Whigs’ 1998 masterpiece 1965, provide an upbeat twist, as does ‘If I Were Going’ from 1993’s Gentlemen. From 1996’s Black Love, ‘Step into the Light’ is a dreamy, slide-guitar affair that offers respite in the middle section of the show.

The song that translates on the acoustic instruments most successfully, however, is ‘The Stations’, a Gutter Twins track that achieves the kind of gothic country darkness of which Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy could dream. Yearning and menacing in equal measure, it involves the whole band more than any other song performed on the night and captures the intensity of the live setting more convincingly than any other song performed. Three new songs from the forthcoming Twilight Singers record are played, much to the joy of all those present.

Throughout the evening, Dulli plays the charming host. The interplay and banter between Dulli and the audience are a refreshing change from the cocksure, arrogant and swaggering Greg Dulli that once fronted The Afghan Whigs. It’s also a welcome change from the edginess of a Gutter Twins show. An Evening with Greg Dulli? If only it were a weekly event…

Setlist for An Evening with Greg Dulli – Whelan’s Dublin, October 27th, 2010

  1. St. Gregory
  2. Uptown Again
  3. King Only
  4. Blackbird and the Fox
  5. The Lure Would Prove Too Much
  6. Bonnie Brae
  7. 66
  8. Let Me Lie To You
  9. Pair of Brown Eyes (snippet)
  10. Gunshots
  11. Forty Dollars
  12. Step Into the Light
  13. If I Were Going
  14. Summer’s Kiss
  15. The Killer
  16. Follow You Down
  17. The Stations
  18. Never Seen No Devil

Encore:

  1. Candy Cane Crawl
  2. Down the Line
    (José González cover)
  3. Teenage Wristband
  4. The Twilite Kid

Originally published by State.ie

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Without any effort, Crawdaddy, for one night only, is transformed into a dive bar in Nashville. Former Wallflowers frontman, Jakob Dylan, shuffles onstage with band members that wouldn’t look out of place on father Bob’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour of ’75. The audience comprises of three strands: a) Bob Dylan fanatics, a.k.a Dylanologists, who are there for obvious reasons, b) those that were among the many millions who bought a copy of The Wallflowers’ Bringing Down the Horse, and finally, c) Alt. Country devotees, charmed by his current foray into country music. His 2008 debut solo album, Seeing Things produced by Rick Rubin, hinted at a talent that was maturing and convincingly tapping into the sound and tradition of American roots music, which came to fruition with this year’s T-Bone Burnett produced Women and Country. On both albums, Dylan achieved a tempo and a sound that works as one piece and this, ultimately, is what goes against him in a live setting.

He immediately launches into ‘Nothin’ But the Whole Wide World’ followed by ‘Everybody’s Hurting’, both of which are contemplative mid-tempo country songs, the latter using his backup singers to full effect. Unfortunately, Dylan and his band never really stray far from this form, and the result is a set that is one-dimensional, lacking in surprise and anything but dynamic. Even performances of Wallflowers songs, ‘God Says Nothing Back’, ‘Three Malenas’ and ‘6th Avenue Heartache’, aren’t enough to add momentum. What forces him into an even darker hole is that he either isn’t playing his guitar, or his guitar is so low in the mix that no-one can hear it.

Add to this his refusal to take any risks and deviate from a formulated set list, and one finds a performer and a band that gets too comfortable. One immediately thinks of what Dylan could have done to turn the format of the evening upside down and inject a sense of the unpredictable. He could have, for example, thrown in an interesting cover version or banished his band from the stage and performed a short set of songs, solo, without amplification, to this small, devoted and intimate audience. Dylan has no doubt learned how to craft a set of songs for an album but he has yet to find a way to perform his songs in a way that truly engages.

Originally published by State.ie

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“Play the hits!” shouts an uninitiated punter. Tortoise, of course, doesn’t do hits. Almost 15 years on from their defining masterpiece, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, Tortoise’s post- rock credentials are still intact. Initially, the crowd appears to be a convention for all the children of Sonic Youth’s band members. In time, however, they become audience members at a jazz concert: if they aren’t chin-scratching, they’re nodding to drum solos and swinging wildly to melody-laden pieces of meticulously crafted music.

