It seems like a while since I was heading for a railtour, and this week kicked off a series of three, all of which mostly focus on what I consider to be fairly local haunts. Today though was an annual event - Spitfire Railtours' dash to Penzance for Mazey Day. This year a total of three trains ran once again, with Pathfinder running from Tame Bridge with Class 31's, whilst Spitfire covered the West Midlands with Class 37's. However, making good the unfortunate omission from last year, I elected to travel on the Class 20 hauled train from Gloucester. The day started with a run up to Bristol on the early train. With a fair few locals heading for the various trips, it was a bit of a carnival atmosphere on board despite the early hour. At Temple Meads, breakfasted and had good coffee while checking the timings - reports from all trains were positive, with ours arriving first as planned. It was with some relief and a fair amount of excitement that 20308 and 20309 were greeted as they chugged noisily into the platform.
Once on board, we made a swift dash over the levels to Taunton where the remainder of the local crew boarded. With bucks fizz served as per tradition and the early haze and mist giving way to bright sunshine, we sped south west. Meanwhile, a series of Facebook messages from the previous evening which I'd all but dismissed were proved to be right - and another friend confirmed she was speeding ahead on a service train in front of us. It was going to be a typical Mazey Day in the pub it seemed!
On arrival, I left my enthusiast friends and we headed off to pick up our additional traveller and head for the pub. Via the Longboat first, then a series of others we followed the crowds and made a circuit towards the harbour. Tomorrow a world record attempt was being held for the most people in one place dressed as pirates, and one among our number had designs on a place in this record. So, we visited a strange pirate gear shop housed in a boat. Food and more beer followed before heading back to the station. Noted our stock was already in the platform, having not in fact left. Wandered over to chat with a friend from Spitfire and noted there was trouble - thankfully not for us, but for the Pathfinder trip. It seems that an incident at Long Rock had left the train impounded whilst checks were made on the stock and of course the staff. Plans were being made by Network Rail and Pathfinder for a possible cancellation. Watched the strange situation unfold for a little while, mildly amused that some of the very people who seem to unfairly lash out at Spitfire from behind their keyboards were now trying to negotiate some sort of joint effort.
We left Penzance on time, with Pathfinder following about 45 minutes late. A brief stop outside Long Rock as a cable popped off our coach, then a storming run north. The damp misty start had now turned into a glorious evening sunset. Content, full of beer and having had a great day I dozed my way back to Taunton. Another fantastic Mazey Day trip, and more trains to look forward to in the coming couple of weeks. Summer has perhaps finally arrived.
Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou - Quality First Last & Forever
Posted in SHOFT on Friday 24th June 2011 at 7:06am
Folk music. Love it or otherwise, it's everywhere lately. With even the biggest acts keen to break out the banjo and brush up their authenticity by referencing traditional music of various strains, it would be easy to get cynical about the way it's become so marketable in recent times. However, there are beacons of genuine commitment and inventiveness still, and Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou shine out in dark times on this uplifting and inspiring album. I've said before that it's been a strange year for me and Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou, with frequent crossings of path. Starting with their "Tin Tabernacle" tour and ending up at Homegame, I've listened to many of these songs developing and changing in a variety of live environments. So, their inclusion here, often with little more embellishment than they received in their live, acoustic setting feels like a chapter completed.
"Spin Me A Rhyme" was always a playful, rousing call to arms even when it was just Trevor and Hannah-Lou and their guitars. Here it is transformed into a stomping, pop gem with big drums and a beautifully brassy ending. While this opens proceedings with the clear message that this isn't going to be another attempt at dour traditionalism, there are clear links back to the canon of protest songs with Spanish Civil War era references to "joining the brigades". The politics are rarely overt in Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou's work - but there is a thread of communalism and a sense of pride in being British which seems terribly unfashionable now, even in these post-Big Society times. On the frenzied "Making It Count" this full band sound returns, with all kinds of joyous clattering percussion, bayou accordion and a lyrical tale of runaways which brings Brotherhood of Man's "Angelo" right up to date. It's audacious, ridiculously enthusiastic and impossible not to dance around the room to. A raucous folk-pop storm delivered with glee.
