The Blackbird Diaries – Dave Stewart (Roadshow)

Dave Stewart is best known as the male half of Eurythmics and as a producer adept at sprinkling fairy dust over other people’s recordings. He’s had considerable success at both these endeavors, and has a reputation as a delightfully bonkers collaborator, but he’s had limited exposure as a solo artist. In fact, this is his first solo outing in 13 years.

This album has you wondering why he has hid his light under the proverbial bushel.

The Blackbird Diaries had all the hallmarks of being an exercise in self-indulgence, but surprising is  lean and doesn’t suffer from a lack of self-editing. Recorded in Nashville in five days, the album is a combination of rollicking country-inflected rock n’ roll which fits into the oeuvre made notable by the likes of Tom Petty, the all-electric Bob Dylan (exemplified best by the irresistible The Gypsy Girl and Me and Cant Get You Out of My Head), and elements of literate songwriters like Lloyd Cole (most notably on Bulletproof Vest, a duet with the honey-voiced Colbie Caillat). Stewart wears his heart on the sleeve lyrically and while his voice is kinda unremarkable it gets the job done on most songs. One of the highlights is when he gets all dark and threatening on the excellent murder ballad, The Well.

The album opens with So Long Ago, Stewarts tribute to artists of by-gone days – it’s a superb piece of ensemble rock that sounds like something the X-Pensive Winos might have dished up. Another highlight is the Dylanesque Magic In The Blues which may reflect on Stewart’s own musical journey, and a couple of its key milestones.

There are a couple of duets on the album. All Messed Up is more a Nashville styled sweeping country ballad, featuring Martina McBride, while Stevie Nicks appears on Cheaper Than Free, which such manages to stay on the acceptable side of saccharine.

Stevie Nicks also seems to be the inspiration behind Stevie Baby where Stewart appears to be channeling Tom Petty, both lyrically and musically.

The craftsmanship in Stewart’s songs is undeniable.  He might be perceived as marching out of step with the other little black ducks but he’s a formidable musical presence and this album is a seriously impressive effort.

 

Lloyd Cole – Another Fine Conversation You Got Me Into

Lloyd Cole is no stranger to this little oasis of the internet as you will see if you search the length and breadth of this lil’ website. He’s about to do another Australian tour with a three piece band called The Small Ensemble, because they are, well, a small ensemble. They will be playing many songs from his impressive catalogue including a number of songs from his latest album Broken Record, an album he made after fans pre-purchased the album before it was made, making it a community funded enterprise.

That is probably all the information you need in order to make sense of the following conversation. Off you go then….

HHMM: We’re looking forward to the tour – this time with The Small Ensemble. Prior to this album you hadn’t toured with a band for quite a while. What provoked that idea this time around?

LC: To be honest I felt like I was getting a bit ‘slick’, as a solo artist. When I started doing the solo shows it was a huge challenge. I mean, I’m not much of a guitar player – I’m a bit better now than I was then and a bit more confident now than I was then – but there’s still not a lot of point taking instrumental breaks in the songs! So the songs seemed to segue into stories and the stories became part of the set. The stories had been spontaneous once and new ones continued to pop up, but it started to feel like it was a bit predictable – not necessarily scripted but some of the stories almost adhered to the songs and I felt like, after a while, that I needed to give them a break. I think with music it is a fairly good rule that whenever you get comfortable doing something it about time to do something else.

HHMM: You’ve almost answered the next question which was “ Does the Small Ensemble approach almost undermine the ‘folk singer’ identity you had developed?”

LC: Musically, it’s definitely an extension of that idea, but it’s a massive extension, it’s not just a small step. It’s definitely closer to playing with a full band. To be honest, the arrangements, even though there are three of us, not five which is what there was when I used to tour with a full band, are considerably more complex. With a full band where you have the bass and the drums behind you, and the full beat, the other instruments can play off those things and can quite easily play less. In the Small Ensemble a lot of the time I am the bass and drums with my rhythm guitar and the other two players create whatever atmosphere we are going to have and they have an awful lot of space to play with. It can be quite intricate and it takes a lot more time to put together a small ensemble than a full band who can just listen to an album and just play it the way it is on the album. So its been a lot of work but its also been very rewarding really. There are certain aspects of solo folk singer shows that I miss from time to time and those are usually related to the fact that I have complete freedom when I’m on my own. There are times when I’m touring with the Small Ensemble that I remember why I quit keeping bands. (laughs)

HHMM: Congratulations on the new album Broken Record. Would you say that the fan- funding process was a success?

