2018 Latecomers: Dawn Chorus

I'd file Dawn Landes under traditional country rather than Americana, but country in the tradition of Dolly or Tammy or Loretta rather the glitzy pop sheen of contemporary Nashville. Even the cover to her latest album (her fifth), 2018's Meet Me At The River, has a vintage feel to it. It looks like the kind of old country album you'd find leafing through the vinyl section in a charity shop rather than popping out of your screen on Spotify.

There's a lot to love on this album (if you care for this kind of music), but I'm most taken at the moment by her collaboration with the great Bobby Bare - now in his eighties, but still going strong. It's a fun duet, and their voices complement each other very well indeed. Plus, I always like songs about not dancing...

Dawn Landes & Bobby Bare - I Don't Dance

Here's another very catchy tune from the same album which has lodged itself in my cranium...

2018 Latecomers: Spend Monday In The Bahamas

I almost didn't have a post today. I realise that's hardly the end of the world, and I've let days gone by without posts before, but this time was different. Because I had posts... only other people had already written then.

Originally I'd planned on doing a Grumpy Old Men / 2019 Contenders post about the new Specials album, but Rigid Digit and  John Medd said pretty much everything I have to say about that at the moment (for the record, my opinion falls somewhere in between theirs - RD seems to like it a lot, while John Medd questions whether it's actually The Specials at all, more a reformed Funboy 3 who realised the name of their earlier band would make more headlines).All I can add to that is that while I enjoyed the record, I did feel there were times that it came across as a Guardian journalist's wet dream. The tracklist runs like a checklist of society's ills and sometimes the message seems more important than the music. I don't object to any of the songs on their own, but crammed together on one disc it does feel a bit like being lectured by a 6th former at times. Maybe it's the grumpy old man in me... that's probably why I like this track best of all.

The Specials - Embarrassed By You

Bloody kids, eh?

With that idea abandoned, I thought about featuring another Long Song as last Monday morning... until I realised (I had to check!) that Drew had already featured both of them. (I'd already written one of them, but I'll spare you... go read Drew's instead.)

Paddy McAloon - I Trawl The Megahertz

Isaac Hayes - By The Time I Get To Phoenix

All of which led me to the Bahamas, a late musical discovery from 2018 that may have troubled my end of year countdown if I'd heard it sooner.

Canadian musician Afie Jurvanen, aka Bahamas, has been making records since 2009, but his fourth album, Earthtones, is the first one to be picked up on my radar. He obviously listened to a lot of Prince as a kid but also has a cheerfully tongue-in-cheek approach to his lyrics, reminiscent of John Grant or Father John Misty without the egomaniacal side. Hopefully it'll brighten up your Monday morning (what's left of it)...

2018 Latecomers: When The Boss Makes You Cry

I finally got around to watching the Springsteen on Broadway show on Netflix over the weekend... and I'm still recovering.

I've seen The Boss play live a number of times, but it's always been with the E Street Band in a stadium, so I wasn't sure how an acoustic one man show on a huge Broadway stage would go down. Bruce is a natural performer though and an excellent writer, so the autobiographical monologues merged well with a carefully selected setlist of hits and surprises. It was very funny in places, particularly the running joke about what a fraud he is - a man who's made his fame writing about working class heroes who's never held a steady job in his life.

I wasn't prepared for how emotional it would be though. Regularly readers of this blog will know that I weep buckets at the drop of a hat these days (hence why I lost that job in the college graduations department), and Bruce has been my favourite performer since I was a teenager... but I'd read his autobiography and knew most of the stories. Surely I could keep my mascara dry?

However, when he talked about his childhood, when he talked about returning to his old home to find the tree outside his old house no longer there, when he talked about losing Clarence... I was in pieces. Even more so when he spoke about his relationship with his father, about their eventual reconciliation on the eve of Bruce himself becoming a father, and about how when he was younger he had not been able to properly understand his father's depression. A new box of tissues was required.

 "We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way and some transcendence."



(In case anybody is wondering, The Hot 100 Countdown will return in a couple of weeks. I have a good reason.)

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #1

Here it is then, the full countdown... and a very worthy Number One.

Enjoy your New Year's Eve. Here's my youtube playlist of my albums of the year to play at your party.

