Live review: 24th Byron Bay Bluesfest 2013

Firmly established in its 24^th year as one of the premier music festivals of the world, the Byron Bay Bluesfest continues to top its already heady highs. The lineup for this year’s festival was a dream program for lovers of blues and roots music and anything else festival director Peter Noble decided to throw our way.

Criticised in the past for veering too far from its original blues brief, Bluesfest has outgrown these criticisms purely by booking the biggest acts in the world, and some of the most interesting – over the past few years headliners have been Bob Dylan, B B King, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Yes, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty, Paul Simon and (almost) Roger Daltrey performing Tommy (even though Daltrey didn’t show – next year maybe?).

Noble’s knack for picking the greats, blues or not – and a demonstration of the power he wields on the world festival circuit in doing so – was vindicated by this year’s record attendance: capacity crowds of 17,000 per day which adds up to 85,000 in toto.

And I was one of those fools dancing in the rain. And the smile is still on my face.

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Taj Mahal

Accompanied by Gaz T, my intrepid local tracker and native guide, my 24^th Byron Bay Bluesfest experience started on the Friday with the wonderful Taj Mahal. Mahal was one of those bluesmen – like Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee – that the 1970s hippie freaks took to their hearts back in those fragrant days. His popularity has remained undiminished since then. As is often the case, I expected a creaky veteran, tottering on a chair – but what we got was a big man, standing tall, whipping his trio through modern blues, pre-war country blues and even calypso flavoured blues. Yeah!

And if Taj Mahal surprised me with his age-denying vigour, reggae and ska legend Jimmy Cliff utterly floored me. Cliff was already a star in Jamaica while Bob Marley was merely learning his trade, and at 65 he has lost nothing – twisting, dancing, leaping through his set. It is this pin-sharp showmanship that reminds us of the huge influence classic 60s Motown had on pre-Marley Jamaican artists. Slick, soulful and bang-on, his beautiful songs had heart, message and groove.

Jimmy Cliff

Shuggie Otis

While everyone headed to Steve Miller in one of the big tents, I moved towards the smaller Jambalaya stage and blues guitarist Shuggie Otis. Otis was a child prodigy of the blues guitar, the son of rhythm-and-blues bandleader Johnny Otis. After a few semi-hits in the 70s he faded from view. After a 40 year hiatus for whatever reason, he is back touring the world and I could not miss him. Rail thin and now with the angular almost-Latin good looks of his father, Shuggie seemed troubled and ill at ease. But when he found his zone and soared, he soared higher and higher. His beautiful playing took my breath completely away. In a way it was more exciting to see an artist who could easily miss, but hit it so well; compared to all the other in-the-pocket coolly-pro bands at Bluesfest, Otis’s set had that element of danger. Sublime and edgy.

Then the rain hit and my Bluesfest experience sprung a leak. Not having brought a raincoat or wet-weather gear I was soaked to the skin in minutes. Not being able to squeeze into the Steve Miller tent I stood in the rain and watched him play ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ – rain will come and go, the beautiful epoch-defining voice of The Space Cowboy (some call him Maurice…) singing this glorious freedom song was here and now. Around me, teenage fans danced in the rain to Miller’s golden period hits, singing every word to ‘Rockin’ Me Baby’ and ‘The Joker’. It’s only rain, it can soak our skin but it can’t dampen our spirit.

Carlos Santana

Keeping the San Fran psychedelic vibe going – albeit in a very very different way – Santana’s set began with cosmic interstellar graphics fading in and out of the two huge screens either side of the stage. Then it was a brief drum roll from drummer Dennis Chambers and the Santana band roared into 1971’s ‘Toussaint L’Overture’. As well as Chambers, the percussion backline was made up of long-time conguero Raul Rekow and Karl Perazza on timbales – who together propelled the music like a freight-train, but a freight-train which skips and dances lightly along the track. Of course the main voice of this band has always been the elegant guitar playing of Carlos Santana – always lyrical, always going for the emotional connection over the empty dazzle of technique. Which ultimately makes him, above and beyond his Latin and jazz phrasing, one hell of a great blues guitarist – as we heard from a short (and all too rare) snatch of Santana playing some straight blues during the set. Can music reviewers still use words like ‘celestial’? I guess I just did, because it is the only word I have left to describe Santana’s unearthly performance.

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi

The day ended with a truly soulful set from The Tedeschi-Trucks Band. The absolute highlight of my first ‘Fest two years ago, the band of slide ex-wünderkind Derek Trucks and his wife, vocalist Susan Tedeschi never fails to amaze. For their 2013 return they brought their three-man horn section along and their firepower went up a notch. The thrilling ‘Midnight In Harlem’ – a song that is built on an almost sexual upward curve – had Trucks’ solo coda taking it up and up into that region that Carlos Santana used to (and I am sure still does) call ‘spiritual orgasm’.