LC: Well the record got made, so the funding did work, but it was incredibly poorly managed on my part. In terms of planning how much work was going to be involved in order to make it happen it is obvious that there are other ways I could have raised the same amount of money with considerably less work. On the other hand, the fan involvement in the record and the feeling of community behind this has given the record an extra strength that it might not otherwise have had. People seemed to really like being a part of it. It’s not a huge amount of money to spend to feel like this record is a little bit yours and people do seem to feel that way, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m certainly not going to do it again exactly the same way but I will consider ways to do it that are a little more time efficient if people want to be involved again.

HHMM: The response of fans is very important to a record they were involved in funding. Does that give a whole new meaning to the word ‘responsibility’?

LC: I don’t really think so. I’m not going to make a record if I think there is any chance that its not going to be any good. I told the investors in no uncertain terms that there was no guarantee when the record would come out and that it would come out when it was ready. As it was we did an incredibly short and intensive period of work that enabled us to get the record out on approximately the schedule we had been looking at. But I didn’t really feel a responsibility about that, no.

HHMM: When I reviewed the album I suggested it was either very brave or very humorous, or both, to open a fan funded album with the line “Not that I had any dignity left anyway”.

LC: I am well aware of my life being quite full of contradictions. On the one hand there is still a fair bit of ‘rockstar’ in the way I think about things, but on the other hand I do the gardening and take out the trash, things that Morrissey could never dream of doing. But I’m also willing to stand up and say “Actually, I think I’m a much better rockstar than Morrissey!” I just go about it in a different way. So I’m not completely humbled but I am aware that being me is not all that simple and it quite often varies from the time of day, from rthe morning to the evening to how I feel about me. Sometimes I feel like I should just pack the whole thing in and other times I feel that I’m quite justified in going on as long as I feel like it. It wasn’t an opening line that was meant to be taken entirely seriously but as I do think that one of my ambitions as a songwriter is to write things that may be funny one day and on another day may not be funny depending on what kind of mood you are in when you are listening to it.

HHMM: There has been quite a few comments and reviews that suggest the album is ‘country’ flavoured but to me that is little bit lazy based around the presence of certain instrumental textures. Do you define genres according to their instrumental textures or do you have a different criteria?

LC: I think that my work as a songwriter, in places, leans towards something that you would expect from a country artist. If Kris Kristofferson is a country singer then maybe I am too but I wouldn’t say that he is a country singer. There area few songs on the record where we did try and go for a very traditional, old school arrangement. Broken Record is a very simple song with a very darn simple arrangement and the flavours of the banjo and the pedal steel together with some of the harmony vocals definitely pull it in that direction. But does that make me a country singer? I don’t know and to be honest I don’t really care. I do agree with you that it did seem like a bit of a buzzword for a few of the reviews but I got the feeling that some of those reviews hadn’t heard any of my records since 1995 anyway.

HHMM: The reviewers that seem to understand the album best and ‘get’ what you are doing as a songwriter seem to refer to the ‘slyly subversive ‘ nature of your songwriting. Do you see that as the essence of your approach to your craft?

LC: No, no I don’t. I don’t care if its subversive to be honest. I see myself basically as an entertainer and I just think songs that reveal the whole of themselves to you on first listen provoke the thought ‘why listen to them again?’. So I certainly try to do things with the words and with the music that will make repeated listening worthwhile.

HHMM: One of the things that does that across a number of songs are little music nods to other songs and other artists. Are they included to reward trainspotters or to entertain yourself?

LC: I’ve been doing since Day One haven’t I? There’s stuff on Easy pieces that does that. I just find myself doing it. I was a rock music nerd as a child and I could do the New Music Express crossword in about ten minutes! Until about 1995 I felt like I knew exactly what was going on in the music world. I know nothing anymore. But because I was a music nerd as a child I hear things and because wordplay is something that comes semi-naturally to me, I’ll hear one thing and it will make me think of something else. So if I think what could be a non-sequitur to one person could be something different to someone else I might be inclined to include it in a song. But only if I also think it adds beauty to the song. Language needs to be beautiful to be with music, the kind of music I want to make anyway. If you want to be in Neubauten or The Fall then your language can be abrasive to have the necessary effect. But for my sort of music the sound of the words is very important.

