Nowhere Bound pt 2

June 1994, The Garage, Highbury, London. At last the chance to see The Walkabouts play live. They're in the unusual position of having two albums to promote: Satisfied Mind -- a predominantly acoustic collection of covers of songs by everyone from The Carter Family to Patti Smith via Charlie Rich and Mary Margaret O'Hara; and Setting The Woods On Fire a powerful, rocking album that comes on like The Band doing Exile On Main Street (Early descriptions of The Walkabouts called them 'The Velvets at Big Pink' but I'd throw Love in as an equally valid reference point.) So there's no support act, but two sets, semi-acoustic and `something more juvenile' as Chris puts it. See the live CD and Video To Hell & Back for selected highlights of this show -- I'm just in front of Chris for most of the second set, if you're looking. I'm the guy dancing madly to 'Good Luck Morning' and especially to Terri's thumping drumming on `Jack Candy.'

I read a lot of reviews. It's one way of keeping up with what's new from hands I already know about. And after a while, via a few gambles maybe, you learn to know which reviewers you trust. A band I really like are Violent Femmes, the band that should have played a prestigious support show at Alton Towers a few years ago, but apparently the name upset the park's management who felt it wasn't in keeping with their family image. That in itself would have been reason for me to enquire about them, perhaps, but I'd already run across them through an excellent book about being music fan: Paul Williams' Map:Rediscovering Rock'n'Roll, which I picked up after meeting Paul at a convention a few years back.

I couldn't get a shot of Terri at all in Birmingham, the stage was so small her kit was set up behind the amps! I didn't have the right film anyway, but it wasn't a total waste. Friday night in Glasgow I used better film, got some decent shots of The Dear Janes, one of Barbara looking like the sexiest woman in the known universe (it's in her lips, and her eyes) and one of Ginny's red hair flying across her face (she said to get her good side, and later told me I had.) As for The Walkabouts they were a mixed batch, a whole set of Christine, hair, bow and cello flying that I've mounted together, and a handful of decent shots of Chris & Carla, but still nothing much of Terri, though I could see her. So Saturday, getting the previous shots printed I take advice and buy the film I couldn't find in Glasgow -- Fuji 1600 and went to Black & White too HP4 pushed to 1600. Great colour saturation on the Fuji, but I wasn't so happy with my camera work -- a couple of cropped heads, and some just out of focus shots. The B&W were better, despite a couple of bleached out faces but I guess I'm no Herman Leonard. I do set that sort of standard for myself though, and I do have some shots I really do like. One from Manchester that has Chris, Carla & Terri swathed in purples and turquoises from the lights is a favourite, even though I caught Chris flicking sweat from his face.

The Walkabouts were formed by singer/guitarist and principal songwriter Chris Eckmann in the early 80s in Seattle along with his two brothers Kurt and Grant and his partner Carla Torgerson and bassist Michael Wells. By the time I got to hear them Terri Moeller was drumming and Glenn Slater played keyboards. On the 84 tour singer/songwriter Larry Barrett guested on steel guitar, this time around the live shows are augmented by Christine Gunn's Cello.

All I knew of The Dear Janes was one track on a sampler CD somebody gave me a couple of years ago. I liked it, but their presence here meant about 73 minutes of The Walkabouts instead of nearly twice that. Two years ago Chris told me they'd had to leave certain songs out of the set for England because venues wouldn't allow the three hour plus shows they did in Europe, presumably for licensing reasons. So I'm disappointed in advance.

I don't know if Guy ever followed up on The Walkabouts, I haven't seen so much of him since I left ET. I almost didn't myself. It took a piece by Everett True in Melody Maker extolling the virtues of an epic track on a new 1p, Scavenger, the 9-minute lament that is 'Train To Mercy.' I pulled out that older tape, played it again, and called my dealer.

When I was about 8 years old I knew all the words to Rhinestone Cowboy, and probably still do. (Stops, hums a few bars, yeah, it's still there.) Until recently I never owned a copy in any form, but from the radio I had heard and learned this song. I didn't know what a 'rind stone' was, but the song had hooked me, caught my imagination.
I wasn't particularly interested in pop music at that time. My schoolmates argued about The Bay City Rollers and Marc Bolan, whilst I quite liked The Wombles. Dad played Jim Reeves and The Carpenters in the car, at home there were a handful of Irish records played on Sunday lunchtime, some of those songs stuck.

I got my own first record one Christmas in the late 70s, it was The Manhattan Transfer Live requested because I'd been hooked again, by their hit single 'Chanson D'Amour' (and even now I mentally follow that title with the subsequent line "rat-a-tat-a-tat, play encore.") That was a present, the first record I bought myself was not, as I like to tell people, the infinitely cool 'Dreaming' by Blondie, but probably The Charlie Daniels Band record 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' a novelty hit from 1979 with a tune and a story I liked. Glen Campbell -- Jim Reeves -- Charlie Daniels, there's that country connection coming through.
My first gig was The Dubliners, with my parents. Checking with dad reveals that this was in Waterford (not Wexford as I'd thought) and probably 1974 or 5. The Dubliners influence was subtle, perhaps even subliminal. Take one song, 'Weile Waile', which I only have the vaguest of memories of from those Sundays, but one Saturday night in Leeds I got very, very drunk and walked down the street with Steve Glover and Tara Dowling-Hussey singing all the words to that most vicious song, It's in my blood.

But I digress. I do that when I'm in a record shop, skip from section to section, see something I might like, then something in the 2's reminds me of something that might be in the R's, and I have to go look right away. (I refer the reader to Paul DiFilippo's neat and perceptive SF Eye article on bookstore customers at this point.) Violent Femmes were mentioned in Paul Williams' book. He'd also expressed his admiration for Green On Red, Lone Justice, Husker Du and R.E.M. so I went looking for Violent Femmes. I think it was The Blind Leading The Naked that I found, and it was weird. I wasn't sure of it. I didn't hate it, but I put it to one side for a while. When I did try it again I found a song that felt right for me, at the start of the second side. 'I held her in my arms' and so I listened closer. Now, several years on, it's not my favourite Femmes album -- most often I'll pull out the compilation Add It Up -- but they're a group I do like a lot.
So that's a connection. I can take it loads further. Into Dream Syndicate, Opal, Mazzy Star, and hundreds more. The cowpunk thing, Glasgow band Thrum because the singer sounds like Maria McKee (almost) and because Thrum is a great name for a band, and onwards, ever onwards.

And people say to me, 'Where do they come from, these bands?' The flippant answer is 'Toronto' usually, sometimes `Boston' -- it's a stupid question, really, I like artists from Montreal, North Dakota, Preston and Brazil. To the best of my knowledge I don't like anybody from Tamworth, but time will tell there. So I have a core of favourites from Toronto: Cowboy Junkies, Jane Siberry, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Courage Of Lassie. I used to listen to Rush too. It's a fluke, Leonard Cohen is a Montrealer, Jale are from Nova Scotia -- and I met them at The Garage, hanging out with their labelmates on Sub Pop.

About an hour ago I was listening to the radio (I fixed that aerial) and Radio One's Evening Session featured a record so good that midway through I phoned Alison Freebairn and told her to tune in. I want that song! Okay put this one down to sheer perversity, like Fatima Mansions version of 'Shiny Happy People', this is a massively popular song that I dislike for its triteness, but rendered in a palatable form not by a spoonful of sugar but a bucketful of raw energy and, perhaps, bile. Babybird's 'You're Gorgeous' in a driving punk stylee a la Stiff Little Fingers and credited to Oizone. Hell yeah.