Black Twig Pickers

After my writing deadline passed, I learned from Mike Gangloff (via Jonathan at Thrill Jockey) that Whompyjawed is"a local term that means ramshackle or off-kilter. Local synonyms include catawumpus (or cattywhompuss) and sigoogly." So I just had to share that.

My review runs today at Dusted.

The Black Twig Pickers
Whompyjawed
Thrill Jockey

“Brushy Fork of John’s Creek” squeals to life in a sawing fiddle riff, its Appalachian lilt undergirded with the hard punch of hands on wood, the thump of feet on floors. The song, which dates to the Civil War era, hurtles forward with fresh, unruly life. At this speed, intricate patterns form and unform as whorls of fiddle, plunks of banjo and scratchy scrapes of washboard intersect. Yet, the sense of joy, of celebration, of dance overwhelms the complexity. As the tune gets going, the players cannot suppress their hoots and “yeahs.”


The Black Twigs Pickers — primarily Mike Gangloff, Nathan Bowles and Isak Howell — have been breathing fresh air into archival material for about a decade now, both in their core trio formation, and augmented by like-minded musicians, including Jack Rose and Charlie Parr. On this EP, they are joined by some frequent live collaborators — fiddler Sally Morgan and Sam Linkous and Joe Dejarnette switching between guitar and bass.

More

Michael Chapman tribute

It's a good day when I can simultaneously post about Michael Chapman and Meg Baird, two rather different pillars of the new folk movement who come together in a new Chapman tribute called Oh Michael, Look What You've Done, out May 29 on Tompkins Square.

Here's what Tompkins Square has to say about the album:

Michael Chapman began his career on the Cornish folk circuit in 1967. Signed to the Harvest label, home to Pink Floyd and Deep Purple, he recorded four quasi-legendary albums. The influential 'Fully Qualified Survivor' was John Peel's favorite record of 1970, and featured future Bowie collaborator Mick Ronson. After decades of recording and touring, Chapman remained an obscure figure in the States until his profile was raised by a lengthy 2009 interview with big fan Thurston Moore in Fretboard Journal. He toured extensively with the late guitarist Jack Rose, and more recently, with Bill Callahan. Seattle-based indie label Light in the Attic began a reissue campaign of his Harvest work, and Tompkins Square released the internationally acclaimed double disc, 'Trainsong : Guitar Compositions, 1967-2010'.

All this has brought newfound attention to a singular guitarist and songwriter.

'Oh Michael, Look What You've Done : Friends Play Michael Chapman', compiled by Michael's wife Andru and Tompkins Square's Josh Rosenthal, features artists who have shared a stage with Michael, or share a personal connection. These include some of his contemporaries like Bridget St. John, Maddy Prior, and longtime cohort Rick Kemp (Steeleye Span), as well as young guns inspired by Michael's legacy.

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And, now, Ms. Baird covering "No Song to Sing"


By the way, I caught one of those Michael Chapman/Jack Rose shows a few years ago and wrote it up for PopMatters. Check it out here, if you want.

The prolific D. Charles Speer

Sometime NNCK-er, Helix bandleader, collaborator with the late Jack Rose and musical omnivore David Charles Shuford, a.k.a. D. Charles Speer, has a couple of excellent new albums coming out this spring on Thrill Jockey.

Arghiledes, the solo disc, incorporates some really fascinating Greek elements into Shuford’s psych/drone aesthetic. It’s a tribute, at least in part, to the bouzouki master Markos Vamvakaris, and uses Greek traditional instruments including bouzouki, as well as guitar, percussion, electronics, voice and some wonderful stand-up bass on the “Lost Dervish” cut. (“Lost Dervish” is on my new mix, which I intend to get to at some point, but I’ve been busy.)

Shuford worked solo on ARghiledes (though it doesn’t sound like it…he must have spent a long time tracking). He’s with the Helix again for Leaving the Commonwealth, which is more what you’d expect if you spent any time with last year’s Ragged and Right (where he and Jack Rose and some other players channeled Link Wray’s Three Track Shack sessions). “Cumberland,” the most bluegrassy, pedal-steel-y, countrified of these tracks, is an overt tribute to Rose…but what I’m liking the best here is the really wonderful guitar playing on “Days in the Kitchen”, the Cajun fiddle-and-washboard swing of “Le Grand Cochon” and the title track, which is an all-out country rocker, in the style of Neil Young or the Band.

