Curse Of Lono - 4am And Counting

“It’s déjà vu all over again,” as baseball legend Yogi Berra once said.

Which is by way of explaining that new album 4am And Counting, from London’s Curse Of Lono is primarily a set of stripped back, live-in-the-studio recordings of songs they’ve previously released on their first two albums, Severed and As I Fell.  The end result is something with a more intimate vibe than those earlier records, and with a handful of guest appearances to add some extra embellishment to their sound has its own distinct attractions.

Now, Curse Of Lono’s sound tends to attract labels of an American bent – alt.country, Americana, Southern Gothic, that sort of thing.  And not without reason.  But they’re still, you know, English – okay, main man Felix Bechtolsheimer was actually born in Germany,

Curse Of Lono - they ain't from Austin, Texas you know

but let’s not complicate matters – and they sure as hell don’t go singing in any cod-Southern drawl à la Jagger.  The main characteristic of their music, in fact, is subtlety.  Slap-bang-wallop is not the order of the day – except in a line from ‘Welcome Home’ that features those words.

Typical of their oeuvre is ‘Valentine’, which is rooted in a dark, hypnotic groove, coloured by restrained keyboard notes, and vocal harmonies delivering a lyric in which the protagonist declares “I got a dagger for your lover’s heart”.   A cheery little ditty then – and with a melody that just begs you to join in.  It also features a top-notch, perfectly judged little guitar solo from Joe Hazell, who has a gift for playing with what seems like weightlessly clear tone.

These characteristics are carried along through several of the tunes here, but with a range of little twists that provide variety and keep a grip on your attention.  So you get pattering rhythms on both ‘London Rain’ and ‘Pick Up The Pieces’, for example, but whereas the former evokes The Doors via some very Ray Manzarek piano, the latter has a folkish feel to its acoustic guitar and melody.  And if ‘London Rain’ recalls The Doors, I also have a soft spot for the gently chugging ‘Wild Thing’ riff that drives  ‘Blackout Fever’, a relaxed affair with a catchy chorus on which neat harmonies are punctuated by splashes of cymbal.

Contrastingly there’s a relentless forward motion to the rhythm of ‘I’d Start A War For You’, like seeing white lines disappear underneath a car.  It’s also one of several songs to benefit from some pedal steel decoration from special guest B.J. Cole, not least the excellent ‘Way To Mars’, a very Alabama 3-ish country style choon on which Cole’s shimmering efforts are augmented by harp from another guest in the form of Nick Reynolds from – well, Alabama 3, as it happens.  ‘Mars’ is also home to another grabbing hook, on which the gang rouse themselves vocally, plus a delightfully Stones-y guitar solo from Hazell - who I have to say becomes something of a scene-stealer as the album progresses, not by showing off, but by serving the songs beautifully.  So ‘Welcome Home’, for example, features more sparkling guitar, including one very Robbie Robertson-like fill, in addition to an on-the-money back porch harp solo from Reynolds to close.

There’s one song not previously released by the band, namely Tom Waits’ ‘Going Out West’, and a damn fine job they do of it too.  Ticking over with brooding, intertwined fuzzy guitars they capture the mood perfectly, Bechtolsheimer even conjuring up a hint of Waits-like gravel as he plays out the cocky lyric.

Curse Of Lono’s first album Severed was predominantly recorded by Bechtolsheimer and producer Oli Bayston.  What 4am And Counting demonstrates is how much they’ve now come together as band, their sound knitted together with ease.  If you haven’t heard them before, this album is a real good place to start.

4am And Counting is released by Submarine Cat Records on 12 July.

Read the exclusive Blues Enthused interview with Felix Bechtolsheimer here.

You can also find live reviews of Curse Of Lono supporting Samantha Fish, starting here.

The Black Keys - 'Let's Rock'

In a sense, this is where Blues Enthused began.  About ten years ago, my love of music was rebooted, I opened up to new artists, and began to develop a fresh interest in the blues, after a friend shared The Black Keys’ debut album with me.

It’s been five years since their last record, Turn Blue, took a left turn into dreamy soundscapes after the smash’n’grab glam rock hits of its predecessor, El Camino.  So where are Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney at now, exactly?  And wherever it is, is it any good?

Pat Carney has been quoted as saying that ‘Let’s Rock’– a title referencing the apparent last words of electric chair victim Edmund Zagorski in Tennessee last year - is “like a homage to electric guitar. We took a simple approach and trimmed all the fat like we used to.”  Which sounds a bit disingenuous to me, because while there’s certainly guitars aplenty on the album, it’s a long way from the North Mississippi hill country driven raunch of, say, their 2003 second album thickfreakness.

The Black Keys - Grooving outside the usual boundaries

Both Carney and Auerbach have honed their production skills over the years, and on ‘Let’s Rock’ what they’ve done is mesh a welter of squonking, bleeping, slithering and grinding guitar sounds with buffed up vocals from Auerbach, further enhanced by excellent contributions from backing vocalists Leisa Hans and Ashley Wilcoxson – the only other musicians appearing on the album.

You want hits?  You got ‘em.  On third track ‘Lo/Hi’, a juicy ascending guitar line gives way to a fuzzed up riff à la El Camino, like they’re imitating Marc Bolan having a bash at ‘Spirit In The Sky’.  On a Stylophone.  The chorus dishes out the strongest hook yet, while Auerbach adds a typically scratchy solo and the backing vox could have been parachuted in from Motown.  ‘Get Yourself Together’ is ass-shakingly hooky the second the chorus kicks in, with Carney finding a delicious pocket, and you’d swear there was a Fender Rhodes in the mix, ‘cept they tell us there ain’t no keyboards on this album, Jack.  In fact I think I’ll give it another spin right now, just to hear the guitars squabbling all over the ending.  ‘Go’ is two and a half minutes of very Carney-esque chug-a-boom drums driving sublime vocals from Auerbach on a very retro melody, before guitars start charging in from all angles in competition with crashing cymbals.