On a small stage crammed full of xylophones, guitars, and synthesizers, two drum kits are pitted against each other. It is clear from the outset that while Tortoise operates as a democratic unit, all band members take their cues from Jeff Parker. The remaining band members look to Parker, the only member of the band with a set list, to initiate the night’s proceedings. He hits a key on his Moog synthesizer and, gradually, all of the remaining band members find their way into -High-Class Slim Came Floating In’, the opening track from their latest full- length LP, Beacons of Ancestorship.

What becomes more and more apparent as the show progresses is that, as a jazz or classical concert, one can easily follow the direction that the band decides to take on that particular night. By the time the band shifts into -Charteroak Foundation’, the final song of the evening, it’s clear that Tortoise, like Mogwai, effortlessly bleed all of their songs into one, continuously flowing mood-piece. What’s so generous and giving this approach to a live show is that it provides both first-time and long-time listeners alike a single point of entry into what the band is all about, which the stop-start approach of most rock concerts doesn’t allow. All the more impressive is Tortoise’s refusal to reduce their show to art-rock gimmicks and pretentions: at no point do the band members play into the crowd by donning ‘quirky’ outfits or throwing a bass drum in the air only to catch it without missing a beat. Tortoise is simply too focused on leading their audience into the next vibe, and we’re all the better for it.

“Play the hits!”, shouts an uninitiated punter. Tortoise, of course, doesn’t do hits. Almost 15 years on from their defining masterpiece, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, Tortoise’s post- rock credentials are still intact. Initially, the crowd appears to be a convention for all the children of Sonic Youth’s band members. In time, however, they become audience members at a jazz concert: if they aren’t chin-scratching, they’re nodding to drum solos and swinging wildly to melody-laden pieces of meticulously crafted music.

On a small stage crammed full of xylophones, guitars, and synthesizers, two drum kits are pitted against each other. It is clear from the outset that while Tortoise operates as a democratic unit, all band members take their cues from Jeff Parker. The remaining band members look to Parker, the only member of the band with a set list, to initiate the night’s proceedings. He hits a key on his Moog synthesizer and, gradually, all of the remaining band members find their way into -High-Class Slim Came Floating In’, the opening track from their latest full- length LP, Beacons of Ancestorship.

What becomes more and more apparent as the show progresses is that, as a jazz or classical concert, one can easily follow the direction that the band decides to take on that particular night. By the time the band shifts into -Charteroak Foundation’, the final song of the evening, it’s clear that Tortoise, like Mogwai, effortlessly bleed all of their songs into one, continuously flowing mood-piece. What’s so generous and giving this approach to a live show is that it provides both first-time and long-time listeners alike a single point of entry into what the band is all about, which the stop-start approach of most rock concerts doesn’t allow. All the more impressive is Tortoise’s refusal to reduce their show to art-rock gimmicks and pretentions: at no point do the band members play into the crowd by donning ‘quirky’ outfits or throwing a bass drum in the air only to catch it without missing a beat. Tortoise is simply too focused on leading their audience into the next vibe, and we’re all the better for it.

Originally published by State.ie

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I Am Kloot – Sky at Night

(Shepherd Moon / EMI)

Manchester three-piece I Am Kloot have spent almost ten years swinging wildly between sounds. Debut album Natural History brought Jonny Bramwell’s distinctively Northern English songs beyond the masses of his hometown and continued the social commentary and wit of his solo album You, Me and the Alarm Clock, released under the pseudonym of Johnny Dangerously. Although Natural History spawned songs that are now staples of the band’s live shows, the album was too quiet, too basic in scope and lacked any element of surprise. The follow- up, I Am Kloot, found the band over– asserting their appetite for crashing rock songs, while Gods and Monsters were the sound of musicians bleeding the life out of their songs in the studio. On I Am Kloot Play Moolah Rouge, the band hit a groove. Recorded live in their Stockport studio, it was a band capturing the feel of their songs and creating an overarching mood throughout the record.

Throughout Sky at Night – produced by Guy Garvey and Craig Potter of Elbow – Bramwell makes a strong case for his being one of Britain’s greatest living songwriters. Clearly, his closest contemporaries are Shack’s Michael Head and Sheffield troubadour Richard Hawley, both of whom are recalled on opener ‘Northern Skies’ and ‘To the Brink’, respectively. ‘Northern Skies’ is a rambling, travelling folk song, strongly reminiscent of Here’s Tom with the Weather / Corner of Miles and Gil– era Shack. Its finger- picked folk, restless drums and lush strings move the album along in the direction of a fine folk- rock record.

