Serpents

Published on Wed 10 Oct 2012

A few of us went to see Sharon Van Etten at The Junction the other day. She's a singer/songwriter who lives in Brooklyn, but actually has some substance. Her latest album was produced by one of the guitarists from The National and she sounds not too unlike them, but a little more raw. I go through occasional bouts of being addicted to it (moreso than any of the National albums actually) so I was quite looking forward to this, even though The National themselves have been a crushing disappointment both times I've seen them. Also on my mind was the fact that I'd managed to save up the 10 stamps required for a free whole chicken on my Nando's card. In the end I shared it and got some halloumi, but I was tempted to give it a go. Next time. I tell you what though - the discovery of halloumi on the Nando's menu has been a force for good in my life. Or at the very least a force for salty cheese.

After a longer than usual meal, which was made worse by a bunch of lads deciding they didn't quite fit on the table they were on and annexing the one they were cleaning up for us, we got the the venue just in time for the support act This Is The Kit. It's a name I've heard around quite a lot in slightly-pretentious-folk-that-I'm-probably-not-going-to-like circles and it sounded much like I thought it would, except that I did quite like it. Ethereal harmonies over atmospheric banjo/guitar and unconventional drumming. The bass sounded really nice too. It was being played by Rozi Plain, who I saw supporting Withered Hand almost exactly a year ago. I much preferred this to her band, but the not-that-fullness of this room made it easier to pay proper attention. I think almost half the songs were about geese though. They'd driven 750 miles from Germany that day where they'd been on tour. Like migrating geese. I was a bit jealous.

I had tears in my eyes within about 10 seconds of the start of Sharon Van Etten's set, and she hadn't even done anything. The melodica/keyboard intro of the first song sounded so nice. And then when her guitar was meant to come in it transpired that someone had got the plugging in of the pedals a bit wrong and they had to stop becaue it wasn't making any noise. Which was a shame because it was building up nicely. But I only cared about that for a few seconds once it got going again.

It takes a really good voice for me to care about how good someone's voice is, but hers and her very similarly voiced backing singer's were spectacular. And they made it look so effortless. The harmonies. I remember seeing Smoke Fairies at End of the Road a few years ago and thinking they would've been a lot better if their harmonies had been completely in tune instead of very nearly in tune. These were almost beyond completely in tune. It was like it was one person singing two notes at the same time. I don't remember seeing anything quite like it before. I really like most of the songs too (I can't think of any she played in the set that I didn't love), and they're even more building and intense live. My favourite is "Give Out" - here's (pretty much) what it sounded like. Imagine it bigger.

The banter was sort of endearing but wasn't amazing, mostly consisting of telling us off for not being noisy enough, though everyone clapped pretty loudly in all the right places. People who are used to playing in America don't seem to think things are going well unless they're getting stuff thrown at them.

She was on Jools Holland last night. It sounded ok, but nowhere near how they were in person. That programme sucks the life out of everything decent they get. And that's a very small percentage of what they get. And it's so smug considering how shit it is. I guess it's good that there's some music on telly, but when they (and you can only assume deliberately - the Junction's OK but it's not exactly the BBC for goodness sake and they sounded incredible there) make everyone sound rubbish (maybe to make Jools sound better?) you have to wonder if it's really helping. I may have gone on about this before...

I'm on the train back from playing at Grapevine@Bedfords in Norwich, which Annie and I had a wonderful time playing at in the spring - it really is nice when people are putting things on for the love of it. Tonight was another example of what I've started referring to as The Goodwin Curse, which is a weird effect where if I'm involved with a gig, people don't show up even when you'd think they would. Normally it's just audience members, but in this case it was all the acts that were meant to be playing as of 4 weeks ago. In the worst recorded instance, which was at Folk Modern in London about this time last year, only one out of the 5 acts that were on the bill as of the previous day showed up, consequently no audience came, consequently the only act other than me to have shown up went home in a huff without playing. That turned into a good night in the end, and, less surprisingly, so did this. Maybe it's not so much a curse as a phenomenon. Anyway, Steve who runs the thing and is an extraordinarily nice man had worked really hard to bring in replacements at short notice. And reprinted the posters several times.

I was up first and, despite having greasy hands and a case of the burps from eating too much scampi too soon before playing, thought I did one of my best sets in a while. It helped that everything sounded amazing on stage. When you're listening to your voice and thinking "wow, that sounds good!" it makes you sing better. My chat was better than it's been for a bit too. Shame I've not got anything else sorted out. The crowd were extremely attentive, though you can never tell how you're doing when that happens - they could be paying rapt attention or silently wishing it would end. I don't think things are going well unless people are talking and then stop talking.

Setlist: The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, Watertight, Magnetic or Rhetorical, Muscle Memory, Edinburgh, A Happy Ending, This Place is Dead Anyway, So Finally a Love Song.

I've seen the second act Alice Walker a couple of times before, but this was by far the most engrossing. In the past I've got the feeling they've been less important gigs and she's been trying new things out, but she played consistently good stuff tonight. Wordplay just kind of spills out as fast as you can process it over an unpredictable piano. I don't know how she remembers it all.

The headline act, Jamie Lawson, is one of very few acts that I saw supporting people in London in the early 2000's that stuck in my mind (Tom McRae and The High and Lonesome being the other notable ones. McRae was brilliant and rose to fame pretty quickly and The High and Lonesome I remember because I already had the album for some reason - I didn't especially like either the album or the live set except for one song called Two Tall Trees). It's nice that he's still doing it full time, though I'm surprised he didn't get further because he seemed to be on the up back then and he was really good. I had to leave after four or five songs to catch the last train back to Cambridge, but he's still really good and comes across really well. The music industry is stupid. Though I think the fact it's referred to as an industry at all is a sign that people have the wrong attitude. You don't hear about the sculpture industry or the fresco industry or the plonking a urinal on the wall and calling it art industry.