Sounding retro but at the same time state of the art is a Black Keys speciality, a bit like their contemporaries White Denim.  So ‘Every Little Thing’ has a distinct air of Beatle-ish Sixties pop, breathily ‘Penny Lane’-ish before teetering on the edge of collapse with a blazing guitar solo underpinned by riff that echoes ‘All Along The Watchtower’.  Meantime ‘Sit Around And Miss You’ would fit in perfectly on K-Billy’s Super Sounds Of The Seventies while Michael Madsen does unspeakable things to some unfortunate officer of the law - though their own video is rather more charming.  By the time we get to ‘Under The Gun’, squarely in ‘Stop Stop’ El Camino territory with its simple, gritty riff laying the foundations for yet another swish pop melody, like Sixties garage rock with David Cassidy singing ‘How Can I Be Sure’ over the top, I’m starting to dig out stuff like the Nuggets compilation of ‘Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era’, and Runt by that other rock alchemist Todd Rundgren.

In the space of just 39 minutes, ‘Let’s Rock’ demonstrates not only that The Black Keys have still very much got it, but that they’re still blurring lines, still finding new grooves outside genre boundaries.  This is Power Pop for 2019, people – let’s get it on!

Danny Vaughn - Myths, Legends & Lies

A change is as good as a rest, the old folks say.  And on that basis I’m rather nicely refreshed by this effort from Danny Vaughn.

Got to be honest, I know not the Danny Vaughn fellow.  Nor Tyketto, the melodic rock outfit for which he’s apparently well known as front man. Well shit, I never said my knowledge of all things rock was encyclopaedic, did I?  Check the small print on the left!

Whatever, Vaughn touches quite a few bases on Myths, Legends & Lies, and to good effect too.  Right out of the gate there’s a swarm of acoustic instrumentation on ‘The

Shadow Of King John’, with fiddle, accordion and acoustic guitar combining over a rattling Celtic rhythm from Rhys Morgan, leading to a boisterous stomp of a chorus that paints a picture of modern day – Limerick?  Now, I’m quite partial to a bit of ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ style jiggery-pokery, but lest you’re worried this sounds like an over folk-ified Aran sweater jamboree, rest easy that this opener, like the rest of the album, sounds fresh and modern.

Danny Vaughn checks out the recipe for Irish Stew

There’s more of this ilk with the brief and to the point ‘Man Or Machine’, which welds some contemporary subject matter about sodium skylines and the blind watchmaker to mandolin, acoustic strumming, and paradiddles.  ‘Last Ride Of The Sunset Men’ mines a similar seam, but with an electric guitar lick at its core and wafts of harmonica for variation, and is good enough to overcome a rather corny spoken interlude.  This stuff peaks with the maritime storytelling of ‘Seven Bells’, which runs to seven minutes, and is worth it.  Announced by the ubiquitous acoustic guitar, it grows by way of a swaying melody and lush, impressively arranged strings, into something with an epic sweep that reminds me happily of Jethro Tull circa The Broadsword And The Beast.  Well, a bit at least.

At this point it’s worth saying that across the fourteen tracks on offer, Vaughn’s vocals are top notch – clear-toned, with an excellent range and clever variations, but always capturing the mood and never going over the top.  The man is the real McDeal.

There’s some jazzy bluesiness too – or should that be bluesy jazziness – in the form of ‘Deep Water’ and ‘Something I Picked Up Along The Way’.  The former is a dynamic affair that builds from a subdued opening until a rousing chorus hoves into view, underpinned by blasts of horns.  The latter is even better, in a very ‘New Coat Of Paint’ kinda fashion, with smoochy horns curling over Nigel Hopkins’ piano like cigarette smoke in some late night basement bar.

The other big highlight is ‘Monkeys With Money And Guns’, a much funkier affair founded on warm electric piano, organ, and electric guitar, while Vaughn weighs in with an appealing vocal, neatly double-tracked at times, laying out some caustic lyrics.  And for good-measure there’s a nimble guitar solo, and a smile-inducing bridge full of soulful harmonies and handclaps.

Sure, there are a few songs on here that are of a modern country oeuvre that might ordinarily make me wince.  But Vaughn and co even deliver these in such a fashion that I can’t bring myself to dislike them.  Honest. Whether it’s the bright and breezy ‘The Good Life’, swingingly celebrating simple pleasures with an organ solo and a squelchy electric guitar break, or ‘Kelly’s Gone’ with its fiddle filigrees and rippling piano as the lady in question packs up with “Whatever the Toyota could hold”, Vaughn and chums put some fizz into what could have been dull vin de table in other hands.

I liked Myths, Legends & Lies.  I’ll listen to it again.  I might even go so far as to find out what this Tyketto mob sound like.

Out Of The Darkness - Felix Bechtolsheimer of Curse Of Lono talks the talk

If it’s Thursday, it must be Amsterdam, which means Samantha Fish’s tour of Britain and Europe is entering its last week.  Having reviewed three earlier gigs on the tour, I’ve decided to indulge myself with a quick trip to the Netherlands to catch another.  And as an added bonus, I’ve managed to arrange a chat with Felix Bechtolsheimer, the front man of support band Curse Of Lono, who have received warm receptions for their blend of alt.country/Americana at each of the shows I’ve seen.  And so here we are, settling in outside the café of tonight’s venue, Q-Factory, to shoot the breeze for a bit before the soundcheck.

Now, Felix Bechtolsheimer isn’t yer common-or-garden monicker.  And if you Google him, as I did by way of some research before this chat, you’ll find that his biography isn’t common-or-garden either.  You’re liable to trip over references to drink, drugs, minor royals, Paula Yates and, er, dressage horses.  But if that kind of gossip is what floats your boat then you’d better drop anchor somewhere else, because we’re here to talk about the music - well, mostly. And it has to be said that Bechtolsheimer makes for a genial interviewee, ready to give considered answers, but often with a twinkle in his eye.

Raising the curtain

This isn’t the first support slot Curse Of Lono have occupied this year, having hit the road with Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes back in March.  So what have they got out of these outings with headliners who are both stylistically different from the Southern-Gothic-out-of-London offered up by the Lonos?

