Back from the Iron Age festival in Cullercoats mentioned in my previous post. Pete Mortimer’s Iron Press was celebrating its fortieth birthday, a remarkable achievement. The redoubtable Pete (who was born up the road from me, in Sherwood, and recently wrote a memoir about coming back to Nottingham) organised and MCed a remarkable array of talent. Even more remarkably, virtually every event was sold out, with over two hundred people at the Friday and Saturday night events. These featured former Iron magazine assistant editor Ian McMillan (above), the ‘bard of Barnsley’ in the Crescent Club and Newcastle man David Almond (whose first two, pre-Skellig, books of short stories were published by Iron) in the Community Centre. Sunday saw a celebratory mural (if that’s the word) on the beach, pictured above.We met loads of old friends (for instance, Andy Croft, seen above, who I edited a short-lived literary journal with back in 1979) and made some new ones. There were several book launches, including Nesting, a ‘best of’ David Almond’s early stories and Miranda’s Shadow, short stories by the wonderful Kitty Fitzgerald (pictured above). I was only sorry that we had to leave after Andy’s Great North Run poems, which meant we missed Melvyn Bragg, Sean O’Brien and co. Congratulations to all involved, and particularly, Pete. There’s nobody like him.

Another particularly enjoyable aspect of the festival was that there was music with every event. The highlights were Me and Mr Jones (pictured), who performed with no less than nine Iron poets (including, and introduced by Valerie Laws), Gemma Gates and Freya Grace at the Salthouse (where the festival continued until late every night) and, opening for David Almond, the wonderful Bridie Jackson and The Arbour )also pictured above) who were a new name to me, but have won a place (from 10,000 entries) to perform on the main stage at this year’s Glastonbury. Their brand of folk, ethereal, absorbing, never twee, is hard to describe, but here’s a track from their Scarecrow single (which I bought, along with their album after the gig), a guitar version of the song that closes their debut CD. You can hear the whole album at their website.

Bridie Jackson & The Arbour All You Love Is All You Are

I can’t find enough time to listen to music at the moment. Don’t remember there being a better month for new albums since the 70′s, if then. Tomorrow sees the official release of Vampire Weekend’s stonking third album. Critics tend to say that the third album the key release in determining a band’s longevity, , and in the case of Modern Vampires Of The City, they’re probably right. There are also new releases by Primal Scream (their best for 20 plus years) and Rod Stewart, whose Time is his best album since the mid-70′s ie sincer I saw him with The Faces, 40 years ago this christmas, when they were on top of the world. Seriously. Have a listen to the song below if you don’t believe me. Seems that writing his autobiography has rekindled his passion for autobiographical songwriting. (On a sidenote, its quality makes me all the more annoyed that I was in an apartment with slow broadband when tickets for the opening night of his new tour went on sale, and couldn’t get onto the Nottingham Arena site. If anyone has a couple of spares…). This week also saw the release of the stunning debut by Savages, We Are Silence. It channels influences from 30 years ago, to great effect. I was teaching Tuesday night, when they played the Bodega Social, but I’ve heard a recording of their fantastic show. Next time.

That’s only the beginning. A week on Monday sees the release of the new album by my favourite band, The National, Trouble Will Find Me, and early reports say it’s their best to date. The album’s leaked, on MP3, but I want to wait and hear it first in its full, lossless glory, preferably on vinyl. The same day sees the return of Daft Punk, whose last two albums have been terrific and whose Get Lucky is the single of the year so far (stream here). If that weren’t enough, the same day sees the release of Laura Marling’s fourth album. Each of her albums has been a big step up from the last and I’m a big fan (as this review from a year ago, song still linked, indicates). But I’m deep in dissertation marking, with a novel and a comic script to rewrite and edit. Where will I find time to listen to all this stuff?

Luckily, we have an excellent Bose stereo in the car, and a big journey next weekend, for the 40th birthday celebrations of Iron Press in Cullercoats (tickets still available). The image above is ‘Stormy Sea at Cullercoats’ by John Falconar Slater, from the North Tyneside Council Art Collection. Looking forward to the performances and catching up with a bunch of old mates. Also looking forward to a loud listen to stuff like the two songs below. Enjoy.