However, ‘To the Brink’ weighs down the euphoric rush of ‘Northern Skies’. A combination of the late- night, down-and-out, character of Hawley’s Coles Corner and Serge Gainsbourg– esque orchestration, which creates a mystique that defines the record’s overall mood: one of soul searching darkness, which is achieved naturally through Bramwell’s vulnerable voice and his use of minor keys. ‘Fingerprints’ continues from where ‘Northern Skies’ took off, only every verse punctuated by a frenetic ensemble that betrays the simplicity of this trio. The song’s coda of maudlin strings immediately leads one to The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’, itself a masterpiece of Northern– English realism.

Lyrically, Bramwell is at his most ribald and witty in ‘Proof’, where self- reflection breathes new life into cliches: “Say, d’you wanna spin another line/ like we had a good time/ not that I need proof”. ‘I Still Do’ and ‘Same Shoes’ find him digging deep and lamenting passed opportunities.

What makes Sky at Night such a success is its constant reach for every song’s real personality. On ‘The Moon is a Blind Eye’, thundering drums and sparse piano lines play behind Bramwell’s voice. Small touches in the mix all combine to create a great song that builds slowly with ease. Only ‘Lately’, with its chorus that’s too- close- for- comfort to Joe Cocker’s version of ‘Get by with a Little Help from My Friends’, intrudes on the album’s continuity. Minor gripes aside, Sky at Night is the sound of a band that have never been more comfortable in their skin.

Originally published by State.ie

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Teenage Fanclub – Shadows

Glasgow’s Teenage Fanclub have never made creative leaps and bounds though they have earned a reputation as a solid band: you always know what you’re going to get with the new Teenage Fanclub record and Shadows is no exception.

Naturally, Shadows carries on from where 2005’s Man Made left off. Early on, the significance of the album’s title becomes apparent with the band sequencing the album in three and four- song cycles by Love/Blake/McGinley. In effect, has each songwriter in the band shadowing the other, and the stylistic variety that each member brings to the record becomes more and more apparent.

Gerard Love’s pulsating ‘Sometimes I Don’t Need to Believe in Anything’, which echoes The Boo Radleys’ ‘Wish I Skinny’, is a declaration of middle-aged apathy that sets out a base theme to Shadows. ‘Into the City’, which has the feel of a lazy, hazy Fifth Dimension-era Byrds, shows Love’s versatility as a writer. The album’s antepenultimate song, ‘Sweet Days Waiting’, winds the album down beautifully, with Love whispering an upbeat refrain of sweet, sweet days are waiting there for you.
The classic Teenage Fanclub song is in good health, thanks to Norman Blake. His acoustic power– pop songs add another, if natural, dimension to Shadows. Lead single, ‘Baby Lee’, is a definite nod to the pastoral folk of Songs From Northern Britain and its memorable chorus, predictable Teenage Fanclub chord progression and Blake’s voice are familiar ground to those who possess worn out copies of Bandwagonesque, Thirteen, Grand Prix and Songs From Northern Britain. ‘When I Still Have Thee’ finds Blake ploughing this ground again, and the humour and rhymes in his lyrics (Well, The Rolling Stones wrote a song for me/it’s a minor song in a major key) afford light relief from the darker material on Shadows, courtesy of Raymond McGinley.

McGinley’s songs are somewhere in between Love’s drifting melodies and psychedelic structures and Blake’s perfectly formed pop songs. Both ‘The Fall’ and ‘The Past’ revolve in a tight structure: both songs are seemingly connected, suggesting that the writer is trying to escape from the past, a history. The choruses of both ‘The Fall’ and ‘The Past’ almost become slogans by the time they finish, while ‘Living with the Seasons’ finds McGinely leaning towards Blake’s folk influenced songs.
The nature of cycles- life cycles, nature cycles, songwriting cycles- is an essential idea threaded through these songs. What is most admirable about Shadows is that Teenage Fanclub managed to make an album that, although a slight departure of sorts, sounds and feels like a Teenage Fanclub album that may very well be part of a late blooming of great work. As a band, Teenage Fanclub has managed to move forward without having to compromise their identity, maturing gracefully.

Originally published by State.ie 

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Bright Eyes / Neva Dinova – One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels

It’s unusual for Conor Oberst to move backward. Over the past ten years, the Omaha, Nebraska native– once described by Rolling Stone as “Rock’s boy genius”– has, in total, released eleven records under various guises including Monsters of Folk and two albums with The Mystic Valley Band. His revisiting of 2004′s One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels – the first four tracks of which are exclusive to the 2010 reissue– is a welcome journey back home to Bright Eyes, his original and best know moniker.

