Despite a relaxing week, and the novelty of being out and about much further from home than recently, I had a pretty poor night's sleep. So, as I stumbled across a surprisingly bright Doncaster town centre, my main aim was coffee. Predictably, none of the outlets at the station were open, so I settled for some rough vending machine effort and wandered directly to the platform. Bumped straight into the Chesterfield contingent and compared notes on the day ahead as a freight passed through the station attracting the interest of the assembling hordes. Then, as 47804 fired up to pull the stock out of the sidings all cameras focused on the other end of the train where 55022 positively gleamed in the morning sunshine. It was going to be an interesting trip!
It was also a fairly straightforward one in some ways - taking the CrossCountry route I'd travelled up on yesterday, via Sheffield and Derby, making frequent pick-ups which meant this tour had sold out entirely. At Derby we took on supplies as there was no kitchen car - huge breakfast rolls, which were incredibly good value for money and better than any of the on-train catering I've even experiences. Thus filled, we continued south via Birmingham and the Lickey. As the route flattened out south of Bristol, so the Deltic picked up the pace. We stormed through my home station, and tore along the straight line down to Taunton. Not unexpectedly we slowed a little as we crested Whiteball, but reports were that all was not well. We slowed to a crawl and entered the loop at Tiverton Junction with all kinds of rumours flying...that we'd failed, we'd caught fire, and that the Deltic had set lineside fires at both ends of the tunnel.
It turned out that there had been a small exhaust fire of the kind not uncommon on Deltics. Despite being able to blow it out, 47804 ran around for insurance, and attached to the front of the train, hauling us for the remainder of the route into Paignton. It wasn't quite how we'd planned to arrive, but early indications were that the Deltic would be fine on the return run. It also demonstrated how quickly information which is frankly rubbish can speed around the internet at times, particularly among the less thoughtful end of the hobby who just like a bit of drama. Arriving late, we made a swift dash over to the Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway platform next to the mainline station in order to pick-up our chartered service here, hauled by their resident but rarely used Class 25. A fine run down through Goodrington, with some remarkable scenery and some surprising feats of engineering too in Greenway Viaduct and the causeway alongside the River Dart. Reversal at Kingswear was undertaken incredibly quickly in order to get back onto schedule, and I found a quieter coach on the return to try for some pictures along the route. Thinking back to my last visit for the Diesel Gala in 1996, I was struck how little had changed here - which at least in this case, was for the better.
Once back in Paignton, time for food and decent coffee before a wander up to the top of town. My frequent visits on Bank Holidays last year meant that I had no pressing wish to see the sights and was happy to wander and lounge around watching the world go by, as the rest of the tour dashed from pub to pub. With the sun now back in earnest, took some shots of the stock arriving from the crossing before settling in for the run back. The Deltic was fired up, both engines running - but with 47804 tucked inside as stipulated prior to the tour by Network Rail. Once onto the mainline, we made excellent time - arriving early and having to wait at Dawlish Warren before pressing on north. The stretch between Exeter and Bristol was possibly the best run I've had with 55022 - fantastic weather, fine company and a very fast loco made for a great afternoon, and I was loathe to get off at Bristol.
Some last shots and a chat as the train waited time, before storming north into the setting sun. Made my way towards the train home, pondering the next trip - and indeed the next chance to sample the Deltic. This trip had all of the ingredients a railtour needs - interesting traction, a bit of drama and some very fine running. It reminds you why you turn out in Doncaster at 5:00am!
Before I started writing here in earnest, there were a number of things which seemed to urge me to shout about how great they were in the hope of convincing others, just like old times. In some ways, you can probably blame several of those records for making me want to express my thoughts enough to start Songs Heard On Fast Trains, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your viewpoint. Not least of these was this very record, the release of which somewhere in the middle of 2010 heralded something of an indie-pop awakening for me after a number of years in the wilderness. Now, with the album being re-released on Fence I have a perfect excuse to wax lyrical about it here at last. Looking back, I initially struggled a little with "SHOUTING at Wildlife" partly because a fair number of the songs were familiar before the album arrived which made it feel like something of a 'greatest hits' collection at first listen. However, seeing Kid Canaveral play these songs in a variety of places, and growing steadily more familiar with the rest of the record as a result made me appreciate just what a varied collection it was, and pretty soon every week produced a new favourite. Fast forward to Homegame, and an incendiary performance in Anstruther Town Hall, and it all made perfect sense.