Felix Bechtolsheimer - under the spotlight

“I think we’re picking up fans in lots of different genres,” says Bechtolsheimer.  “And we need to capitalise on that.  We’ve been pigeonholed a little bit in this Americana genre, mainly through getting this award from Bob Harris at the beginning of the year, the Emerging Artist Award from the UK Americana Association.”

He recalls though that recently they’ve also done a lengthy stint opening for Chuck Prophet, who he suggests “is much more of a rock’n’roll sort of thing.  I don’t think he’s Americana – although I think Exile On Main Street would be Americana if it came out now, probably.  So we’re testing the water with different audiences.  With Southside Johnny it was great to play Shepherds Bush Empire, it was great to play some of these bigger venues.  We got a really, really good reaction out of his crowd, and a lot of people who saw us in March with Southside have come back to see us with Samantha now.

“And stagecraft on a bigger stage – we got some extra practice with that with Southside Johnny. It’s different to a festival thing, you have an engaged crowd – if you play a big festival at our level you probably play in the middle of the afternoon, when people are trying to come down off whatever drugs they were taking, trying to figure out what’s in their sandwich. They’re not that bothered about the music.  Whereas with Southside we did get that.

“With Samantha Fish – it’s a very long tour.  It’s 21 dates in 23 days.  For her that’s nothing, they do over 200 shows a year. So I think with Samantha, to go and do this every night, with no real days off, gets you in a real groove, and gets you to the point where you’re very comfortable with your material, and you can just work on – how are you going to perform the song tonight?  Is it going to be a bit louder, a bit quieter?

“It’s also a very quiet audience in many places,” he says, much to my surprise.  “In Edinburgh and Glasgow that wasn’t the case, they went for it. But a lot of the gigs we’ve had, they stand there and they look at you, and they don’t really do much! And we’ve come off stage at a few of the shows going, ‘I’m not sure how that went’.  And then we get mobbed at the merch table, and stuff flies out, and we get e-mails, and messages, and Facebook requests the next day, so we’ve obviously connected to some degree! And we need to pick up as many fans as we can now – we’ve got a headline tour in October, so we need to convert as many of these fans as we can, and drag them out again in October.”

From what I’ve seen though, at some of these shows they’ve had their own posse of fans who have come particularly to see them – which must be encouraging.

“Yeah, it is,” he laughs.  “We just need them to multiply!”

Stripped back in the studio

Before then though, they’ve got a new album coming out in July, 4am And Counting - Live At Toe Rag Studios.  I say new, but it’s actually a selection of songs from their first two albums, reworked in a more stripped back mode and recorded live.  How come, I ask?  From Felix’s description, it was a bit of an organic process.

“I saw a video of The Cordovas, who we toured with, recording at Toe Rag Studios, and they did it all live in an afternoon, did a couple of tracks.  So I went down to see the place, and saw the set-up, and I just thought it would be interesting to see what we come up with if we spend 3 days in the studio, and give the songs a reworking.

“And then we thought it would be cool to get a few guests in, so BJ Cole came down for a day to play with us [adding pedal steel to 'I'd Start A War For You'], Nick Reynolds [from Alabama 3] was meant to come for half a day to play some harmonica, I think he was there for an hour and a half – turned up late and had to go early! And we just had a bit of a jam, and wanted to see what we could come out with.  And I thought if we can get a video out of it, or an EP, I’ll be happy. We ended up doing fifteen tracks in 3 days.”

The thought naturally arose to create an album out of the material, but Bechtolsheimer was wary of negative press reaction to an album of re-recorded tracks.

“So we said right, Record Store Day only.  Limited edition, translucent red vinyl, we’ll make very little money on it, but it’ll be fun.”  But the positive response to the limited release suggested a genuine demand for a CD. “And then the few reviews that came out weren’t that damning about the fact that it wasn’t new material – we made it very clear that wasn’t what it was – so we decided to put it out properly.”

The album is released on July 12, and reviews are evidently lined up in a host of publications.

“I haven’t seen what the reviews are going to say yet,” he laughs.  “They might say exactly what I feared!  But so far it’s going alright.”

Given that these were re-recordings, I wondered how much thought had been given to the arrangements before they went into the studio.  Bechtolsheimer indicates that although some thinking was done in advance, it wasn’t the usual pre-recording boot camp with their producer.

“Here we didn’t want anyone else in the room, it wasn’t about that. It was meant to feel loose and how we do it.  So it was really nice for the band, just everyone tried some ideas out, we did it ourselves, and we put some thought in but there wasn’t any pressure on it, because it wasn’t meant to be ‘This is the big album,’ or whatever.  It was just some fun.  We just did two or three takes, and then said which was the best one, and that was it.”

Quiet desperation is the English way

It’s been a long and winding road for Bechtolsheimer to get to where he is now with Curse Of Lono. Although he’s London-based, he and his siblings were born in Frankfurt, into a very well-off family, and came to Britain because their parents wanted them to go to English boarding schools.  But by his late teens Bechtolshiemer had thrown himself headlong into the dark underbelly of the music world.  Never mind the associated drink and drugs, music was “definitely not the plan,” he confirms.  So what happened?

Pink Floyd - not really "Ooh baby baby" music

“Well, I went to a boarding school and I absolutely fucking hated it,” he explains, and it’s clear he’s not kidding.  “I went to state school in Germany, everyone in Germany goes to state school, and I was really happy there.  And my parents worked very hard to come over here, and they put me in this school, and I found it incredibly elitist.  And there was a bad timing issue – Germany had just won the World Cup, knocking England out in the semis, and for the first term at secondary school I had the living shit kicked out of me every day. So I started drinking, and I bought a guitar. I had a room-mate who was bullied very badly as well, and he bought a bass and I bought a guitar, and we told them all to bugger off.”

Okay, so this was the start of a downward spiral, but what was he listening to that turned him onto music?