18. Kate Nash - Yesterday Was Forever

17. Gretchen Peters - Dancing With The Beast

16. Death Cab For Cutie - Thank You For Today

15. The Proclaimers - Angry Cyclist

14. Alejandro Escovedo - The Crossing

13. Eels - The Deconstruction

12. Lukas Nelson & The Promise of the Real

11. Jack White - Boarding House Reach

10. Jill Jackson - Are We There Yet?

9. The Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl

8. Amy Rigby - The Old Guys

7. Ezra Furman - Transangelic Exodus

6. Father John Misty - God's Favourite Customer

5. Half Man Half Biscuit - No One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin' Hedge Cut

4. John Grant - Love Is Magic

3. Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton John

2. Will Hoge - My American Dream

1. John Prine - Tree of Forgiveness

Back when we need him the most - warm, witty and wise. The living legend - long may he reign!

More here.



If you're going out celebrating tonight, take care and have a good one. If, like me, you'll be asleep long before the clock strikes in the new year... enjoy that too.

Thanks for reading this dribble throughout 2018. See you in 2019.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #2

2. Will Hoge - My American Dream

Dylan. Young. Springsteen. Mellencamp. Costello. The next American great protest singer channels them all to take down Trump.


Next... the feelgood record of the year, from a returning legend.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #3

3. Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John

Totally Hot, Magic... Juliana makes me want to get Physical. I Honestly Love It. Best tribute album ever?

More here.



Next... an American nightmare.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #4

4. John Grant - Love Is Magic

Even experimental electronica can't distract from the joys of John Grant's arch lyrical perspective on love and life.

More here.


Next... Totally Hot.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #5

5. Half Man Half Biscuit - No One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin' Hedge Cut

Quiz show contestants, pretentious neighbours and know-it-alls... Nigel Blackwell is here for you. With an axe.

More here (with added Batwalks).


Next... Is He Strange? Delightfully so.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #6

6. Father John Misty - God's Favourite Customer

Cynical, witty and self-deprecating... yet full of hope. And not once does he disappear up his own backside.

More here.


Next... Tuesday, 2am. Bollocko.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #7

7. Ezra Furman - Transangelic Exodus

So much more than the rogue gay angel, Born To Run-esque title track... though that would've been enough.

More here.


Next... look at me, I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree...

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #8

8. Amy Rigby - The Old Guys

Witty, literate and full of attitude - still one of the best songwriters around, Amy never lets me down.

More here.

And here.



Next... Born to be a bloodsucker...

My Top Ten Trump Songs 2018

Lest we forget, there is a dangerous, deluded psychopath in charge of the most powerful country in the world. And on top of that, Donald Trump's still the President of the USA. But while very few songwriters are expressing their concerns about Putin through lyrics, many have been getting very angry about Donald J. Here's ten of the best from 2018...


10. Nine Inch Nails - Shit Mirror

Apparently this is Trent Reznor's response to the man he called "a vulgar, grotesque dope" and  “a complete fucking moron”. Trent is angry. But isn't he always?

9. Barbra Streisand - Don't Lie To Me

From Trent Reznor to Barbra Streisand. Let's face it, if you managed to piss off both Trent & Babs, you must be an evil "genius".

8. Alejandro Escovedo - Rio Navidad

Based on an experience Escovedo had in the 80s when he encountered a racist Texas ranger at a wedding; the character in this song is also based on an Arizona sheriff accused of violating the rights of Latinos as part of his tyrannical immigration policy... a man latterly pardoned by the 47th President of the USA.

7. Superchunk - What A Time To Be Alive

There's a crooked line that runs
Through every crease in this map
And you want to take us all the way back

To see the rot in no disguise
Oh what a time to be alive
The scum, the shame, the fucking lies
Oh what a time to be alive

Good to have Superchunk back.

6. Holiday Oscar - Bad Dudes

What kind of special relationship's this?

Hey, Theresa... there's a lot of bad dudes out there!

5. Frank Turner - Make America Great Again

Up until this year, a new Frank Turner release had been pretty much guaranteed a place in my year end countdown. His latest album felt like he was trying too hard to be all things for all listeners, and there were times when his trademark optimism verged on naivety. Make America Great Again is a good example of that. Frank's heart is in the right place, but...

4. The Decemberists - Severed

I'll let Colin Meloy explain this one himself...

