A round up of stuff I've seen in the last few months.

Let's start with my friend JD Love's album launch supported by 49 Goodbyes in November at the Rose, Erskineville. JD is a bona fide rock star mix of Mose Allison meets Hank Williams. He has a new record out now called Two Days, the LP version of which was pressed at Abbey Road.

Here is JD with up and comer out of Melbourne Georgia Fields (also happens to be his daughter) in a particularly twang moment:

Opening for JD were 49 Goodbyes, and they are just great. They describe themselves as Gram and Emmylou except with two girls (and a guy on guitar). One of the leads is Emma Swift who has the excellent "In the Pines" Americana show on FBI Radio in Sydney every Tuesday night (you can listen online nationally.)

More of them later.

The next thing I went to see was Joe Pug and the Wagons at the Vanguard. I don't mind the Wagons or anything but I also wouldn't go far out of my way, but for Joe Pug I would ... willingly experience some inconvenience. He was only opening so it was a short set but divine as he always is. He came out in the encore of the Wagons (they have quite a following it was pretty packed for them) to do "Long Black Veil" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money", both of which I got videos of. I also got a photo. ;-)

Then, I went to see the mysterious Frank Fairfield at the Basement. But first, to my surprise 49 Goodbyes was the support act. Win. This is them doing "Wrecking Ball" (Emmylou Harris via Neil Young). 49 Goodbyes has an EP out, all the tracks are listenable to here. (I believe that is Emma's own YouTube page so it's artist-approved streaming.)

I went to Frank Fairfield with a friend who didn't know him (I have his albums -- which are on the great, eclectic Tompkins Square label -- but never seen him live) and we ended up having a deep not really sober conversation about Authenticity. We both basically hate the concept, so that helped. For Frank Fairfield is a creation of another age (turn of century - 20s folk tunes) and for sure "acts" the part, the clothes, the stage manner and such. I have mixed feelings about performers who attempt to "faithfully recreate" another era, the revivalists. There are some well known ones that leave me cold. I admit a lot of that comes down in the grey area of the Very Subjective. I love old time music, as should be obvious if you read this blog, but I also don't listen to music to get a high school play type presentation of The Cartoonish Past. (And I also feel uncomfortable with lifting cultural forms out of their context when that act is a form of white privilege blithely appropriating the culture of black or other colonised people. That's a much bigger issue .... ) I don't know, as I say a lot is very subjective but too much affectation is not conducive to good music, in my experience.

However, I really like Frank Fairfield. I think there is something just so resolutely anti-commercial about every thing he does that it can't be a marketing ploy (not that I object to artists using marketing, but you don't get to have it both ways). It is so studied, intense and internalised it kind of transcends the trend of revivalist retro. I think he's just basically weird, in the good sense, in the old weird America sense. I didn't even bother trying to get a video since he sits so far back from the microphone even to sing, there would be no point. I like that he makes the audience WORK to get their quota of hipster approved depression-era jollies, dammit.

Here is a short (1:22) video about him

He did consent to allowing the new fangled iPhoto-O-Matic 2000 to imprint his and his Civil War Moustache's visage on its devilishy digital mercury.

Then I guess the next thing was Hanggai, who are a Mongolian/Chinese band who play traditional Mongolian music with a distinct punk edge. They were also at the Basement and they were super amazing. The Basement was rocking and sweaty that night (and, vastly less Anglo than usual). I can't find anything on YouTube to really recreate that, most of the videos are from polite world music festivals. This one from Woodford last month is OK. Woodford has always had good music but the overall vibe of it always made me fear I'd have to smother a hippy within 20 minutes of being there and inviting the really quite evil anti-vaccination loon Meryl Dorey to speak this year really just turned me off it forever.

Anyway, Hanggai:

Hanggai get two videos because they are awesome. This is "Xiger, Xiger" (pronounced "Shigga Shigga") which is more traditional that the above but it gets stuck in my brain for days. I dare you not to get enthralled. I mean, check out Batubagen who is throat singing and playing the morin-khuur (Mongolian horse-headed "cello" type instrument). He'd sing, then another person would sing and I'd look around the band to see who the new singer was but ... it was Batubagen and that whole throat singing thing. And of course Ilchi , the bare-chested front man who IMHO joins a very select group of genuine, charismatic top tier front men. Amazing and ROCKING.

Then I went and saw Cambodian Space Project at the Vanguard. They are a Cambodian/"Western" fusion in the manner of the much better known Dengue Fever ie dudes with guitars backing a Khmer female singer. CSP are based in Phonm Pehn, though. I enjoyed it although I thought that the guitars were mixed up WAY too high, drowning out the singer Srey Thy who is quite great. (I also thought some of the between song banter was a bit condescending towards her.) Her voice is more than worthy of singing those classic Ros Sereysothea songs.

I mean, what's the point? If this band was just the indie rock dudes, no one (no offence) would care, it is the Cambodian aspect that is the reason they have the gig. I can listen to dude guitars anywhere. Still, they had cute t-shirts for sale. Here is how they are meant to sound:

And that is that!