But what gave this record it's coveted placing on Songs Heard on Fast Trains's 2010 list - and indeed what merits this mention of the reissue? Well, for starters its pretty near the most perfect collection of fuzzy, regret-tinged pop music that last year produced. The scratchy, urgent call-to-arms of "Good Morning" launches the album, piling layer after layer of chiming guitars and thunderous drums onto a breathless, vocal. It's clear from the off that this is going to be an interesting journey as an impromptu choir and stabs of keyboard usher in "You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night" - in some ways a strange proposition of a song with it's choral breakdowns and cowbells - but ultimately a slinky pop number is thinly disguised here. Little slashes of guitar underscore David MacGregor's exasperated vocal as it winds things up towards an epic ending, duetting with the choir and slinging responses back to their insistent refrain. Indeed Kid Canaveral delight in several fine vocalists, and the charming but uncompromising "Left and Right" with it fuzzy dash through confusing city streets allows Kate Lazda to showcase her own knack of switching seamlessly between a rapid-fire punky delivery and soaring pop choruses while guitars keen around her. It was an early favourite and remains one now.
But its not all about noise and bluster - as "Quiet Things Are Quiet Now" lives up to its name, as a gentle acoustic tune embellished with warbling keyboards. A simple but surprisingly frank lyric about absence and change takes the foreground, Kate almost whispering the final verses. Things become more complex with current single "And Another Thing!" which adds layers of carefully constructed guitar over a simple and wonderfully jangly pop tune, building it into something much, much bigger. By the end, with the insistent chorus echoing around, the sweep of a violin through the song takes things swirling off to another level. Here, if they haven't already done so, Kid Canaveral manage to tap into that rich vein of somewhat emotionally bruised but triumphant Scottish pop music which has inspired so many fine acts down the years. Along the way David sings "I'm busy doing nothing/there's no skill and no knack to it" - which can't possibly apply to something as carefully constructed and damn near perfect as "SHOUTING at Wildlife". Ultimately, there are just too many highlights to work through without beginning to sound even more sycophantic, so I'll settle for a final mention of "Her Hair Hangs Down". This was always a curious moment on the record - but it all fell into place when it was used to soundtrack an exquisitely filmed video of Fence's Awaygame on The Isle of Eigg. A subdued, folk-tinged lament with domestic-scale lyrics. MacGregor intoning the words painstakingly and with restraint, trilling on the 'r' sound in "three long weeks". It's brief, beautiful and incredibly touching. I'm never sure quite why it's so affecting - perhaps its the curious documentary quality of the lyrics, with their brief window into a relationship at what might or might not be a pivotal moment?
Reappraising "SHOUTING at Wildlife" now reminds me just what a fine record it is and how much it deserves to be heard by lots of people. It's good to see Kid Canaveral finding their spiritual home at Fence, and whilst the uncompromising DIY ethic in the East Neuk won't perhaps result in immediate widespread exposure of the kind which they will undoubtedly eventually achieve, the music will certainly be allowed to speak for itself there in a way it perhaps couldn't elsewhere. Most importantly this release ensures that a whole new audience get to hear this fantastic record, fall in love with it and share the next step of the band's journey. I can't help but feel this is the beginning of something big...
"Shouting At Wildlife" is re-relased on 25th July, via Fence Records who are offering a fantastic pre-release package based around the vinyl LP, which is just about the only way to get hold of their splendid cover of King Creosote's "Missionary". Meanwhile the band feature in a BBC2 Scotland documentary on SXSW to be screened on Tuesday 5th July (Sky Channel 990/Freesat 970) and no doubt on YouTube soon after.
Kid Canaveral - And Another Thing!