A spellbinding feature of recent live sets and captured perfectly here, "A Hill Far Away" is just two voices, two picked guitars and a slinky cello line winding around them. The voices entwine beautifully on lyrics which return things to a more prosaic everyday level, wistfully asking "have you ever had a day/when you wish the time would just slip away?". It's a quiet plea amongst the stomping celebrations and spirited clarion calls elsewhere on this album. One of the more positive forces at work in modern folk music is a willingness to blur tradition in order to convey a message, and "Big Water" exemplifies this perfectly. The landscape of picked guitars feels expansive and owes plenty to Americana, but here it meets some very traditional English balladry. This is beautifully played and touchingly sung, the traditional instrumentation supported by respectfully distant drums and organ. Over the course of their two records to date, it's clear that Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou's songs are often connected to our times - with a focus on the late 20th and 21st century which is perhaps a little unfashionable in this kind of fayre? Bringing things right up to 2011, "Stargazer's Gutter" is a thoughtful take on the widening effects of the economic downturn, with a dramatic chorus urging Presidents and paupers to "come lie down next to me" in Wilde's universal gutter. Bankers and lawyers take a not undeserved swipe here, but ultimately the democracy of the gutter is preserved. We're all in it together it seems, and if this is the soundtrack then perhaps it really is going to be OK?
And as if to soothingly confirm this, it's time for "Feel At Ease". An eerily echoing introduction gives way to an understated guitar introduction, but then Trevor and Hannah-Lou's voices soar in, and the catalogue of painful everyday experiences racks up. But this is all about shoring fragments up against those ruins, rather than wallowing in self pity - and I'll confess that the part of this song which implores "when your blood and your sweat go unsung, hold your tongue" has had some personal application this past week! Coupled with hammond organ flourishes and a wonderfully retro guitar solo grafted from a Johnny Cash record, the truly transporting chorus anchors this as a personal favourite.
Whether they're being performed near a blustery Fife harbour, or in a tiny tin church these songs have a strong universal appeal - the sometimes sparse delivery provokes a sense of the familiar, but this record is packed with new ideas. It's also exploding with enthusiasm, defiance and a peculiarly English sense of workmanship. The roots of this album spread deep into a variety of traditions, but the curious blend of the personal, the political and an unashamed urge to write genuinely democratic popular songs make this much more accessible than any academic collection of traditional songs. Bursting with joy, tenderness, righteous indignation and ridiculously great tunes - what more could you ask for?
You can purchase "Quality First Last & Forever" from iTunes, Amazon or of course your local independent record retailer.
Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou - Feel At Ease
Having returned to attempts to express myself about music after a very long break, I'm sometimes alarmed how easy it is to slip into old, tired cliches with surprisingly little effort. It's particularly worrying because I don't really read much mainstream music critique these days, and certainly the days of waiting feverishly to see who the NME were beknighting are long since passed. However, one enduring and much misunderstood term which I've always desperately wanted to see realigned is that of 'pop music'. Somewhere between the excitement of the sixties and the moribund present day it's come to mean "disposable and universally saleable" rather than carrying any of it's former sense of accessibility or ingenuity. Whilst 2011 has borne all kinds of musical riches to date, it's yet to produce a fantastic pop record - the kind of record which hooks its barbs instantly into the skin and refuses to let go, which merits end-to-end listens on infinite repeat, and which delivers snatches of tunes which wedge themselves into your brain to rear up unannounced later. Whilst it might not be an immediately obvious place to start the search, strangely this album might just be what I've been looking for. Over the next 37 minutes or so, pop is pulled apart, carefully examined and put back together in a slightly off-kilter, but always frighteningly clever and disturbingly noisy way.
Somehow emerging from Ashley and Grant Campbell's previous band St Jude's Infirmary, Edinburgh School for the Deaf appear to have gone through a stage of being known as Deserters Deserve Death before settling into their current incarnation. This band delights in two distinctive and varied voices in Ashley Campbell and Kieran Naughton alongside the ability to select from both a broad, colourful palette of styles and an awe-inspiring, thunderous racket when required. It's also pretty clear that Edinburgh School for the Deaf don't care too much for being restricted by modern genre politics and are happy to play with the idea that being loud, messy and noisy can sit happily alongside more delicate, literary and considered work. So it's with a squall of distant feedback and a fanfare of overdriven guitar that "Of Scottish Blood And Sympathies" is unceremoniously announced. Things soon resolve into a gentle strum, with Ashley's voice delivering strange, devotional lyrics. Then things simply erupt - martial drums and guitar so loud it seeps into every corner of the mix. Clocking in at a little over seven minutes, this is hardly the snappy punk blast I'd been led to expect - but as layers of guitar add a strangely shoegazey texture to things, it just gets bigger and bigger. It's a strangely fitting opening chapter to a record full of surprises, and not nearly as easily pigeonholed as perhaps you'd expect. There's more of this gloriously hazy, discordant noise on "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" but this time it's coupled to a gorgeous sweep of a pop melody with swooning, breathy vocals. It's short, almost to the point of incompleteness in a sense - but I can instantly forgive this as it collapses into the storm of "Thirteen Holy Crowns". A relentless distorted and driving bassline is slung beneath a serrated guitar melody and Kieron's eerie baritone vocals. I can only apologise in advance for describing the combined effect as Joy Division providing the theme tune for a Gerry Anderson TV show while Black Sabbath jam next door. The result is blistering, ear-splitting and very, very effective indeed. In fact I'm going to pop the track down below, and I'd urge you to listen before you castigate me for that painful description!