“I remember there was a senior,” he recalls, “and he was quite an eccentric guy, and he saw that I was upset - I’d just been beaten up.  And he took me to his room and he said, ‘Right, listen to this’.  And he had a quart of vodka, so he gave me a shot of vodka, and he put on Never Mind The Bollocks.  And we listened to it from start to finish, and then when it was done he put on The Final Cut by Pink Floyd.  And he said, “It’s the other side of the same coin.” And it was the first time in my life that music wasn’t just about melody, and ‘ooh baby baby, you’re so pretty’, or ‘oh dear, you dumped me’.  These people were actually saying stuff.  And he used to come into my room with this nylon-strung guitar, and play ‘Pigs On The Wing’ by Pink Floyd, and stuff.  And I thought, “That’s what I wanna do. That’s really cool!”  

Down and out in London and Miami

You couldn’t find bands much more English than Pink Floyd and the Pistols, but it’s bleedin’ obvious that there are also American influences on the Curse Of Lono sound.  So I start to explore whether Bechtolsheimer feels a particular affinity for America.  Yes, he agrees, he does.  There’s more than one dimension to this though, it emerges.  For one thing, there was his sojourn in a Florida rehab clinic to kick his various addictions.

“I moved to America when I was . . . pretty sure I wouldn’t be alive for much longer.  I went out there to clean off heroin – I was on heroin, methadone and crack at the time – and it was so bad that the rehabs in the UK wouldn’t even take me any more.

“So I went out there, and I got clean out there.  And I shared a bungalow with a guy – they called them bungalows, but it was like a shed - who was a lot older than me, and he played the guitar.  And he was telling me all these stories, how’d he played with Little Feat, and he’d played with Gram Parsons, and all these amazing people.  And he introduced me to the real country stuff, the John Prine, the Kris Kristofferson, the Jerry Jeff Walker, all that stuff.  And I fell in love with that form of – not the music so much – but the form of songwriting, the lyricism in it.  And when that guy relapsed, and disappeared into the sunset, I realised he was far too young to have actually played with any of these people – it was all bullshit!”  He laughs. “So I fell in love with it then, and when we toured in America with Hey Negrita it was like being in the movies, you know?”

The influence is more subliminal than that though, I suggest.

“It’s . . . “ he reflects for a moment.  “I love slide guitars, and it’s a very cinematic genre, the Americana genre. It just lends itself very well to building the soundscapes to the words that I write.”

Not Steve Earle's autobiography - read it!

Which brings us to the subject of books.  A lot of Curse Of Lono’s lyrics explore very personal themes, but Bechtolsheimer is also a big reader – hell, Curse Of Lono are actually named after a book by Hunter S. Thompson.  Currently on his reading list is a collection of Steve Earle’s short stories, and I mention having read Earle’s novel I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, a great story about a bunch of losers, set in San Antonio in the early 60s.  I bought it, I say, thinking it was Earle’s autobiography.

“So did I!” he says, bursting out laughing.  “It’s almost like Steinbeck.  It’s like a couple of his books I love, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday.  It’s that portrait of people who are really - not doing great, you know?  They’re sort of skid row, but the goodness in them comes out.  You’ve got this lovable heroin dealer, and these lovable pimps and stuff running around, and I just love that.  And I wish I’d read that before we played with Steve Earle, before I met him.  Because I just wish I’d had that extra appreciation – I love his music, but I’ve attempted to write a book, and it’s really hard.”

And again, it strikes me that we were talking about America earlier, and here’s Bechtolsheimer describing a particular penchant for American fiction.

“Yeah.  I love Bukowski,” he says.

Given that Charles Bukowski (actually a German-American) was once dubbed “a laureate of American lowlife”, this scarcely surprises me. But I wonder whether the appeal of this strand of American writing is also that it’s got more – distance, imaginatively speaking?

“Well, your imagination’s got more room,” he says.  “I made this film in 2008, called We Dreamed America, and it was about the British roots scene and my band Hey Negrita was in it.  And there was something that Matt Ord our guitarist said – he said, ‘Look at The Band. They were Canadian.  They had a really great dream of what this Americana thing was.’  And he said sometimes someone who’s not American can have a better dream of it, because we’ve got more room in our imagination to picture that stuff, you know?

“So yeah, I suppose I am drawn to that.  And it’s just the voices that they use – I love the lyrics of Tom Waits.  And for me Bukowski is the literary version of Tom Waits – it’s gritty, and I like that.”

That “attempt to write a book” that Bechtolsheimer mentions came before the advent of Curse Of Lono. What was that about?

“That was a memoir. And I got shortlisted for the National Biography Awards for best unpublished biography.  And they said now you’ve got to start talking to agents – and the book just wasn’t good enough.  That’s what I thought.  And I’d rather never do another album, than put out some crap.

“But I needed to do it,” he goes on, “because . . . it defined me, until that point.  I spent a couple of years on it, and I wasn’t hanging out, and occasionally doing a bit of writing.  I was writing 7 or 8 hours a day.  I was miserable doing it, I went through a horrible depression, my band was gone, I didn’t want it back but I didn’t know what I wanted. And it was re-living the worst parts of your life over and over again.  But afterwards I was like, “Well that’s done, let’s start another band!”  And I was ready to have a good time.  But I needed to get it out.  But it still comes in.  When you’re trying to visit a dark place in a song, that’s my dark place.” 

Let’s start another band!

Bechtolsheimer and drummer Neil Findlay were both in the aforementioned Hey Negrita.  But how did Curse Of Lono as a whole come together?

“We finished with Hey Negrita – everyone drifted, but we were all still on really good terms so we decided to call it quits while we were still mates.  And I had an album’s worth of stuff, and nowhere to put it. So I got very depressed - I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  And then

Curse Of Lono get all hocus-pocus-out-of-focus

I bumped into an old friend of mine called Oli Bayston, who was just starting to produce bands.”  He and Bayston, a multi-instrumentalist, then came up with a batch of demos, and between them went on put together most of the first Curse Of Lono album, Severed, with some minor contributions from Findlay on drums and another guitarist.

“And when we finished it was, like, ‘Well, now we need to do this live.’  So Neil was in straight away, and then I put some online ads out – it’s almost like dating!  I’ve never done online dating, but it’s like that – “Hey man, I like the Stones.” “Yeah, me too.  Can I hear your demo?”  It’s that kind of thing.