As the title suggests, the sessions began when Oberst and Neva Dinova frontman Jake Bellows brought out the guitars over, well, one jug of wine. The Dylan comparisons, which heightened after Bright Eyes’ magnum opus, the 2005 Iraq Invasion- influenced I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, are largely redundant here. Oberst deconstructs folk songs using the DIY sonic textures that so defined Lifted and Letting Off The Happiness; eighties pop is favored instead of sixties folk, chiefly that of The Cure; whether it’s the guitars on ‘Rollerskating’, which echo ‘In Between Days’, or Oberst’s Robert Smith-style wailing throughout. The contrast between Oberst’s fraught voice works starkly against the smooth, laid back vocal of Bellows, whose earthy tones are reminiscent of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James.

Of the four new songs that grace this reissue, ‘I Know You’ is the most memorable. Oberst’s urgent, weighty inflections recall Leonard Cohen and the overall production of the song- right from his guitar playing to the reverb-heavy snare drum that haunts throughout- has the feel of a long-lost folk album. The abstractions in the lyrics make leaps and gaps that close tighter with each subsequent hearing.

As the record progresses, the mood and feel of the songs prove too sedate, too predictable and what follows isn’t as engaging as the opening four tracks. The novelty of the stylistic comparisons between Bright Eyes and Neva Dinova eventually wears off and the record never fully takes you to unexpected places. What is most visible; however, is Oberst’s growth from a crumbling 20- something-year-old alternative folk singer– songwriter, screaming into a four- track in the bedroom of his parent’s home to a mature, well– paced and fully formed songwriter; undoubtedly the most skilled of his generation.

A record purely for Bright Eyes completists, the uninitiated should first venture to Fevers and Mirrors, and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning to gauge the development of this truly outstanding talent.

Originally published by State.ie

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Originally published by Entertainment.ie. To read the original, please click here.

 

ALMOST ten years into their career, Delorentos have followed up their Choice Prize- winning album Little Sparks with Night Becomes Light, an album that might just be their best yet. Kieran McGuinness and Rónán Yourell sat down with us and talked about the writing and recording of the record, sharing the same producer as Hozier and what fans can expect on their upcoming tour.

 

Delorentos are almost ten years on the trot and now on the eve of releasing album number four. Does the process of writing and recording an album get any easier with that level of experience or is it always daunting?

Kieran McGuinness: We have our way of doing things: we’re four songwriters who are always supporting each other, in competition with each other, which are both good and things

For our first record, it didn’t feel that anyone was dying to hear our record. During our second record, we broke up, so it was a bit of a mess. So by the time we made our third record, we came back, and we didn’t feel like anyone was mad to hear it again.

So it does seem like a different process for us every time. On this album, we didn’t want to do the thing where you write a song in a room, play it for three months and record it; this time around, we had a bigger pool of songs and the four of us have got a bit more confidence in our writing. You begin to trust each other more. When I bring in a song to the other guys, I feel that I can trust them.

Rónán Yourell: Every time does feel different. Over the years, I think you just trust and believe in each other more. If someone has a vision for a song, it’s about facilitating that vision, enabling, but also trying different things, too. Neil on this record, for example, brought a lot of technology to this record: a lot of iPad apps and the like, putting them on pedals, exploring different sounds. It’s weird and wonderful every time and, like anything else, there’s good days and bad, and then there’re times where you wonder “are we getting anywhere, here?” and then, suddenly, there’s a five-minute breakthrough that opens up a song and takes in a different direction.

Kieran McGuinness: We were never the type of band that practices in Temple Bar Music Centre, goes out for a smoke and talks to all the other bands and goes “How are you? Did you hear such and such got signed…”. We’ve never been part of that kind of thing; we’ve always felt that we were out there on our own. There’s a song on the record called ‘Everybody Else Gets Wet’, which I wrote on my phone. The lead- into the song starts off a bit…weird. And I had to convince the other guys: “Trust me: this will be good”. I guess that was the way it worked for all the songs on the record. It takes a lot of trust, labour and passion where you have songs ready. It always feels like the first time.

Producer Rob Kirwan has worked with bands who have quite a robust, dynamic sound, such as U2 and Depeche Mode, but also acts whose sound is more grounded and stripped down, such as Hozier, PJ Harvey and Ray LaMontagne. Was it difficult for him to centre four songwriters, brimming with ideas and how effective was he in bringing you all into a middle ground?