Once again Edinburgh School for the Deaf manage a chameleon-like change of skin for "All Hands Lost" which introduces a warped country-pop element to proceedings. Whilst I bang on endlessly about avoiding comparisons I've done incredibly badly so far - so I'll unashamedly express my sheer joy at hearing the wonderful and long-forgotten Renderers buried in here. Ashley's voice mutates once again, behind an explosion of distorted guitars. Not the first time, the off-kilter noisy pop music of New Zealand springs to mind when listening to "New Youth Bible", and "Lonely Hearts Beat As One" revisits this territory later albeit with a more abrasive, fuzzed-up edge. "Love is Terminal" stutters into life like Beat Happening with a heartbeat of primal drums, but ultimately owes more to New York than Olympia. It's infectious and captivating - and it's nearly impossible not to howl along with this urgent, punky mid-album squall. And who couldn't love a song which pauses it's relentless rant to announce "chorus!"? Stepping down a gear in the sonic stakes but edging up the social satire dangerously, "My Name Is Scotland And I'm An Alcoholic" introduces a discordant violin and a quietly intoned spoken-word over a gently strummed acoustic guitar, but even this most delicate of openings builds eventually into a wall of noise. After this curious interlude, huge Motown drums and spluttering, angry guitars herald a return to the mission of de-constructing pop music song by heartbreaking song. "The Memory of Wounds" has a menacing hint of Joan Jett and The Blackhearts meeting The Jesus and Mary Chain, as the ever-versatile Ashley becomes a coolly disinterested rock goddess for the duration of this number. Closing track "." - and yes, that's just a dot between those quotes - is a closely observed study in guitar, glockenspiel and violin. A fragile melody supports an aching, melodramatic lyric and in any other circumstances, closing an album like "New Youth Bible" in such an understated way might not work. But, perhaps unsurprisingly now, Edinburgh School for the Deaf pull it off amazingly well.
Sometimes, its all too easy to throw around terms like 'pop music' without the tiniest hint of irony - and I'm very much guilty of that at times. But I'm also sure that my idea of pop music is somewhat distant from the unchallenging, underwear-flinging variety favoured by the over-excited hordes of hormonal Take That fans I encountered on the train last week heading for the stadia of southern England. So perhaps when I speak of pop I'm talking about immediacy, brevity and an ear for melodies which embed themselves into your memory the second you hear them? Sometimes Edinburgh School for the Deaf are all of these things. Sometimes they staunchly refuse be any of them at all. But "New Youth Bible" is a succinct, targeted blast of a record which establishes them as one of the most exciting bands I've heard in a long while. It's also an intelligent, broad and ambitious listen delivered entirely on the band's own terms. However, I maintain it's easy to forget there is a brilliant pop record somewhere in here, which is sometimes hidden behind the walls of feedback and beautifully impenetrable noise you'll crash through while exploring. The journey is definitely worth the effort.
"New Youth Bible" is out now on Bubblegum Records.
Edinburgh School for the Deaf - Thirteen Holy Crowns
Ever since Homegame, I've struggled to find a purpose for some things. Work in particular has suffered - the pointlessness and the lack of progress suddenly foregrounded, and my part in the whole process left exposed by a bunch of colleagues who are downright suspicious of my political motives. So I found this morning's trip approaching at alarming speed, with little or no planning. I'd booked some tickets to London because it had been a while since I'd wandered around up there. The original plan had been to give the Oyster Card some exercise and flit about the place, but I was anxious, irritable and distracted and decided that instead, some wandering away from the crowds might be necessary.