“So, I got Charis [Anderson, on bass] in first, and Joe Hazell auditioned on piano originally, and he’s an amazing piano player.  And that was great, but then I couldn’t find the right guitar player.  So then Joe put the guitar on, and I was ‘Jesus Christ, he can play!’  And then, we looked for a keyboard player, and Dani [Ruiz Hernandez] came in, and straight after the first jam I went, ‘Right, you’re in.’ And he goes, ‘I’ve got one problem – I’ve got a job.  I’m a journalist, and I can’t go on tour.’  And I said well let’s see, and then when the first tour came along he said, ‘I’m in!’  And it’s worked really well.”

One thing I’ve noticed from the band’s live shows is that they have a liking for ending songs on a solo from Joe Hazell, rather than coming back to the song for a chorus or a coda.

“Yeah, you mentioned that before in a review,” says Felix, “and to be honest I hadn’t even thought about it!”

I’ve counted at least three songs where he does a nice solo – and he is a good guitarist, with great tone - and then you’re done.

“Yeah,” he agrees, nodding and counting the tracks on his fingers, “There’s ‘And It Shows’, there’s ‘No Trouble’, ‘Send For The Whisky’ . . . ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ . . . .”  He’s laughing now.

So what gives?  Are they deliberately denying the audience a bit of easy gratification?

“Yeah - I don’t know!” he says.  “Larry Love from Alabama 3 always said to me, ‘You’re doing it wrong, man.  You need to get the chorus, and at the end you need to milk it – do it five times!’  And I was like, ‘Yeah, but I want ‘em to want to hear it again.’  But maybe he’s got a point.”

Noir and noodling

When we met I was in the middle of reading the autobiography by Mike Scott of The Waterboys, who half the time seemed to be grasping for some fresh soundscape in his head, then the other half puzzling over how to realise it.  I wondered whether Bechtolsheimer had some kind of grand vision for the Curse Of Lono sound.

“Definitely.  I do think about that stuff much more.  I think the rest of the band . . . wait for me to make the first move.  And then they’re very instrumental in things.  Although to be honest the next album we’re working on we’ve agreed that we’re going to go about it the other way round.  The band gets to do it first, and then the producer gets to come in. And I’ve already had demos from Joe of riff ideas and song ideas, on piano and on guitar, and some of them are really, really good.

“I want to create something new and interesting,” he goes on, “otherwise I don’t really see

Charis Anderson - a better guitarist than Felix Bechtolsheimer?

the point. I’ve got an idea of a sound that I’m working on at the moment, that won’t be the whole of the next album, but there’ll be elements of it, which I’m calling ‘Surf Noir’,” he grins.  “If you imagine you lock Nick Cave in the room with Dick Dale, and then you get some harmonies on top of that . . . I’ve got some ideas for that!

“I’m always grasping for a new sound, and new ideas,” he continues.  “But a lot of that comes from playing around.  I sit down – I always say, in our touring party of six, I’m probably the second worst guitarist!”  Cue more chuckling.  “Danny the keyboard player can play the guitar better than me.  I only recently learnt the names of the strings – but I can write.  I then need help to get the song from here,” he says, indicating a spot on the table in front of us, “to here,” pointing at another.

“But I get the sound and the ideas from noodling around on the guitar.  Because the instrument is so – I don’t understand it properly, I have no mastery of it.  So playing around with it, and the different sounds, for me is really exciting – I’m like a kid, ‘Ooh, that sounds really cool!’  And the band will go ‘What key are you in?’  And I go ‘I’ve no idea!  You tell me – I don’t even know what that chord’s called!’”  His animated manner underlines his enthusiastic naivety.

“But that’s how I write, you know?  Put a capo here and see what happens.  Yeah, sometimes I need someone to throw in a different chord or something, to polish it, but that’s how I get the initial sound.  And it’s fun!  I love nothing more than sitting down with my guitars, and just playing.  I feel like my daughter when she’s playing with her toys – I’m just playing, I can’t control the thing!”

Time’s up. Bechtolsheimer needs to go and soundcheck.  He’s an interesting character.  Curse Of Lono are an intriguing band.  If you’re intrigued, go forth and multiply, and go see ‘em in October.

The new Curse Of Lono album 4am And Counting - Live At Toe Rag Studios, is released on 12 July.

Details of their October tour dates can be found here.

Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars

I really wasn’t sure what I was going to think of Western Stars.  Not, I imagine, that many fellow Springsteen fans will give a shit what I think.  But for myself, y’know – when an artist you admire releases a new album, and you’ve got your fingers crossed that you’re going to find it worthy of at least a few plays, it still matters.  And the things I’d been hearing before it came out – chat about a Californian vibe, orchestral arrangements, and some YouTube tracks that seemed distinctly laid back – didn’t exactly give me high hopes.

Like, as Cilla Black might have sung, what’s it all about Brucie?

Well, having given the album a damn good listening to, here’s a few thoughts.

Numero uno.  Western Stars is one of the more thematically coherent Springsteen albums of this millennium.

"Damn - think I've locked myself out."

Numero due.  (I’m writing this in Italy, so humour me eh?) Bruce is up to his old tricks again, easing the listener into some pretty bleak stories by way of disarming music. Not his patented rock’n’roll sound to be sure, as with the likes of ‘Hungry Heart’ and ‘Dancing In the Dark’ in days gone by.  But still, the mix of words and music here is bitter-sweet.

Numero tre.  Bruce is acting his age.  The guy is 70 years old this September.  Do we really expect him to be making love in the dirt with Crazy Janey? It would be a bit – undignified, wouldn’t it?

So what we have here, in various guises, are songs about some old geezers with regrets.  A couple of them, like ‘Western Stars’ and ‘Drive Fast (The Stuntman)’, seem to present characters from the movie world – marginal guys whose heyday is long gone.  The former is the tale of a one-time horse opera actor, with a narrative and a melody that sound like they’ve escaped from Nebraska– but with a very different, less claustrophobic arrangement.  The latter sounds like the guy from ‘Racing In The Street’, older and even more care-worn, reflecting on where he started from – “At nineteen I was the king of the dirt down at the Remington draw” - and where he’s ended up, after a long past fling with a girl in a B-Movie, “trying to get the pieces to fit”.

