A thing well made

Published on Wed 7 Nov 2012

I did what I reckon will be my final gig of the year last week supporting Jay Brannan at The Cornerhouse. I'd not come across him before but his Spotify bio compared him to Ani DiFranco and I can see why. He has a pretty devoted following (some people had come a long way) and I felt very much like a support act. Even after all these years it still affects me quite badly if I don't think things are going brilliantly, which makes them worse and I just end up trying to end the set early. Like I did this time. If you ever see me play clap really loudly after the first couple of songs.

Setlist: The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, Watertight, This Place is Dead Anyway, So Finally a Love Song, Edinburgh, Soaked to the Skin

I enjoyed Jay's set a lot - the songs are mostly quite touching and his voice is great. The version of "Your House" by Alanis Morrisette was both surprising because I didn't think anyone had listened to it in 10 years and surpringly good. We spoke to him a bit before and after the show and he's a really nice guy.

I went to see The Mutton Birds playing their first UK gig for 10 years at the weekend. The Shepherd's Bush KFC is one of few things that has remained constant through all my years of gig going (it's where I bought the chicken that was stuck between my teeth and stopped me going up to Steve Earle in the street outside the Empire back in 1996). I got there just in time for the support act The Robbie Boyd Band. I'm sure they're all very nice and they did what they were trying to do absolutely perfectly, but I can't believe that anyone who likes The Mutton Birds would go in for suspiciously Christian sounding even more twee than Noah and the Whale happy clappy standing up keyboard player dancing goblin from the Stonehenge scene of Spinal Tap bullshit. The lighting being almost uniformly Spring Harvest Purple didn't help. The last time I saw The Mutton Birds Tom McRae was supporting. Not quite the same league.

I discovered The Mutton Birds at a listening post in Edinburgh HMV in 1997, the same day I discovered Joseph Arthur. It was a pretty formative week that to be honest - I wandered round listening to Counting Crows on a walkman, and bought a Wallflowers single the combination of which made me decide to get an accordion. Anyway, looking back, The Mutton Birds were the band that made me realise that good lyrics make good songs. Maybe if more people had heard them more people would realise the same thing and the youth of today wouldn't be blown away by posh boys in waistcoats going "ooh ooh aah aah" over banjos. Saying that, I think Don McGlashan in his prime was above and beyond what most people could do. There are a few of the songs that I don't I don't think you could improve. "A Thing Well Made" for example is, appropriately, absolutely perfect.

10 years on, and jetlagged (the bass played lives in London now - I wonder how they rehearsed?) the drummer looks exactly like he ever did, McGlashan is starting to go a bit Ray Davies, but doing alright. I never saw the original bass player I don't think, and I don't remember anything about the guitarist. The sound didn't blow me away like some bands have, but the songs very much stand up. Even the ones they wrote in London have (to my mind at least) New Zealand running right through them. They sound like they come from mountains. This was billed as a never to be repeated show, but I hope they play again. I'll go and see them again. People had travelled from Belgium - I bet they'd go and see them again too. This was filmed by someone nearer the front than me.