And so, after a pleasantly distracting journey to Paddington I found myself on a bus heading for the City. It was quiet, still just before 9:00am and the streets were only just beginning to fill with the bleary eyed tourists in the West End. As the bus filled and emptied I wondered about where to head. A coffee shop on New Bridge Street, remembered from almost a decade ago beckoned. I hopped off at an almost abandoned Ludgate Circus and made my way to the shop. A pleasant enough time was had thinking, writing and drinking coffee while I also planned my next move. The plan was that I didn't have one. I'd looked at all sorts of means of getting east, into the contested, slightly disconcerting areas which reflected my mood. Not finding a direct enough means, I set out walking east. I picnicked in Trinity Gardens, watching the groups of tourists following their professionally patient guides, occasionally straying off-piste to get their photograph taken leaping around inappropriately in a memorial to the war dead. I hid my disgust along with my empty Tesco bag and headed further east, over The Minories and into Cable Street. It had been a while since I'd been this way, and whilst little changed in some senses, I could feel an edge to the stares of the Asian men running car repair businesses as I headed by St. George in the East and pressed on. Huge drops of rain were falling now, and only the shadow footprint of the huge concrete housing blocks was providing any sort of shelter now.
At Shadwell I headed underground, using the spacious new entrance hall to the East London Line. Below it was cool and still, the tight platforms close to the tunnel mouth. I didn't have to wait long for a northbound train, and decided to head for Canonbury and thence to Stratford. It was interesting to see how the new link at Dalston Junction was now just assumed as part of the network - like it had always been there. Londoners adapt to their transport network quickly it seems. At Stratford, the chaos of the busy station contrasted oddly with the stillness of the building site. The hulk of Westfield almost finished, and the Olympic Park a little too far away to be heard. An entrance from the underpass has opened up to the new shopping centre but isn't yet used - soon it will be the busiest way in or out of the station no doubt. How long before this line, linking Shepherd's Bush and Stratford becomes sponsored? The Westfield Line has a certain privatised ring to it. Against my usual instinct I exited the station into the morass of people milling in the forecourt. People pressed flyers into my hand - clubs, jeans for sale, god - all the usual stuff. I struggled over to the bus station and negotiated a knot of PCSOs who seemed to be setting up an unofficial roadblock, to reach my stop.
My plan from here had firmed up in my mind, but the practicalities were still a little unresolved. A bus to Barking would avoid all sorts of doubling back and complications, and would get me lined up to do the GOBLIN route, cruelly curtailed by failed trains on the last attempt. The bus seethed with people, arcing between Stratford and Barking via East Ham, with seemingly endless streets of victorian terraces in between. It was good to see this zone - and it fitted an observation I'd made earlier about the Tube Map. On the map, Harry Beck compressed geography to fit - so areas with lots of stations are expanded to show clarity, while long empty stretches are condensed into mere inches of blankness. I figured we do the same with out mental maps of cities. The journey I was taking now was just such a blank zone - but by doing this bus journey I was expanding it into it's real proportions. My thoughts were disturbed by arrival in Barking town centre. A mess of traffic islands and confusion, which we negotiated until the station appeared. As I stepped off the bus, thick blobs of summer rain began to fall. I dashed downstairs onto a waiting Gospel Oak train, settling into it's pleasantly air-conditioned cocoon.
A swift run over the rooftops brought me to hot and humid Gospel Oak. I changed here for a hop to Willesden Junction, then a slow trundle north to Harrow and Wealdstone. It's an oft repeated journey which gets me back into Central London via a route I love. I pass much of railway interest, and always seem to note new things. This time, I wandered in Harrow a little, finding a plaque to commemorate where Pete Townsend first smashed his guitar when The Who played the railway hotel in 1964. The unofficial rock'n'roll tour continued later when, hopping off the bus at Edgware Road to walk to Paddington, I discovered "The Joe Strummer Underpass". It's these trivial but surprising finds which make these trips so interesting. I walked back to Paddington via a detour into the privatised space around the Grand Union Canal basin. I'd been reading Anna Minton's "Ground Control" and it was all making an eerie, worrying kind of sense. I defiantly took some pictures of a curious tubular bridge before wandering back to the station in a tremendous summer shower. As everyone rushed for cover or fumbled with brollies, I enjoyed the cool shock of rain on my back. It had been a strange day of tiny discoveries.
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.
