In this month’s instalment, you can hear me talking to DBH and Ell Sol, ahead of their performance at Roll For The Soul in Bristol…
The lads arrived in Bristol and headed straight to Studio 1
(Tom’s house), fresh from the Manchester leg of their tour. DBH is known to the PFR crew as Dan (Big Dan
if you’d like to add some character, flesh it out a bit) – Ell Sol was unknown
to us, but was touring with Dan. (Ell
Sol is known to his mother and the government as Joan (pronounced a bit like
Juan, but with a slightly harder ‘J’.
Not properly hard, as in ‘job’, but not like an ‘h’, as in Spanish. Somewhere in between. Maybe.)
I probably didn’t manage to say it right once, but I tried. It’s Catalan, if you’d like to know.)
We (that’s FryDog and I, the podcast presenters, and our
tech maven, PJ) recorded the lads playing a song each, and then I did a sort of
interview that I hoped would be more like a conversation. I thought it went alright. Both performances were lush. It’s always a great with live music
atmosphere in a small room like that, and the lads sounded beautiful.
On the way to the show, I tell Tom that I hope lots of
people come – and then qualify this by adding that I hope some people come and
are very quiet and respectful of the fact that these are two extraordinary
artists who should be heard, with “should” used in both the practical and moral
sense.
I needn’t have worried, it seems. The night began with support from Swir, who sings
in (at least) five different languages, at least some (perhaps all) of which,
she doesn’t speak. She likes the idea of
singing words she doesn’t understand, and I rather like it too. Swir sings these multi-lingual pieces
accompanied with electronic swirls and samples, and I asked FryDog aobu
it. He has experiences of using this
kind of equipment and I don’t. We agreed
that there’s no difference in skill between making/playing music that way and
the more tactile feel of an acoustic instrument, but I opine that it’s more
difficult to see what the player is doing.
I always wonder what people are doing with those machines, but the best
bet is just to listen to the results, I suppose. Everything is judged by results, isn’t
it? (Except elections AMIRITE?! #satire)
Anyway, Swir’s set was the kind of pleasant surprise you can
only experience by leaving the house and seeing live music, so, even though I
would never ever presume to tell you what to do, or even suggest what you
should do, you should definitely do that.
After that opening set, we also discuss the phenomenon of
easily-available music, and the absolute torrent of new stuff that can be
easily accessed on, um, torrent sites and the like. I admitted to FryDog that I have been
listening to a lot of new music (having spent previous years not making the
effort), the kind people have heard of, and that I find most of it
disappointing (or worse). Especially a
lot of new rap. I really really don’t
want to be one of those people that says things like “Hip Hop was perfected
around 1992-4, everyone since is wasting their/our time”, but….I have no way to
finish that sentence. (Everyone becomes
what they hate eventually, don’t they?)
Some of the rap albums of this century that I’ve checked
recently are alright, mind.
Next up is our man DBH (Dan The Man, if you’re looking for
some standard introduction schtick). He
plays instrumental guitar pieces. His
fingers are long and dextrous, his demeanour charactreristically quiet and
laid-back. The sound of the nylon-string
guitar is beautiful in the right hands, isn’t it? Dan’s hands.
There is so much melody, so much more than you would have expected from acoustic guitar instrumentals, played on a battered old classical guitar. (I would know better. From experience.)
There is so much melody, so much more than you would have expected from acoustic guitar instrumentals, played on a battered old classical guitar. (I would know better. From experience.)
At one point Dan (Big Tall Dan, if you like) mentions that
all the new songs he’s playing don’t have names yet. “So, if anyone’s got any ideas, come and
speak to me afterwards – not you, Clayton.”
I feigned the necessary outrage. (It was a reference to my proclivity for
song/album/band names, which is famed through the interland/countrynet/webside.)
FryDog finds the whole set very moving. The performance is moving, especially the climax – a sumptuous version of Tracks Of
My Tears, a track which has me…well, you know.
Close, at least.
After Dan’s set, FryDog and I engaged in a spirited
discussion about my A Thousand Brilliant Band Names art project (famed
throughout my brain). He contended that
they are definitely not all Brilliant,
and wondered aloud about the purpose of the thing. I countered that they bloody well are all
brilliant and that there’s a kind of logic to the flow of it, and that anyway,
that’s not the point. And that it’s art,
maybe the point is ineffable/unknown. (So,
basically, I refused to be drawn on what The Point actually was/is.)
It went roughly like this:
“But there’s a sort of rhythm to it, it waxes and wanes….”
“It doesn’t wax.”
“MotherFUCKER!”
We’re still friends, it’s fine.
Having met Ell Sol earlier that day, I knew what to expect from
his set, to some extent. From our
conversations in/before/after the podcast recording, I knew that he treats the
microphone as a non-essential focal point.
I told him about my old pal Men Diamler, who does the same, sometimes
going as far as to ignore microphones completely and stomp around the room,
taking the game to the opposition in spectacular fashion.
Ell Sol means “The sun” in Catalan, a language outlawed in
Catalunya as few as forty years ago.
So, his set would have been illegal, sung as it is entirely in Catalan. (Yes, that’s right. Illegal to sing in Catalan in Catalunya. Bloody colonials – who’d ever be so oppressive as to outlaw the native la – oh, right.)
So, his set would have been illegal, sung as it is entirely in Catalan. (Yes, that’s right. Illegal to sing in Catalan in Catalunya. Bloody colonials – who’d ever be so oppressive as to outlaw the native la – oh, right.)
The set itself was enjoyable – it wasn’t as wild as it might
have been, but it was full of passion and some experimentation, as well as lush
melody.
Considering how much I enjoy words, it’s cool to see a whole
gig with virtually no words I understand emanating from the performances –
instrumentals, and songs in languages I can’t understand. (Yo no hablo idiomas, por que bengo de un
pais ignorante. Perdoner me.)
At the end of the night, as we waited for the lads, FryDog
asked how I will vote. I rambled without
revealing, then told him I will probably vote the way he probably thinks I
will.
On reflection:
Childish Gambino’s album Camp is pretty good, especially the
last song.
FryDog accepted the artistic value of the 1000 Band Names Project.
I will probably vote the way FryDog probably thinks I will.
I could perhaps be more clear at times, take a
position. It probably wouldn’t kill me.
As such.
Having studied The Headmaster Ritual, Dan (Dandandancerman,
if you like. I do, as it goes) accepted
that Johnny Marr “is a god
after all”.
In conclusion:
The podcast is available now, here. Have a listen, won’t you? It’s jolly good fun.
https://www.mixcloud.com/pfrcollective/
https://www.mixcloud.com/pfrcollective/
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