Vampire Weekend – Diane Young

Rod Stewart – Brighton Beach

Savages – Shut Up

A slightly extended version of my review from the Nottingham Post.

Richard Thompson’s ‘power trio’ is a distillation of what has been his core band of the last ten years, last seen here on the Dream Attic tour. That time, perhaps unwisely, he devoted the first 75 minutes to his new album. I bought eight tickets for that show, and none of the people I went with chose to come this time. Nuff said. Tonight, the band start with three songs from Electric (a stronger album) but play just three more new songs during the rest of the set, which blends the new with an astute selection of classics and interesting choices. The set list is clearly aimed at long time fans, some of whom have ‘driven 80 miles to see me’, as he points out before launching into a powerful ‘Shame of Doing Wrong’ from 1975.

The electric trio come into their own on an extended work-out of ‘Can’t Win’. Michael Jerome must be the most dynamic drummer Thompson has ever worked with, while Taras Prodaniuk is a supple, inventive bass player, who also adds backing vocals when required. They provide the perfect companion to Thompson’s fluid, melodic yet muscular electric guitar. He jokes about their being too folky to be a power trio, but if he was American, we’d be ranking him equal with Neil Young as a lead guitarist. Worth noting that, no matter how heavy the song, you can always make out the words. Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed and Wall of Death are highlights.

There are folk elements. Sidney Wells turns into a 9/8 slip jig. Thompson begins the encore with two acoustic requests. I’m taking notes and, unusually for me, don’t call out for anything. But my partner, for the first time in her life, is moved to yell out for her favourite song – and she gets it: the quintessential Thompson story song Beeswing, which is wondeful, and is followed by 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (the only time in the tour he’s done two acoustic requests). Then he surprises us by playing the Hendrix version of Hey Joe (and a bit of Purple Haze). We’re given an extended version of Electric opener Stony Ground before he leaves us with a rousing run-through of old chestnut Tear Stained Letter. Three men, two hours, three standing ovations. Fantastic.

I  could happily have handled one more song from his new album, by the way. This new classic is buried on the bonus disc that comes with ‘Electric’.

Richard Thompson – I Found A Stray

I’d waited thirty-three years to see a Keith Jarrett solo show and forked out forty quid of xmas present money in order to join the South Bank Centre and get priority booking. This worked out well, as we arrived in time to check out the sold out Light Show at the Hayward Gallery, a stunning array of illuminated pieces and installations, that Southbank members get in to for free. There are notices everywhere about photography not being allowed, but these were frequently flouted. Before leaving, I took my partner for a return visit to Olafur Eliasson’s incredible night garden of 27 strobe lit (hence you couldn’t stay for long) water sculptures just before the gallery closed and we would have had the room to ourselves but for a giggling pair of hipsters, filming themselves in front of the sculptures with an iPhone. Reader, I busted them, to the attendant outside, but our experience was spoiled. Would a notice saying that anyone caught filming would be ejected and have their camera confiscated and destroyed be legal? Only if people signed a contract on the way in, I suspect, but the camera thing is getting silly. We live in increasingly selfish times. Concerts are regularly dominated by people holding up phones so that it’s easier to see the image on the phone than the stage (I’m thinking of Plan B and even, at one point, the Family reunion). If you’re filming it, you’re not really there. You’re thinking about showing off to your mates afterwards.

Which brings me to Keith Jarrett’s oft derided (even in Fordham’s Guardian review) attempts to stop people photographing him on stage. Fordham calls this ‘Canute-like’ yet Jarrett, towards the end of the show, briefly took off his sunglasses and explained: ‘these are more important to me tonight than 63 years of playing the piano’ ie a single camera flash can ruin his concentration for a complex improvisation so he has to wear shades. Earlier he told somebody near the front that photography was an art, but you can’t make art with a camera like that. This seems like a reasonable attitude, especially as, before he came on, we were given a friendly explanation of why cameras weren’t allowed. Even so, during his final, brilliant encore, there was a very bright flash from the right hand side of the hall, which Jarrett ignored, but left a sour taste. Never mind confiscating the offender’s camera, I’d have happily authorised the dimwit responsible being thrown into the freezing Thames.

