From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V9 #226 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Wednesday, August 30 2006 Volume 09 : Number 226 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [idealcopy] More Monks? [MarkBursa@aol.com] [idealcopy] Green Man Festival - Sunday ["Keith Knight" ] Re: [idealcopy] Green Man Festival - Sunday [MarkBursa@aol.com] [idealcopy] c.sides Festival, Jerusalem [giluz ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:37:42 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] More Monks? In a message dated 28/08/2006 16:48:26 GMT Standard Time, janjnoorda@yahoo.com writes: curious if these Monks have to do with those Monks http://www.playloud.org/themonks.html That's them. Playing London on October 19 too.... Mark ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:01:00 +0100 From: "Keith Knight" Subject: [idealcopy] Green Man Festival - Sunday This seems to have got lost in the ether, so am posting it again - sorry if it turns up twice Sunday is at least dry, if not really hot, and therefore a day for indulging the family and sitting in front of the main stage. The Green Man programming is so spot on this year that I realise yesterday I only saw one act - James Yorkston - that I hadn't seen before. This is not really what I subscribe to but I couldn't have brought myself to have missed any of the acts I saw. But today will rectify that. We start with Woodcraft Folk, who I am predisposed to like as they called their album Trough of Bowland, an area in Lancashire close to where I lived many years ago, and whose nicely designed sleeves has used woodcuts. They are an instrumental band who are very tinkly, using bells, bells, xylophone and bells. I'd say there were more bells than you could shake a stick out but at one point they use a stick covered in bells. But there is a drummer and guitarist too and the music they build is clever and pleasant to listen to. A fine way to start the day. Eighteenth Day Of May are described in the programnme as 'pyschedelic' but they're not really - they're just a nice folk band playing traditional covers. None of it really stands out and I feel vaguely disappointed, having expected something closer to Tunng. I'm not really intending to pay Argentinian chanteuse Juana Molina much attention - - through ignorance as much as anything, although it is time for a mid-afternoon nap - but she forces me to listen to her. A small woman alone on a big stage she builds up songs with looped pedals, creating the song as you listen to it. The music has edge to it, offset by her quiet vocals. I'm impressed - - definitely worth exploring further. I'm in the ice-cream queue when The Archie Bronson Outfit starts and immediately my foot starts to tap. I know nothing about this lot and they're one of those bands who don't fit any of the GM templates, being uptempo swamp-blues exponents. Taking my ice-cream nearer the stage I note that they don't really look like the other bands I've seen this weekend either. Frankly, if you encountered most of them in a dark alley, they'd probably turn and run first, but you wouldn't want to take on the Outfit. The drummer looks a bit like his equivalent in Liars, and has apparently been studying Keith Moon DVDs. The bassist is tall and lean and bears a striking resemblence to actor Javier Bardem. The saxophonist - for, yes, there is one, and what's more he plays two simultaneously in the manner of Van Der Graaf's David Jackson - looks like the sort of bloke who sits by cashpoints in Oxford St. He has a mate who comes on and he looks like he does too. Archie ( I assume) wields an acoustic guitar and full beard. The music is unstoppably likeable forcing one to get down with the groove. One song - brilliantly - seems to be an uptempo variant of Faust's 'Giggy Smile'. Furthermore, the performance is blessed with the unannounced appearance of The Duke Spirit's Leila Moss on backing vocal, if my eyes don't deceive me. What's not to like here? Marvellous. After this barnstorming performance Adem's quietness doesn't really work for me, although as the kids like him I give him due respect. And rightly so - a few days afterwards it's still the songs from his first album that comes unbidden to the mind when I think back on the event. Bert Jansch is clearly a big deal among festival goers here but I have to admit to a complete blind spot. Yes, he can play guitar, but his voice is unmemorable and he doesn't seem to have written or covered a song in all these years that sticks in the mind. I'm probably a candidate for the Wicker Man for saying this but there you go. It's back to the B&B again for the family while I return for the evening session. Where others place Bert Jansch, I place Alasdair Roberts. What's more I don't seem to be alone. He's playing solo acoustic sat down in the Folkey Dokey tent - and therefore invisible to all but those at the front - and if this was London there would be a low-level hum of background chatter in