Rónán Yourell: Rob worked with us on Little Sparks, so what was great about working with him this time around is that we had an existing relationship with him and we’d worked up a degree of trust in working with him. We had a much larger pool of songs, this time around, so Rob was great at sifting through things, putting a shape on the record. Listening back, I think that this record has much more variety than any record we’ve done, but it also feels cohesive, and it feels that it connects up.

Kieran McGuinness: We do our own, internal, sifting through songs, but you still end up with a pile. One of the songs on the record never went beyond the demo that Ro had on his phone. Rob chose what he felt were the best songs. He then deconstructed those songs, with us, to make them the very best versions of those songs. On the last record we didn’t know what to expect, but on this record, there was more internal discipline.

This song has much more of all of us together than any other record before; if a song wasn’t connecting with someone during the sessions, it didn’t go beyond the practice space. I had songs that I thought were strong, but they didn’t get off the ground with the guys because, maybe, they were too personal; too direct. When we settled on a final bank of songs, it was a strange thing, because, on the first two albums, we had whatever songs came to us and said “these are our best 15 songs” and produced them to the nth degree. It was strange to have cut a record from such a large pool of songs

Rónán Yourell: The first couple weeks were great fun: going to Grouse Lodge with dozens of keyboards and all sorts and experimenting with sounds. Rob has a great sensibility with a feel that brings about the best in us. When you have four strong characters who can be quite forceful in their opinions, you can get in each other’s way. Rob gets great results by not making it results driven. And demystifies a lot of recording techniques. It’s all about feel and getting away from listening to a guitar part for two hours and trying it a thousand different ways with overdrive pedals.

Kieran McGuinness: A lot of the sounds from the album were live takes, and there were a lot of rough sounds that just seemed great that made me wonder how we’ll do it all, live, ahead of our tour. I remember Rónán was playing guitar and hit his elbow off his guitar, and it made some weird, almost wah- like noise, and it sounded great; so it’s a live take that is as much a part of the song as anything.

Rónán Yourell: Obviously, we hope that we do go out and play great shows, but on record, perfection has never been what this band has always been about: it should be real, and it should be about capturing something that feels real, imperfect, raw.

You mentioned Hozier: Rob produced Hozier’s record at the same time as ours and on, consecutive days, he was going in and out. He’s a genuine guy; very gentle and I can see why it works well between Hozier and Rob: they’re both quite chilled, relaxed guys.

With the melting pot of ideas that you guys have and the range of songs and sounds that came out of the sessions, how did you sequence those songs into a cohesive record?

Kieran McGuinness: On every other record, it was a case of “These 12 songs worked, these didn’t”. We got to the position when we were sequencing, and we chose from 15. Every time we added or removed a track the tone of the entire record felt different. Take out two singles, put in two very slow songs, it’s a different record.

We get on really well; we’re like brothers. Sequencing, though, is the kind of stuff that we fight about and that causes some degree of tension. But we can league the arguments in the practice space. Right to the end, there were heated discussions about what went on the record and what didn’t. Eventually, we got it right, and we separated ourselves from it. We came out of the fog of recording with perspective and, now, we’re into again because we’re rehearsing for the tour. When we’re rehearsing, everything connects more: our vocals connect more, our playing…it feels right. You hear the words more.

Rónán Yourell: We hadn’t lived with the songs as long as on the first record, so we still don’t know how some of the songs will work live, which is exciting.

Kieran McGuinness: Some of the songs could take on a different life, live, because we still don’t know how it’s all going to sound, live. There’re a couple of songs, ‘Too Late, for example, that have a very defined, Motown feel, which you have to work at achieving. It has to be groove-based, and you can’t be afraid to reach for that feel. The melodies, to us, feel like new melodies and new songs in the world. We work so hard at putting what it is we feel down on record, so hopeful when we go out and play, people who’ve heard the record will connect to that feel as much as we have.

When you get to this point, it is scary: everything up until this point is quite inward. We focus on the songs, the songwriting, everything that we’re all bringing to it. You then go out in the world, and you have to relate all of it back to an audience. The focus moves outwards. In a band, there’s always skills that go on. But standing on a stage, delivering those songs to an audience…that’s where you find out when it works, or when it doesn’t.

Delorentos’ fourth album, Night Becomes Light, is out now from Universal Music.