Royal Festival Hawley

great gig on saturday night, he prefaced this gorgeous song (maybe the standout one on his new album Truelove's Gutter) with the following:
'I wrote this for my wife in the hope that I’d get a shag off her . . . I sat down and played it to her, and it was the most beautiful version I’ve ever played.'
[Asked by one member of the audience what happened next:]
'She said, ‘What’s for tea?’.'

LEAN ON PETE

Here are those dates, come along...

Feb 9 - Willy solo music and reading @ Roundhouse-London
Feb 10 - Willy solo music and reading @ Cardiff Arts Institute-Cardiff, Wales
Feb 11 - Willy solo music and reading @ The Victoria-Birmingham
Feb 12 - Willy solo music and reading @ Captains Rest-Glasgow



And all of this prefigures the return of Richmond Fontaine, for a full UK and European tour, which will include some special book promotional duties in Ireland. Full details at the Richmond Fontaine website.

LEAN ON PETE by Willy Vlautin

here's a great promo video for Willy Vlautin's brilliant third novel, out early Feb. Willy will be here in the UK for a short promotional reading/acoustic tour on publication, ahead of the full band's tour in March. Details of all that to follow next week.

2010...

Three albums to watch out for:

Laura Veirs' July Flame, sees her return to the excellent Bella Union label and features the helping hands and voice of Jim James no less. Out at the end of this month it's already got some fantastic reviews.

February 22nd sees the return of Josh Rouse, with El Turista. His last album was, 'Sweetie' aside, a bit of a disappointment i thought, but i spent the weekend listening again to Home and Under Cold Blue Stars and i can't wait for this.

And finally, March sees Laura Marling's second album, I Speak Because I Can. I was a huge fan of her debut and am looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

Willie Mitchell

sad to hear of the passing of Al Green producer and Hi Records founder Willie Mitchell on January 5th. Here's some classic Soul Train footage of Al in memory...

Happy Xmas etc.

so i'll finish '09 with one of my favourite tunes of the year. Everyone says that The Gaslight Anthem sound like Bruce (good) or the Killers (very bad) but for me this particular song sounds like The Replacements, and frankly you don't get much better than that. See you in '10.

Fight...

Here's the first of ace young writer Richard Milward's music pieces for the Guardian, which by the looks of it are going to be well worth following. It also reminded me of a few years ago, when my better half did the publicity for Richard's first novel, Apples, and to say thanks he got her a goodie bag that consisted of a miniature bottle of bubbles, a ten pack of Marlboro Lights, a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar!

It's snowing...

i walked home through the swirling snow late last night (after our xmas party) listening to this. It was totally lovely.



(and watching Vashti Bunyan here reminded me of the recent passing of, the genius, Robert Kirby. RIP.)

A Christmas Story

if you're looking for a xmas book to buy, then look no further, Auggie Wren's Christmas Story by Paul Auster has just come out with lovely illustrations by ISOL. There's a great extract/sample online at the Guardian.

And, as you may remember, this was the same story that featured at the end of the Auster/Wayne Wang movie, Smoke, memorably soundtracked by Tom Waits' glorious 'Innocent When You Dream'

Lost Magazine

have run Peter Patnaik's excellent pre-war female murder ballads list from the pages of Hang the DJ, check it out here, Lost Magazine, it's a nice site.