It's been something of a low key month for a number of reasons, but getting to the station for the 08:16 just felt plain wrong! For years now, it's always been about squeezing every last bit of value out of the day's travel - and escaping if not physically as far as possible, at least to a point where I can disappear into the background a bit. In fact, even the 08:16 was really too early - given the UK Railtours operated trip wouldn't arrive in Bristol until about 11:00, having operated as a day trip to Bath or Bristol from Stevenage. So, as the day trippers left their seats for a wander around town, and the stewards whipped away the tablecloths to signify the end of the dining service, we settled into the still-warm seats for a spin around the freight lines of Gloucestershire.
Firstly, it was pleasant to be seated with a veteran of a recent trip to similar lines in Cornwall, one of a number of BLS colleagues onboard. The first leg of the trip was a rarely straightforward dash to Gloucester for a brief stop and reversal. As we slowed for Gloucester Yard Junction, the token for the Sharpness Branch was handed over, and we were off again retracing our steps to Berkeley Road Junction. This was the only section of new track for me today, so covering it first was partly frustrating but also rather reassuring! We curved onto the branch, foliage closing in around us until the site of the loading pad for nuclear flasks from the now decommissioned Berkeley Power Station. It had been suggested we'd get little further than this, so it was a huge bonus to continue a good deal further into the village, as far as the point where the lines to the former Severn Rail bridge left the dock branch. As we sat in the sun awaiting our reversal, the entire population of Sharpness seemed to be out to see us, cameras in hand.
Rather tiresomely, we now had to retrace our steps all the way to Gloucester, reversing this time on the goods lines rather than taking the curve into the station. Token returned, we once again headed south covering the same stretch of track as far as Yate South Junction, where we took the former Midland route towards Westerleigh. En route, we passed the site of the flyover which once brought the Great Western line link alongside us, and it's noting details like this which makes travelling with likeminded souls a rewarding experience. Again we progressed well along the branch, drawing right to the end of the usable line mere feet from the busy M4. The oil depot was busy, but South Gloucestershire's waste transfer station sat idle, the expensive crane rusting quietly.
We then reversed back to Yate to take the longer branch to Tytherington. This is the third time I've travelled this branch, and not much changes at the quarry. Indeed we lost a little time here, which is equally something of a tradition. However, sticking to the itinerary, we headed back to Temple Meads via Hallen and Avonmouth. Once back, we evacuated the train to allow the trippers access to their dining seats for the way home. Grabbed a coffee and stood in the sun watching the train depart and chatting. All-in-all a very sociable, successful and rather relaxing day out staying fairly local. However, it'll be good to get some miles under the belt next week...
Boxcar Aldous Huxley and The Dust Busters - Benjamin Perry Scout Hut, Bristol
Posted in SHOFT on Tuesday 28th June 2011 at 11:06pm
It's a rare luxury to get out to see music locally nowadays, and especially rare that something comes along which grabs my attention quite like this did. Picked up via a brief mention on the Fence Records beefboard, this show was billed "A Night of the New Old Time". Beautiful letterpressed posters and a curious venue which I must have walked past thousands of times cemented the deal - I had to be at this one. So, I found myself wandering around central Bristol on a humid night with a threat of storms in the air. The Benjamin Perry Scout Hut is a fairly anonymous brown wooden shack, right by the riverside. It's still an active Sea Scout meeting place, and as I arrived there was a buzz around the downstairs section as kayaks were returned to the boathouse. Upstairs was a tiny room, decked out in maritime and scouting memorabilia. The only concession to electricity tonight, a string of fairy lights wrapped around the low beams of the roof. From my vantage point at the far end of the room I had a view of the City Centre through the window, and I was struck again just how strange a proposition all this was.