HHMM: I particularly like that the album has a Side 1 and a Side 2 and they actually mean something. For example If I Were A Song could only have been the last song on Side 1 and Double Happiness could not have gone anywhere but at the end of Side 2. Is that something you miss about the single song download mentality?

LC: I’m not really a single song download person. I often download stuff for free because I know if I like it I will buy the album. Every now and then you get burned doing that. I think albums are extremely under-priced. I know how much work it takes to make a record and I think 15 bucks is really cheap. But while I accept that there is going to be an entire generation that don’t respect the idea of the running order I still think that there are still going to be people who want to hear the suite of songs that the creator thought was the best order to listen to them in. You can disagree or you can think that there’s a song that you don’t really want to listen to. What I do with I Tunes, when I have the time, is just delete any song from an album that I think really stinks. But generally if I think it is an album worth having I keep the whole thing in its entirety.

HHMM: Double Happiness was a real creeper of a song that could only have closed the album because of its instrumental outro.

LC: It probably could only close the album because it sits least with the other songs on the record, albeit that the chord structure is quite similar to some of the other songs. We were trying to become like ‘kraut-rock” on the playout. In the studio, I was saying “think Dusseldorf 1974”. So yes, I cant imagine anything else following it, so in many ways that song has to go there. If I Were A Song on the other hand was very, very nearly the first song on the record. It was my choose as first song on the record but David bate, my old A&R man who I trust with running order insisted that Broken record be the first song, and I think he was probably right.

HHMM: Just to conclude, can we again expect a potpourri of the catalogue on this tour?

LC: Absolutely. We are not going to be playing a different set to the one we played in Europe because we kind of hammered it into shape there and it worked well. I may try to finish a new song but I doubt that it will be ready for Australia. Most nights we play 28 or 30 songs, 5 of which are from the new record. And only cover versions by Tim Hardin.

HHMM: Given that we have about 10 seconds left, how do you feel about turning 50?

LC: I have no idea, no idea! Closer to dead than alive!

February Dates

Thursday 10th:Brisbane, Old Museum

Friday 11th:Sydney, Enmore Theatre

Saturday 12^th: Melbourne, Thornbury Theatre

Sunday 13th:Melbourne, Thornbury Theatre

Wednesday 16^th: Adelaide, The Gov

Thursday 17th:Perth International Arts Festival, Becks Music Box

Lloyd Cole Returns With Small Ensemble

Here’s a Christmas gift idea for the fan of intelligent, literate and articulate music in your family. No its not a dinner with Oprah Winfrey, it’s a ticket to see Lloyd Cole perform with his newish band, the Small Ensemble.

A regular visitor to our shores, Lloyd Cole returns this February off the back of his new studio album Broken Record, which was made via subscription by his loyal fan base, and was reviewed elsewhere on this site. An extract from that review suggests that I was impressed by the album.

“No, the fact is that Cole’s relevance continues to be enhanced by this charming, small scale album and in fact his legacy is enhanced by this excellent collection of new material.

On a superficial level some will suggest that he’s gone a little bit country on this record but to me that’s a lazy response based on the frequent (and very tasteful) use of the pedal steel on a number of tracks along with occasional appearances from a banjo and mandolin. To me these are not genre defining contributions but rather a response to songs that called for the melancholy tones that these instruments provide.

The way I look at it there’s probably half a dozen tracks that could make it onto a (reasonably generous) “best of” album and that’s an impressive strike rate.”

The Small Ensemble is in fact a full band that includes appearances by Fred Maher (ex Television,drums) Blair Cowan (ex-Commotions, keyboards), Mark Schwaber (acoustic guitar, mandolin) and Matt Cullen (acoustic guitar, banjo). Fred Maher, in particular is an exciting addition – its worth doing a quick google search to see what else he has done both as a producer and a musician. You’ll be surprised at some of the interesting work that comes up.