a similar stand-up venue. Here there's near silence for his traditional ballads and - gasp! - some new self-penned songs. These I'm pleased to say sound fine. This is an ascetic performance, demanding and intense, and as such not as immediately enjoyable as some of those he's done with a band. But there's a feeling of greatness now about Roberts and his place in this community is stronger than ever after tonight. On the main stage the headliners are Calexico who, most other times, would be a fine choice to end the festival. But I go against the press of bodies to return to the tent for Sunburned Hand of the Man. Now I really know next to nothing about them - their records are difficult to get hold of and I've never seen them live. But their reputation is high and isn't that name great? On stage there are lots of beards but this is not a laid-back band. The singer says how pleased he is to be in Wales, home of one of his favourite bands. The mind races - who can he mean - Super Furry Animals? Gorky's? Not The Alarm?? Even odder - it's forgotten early 70s rockers Man! My recollection of Man is sketchy but I don''t think I'm wildly off if I say what we get tonight from the Sunburned Hand variety is not that dissimilar. The performance is certainly very early 70s. Each song is largely instrumental and improvised around a motif, driven by the singer / bassist. The improv reminds me in places of Gong or Can, although lacking the telepathic qualities of the best of the latter. But it's always interesting to find where they're going and at its best is inspirational with guitars, electronics and saxes exploring the way forward. A fine end to the evening. So, another Green Man, another success. Somehow the organisers, Jo and Danny, have walked the tightrope of expansion while keeping the feel and attitude of previous festivals to the extent where it feels churlish to go on about the good old days because, frankly, they're still here. The quality of performances I saw over these two days was remarkably high - only Eighteenth Day of May and Bert Jansch did little for me from 15 acts. I'm sure there were plenty more I missed. This is a remarkably fertile area of music right now, however one wants to define it. another the Keith ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:25:13 -0400 From: TnA Subject: [idealcopy] Re: idealcopy-digest V9 #225 Yes, it was THOSE Monks, apparently the subjects of a documentary ('Transatlantic Feedback',)which has been making the festival rounds since 2002...If you're in Berlin in late October, Mark E Smith and Gina Burch and Ana Da Silva (of the Raincoats) will be saying something about them....and, if you're interested, buy the cd and read the book that came out about 10 years ago....a great addition to the rock and roll story....Banjo feedback hate songs, German girls who always wanted to fuck 'monks', Jimi Hendrix in the corner taking notes...in 1964-65! http://www.playloud.org/screenings.html t [idealcopy] More Monks? [Jan Noorda ] > Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 08:15:05 -0700 (PDT) > From: Jan Noorda > Subject: [idealcopy] More Monks? > > curious if these Monks have to do with those Monks > > http://www.playloud.org/themonks.html > > >>> There was a Fall cover but I can't > recall the title - > > ((( Should've been "Pacifying Joint". > > Could also have been "What About Us".<< > > It was neither. > > EGL ended his cameo set with a cover of 'Oh how to do now' by The > Monks*, > covered by the Fall on Extricate (as Black Monk Theme Part 2). > Graham's version > will be included on a Monks tribute album to be released later this > year.... > > more later... > > Mark > > * this is the 60s Monks, German-based American GIs making deranged > R&B punk, > not the 'Nice legs, shame about the face' new wave clowns, who were > Hudson-Ford in disguise. In case you were wondering! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:58:34 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Green Man Festival - Sunday >>We start with Woodcraft Folk, who I am predisposed to like as they called their album Trough of Bowland, an area in Lancashire close to where I lived many years ago, << While its name sugests it should be next to the Slough of Despond, the Trough of Bowland is a real favourite place of mine. Used to go there often when I was a child, and it hasn't changed at all! Mark ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:07:36 +0300 From: giluz Subject: [idealcopy] c.sides Festival, Jerusalem Opening today, c.sides is an experimental electronics festival, a Geramn-Israeli co-production, it has managed to bring here a quite respectable list of artists: http://csides.net/ For all of you living on the right side of the world, I would still suggest purchasing the excellent 4-CD's festival compilation, also available via the site. cheers giluz - -- Now playing: http://www.last.fm/user/giluz/ ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V9 #226 *******************************