Direct link here. Only 13 songs so some major culling but it'll do.

And who'd have thought, after all
Something so simple as rock'n'roll would save us all?

Lucinda Williams - Blessed
This is not from the album, it's her song from the The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams project which I forgot to include on these lists anywhere else.

Dennis Coffey - self-titled FUNK. (super name dropping in this vid, but he's earned it)

The Decemberists -- The King is Dead

Middle Brother -- self-titled

Deer Tick -- Divine, Providence

Country Cajun Revival -- The Real Thing

And some of the rest that made life worth ploughing on.

Hayes Carll -- KMAG YOYO

Charles Bradley -- No Time for Dreaming Seeing him next March.

Tom Russell - Mesabi

Eddie Roberts & The Fire Eaters - Burn

The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow Current Americana It duo.

Lindi Ortega - Little Red Boots

The Sheepdogs -- Learn and Burn ROCK

Robert Ellis - Photographs This is a curious album in that a couple of songs are tears in my beer country and others are more low fi-y straight ahead folky. All good.

Cash Box Kings -- Holler & Stomp Not to be confused with Hayes Carll's "Stomp & Holler."

Jimmie Dale Gilmore & The Wronglers - Heirloom Songs The Wronglers include Warren Hellman bazillionaire investment banker dude who bankrolled Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Fran, and who died recently. I hope he provided for it 'cos I've always dreamed of going one day.

I snuck another into here which makes my top ten a top twelve.

Bei Bei and Shawn Lee -- Into the Wind
Another "world fusion" offering that works, this time with guzheng (Chinese stringed thingy) and doofy doofy beats.

Buddy Miller -- The Majestic Silver Strings 'Surple" still makes me laugh.

Lydia Loveless -- Indestructible Machine She's 21 or something ridonkulous.

The Sweetback Sisters -- Looking For a Fight The Sweetback Sisters are quite hilarious, as well as lovely to listen to. My favourite song on the album is "Too Many Experts" because it basically sums up the entire Internet. (this video is not that)

Brennen Leigh -- The Box Just super good country music, we still like that round here.

Tedeschi Trucks Band -- Revelator Susan and Derek, bluesing it all up in you.

These are my top ten eleven in two instalments. Dave Alvin is pretty clearly number one. Rest much of a muchness. I'll do another post or two with the other music I enjoyed most this year.

Dave Alvin -- Eleven Eleven
This record is on the short road to being one of those where I can say I know every word to every song. Perfect balance of styles and a host of memorable characters, sketched in bluesy economy, brought to life by Dave's rumbling baritone and propelled by many a memorable lick. Here's one of my favourite songs, "Johnny Ace is Dead."

Gillian Welch -- The Harrow & The Harvest
Do I need to explain? No? Super.

JuJu -- In Trance
JuJu is Justin Adams and Judeh Camara who play the electric guitar and the Gambian ritti (one string violin) respectively. Their previous album made my Favourites list last year, and their albums will I suspect keep making the list as long as they do them. It is approaching banal these days to talk about the connections between western rock n roll via the blues and African genres, but just sticking the two traditions together is not guaranteed to produce anything interesting. These guys make it work perfectly.

The Bo-Keys -- Got to Get Back
Memphis funk super group (including the only survivor of the plane crash that took Otis Redding). Just what it says on the box.

Frank Turner -- England Keep My Bones
Well now. I had never heard of this bloke until someone included him on an early Best Of list back in November and now here we are. A punkier Billy Bragg? A more sarcastic Springsteen? Well, whatever I like every song on this album. I like the hookyness of every track, I like the acapella ditties about 1066, I like the atheist singalongs, I like the name checking of Johnny, Dylan, Jerry Lee and Dostoyevsky.

Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers -- Starlight Hotel
Do I need to talk about the attitude, the voice, the band and the lyrics? Or do I just need to say that it has a song on it called "If I Can't Trust You With a Quarter (How Can I Trust You With My Heart?)"

December 2011! Time for some favourites from the year, I guess.
Starting with these ....

The Singing Mailman Delivers - John Prine Double CD of demos and live from 1970, a year before his first studio release. If you know Prine you'll find it worthwhile and if you don't it's actually a great place to start.

Late Late Party 1965-67 - Charles "Packy" Axton Anthology of cuts from the various bands of this Memphis sax player. Largely instrumental, just super funky in a smooth sort of way.

Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea's Shin Joong Hyun 1958-1974 - Shin Joong Hyun The "Godfather of Korean Rock", absorbing the music of the US troops, and adding elements of Korean music, jazz and soul until being "unpatriotic" got him banned from music.

Joe Pug and Randy Newman both put out live albums (and accompanying DVD in Randy's case) in the last few weeks, I hardly think I need to spruik them given how much of that I've done in this forum. I will however say, once again, Joe Pug's Live at Lincoln Hall is only $5 to download and is sensational.