The opening couple of tracks sound innocent enough though, don’t they?  ‘Hitch Hikin’’ starts off with dreamy acoustic strumming before developing a gorgeous string theme, to accompany the perspective of a guy who seems happy to drift mentally as well as physically, chilled out as the landscape and miles wash over him.  Where’s he coming from though – and why?  And ‘The Wayfarer’ follows in a similar lyrical vein, with an orchestral arrangement that suggests wide open spaces in a dialled down Aaron Copland style – which then flows over into the following ‘Tucson Train’, which sounds like it’s recycling a melody from, I dunno, ‘Lonesome Day’ maybe, as the backdrop to stronger hints of lyrical bleakness.*  Sure, the guy is waiting for his baby to arrive off the train.  But he’s waiting for her after having run out on her in the past, because he had to get his own shit together through the dignity of labour.  And you know what?  We never learn whether she gets off the goddamn train.

"Where did Patti say to pick her up again?"

And that sets the tone for a host of tracks featuring refugees from relationships that somehow, sometime in the past, enigmatically went wrong.  Musically, meanwhile, it’s no surprise to find that Bruce cited Jimmy Webb as an influence – the writer of the likes of ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ for Glen Campbell – when you hear stuff like ‘Sundown’ and (funnily enough) ‘Hello Sunshine’, the latter a song about loneliness and a wish that the sunshine wouldn't go.

‘Sundown’ conjures up the first hint of a most un-Boss like crooning vocal, to go with some ultra-sophisticated harmonies and lush strings, and this reaches its apogee on ‘There Goes My Miracle’, on which Bruce produces a full on, and very convincing, Tony Bennett-style vocal performance.  At first blush it sounds utterly romantic, a love song.  But the sting that shouldn’t be ignored is that the object of the narrator’s affections is walking away.  This is not, I think, the celebration of an enduring relationship.  The song ends with the phrase “Sunrise, sundown.” Things come, things go.

The album ends with ‘Moonlight Motel’.  And the veritable horde of string, woodwind and horn players required on other tracks ain’t needed here.  It’s spare and lovely, as another aging loner visits a once-romantic scene that’s now dilapidated and deserted.  He could be the guy who lit out with the girl in ‘Thunder Road’, now feeling like another of the ghosts of the boys she sent away.

What’s it all about, Brucie? The guy has always had a compunction to hit the road, to follow those white lines in his head, like the Wayfarer. And I’d hazard a guess that some of this material reflects his struggle with depression, which he explored at length in his recent autobiography.  But all these songs about mysteriously broken relationships don’t sound like him pondering married life with Patti Scialfa, who gets a pointed credit for her contribution to the vocal arrangements here.  Are there some other ghosts he’s trying to purge?

Whatever, there’s one song that doesn’t fit the template, and it’s the most accessible track on the album. With a skipping rhythm, and cajun-style accordion courtesy of Chuck Giordano, ‘Sleepy Joe’s Café’ sounds like the cheerful kinda joint that the couple in ‘The River’ might frequent of a weekend, once the kids are all grown up and have flown the coop. It’s a song you hear and immediately think – tune!

Western Stars isn’t an album I’m likely to play to death. But it sure as hell demonstrates that Bruce Springsteen has an artistic brain that’s still got some mileage in it, down those highways of the American experience.

*It was a little after I'd written and published this review that I realised Western Stars had its origins in the tracks Springsteen had recorded in late 2010 with producer Ron Aniello, before setting them aside to launch into what would become Wrecking Ball.  In Peter Ames Carlin's biography Bruce, Aniello observed of the earlier material "It's stunning really.  Like Aaron Copland, the American landscape style.  Soft and deep and open sky." (Page 448)

Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul - Alcatraz, Milan, 13 June 2019

Whisper it, but while the Boss may still be the Boss, it’s his consigliere Steve Van Zandt who’s delivering the more vibrant musical experience these days.  This is the third time I’ve seen Little Steven and Co over the last couple of years, and each time the result has been the same – an uplifting spiritual victory for Stevie’s patented soul revue extravaganza.

Partly this is a matter of location.  While nowadays Bruce chooses to contend with the compromises born of performing in stadia, Van Zandt is able to play in venues on a human scale, where the music can envelop the audience and more easily create an emotional connection. God knows what the economics are of a 15-piece band playing internationally to crowds of around 2-3,000, but whether the gig is in Glasgow’s O2 Academy or Milan’s Alcatraz, artistically it works like a dream.

Little Steven and the gang - no Monochrome Set here!

This time around of course, the show is based around the Disciples’ new album Summer Of Sorcery, and by that I mean all of it, not just the token couple of tracks your typical heritage act might venture.

Steve Van Zandt, y’see, isn’t just a great assimilator, synthesiser and regurgitator of all that is great in American rock’n’roll.  He is a man with a vision.  And that vision is to reawaken in his audience the cultural memory of the heady, youthful innocence and optimism of classic rock’n’roll, soul, pop - whatever you want to call it - but seasoned with awareness of the real world stuff that still needs to be confronted.  As the lyrics of ‘Summer Of Sorcery’ itself put it, “I want to get lost in your festival of unlimited possibilities, I want to be transformed by your summer of sorcery.” And by the time he’s singing this, near the end of the show, you can bet your sweet ass that the audience want the same thing.

It really don’t matter which songs you pick, they’re all pulling in the same direction.  Maybe it’s the swoon-worthy Detroit soul melody of ‘Love Again’, one of the highlights of the new album, with which Van Zandt tells the audience they’re “about to be transported to summer”.

(Not a difficult proposition in sun-drenched Italy, it has to be said.)  Maybe it’s the pseudo-harpsichord intro from Lowell “Banana” Levinger, leading to the great slab of a riff that ushers in the horn-heavy ‘I Visit The Blues’, which he introduces with a spiel about there not being any Beach Boys and so no summer (“Gabeesh?”) without the guy who discovered California - said guy, he bizarrely suggests, being Sir Francis Drake.  Maybe it’s his Eighties belter ‘Los Desparicidos’, featuring a scything guitar intro from Marc Ribler, a heap of arm-flailing supplication from the girls on backing vox, and tour de force Latino percussion from Anthony Almonte. Maybe it’s ‘Party Mambo’, with its pointed reference to Puerto Rico being deserted in its hour of need, with its horn contest at stage front and the girls going heavy on maracas.