I was saturated with rain, good vibes and killer music. And I still had two days to go.

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Allen Toussaint

Saturday we eased in with the once and future king of the Big Easy himself, New Orleans magus Allen Toussaint. The man’s CV is virtually a history of modern R&B, soul and funk and his urbane cool belies his immense impact in shaping these musics. As if his beautiful, artfully funky music (and stunningly virtuosic piano playing) wasn’t gift enough, he threw Mardi Gras masks (and green and yellow AFL footballs?) to the crowd. A charmer in every way.

After a while cruising the human river and people watching (a Bluesfest pastime in itself) I chanced upon Jeff Tweedy and Wilco. And it was one of those wonderful music moments when seeing a band live makes you an instant fan – all subsequent listening experiences filtered through that thrilling ‘Eureka!’ moment of discovery. Wilco’s music seems to beat with the same American-classic heart at the centre of the songs of Neil Young and the darker Bruce Springsteen material. The band (especially guitarist Nels Cline) seem to be able to paint perfect soundscapes behind any of Tweedy’s songs, be they dark rockers or sweeter country-tinged ballads. A revelation.

Floating on the beauty of Wilco’s music I was yanked back down to earth by Status Quo. Britain’s answer to AC/DC, the indestructible Quo have been playing the same song for over 40 years – a variant on 12-bar pub boogie that has sold 118 million albums (think about that figure for a minute). Watching their flawless set, with mainstays Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt rocking hard before banks of white Marshalls, I could (almost) forgive them their awful Coles ads. Some bands are simply a force of nature and Quo are a blast of the simple joy of undiluted rock’n’roll.

Robert Plant’s Sensational Shape Shifters

The straight-from-the-botttle thrust of Quo was perhaps a good brain-scourer –  an astringent appetiser – for the almost too-rich feast that was Robert Plant, which followed next. The fabled Led Zeppelin vocalist has been the main obstacle to any Led Zep reunions, as he has always moved forward with his music, taking his former band’s world-music aesthetic to greater heights than they ever did. His new band, The Sensational Shape Shifters, are the best version of Plant’s patented future-primitive groove – to one side of the stage we have Juldeh Camara working a Gambian wooden banjo, to the other side keyboardist John Baggott (ex-Massive Attack) sits in a nest of synths and laptops. Plant acknowledged the faithful with a few Led Zeppelin tunes, but messed with their anthem ‘Whole Lotta Love’, bedding it in a chugging African drum figure. Unlike almost every other ‘legendary’ act at Bluesfest he made no attempt to recreate his past, instead giving us a show we would think about for many months to come – a show driven by the restless creativity and often contrary nature of a true and uncompromising artist.

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Sunday we awoke to clouds and gray skies over the succulent green of Byron Shire. At the ‘Fest, Tony Joe White’s Swamp-Fox baritone conspired with the dull skies to lull us into maybe too deep a state of ‘relaxation’. We needed a wake-up!

Saskwatch

And we got it in the shape of Melbourne nine-piece Saskwatch. Bursting with chops and youth – and fronted by their not-so-secret weapon, vocalist Nkechi Anele – the band mixes soul, funk and Afrobeat horns to great effect. Like Mayer Hawthorne in the US they also take the bouncier, pop-soul side of Motown and do great things with it. Last year it was The Eagle and The Worm that assured me music is in good hands for the future – this year is was the snap, crackle and (soul-)pop of Saskwatch.

My 2013 Bluesfest experience wound to a finish in a mix of rain, muddy dancers and 1970s progressive rock classicism. Jon Anderson, the vocalist of perhaps the greatest of all Prog bands, YES, played an intimate solo show for us that was quite sublime. (Oddly, YES played Bluesfest last year with –surreally – a replacement vocalist who was drawn from a YES covers band). Listening to Anderson peppering his set with acoustic, folky versions of YESsongs made me realise that it was in this form these tunes were written and presented to the band – who then proceeded to inflate them to Prog size. Unadorned with pomp, they are lovely songs, Anderson’s voice is one of the sweetest in all Rock and the man is once of our most beloved space cadets.

My prize for 24^th Bluesfest Festival Moment goes, however, to the experience of standing in the teeming rain, with my 5 dollar poncho disintegrating on my back as I listened to Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson singing ‘It’s Raining Again’ (with not a drop of irony from what I could gather). But of course, the magic of his songs – one beautifully uplifting hit after another – sung in his spacey tenor blew away the rainclouds in my head and warmed the souls of all who listened. Once again, it’s only rain; this was bliss, a good reason to live right here, right now.