Additionally Cole has released the mail order and show only release Small Ensemble. Featuring Cole, Shcwaber and Cullen, Small Ensemble is an acoustic romp through Lloyd’s back catalogue and features re-workings of the Cole classics: Perfect Skin, No More Love Songs, Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? and Undressed, amongst others. It’s these tracks and more that you can expect to hear from the Small Ensemble when they visit Australia in February for appearances at the Perth International Arts Festival as well as Sydney’s Enmore Theatre.

With his most recent Australian solo tour having been a complete sell out this first band outing of Cole’s for over twenty years is sure to follow suit.

Tickets for all shows on sale Monday December 20th.

LLOYD COLE’S SMALL ENSEMBLE FEBRUARY 2011

Thursday 10th:Brisbane, Old Museum

Friday 11th:Sydney, Enmore Theatre

Saturday 12^th: Melbourne, Thornbury Theatre

Sunday 13th:Melbourne, Thornbury Theatre

Wednesday 16^th: Adelaide, The Gov

Thursday 17th:Perth International Arts Festival, Becks Music Box *

* on sale December 14th.

Lloyd Cole – Broken Record (Tapete)

Lloyd Cole is either a brave or a humorous artist – and, in all likelihood, he’s both. The opening line on his new, independently recorded album is “Not that I have that much dignity left anyway” and a repeated line in the title track is “starting to sound like a broken record”.

It almost invites the suggestion that Cole has devolved from a cutting edge, highly lauded, mainstream, popular artist to a fringe player surviving on the goodwill of a few loyal fans and slipping from relevance as he painfully extends a career by tediously repeating himself.

Of course if that’s actually where Cole found himself he wouldn’t be likely to admit that by making such a prominent self reference in the opening song, now would he?

No, the fact is that Cole’s relevance continues to be enhanced by this charming, small scale album and in fact his legacy is enhanced by this excellent collection of new material.

On a superficial level some will suggest that he’s gone a little bit country on this record but to me that’s a lazy response based on the frequent (and very tasteful) use of the pedal steel on a number of tracks along with occasional appearances from a banjo and mandolin. To me these are not genre defining contributions but rather a response to songs that called for the melancholy tones that these instruments provide.

The way I look at it there’s probably half a dozen tracks that could make it onto a (reasonably generous) “best of” album and that’s an impressive strike rate.

There are no songs here that don’t earn their stripes the album starts wistfully with the title track, Like A Broken Record. There’s probably few writers who would contemplate their lovers return from “a writers retreat” with only a hint of a smirk, but Cole does that on Writers Retreat and emerges unscathed. It’s a rollicking up-tempo song that mines the collection of irresistible melodies that Cole has aplenty.

Later on Side One (yes it’s actually called that) two songs with almost lullaby qualities are the highlights. The Flipside is the first of these which benefits from a salubrious vocal while If I Were A Song takes a lyric that could have been problematically coy and provides it with a sincerity that allows it maintain its grace.

Side Two is almost flawless. That’s Alright is a deeply grooved pop-rock song that oozes casual cool – it is followed by the completely contrasting Oh Genevieve which is impossibly perky almost to the point of being a little too cheesy.

Man Overboard is a beautiful song that takes the form of a gentle sea shanty and blends writing styles that seem to merge Luka Bloom with early Springsteen. It’s a little gem of a song. Rhinestones is a wordy self-deprecating, folk song with a sting in its tail and humour on its side.

The album closes with perhaps my personal favorite song on the album Double Happiness. It’s a strange little song – on one hand it’s flirtatious and immediate and on the other it concludes with an unorthodox instrumental outro that emphasises that this is a band album, not a solo folk collection. It’s a creeper of a song that rounds the album out well.

Lloyd Cole’s Between Album’s Album

Lloyd Cole is busy recording his new album, which has been funded by fans pre-ordering it via his website. I’m looking forward to hearing the two lines of lyrics that I paid for! If you want to take as share in this art meets commerce arrangement you still can, so visit the website.

http://shop.lloydcole.com/products/my-next-album-limited-edition-2-cd-set

In the meantime Cole is releasing a new ‘album’. Its actually his new acoustic trio – The Small Ensemble – in the studio for a day, recorded live, no overdubs. He describes it as “Very old school. Twelve songs for $12”.