After a bizarre and eclectic DJ set played on a pair of ageing wind-up gramophones, Boxcar Aldous Huxley took to the stage. They certainly looked the part - their solid looking drummer squashed into a corner and the odd, mildly unhinged beauty of Zuleika Zigfield in her 1920s garb, playing the saw. Amidst all this, Liam Kirby stalked the tiny area which constituted a stage - wild haired and enthusiastic to convey the inspiration behind the songs. Kicking off with a track which was about "the electrocution of an elephant and the last days of Nikolai Tesla" it was clear that the music was about as strange as Boxcar Aldous Huxley's appearance. Gently brushed drums supported banjo, clarinet and saw. Dabs of judiciously applied harmonium traded with Kirby's sometimes indistinguishably quiet vocals. Things were a little more robust when the rest of the band joined the choir - and particularly when Zuleika Ziegfield added her tremulous high voice to the mix. A couple of songs in I was sold, tangled up in the strange storytelling, and genuinely pleased to find my own reference points in the tales. "Cable Street" linked the legendary battle of locals and Moseley's fascists with an unlikely love story and the burial of John Williams, supposed perpetrator of the Ratcliff Highway Murders in 1812. This kind of linking with place was always going to work for me, and coupled to the woozy, oddly Eastern European sounds which the strange mix of instruments produced, I was hooked.
As another track began with "when the last train rolls out of Brookwood..." and went on to weave a strange macabre tale around the mysteries of the Necropolis Railway, I was beginning to think someone had raided my record collection and my library and somehow built a band out of all of the illogical, disconnected bits. The strange thing was it worked - and as the odd, Balkan reggae morphed into a sort of charleston-meets-ramshackle-punk sound, Kirby produced a trombone and led the band into a further transformation - emerging as a an ad-hoc northern miners brass band. The band were perhaps at their most accessible on "A Song For Thomas Scott", where their voices merged to form a trombone and harmonium driven ballad dedicated to historical Canadian politician Louis Riel. The audience loved it, the band seemed to be having a great time, and the coupling of unamplified, stomping acoustic music and the strange old venue was perfect. All over far too quickly, and certainly on the list to see again.
Hailing from Brooklyn, NY and playing their first UK show The Dust Busters again visually fitted the bill exactly. Three young men, looking like they'd tumbled out of a Greenwich Village folk club directly into this Scout Hut, starting their set with fiddle, guitar and banjo. Anyone expecting more of the same brand of eccentric neo-traditionalism that Boxcar Aldous Huxley had provided was going to be disappointed. This was serious stuff - and with an attention to detail and tradition which seems to have disappeared from much of the American folk scene, The Dust Busters set about plundering the rich vein of ballads, rags and dance tunes which the continent has provided over the last century or so. Songs were interspersed with knowledgeable and engaging talk about their origins, the band determinedly keen to persuade the audience to check out the century-old original music as much as their own album! Throughout the set Walker Shepard, Craig Judelman and Eli Smith shared vocal duties and switched instruments regularly - showing an almost embarrassing ability to play virtually anything. The audience loved it, with a couple who had been twitching restlessly in front of me finally pushing out of the door onto the balcony above the river, and starting to dance wildly. It was that kind of night.
At one point, a curious frisson shivered through the room - as The Dust Busters played "Casey Jones" as reworked by union man Joe Hill, a bunch of teachers and civil servants at the back of the room began singing along earnestly. Their own strike was unlikely to involve train wrecks or dead scabs, but all the same there was something a little inspirational about the way they connected with a tune from long ago, in an age where the battles were very different indeed. The Dust Busters, whilst steering clear of political comment, managed the mood of the audience perfectly. Seemingly they knew just what to play and when, and as more sombre tunes like "Two Soldiers" faded, they'd break into a frenetic ragtime fiddle-driven jig. As the skies darkened, with the lights of the city and the tiny strand of fairy lights in the hut the only illumination, the atmosphere was magical and it was clear we were witnessing something pretty special. The band were called back for encore after encore, and eventually I had to discreetly slip away leaving the spellbound audience to the next tune.
Carefully negotiating the cobbles of the boatyard on my walk to the station, and with the distant sound of The Dust Busters fading in the twinkling scout hut, I was stuck by how this felt like a really special event. Sam of Shieldshaped who had put tonight together had done a fantastic job - from selecting a perfect venue, down to the beautifully conceived posters for the event. Like all the best shows, I came away inspired with new things to check out. Here's to the next Shieldshaped production!
More information on Boxcar Aldous Huxley can be found here, and their five-track album "The Initial Proceedings of the Boxcar Aldous Huxley Historiographical Society" is available on a beautiful 10" vinyl and download package from Bandcamp.
The Dust Busters can be contacted via their website. Their debut album can be downloaded at iTunes.
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