"Well, it’s inspired a little bit by the guy who’s currently in the White House. I think it was written initially during the campaign, before the election, just sort of exploring that tone of voice that he was taking. The character in the song, the first-person character, is a demagogue, absolutely, so it was an exploration of, “What is demagoguery, and where does it come from?” as we were seeing this very public figure express these kind of insane and incredible sentiments in public. Of course, I think the song took on a different life once he was actually elected. But yeah, it’s sort of an exploration of the voice of a demagogue, and so hopefully people will find it reviling. I can only hope."

3. John Grant - Smug C***

Just in case you're easily offended, I used asterisks. Then again, if I were really worried about causing offence, I'd probably need to write this post about D***** T****.

All the girls think you're a stud
Even though your hands are covered in blood
And they're turned on by your cover-ups

The highest compliment is being feared
I bet that you don't even think that's weird
You don't care who your deeds corrupt

2. Will Hoge - Gilded Walls

Well another group of kids in a high school, dead
But you're still at your golf course teein' off at nine
People marchin' in the streets tryin' to find a little peace
You sit around spoutin' more bullshit online

Oh and I don't believe in the devil
But you might make me go and change my mind
You could see this whole damn world get leveled
And not even lose track of time
Inside your gilded walls that shine

And that's not the only track on this album to take aim at the bloated POTUS. But more on that soon...

1. Karine Polwart - I Burn, But I Am Not Consumed

As previously discussed on my United Kingdom of Song feature, Donald Trump's mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, comes from the Isle of Lewis. Edinburgh's Karine Polwart has much to say about that on this exceptional talky song from her latest album...

Oh son of Lewis, lonely boy,

hewn from granite, salt and sky

upon a foreign shore:

the ocean is a mirror gleam

in which you see yourself,

and nothing more.

Your mother was a wee girl once,

who played upon my rocky shore.

And you, you are broken boy,

and you want more and more and more.

You build a tower. You build a wall,

You live in fear that they might fall.

You who see nothing but your face

in the sheen of The Hudson River.

Karine Polwart - I Burn, But I Am Not Consumed

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #9

9. The Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl

Everything Is Awful and We All Die Young. For Once In My Life, could just something go right?

More here.



Next... there's a new sheriff in town, and it ain't Tony Soprano or Walter White.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #10

10. Jill Jackson - Are We There Yet?

Honest human stories... including a couple that reduced me to a blubbering wreck. Music to make you feel.

More here.



Next... the best record Morrissey didn't release this year.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #11

11. Jack White - Boarding House Reach

Queen and Prince influence Jack White's most adventurous and ambitious album to date... quite simply: it's utterly bonkers.


Next, we're heading back to Scotland... are we there yet?

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #12

12. Lukas Nelson & The Promise of the Real - Lukas Nelson & The Promise of the Real 

Willie's son, Neil Young's guitarist... and a fine solo artist too. I promise you he's the real thing.

More here.


Next... White Man with Big Stick.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #13

13. Eels - The Deconstruction

Just another great Eels album, but there's comfort in familiarity, and Mark Oliver Everett never lets me down.

More here.


Next... Willie's boy.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #14

As an early Christmas present, Santa is sending Ofsted to visit me tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Apologies therefore if this is brief. Besides, it doesn't seem like two minutes since I was last writing about this record...

14. Alejandro Escovedo - The Crossing

The treacherous journey of a Mexican immigrant into Trump's America told through an impressive range of musical genres.

More here.


Next: E's are good.

My Top 18 Albums of 2018: #15

15. The Proclaimers - Angry Cyclist

The Reid brothers tackle fascism, class, growing old, gin and life's big questions on another eminently replayable album.

How many cars have been stolen in Stoke?

Which brand of cigarettes do beagles smoke?

How do you stand on your head and drink beer?

I'd ask the questions if you were still here

(They also delivered one of the songs of the year: here.)


Next... crossing borders, jumping barriers, taking risks!

My Top 18 Albums of 2018 #16

16. Gretchen Peters - Dancing With The Beast

Superior storytelling from one of Nashville's best lyricists... heart-wrenching characters find hope in the darkest moments of depression.

More here.


Next: panic on the streets of Edinburgh... particularly in the cycle lanes.