No doubt it will be well worth a listen.

Concert Review – Lloyd Cole

The Thornbury Theatre is a strangely enchanting venue. I had heard much about it but tonight was the first time I had ventured there. It’s a restored art deco building with an atmosphere that is difficult to describe. It sits half way between an intimate listening music venue in the  tradition of the lamented Continental Café on one hand and then on the other its got the kitsch attraction of a reception room where your parents might have gone to a dinner dance. Strange yet charming, I like the place and shall return.

There would be no dancing here tonight.

Lloyd Cole was playing solo and by that I truly mean solo, just him, two guitars and an offering of something like 32 songs (give or take a couple that were blended into medleys). Incidentally on the subject of medleys Cole explained that these hybrid performances of songs should only be played by artists over 45 as they were liable to become addictive. He has a point. In the hands of a less willing performer a medley could indeed become a deadly weapon – Cole is excused a medley or two on account of his exceptionally generous presentation of his catalogue of songs.

He enters the stage unannounced and starts singing. Two sets are presented and they are of equal weight in terms of the “hits” and the more purist-desired material. The show opens with 29 (from Mainstream), which is followed by the Leonard Cohen cover Tower Of Song and the highly desired Rattlesnakes. It was a very welcoming way to commence the show that reveals that for all of Coles protestations that he is now but a mere folksinger he still inherently understands the need to connect with an audience in a theatrical sense.

In fact it’s Coles willingness to undermine his own persona that makes the show so successful. While his songs demand to be taken seriously – and indeed there is barely a line he has written that has been committed to recording without due diligence and consideration – he remains aware that his audience perhaps takes him more seriously than he takes himself.

Thus when he announces an interval as “ a break from the oppressive quietness” and makes reference to the need to reach a particular point of “self loathing” in order to sing a song you know that he’s come to terms long ago with a inherent earnest consideration that his songs provoke.

Personally I found him very funny. Like Michael Stipe whose lyrics are so much funnier than given credit, Cole has some brilliantly surreal and silly moments. In The Young Idealists (from the aptly named Anti Depressant album) he counterpoints the culture of coffee shop politics with economic terminology more commonly found in the Financial Review. Describing Los Angeles as “so full of cocaine and self belief” is perfectly phrased and anyone who chooses to rhyme “driven to distraction” with “Scarlet Johansen” as he does in the wonderful Woman In A Bar is doing fine by me.

He states his enjoyment of beer and cleavage and explains that he lives in a big white house where it takes him all day Saturday to mow the lawn. It is a statement that he does not consider himself to be a miserable person, and its an invitation to his audience to join him in a  happier place that perhaps they had expected to find themselves. He’s telling them that he wont be offended if they smile. Hearty laughter is even encouraged.
All of which would be completely useless if it weren’t for his catalogue of great songs. Cole seems to understand his place in a service industry. His performance is his service and his songs are his tools of trade and he is blessed with very high standard of equipment.

He plays songs from just about every album he has released. Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces are well represented with the “showstoppers” like Lost Weekend, Brand New Friend,  Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken and Perfect Skin, but its perhaps some of the lesser known songs that are most rewarding. The delicate Music In A Foreign Language is a gem (and features the worlds most restrained audience sing-a-long) as is the aforementioned Woman In A Bar. The ironically titled Unhappy Song plays a starring role and What’s Wrong With This Picture is another stellar moment. Undressed opens with the line “You look so good when you’re depressed” and for that alone its a highlight. For me though one of the real standouts was the relatively unsung Old Enough To Know Better (from etc) with its brutal yet whimsical look at a relationship reaching a point of tired dissatisfaction. It segues into That Boy in an uplifting way.

On the strength of this performance Lloyd Cole remains a vital artist. He’s spirited guitar player, a very appealing vocalist and a songwriter that cares about his craft. There is no reason why he shouldn’t continue to flourish as long as he desires to – and I suspect he has no reason to seek an alternative. When he sings Kristofferson’s Please Dont Tell Me How This Story Ends is without any self referential sense of trepidation. Those choosing to invest in his still to be recorded next album should not be concerned for the wisdom of their wager.