Sha-la-la - with added arm-flailing supplication

You get the picture? Alcatraz may be little more than a big shed, but the Disciples Of Soul turn it into the house party you always dreamed of.

And you know what? You don’t even really need the visuals. Sure, there’s the day-glo backdrop. There’s ivory tinkler Andy Burton out front soloing on one of those keyboard-pretending-to-be-a-guitar contraptions with freaky all black keys.  There’s the three girls with wild, wild hair taking very, very seriously their contractual responsibility to go certifiably fucking nuts on a regular basis. But none of that matters.  Because you could close your eyes and still be immersed in a mythical soundtrack of mid-Sixties America, on some crappy radio in your bedroom, that in reality you probably never experienced at the time.  This, friends, is indeed a form of musical alchemy.

And by the way, those girls aren’t just eye candy.  You want Motown sha-la-las, Vandellas-like shoop-shoops, or Etta James like solo contributions?  Jessica Wagner, Sara Devine and Tania Jones got ‘em for ya.  Gabeesh??

There’s a great triplet of Van Zandt/Springsteen tunes “to express gratitood to Southside Johnny,” and “to keep the royalties comin’ in for Bruce, ‘cause he needs ‘em”, including the magnificent funky soul of ‘Trapped Again’, with another great solo from Van Zandt’s very own consigliere Ribler.  But ‘Love On The Wrong Side Of Town’ is something else, with the crowd singing along to its Searchers-like riff, and its Ronette-esque backing vocals and sax solo combining to encapsulate all of the Phil Spector soul you ever imagined. And after it finishes

Just how cool is that guitar?

an ongoing crowd singalong prompts Van Zandt to start strumming his guitar again, and lead the band in what might even be an improvised extra turn around the block. (Though I’m betting it takes a lot of rehearsal to look this spontaneous.)

Steve introduces ‘I Am A Patriot’ with commentary about the universal language of politics being bullshit, and about false dichotomies suggesting you can’t be both a patriot and global citizen.  But just as relevant is the wild rock’n’roll of ‘Superfly Terraplane’, with the girls dancing fit to bust as he sings that “you can stick your Second Amendment up your ass”, in addition to getting down big time on lead guitar – something he should do more of, in my view.

By the time they get to the dance-percussion workout of ‘Bitter Fruit’, the Disciples Of Soul have become a demolition crew smashing your inhibitions, and happiness is defined as dancing the night away at a Little Steven gig with your, er, baby.

And so it goes down the stretch, through a wild ‘Soul Power Twist’, the call to arms of ‘Sun City’, and the anthemic ‘Out Of The Darkness’, until they’re gone and we’re all drifting away.

And then, at the risk of over-sharing, I’m washing my hands in the Gents when I hear a cheer, and then a guitar chord.  Meanwhile, back in the hall, my other half is taking a pic of a trio of gleeful guys with their backs to the stage, when she points over their shoulders as she sees the band reappear.  And I’m scurrying back towards the stage along with half the audience, as the Disciples Of Soul break into ‘I Don’t Wanna Go Home’.  And we all try to reach up and touch the sky . . .

Kenny Wayne Shepherd - The Traveler

I wasn’t following blues music when Kenny Wayne Shepherd first appeared on the scene.  I didn’t drink the Kool-Aid.  And on my limited acquaintance with him in recent years he’s never really bowled me over.  So what to make, then, of his latest album The Traveler?

Well, on the strength of the opening three tracks I was pretty encouraged.  ‘Woman Like You’ may not be the most of original of songs, but it has a stomping beat, a gutsy riff, and Shepherd contributes the kind of fiery guitar solo that might justify his reputation.  ‘Long Time Running’ follows that up even more strongly.  It’s even more powerful than its precursor, with revving rhythm guitar, and horns flaring to provide extra raunch. Shepherd

chucks in an array of urgent guitar licks, and his solos sound not just like he’s got a tiger in his tank, but that he’s having fun into the bargain.  ‘I Want You’ consolidates this promising opening with a suitably hip-grinding riff and a bluesy feel, buttressed by more horns and flashes of organ.  With a couple of solos from Shepherd that are varied in pace and show good use of tension and release, and a bright organ solo as a bonus, things are looking good.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd - we all alright

However.  Much as I’m impressed by what I’m hearing up to this point, I’m not keen on Noah Hunt’s voice.  Shepherd has been working with Hunt since 1996, so clearly believes in him. But for me, Hunt suffers from an unusual problem – his vocals are too good.  I know, this sounds crazy.  But his singing is too neat, too clean, too faultless, too lacking in personality to make a real impression.  Rather than putting any kind of stamp on the material, his voice just slides off me, so that as much as I find ‘Woman Like You’ entertaining, I’m left to note that his voice sounds like just another middle-of-the-road country rocker.

Interestingly, Shepherd has said that for this album he took on lead vocal duties more often – but the album credits don’t specify on which tracks.  I’d hazard a guess at three of them though, one of them being the aforementioned ‘I Want You’, and if his efforts aren’t as technically flawless as Hunt’s, they have the advantage of displaying a bit more character.

But then I have another problem.  After this bright start, the album collapses like a soufflé in the face of ‘Tailwind’ and ‘Gravity’, which are awful modern-day country rock efforts.  I don’t have a problem with country music per se, far from it. But ‘Tailwind’ is soggy, run of the mill country that’s not remotely original.  Striving to be deep and meaningful, it deploys acoustic strumming and harmonies to no effect.  ‘Gravity’ is slightly better, but not much.  With a pedestrian “Oh-woah-oh” vocal line and clichéd lyrics, its saving grace is another decent solo.  The same is true of ‘Take It On Home’, later on, a slice of common or garden country rock, or southern rock without the wit perhaps, despite swelling organ and another decent solo.