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Beautiful people

So that was it – right there, right then. Bluesfest 2013 – a festival beyond belief in so many ways. Criticisms? Around me I heard faint grumbles of over-selling and over crowding, and yes, it seemed fuller that previous years. But it is never anything like a problem – considering the logistics of an event that has grown to such proportions, artistically and attendance-wise.

What will Peter Noble conjure up for us next year? Being the 25^th Bluesfest, he and his intrepid team will need to go beyond the pale to top the jaw-dropping line-ups of the last few years. The Jimi Hendrix Experience? The Beatles? Elvis Presley (pre-Hollywood of course)? I am just putting it out there – and knowing Noble’s almost supernatural powers (coupled with the soul of a true music fan), I really wouldn’t entirely put it past him.

 

Published April 2013 on megaphoneoz.com

Live review: The Darkened Seas EP Launch

When the celebrated rock writer Nick Kent published a collection of his best work, he chose the title The Dark Stuff. It was a fitting title and perfectly apt for a writer who seems to be drawn towards the great doomed genius-romantics of his selected artform: rock and roll – Kurt Cobain, Roy Orbison, Jim Morrison come to mind.

The Dark Stuff – that gothic romanticism which looks to the amoral, twisted and broken shadowland of human nature – has long been one of the most delicious aspects of rock and roll. Elvis Presley always had a sense of danger and violence just behind his sneering beauty. Gene Vincent, Link Wray, Richie Valens had it. The later more self-conscious Rimbaud-readers such as Jim Morrison, Lou Reed and Nick Cave cultivated it. And rock and roll fans love it, for within its black heart dwells the true rebellion and anti-social cool that has all but been leached out of the form by commerce and the plastic star-system.

Carl Manwarring is a musician in search of the Dark Stuff. His band, The Darkened Seas’ recent eponymous EP, The Darkened Seas contains five pieces of blues-bruised punk-rock that hit that dark mark five times. Hard. And at the recent launch of The Darkened Seas EP a packed Annandale Hotel found out the band’s music has enough rock and roll in it to keep your ass twitching as they drag you down to the bottom with them.

From garage-rocking opener ‘I Give It All’ Manwarring was all intensity and threat – his demeanour not nervous but edgy, not wild but abandoned. This was not 70s style blues-rock, nor purist roots-blues, but blues shredded through the strainer of punk – it calls to mind the Bad Seeds or Jon Spencer, at times even the dervish-like momentum of Junior Kimbrough.

During Doors-dark minor boogie ‘Nighthawks’ Manwarring’s voice and guitar-playing brought to mind Television’s Tom Verlaine, both in timbre and in the way both seem wound too-tight yet flow just fine. The New York thing is there – both ‘Circus Boy’ and ‘Shantyman’ have that Lou Reed economy with punk punch that works to great effect (the band’s name comes from a phrase in Reed’s VU smack-anthem ‘Heroin’). ‘Street Lips’ is a straight 12-bar blues that allows the character and power of the band to really rise up – there is nowhere to hide in this form and bassplayer Alek Cahill, keysman Luke Kirley and firecracker drummer Lozz Benson deliver beautifully. Everything Manwarring’s smart songs throw at them they eat up with a grin and a wink.

Manwarring has obviously steeped himself in the history and masterworks of his chosen musical path and this gives the music heft and dimension. His lyrics also are sharp and original – once again, he knows his shit. Hints of images that are surreal and dislocating (such as the ‘circus life’ of ‘Circus Boy’) recall Jim Morrison or Dylan, with some of his declarations of passion bringing to mind Nicks Cave or Drake. And you sense he means every word too – he is what a good friend calls ‘genuine’.

This is a talent to watch and a band to watch. The Darkened Seas have debuted surprisingly fully-formed in style and sound. They know the road they are on, now all they have to do is follow it and let it take them, and us, somewhere truly special.

 

Published June 2012 on theorangepress.net

 

Article: The Rolling Stones Turn 50

The Rolling Stones were formed in April 1962. So, fifty (count ‘em – that’s fifty fucking years, kids) years to the month later, I felt I should cobble together a few words to commemorate this milestone (yeah, pun intended). Nothing planned here, just let me go with the riff – that’s the way the Stones would do it.

For a band that has always taken pride in its rock’n’roll roots – a dusty and road-worn ethos of no-frills plug-and-play – the Stones have been great innovators over the years.