That issue aside, the concert was wonderful, and is described better than I could here, by Mike Hobart in the FT. The Rio album gives you the closest approximation to its sound and structure but what struck me, having heard so many concerts over the years, was how genial Jarrett was, and how physical his performance – hunched over one moment, almost dancing at the piano at others. We got the seats just right – left hand side, sixth row, so we could see that he was doing at the keyboard at all times. He made jokes (‘what chord do you want me to play?’), abandoned one improvisation, explained why it didn’t work, then played a long, brilliant Summertime and followed it with the story of how he first came to play the tune to an unruly crowd at a festival. For the second encore, he played a sublime version of Miss Otis Regrets and, given that he had a cold, we assumed it was over and had our coats on, only for him to twice return, once with a brief boogie, then for an exquisite, improvised ballad. Indeed, since he now plays shorter pieces than in the 70′s and 80′s, we were treated to more of the breathtakingly beautiful, elegaic, delicate ballad side of Jarrett than one used to get in the longer improvistations – half a dozen by my reckoning. We gave him four standing ovations.

Thirty-three years and well worth the wait. Thanks, Dad.

Keith Jarrett – Rio Part IV

I was in two minds about whether to go and see the new movie of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, probably the novel that’s excited me most in the last decade. Recently, I made it the one set book on NTU’s second year Art of Writing course, and I’d promised to organise a trip for the students. But then the movie was put back until after the course had finished. Their portfolios, returned on Friday, demonstrated that the novel (a Russian doll structure in eleven parts – six stories that are each interrupted by another, perhaps linked, story, then resumed on the other side: what do you mean you haven’t read it?) had gone down well, inspired the students to be ambitious and explore multiple genres. Job done.

The movie of Cloud Atlas didn’t pick up any Oscar nominations (I loved Argo but best film? In the same year as Amour? Come on!) & some of the reviews have been stinkers. Three directors. Six genres. Tom Hanks. I was prepared to hate it. But, actually, I found it unmissable. A folly? Hardly. Difficult? Definitely. It helped if you’d read the book recently, and, unlike my students, I hadn’t. I did reread a couple of sections to remind me of how it worked, but not the whole thing. And, anyway, there were changes: plot simplifications, mostly. In some cases, improvements (I seem to recall David Mitchell writing in The New Yorker about how the scripting process forced him to clarify certain things – must check out his introduction to the new paperback version). But the main one is that, instead of the Russian doll structure, the movie shoots about all over the place – a bit of a story here, a longer section there & WTF has that got to do with what? For the first hour, it’s confusing, at times irritating. Things judder around too quickly. Some people complain of being distracted by playing ‘spot the actor’ beneath the prosthesis, but I’d avoided reviews, so wasn’t aware that that was Hugh Grant or Hugo Weaving (who I watched in a second movie yesterday, giving a great performance in the Nottingham-set, Oranges and Sunshine). It shouldn’t matter.

But you know what, you get used to the way the movie works, and settle into it. Let some things drift past & let them sink in when you’re ready. Nobody in the packed (nearly all under 25) audience left. I was sat in the back row, best to enjoy the full cinemascope effect and even where I found it hard to follow the story (the future set stuff, which is the least effective part of the novel, as I recall), the visuals were stunning. It was a brave, ambitious, exhilarating, if occasionally exhausting movie. OK, it had a bit too much Tom Hanks in it (you always recognise him) and in one or two places the ‘if this were a book’ or ‘they should make a movie of this’ bits were rather clunky. However, I think I’m going to have to reread the whole book before I teach it in the autumn, then watch the movie again, just so that I can work out how the adapters did it. In fact, I might have to go again while it’s on at the big screen. A fascinating movie. I  urge you to see it.

I should also mention that the music is very good, and integral to the movie. I believe the three pieces of music below, by Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, partially inspired the novel. And since I’m heading to that London in an hour’s time, to see a solo concert by Keith Jarrett (a thirty-three year ambition fulfilled, starting to get very excited), the solo piano pieces below, played by Yukie Nagai, seem particularly apt.

Cloud Atlas_ I. Andante Con Moto

Cloud Atlas_ II. —

Cloud Atlas_ III. Vivace