‘Better With Time’ may be in a similar vein, but it’s better put together, with (I think) Shepherd on vocals, a soulful horn riff, and a neat coda.  Stronger still is ‘We All Alright’, with its stabbing, spiky riff, and big fuzzy chords over a rolling drum beat, a busy guitar solo and an appealing little piano outro – which at least manages to create some fresh momentum after the feebleness of ‘Tailwind’ and ‘Gravity’.

Two covers are included – Buffalo Springfield’s ‘Mr Soul’, and Joe Walsh’s ‘Turn To Stone’.  It makes for an instructive comparison, as both of them are thoroughbred songs, with guts and originality.  On the former horns chug out the emphatic riff, urged on by surging organ, it sounds like it’s Shepherd who brings conviction to the vocal, and there’s an accelerating ending with racing guitar to round things off nicely.  The Walsh hit is given a muscular reading, with its tough but controlled riff and good hook, but the vocals don’t have the striking, individual quality that Walsh brought to the party.  Still, there’s a nice, piano-led bridge, with KWS tickling his guitar in the margins, before getting into a big solo that has real vitality and even drama.

All in all The Traveler is a decent album that certainly shows off Shepherd’s guitar chops.  It’s even good enough to encourage me to play fair by Shepherd, and go in search some of Shepherd’s older stuff to try and understand how he’s got to where he is now. 

Samantha Fish - Q-Factory, Amsterdam, 23 May 2019

It’s 11.45pm, Samantha Fish has been offstage for about an hour, and she’s just finishing up the last few selfies and signatures for a throng of fans at the merch stand.  So ends the latest gig in a European tour on which the buzz is reaching new decibel levels.

The Q-Factory is a modern complex of rehearsal rooms, music shop, café, two concert halls and god knows what else.  Fish and her band take the stage in front of a near capacity audience of 650, and kick into ‘Wild Heart’. It’s a big square box of a room this, and where

All-out hoedown!

I’m standing down the front the sound seems heavy on the bottom, but they cut through it by rocking the house with a set that’s big on raunch.

Twin peaks early on are once again the energy rush of ‘You Can’t Go’ and, even better, ‘Little Baby’.  The latter is in a whole different league tonight, with Samantha going all Dick Dale on the intro, and Phil Breen bashing out honesty tonk piano en route to an all-out hoedown, with Fish delivering a screaming, bottom-of-the-neck solo, and Chris Alexander going nuts on bass, turning it into one of those musical moments that makes you want to laugh out loud with pleasure.

Those two tunes bracket the new ones ‘Love Letters’ and ‘Watch It Die’, and a super slinky ‘Chills And Fever’.  Standing in front of Phil Breen’s keyboards, it’s easier to pick up on the subtle guitar/keys harmonies in the former, while the latter is an exercise in light and shade – and both feature fierce solos from Samantha, though not at the vertiginous heights of the monster to follow in ‘Little Baby’ (if you can have vertiginous heights in the Netherlands).

“By the way, I’m super-American and don’t speak any Dutch,” says Fish to amused laughter – given that Dutch is a super-hard language to learn, and they almost all speak English anyway, sometimes switching mid-sentence.  They whack into ‘Cowtown’, and the manner of her SG playing indicates that its country undertones are by way of the Stones, while Phil Breen gets on with a bout of headshaking as he gives it plenty on keys ahead of a brief singalong.

A full-on, rocking-out reading of ‘Highway’s Holding Me Now’, and ‘Gone For Good’, bracket the aching acoustic country of ‘Need You More’.  Tonight Fish opts for her Delaney semi-acoustic on ‘Gone For Good’, giving it a warmer tone, while Scotty Graves gives his snare drum a serious workout to drive the song along.

Sam takes a gulp of water before delivering her Lulu-like “Weeeeeee-yeeaah-yeeah-eaahulll” vocal intro to ‘Somebody’s Always Trying’, leading to a swirling mid-section, a moody pedal board exploration on her knees, and then an unhurried crescendo that takes her into agony-and-ecstasy guitar goddess territory.

They close tonight with  ‘Shake ‘Em Down’, a cigar box stomp full of grinding, screaming slide, before coming back for ‘Bitch On The Run’, with Fish working the crowd like a good ‘un on the call and response section, leading up to a wild, pounding conclusion.  And thence to that merch stall, and a crowd of happy punters ready to give their endorsement.

Some of the PR bumf around Samantha Fish talks about her genre-bending tendencies,

Curse Of Lono - bloody civilised

and the same is true in a different way of alt.all-sorts-of-roots music London-based support band Curse Of Lono. Which may make them sound kooky, but they’re not.

‘Blackout Fever’ is a chug-along opener, but subsequent songs are particularly enlivened by a range of tasteful guitar work from Joe Hazell.  The Doorsy vibe of ‘London Rain’ is garnished by a succession of sparky licks, while ‘Way To Mars’ features spangly guitar complemented by high-end piano chords from Dani.  Then on ‘No Trouble’ he delivers a solo that reminds me, I think, of what Hugh Burns brought to Gerry Rafferty’s records in the 70s and 80s.  And so on, and so on, to good effect.

But they’re good songs too.  ‘Send For The Whisky’, I’ve decided on repeated acquaintance, reminds me of that line in ‘Me And Bobby McGee’ about “Freedom’s just another word for – nothin’ else to do”.  Meanwhile their rendition of Tom Waits’ ‘Going Out West’ develops a brooding groove you could swim in like a dark river at night, and the closing ‘Valentine’ is bloody and menacing, but still civilised, like an Orwellian English murder.  And all this with smiles on their faces that belie the darkness of the material. Clearly they enjoy doing it – see what you make of them next time they’re in your neck of the woods.

You can also find the Blues Enthused interview with Samantha Fish, carried out just before the Amsterdam show, here.

Samantha Fish setlist

Wild Heart

Love Letters

Watch It Die

Chills And Fever

Little Baby

Blood In The Water

Cowtown

Need You More

Gone For Good

Somebody's Always Trying

Shake 'Em Down

Bitch On The Run