In the first place, they invented (one bloodshot day at a time) The Rock’N’Roll Life. With the raggedly glorious Keith Richards at one extreme – drugs and rock’n’roll – and the ever-beautiful Mick Jagger at the other – sex sex sex – they lived and mythologised a life of regal excess, sweet madness and jetsetting loutishness. Ever since their visionary manager, Andrew Loog Oldham (what a name!) pushed the band’s scuffy sexuality right under the noses of Britain’s terrified postwar parents with headlines such as ‘Would You Let Your Daughter Marry A Rolling Stone?’, the Stones were deliciously naughty.

Oldham initially packaged them, to great effect and success, as an anti-Beatles – foul-mouthed louts as against Brian Epstein’s ‘nice’ Beatles. As Malcolm McLaren had with the bête-noir Johnny Rotten over a decade later, Loog Oldham had the captivating Mick Jagger to scare the pants off little girls and the shit out of their parents. Lasciviously-lipped and androgynously snake-hipped, Jagger could not have been more perfectly suited to his role as bad boy – the next in line from the once-dangerous Elvis Presley, who by then had gone soft.

Keith Richards – the Stones’ Moon to Jagger’s Sun; Jagger’s foil – would not gain ascendency in style until much later. At first in thrall to Brian Jones – a brilliant guitarist and musicologist, found dead in his swimming pool in July 1969 after being sacked from the Stones – Richards came into his own at the end of the sixties, cultivating a style referred to as ‘elegantly wasted’. Whereas Jagger was always envied for his mythical sexual danger, Richards was adored for his Springheel Jack-like ability to live almost entirely outside the law. He seemingly took as many drugs as he liked and behaved as free as a man can be, all of it right under the noses of the authorities. To we fans, stuck in our school rooms or office cubicles or sad marriages, Keith’s exploits thrilled us to bits.

Of course none of this Style could exist for so many years without Substance. Lesser artists have played the Bad Boy card but the music can’t support it – look at Oasis. The Stones’ music has consistently been an exciting and evolving soundtrack to their adventures. Rooted in Jagger’s beloved Soul and Richards’ beloved Rock’N’Roll (with the storm clouds of Brian Jones’ beloved Chess Blues over everything they do, still to this day), the Stones’ music is as indelible to modern life as air travel, advertising and neurosis. Songs such as ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, ‘Honky Tonk Women’, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ set the template for modern rock music – variations on a simple form; keep moving forward without breaking the chain to the past.

It helped that the songs were written by a pair of very bright boys – Economics student Jagger and Art College rocker Richards seemed capable of spinning wonderful shapes out of nothing. Taking all the elements of postwar rock, soul, pop and showtunes (as the Beatles were also doing at the time), Jagger and Richard consistently came up with hit after hit – gloriously irresistible hook-laden smashes that resonated deeply on many levels. They were hip, they were ass-shakin’, they were witty, but they kept that deep feeling of the old blues records the Stones worshipped. Whereas the Beatles took off into trippier and trippier territory with each new release, the Stones seemed to go in the opposite direction, saving real rock over and over again.

A good example – and no better place to start if you want to get into the Rolling Stones 50 years later – is the nonpareil diptych of 1971’s Sticky Fingers and 1972’s Exile on Main Street. I mention these because they demonstrate the delicious frisson that makes the Stones, the Stones – Sticky Fingers is generally thought of as Jagger’s album (slicker, more varied in textures and styles) and Exile is undoubtedly Keith’s (raw to the point of loose, bare bones, wild at heart) (Jagger hated it). They are both Rolling Stones records through and through and, taken together, show all that is good and eternal about the band – vibe and feeling rules, even over and above technical ability and perfect takes. The songs are uniformly wonderful, uniformly derivative of their influences and without exception the envy of any guitar rock band since. They also had a secret weapon – guitarist Mick Taylor, British boy-wonder blues player, who joined for a few years and helped make those years golden. (His solo at 2:41 on Exile’s ‘Soul Survivor’ still makes my hair stand on end to this day).

Before I polish off the rest of the Jack Daniels and start getting maudlin, I’ll finish here and thank The Rolling Stones for those fifty years of music, good juicy news copy and The (Real or Imagined) Rock Life. They have shed members, added members, made some (not much) seriously shit music and seem to have settled into a sunset tour regime, but I can truly say I love them. Over time, they have saved me from the mind-prison of school and other muggy boredoms. They can still take me to Memphis (‘Shake Your Hips’), the Cocaine Riviera (‘Angie’) or LSD London (‘She’s a Rainbow’) or, like all great and honest music, take me Home.

Published April 2012 on theorangepress.net