Those of you familiar with Sam Lee will be eager to jump straight to the recordings of him (scroll down down down).
Those who know nothing of the name, the man, or the songs, might wish to read on awhile…
heroically leaping herrings, Sam is well-known for his good leather boots
We met Susie Ro and Ayla in Falmouth, where they were sharing a bed in their chilly van, next to a cottage, above the international dock.
Ed had spotted them as they drove through town in their van, and had run after them, as he recognized them from Small World Festival. But they out-sped his best pace.
In Penzance, a few weeks later, we met a girl called Daisy, who sang a song about magpies, that was most excellent. She knew the girls, got us their number, and we arranged to meet at a gig in Falmouth, a few days later.
Lucy is a singer/songwriter from the Canterbury scene, evoking the sound of the great female american singer-songwriters of the 60′s and 70’s. Her music is a beautiful and ecclectic mix of folk rock and country blues and she has developed a growing fanbase through her self-penned acoustic songs.
Taking inspiration from the likes of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and PJ Harvey, her style is one some find difficult to pigeon hole. Recognition for her songwriting has seen her reach the semi finals of the BBC Radio 2 young folk award in 2006/2007.
Keep track of her here on www.myspace.com/lucykitt.
Listen to her track “Gone” here:
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After a great day singing on the streets of Penzance, we found ourselves invited to sing with some other bands, later in the evening. The venue was a room in which was made the first announcement of victory in the Battle of Trafalgar. It was an incredibly velvet and chandeliered room, filled with the memory of triumph and celebration.
We sung before Thistletown, again ignoring the offered mics to try and fill the room with the sound of voices without translation. It was a good go, and people were happy to listen and bob along.
Then Thistletown played, a cloud-borne fairy castle of twisting medieval dreams.
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We expect every reviewer enjoys writing about this band, as they permit such flowery prose.
Beside this, they are exemplary musicians, instrumentalists of rare quality and playfulness. We had a great night, meeting the trad youth of Kernow.
Based in Falmouth, Ben and Lydia gave us their number, to call them when we walked back to Falmouth. We had avoided Falmouth on the way to Penzance, as we had engaged on a 46 mile day and night march to get to Penwith. We took it all a lot slower on our way out.
So in Falmouth we rung the number, and spent beautiful days with the band, on their boat and in their other haunts.
They are apparently now disbanded. They met success with the backing of a Guardian journalist, who was given money by the paper to set up a cottage record label. But the projection into the world of album sales and national reviews was perhaps uneasy. They were billed as every hippy’s dream, the bearded and ethereal answer to modern woes, and given high profile performances, and then there was the money issues to deal with.
The band has now branched into separate endeavours, which although sad to hear, will doubtless bring new and mighty fruit in the near future.
Their album, Rosemarie, is a beautiful disc of Cornish magic. Bag a copy, if you can.
These boys are a gang of sincerely brilliant musicians, dedicated and experimental. Remember the Canterbury Scene? Here it is.
They make progressive, intelligent, raucous and funky psychedelia…they are a pleasant nightmare for the genre-giver.
They have released a fine EP, called Kingdoms of Experience, and are doubtless to be soon pressing an album.
Syd Arthur are another band that you will soon hear more about. They will be all over the festivals this summer, and their sounds and rhythms will be certain to shunt many an audience into throbbing dances.
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This was the band with which Ed and Ginger first went funny.
Deservingly popular on the UK ska scene, their live performances were legendary, with the audience dripping off the ceiling in tumults of moshing mayhem.
They are no longer playing together, but are always contemplating a reunion tour, sometime soon, perhaps tomorrow…
They released a few Eps, and one album, called ‘Smoothing Away the Horrors of Indigestion.”
Here are some tracks:
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