I can’t find any audio or video from the two new albums yet, but here’s D. Charles and the Helix tipping the hat to Jack Rose last December.


I went to see Thank You, the Baltimore noise-jam-tribal-drums outfit last night, first time to a show in ages, and it was quite short, but pretty good. They’ve been adding some vocals to their thing, which is very much in line with Baltimore’s ecstatic freaked aesthetic, and now they kinda sound like the Boredoms. It was also terribly, terribly cold last night, single digits again, so it was good to get out and do anything besides huddle around the woodstove. More on Thank You later.

Posthumous Jack

I’m thinking that this review of jack rose and D. Charles Speer is a tad over-written…like, too many clauses and adjectives and crap like that…but in any case, the album’s very fine, so try to ignore my shortcomings.

I still kinda like the closing paragraph.

There’s a tendency to canonize people who die way too young, as Rose did, to cast everything they do in a serious and purposeful light. Ragged and Right reminds everyone that Rose could take a drink and play loose and sloppy, too, and that it was a beautiful thing while it lasted. It’s a shame no one will ever hear these songs live again, or find out what would have happened if Rose and Shuford continued on this path, but four songs this loose-jointed and glorious are better than nothing at all.

The rest


“In the Pines” is the first track on my mix, so if you don’t have it yet, go get it.


I just finished a big piece on Woods and the Woodsist label, which I thought went pretty well. It’s for PopMatters, so you should see it in about six months.

I got a new shuffle over the weekend, hurray for random-ness!

Jack Rose

Bet you thought I'd said everything I had to say about the great, sadly deceased Jack Rose...but nope. Gotta a review of Lucky in the Valley up at Blurt, and it (the record not the review) is very, very, very good.

Here's a link.

Here is "Woodpiles"

There's a very nice video embedded in the main article, too.

Jack Rose again...

I have a piece up now at Philly weekly, with some very nice recollections of Jack Rose and his music. He sounds like a wonderful man, very much loved by fans and colleagues alike...wish I'd known him.

Jack Rose RIP

Jack Rose, one of his generation’s best acoustic guitar players, passed away this weekend of a heart attack. He was 38.

Rose contributed to both Imaginational Anthem 1 and 2, the first with the lovely “White Mule III” and second with the even more riveting and beautiful “Crossing the North Fork II.” He played on A Raga for Peter Walker, as well, and even gave me quote about Peter for a piece I wrote for Dusted.

I had the very good fortune to see Rose play a little over a year ago, opening for Michael Chapman. I met him briefly afterwards, and he seemed like a very nice, unassuming type…and also, quite young even to be playing this type of Fahey-esque primitive style. Let alone dying. You can read about it here, if you want.


Here’s Rose playing “Kensington Blues” in Sacramento a couple of years ago.


All thoughts and prayers to his family and friends. Very sad.

Michael Chapman and Jack Rose

I've got a live review of another acoustic guitar show, again at the Bookmill...this one much better attended. I didn't mention it in the review because it seemed a little too star-fucker-ish (and possibly intrusive), but Thurston Moore and Kim Gorden were there, as well as pretty much everyone else in a band in the Pioneer Valley. Moore sat on the floor. Kim got one of the couches.

I'm noting that this review really doesn't have a lead paragraph. Here are a couple of paragraphs about Michael Chapman:

A road-tested veteran in every sense of the word, he mentioned that he had recently celebrated 40 years of touring. He marked the occasion, he said, with a show at the very same venue he’d begun his career at, with a set that started 40 years to the minute after his debut. “Some of the same people were there,” he said, marveling. “They’d been home, though, you know.”

Born in Yorkshire in 1941, Chapman was part of the great folk revival of the 1960s and 1970s, sharing stages with Roy Harper, John Martyn, and others. He recorded four albums for Harvest Records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Rainmaker, Fully Qualified Survivor, Window, and Wrecked Again, then moved to Deram, a Decca subsidiary, in the later half of the decade. His latest album Time Past and Time Passing, with songs from nearly every stage of his 40 year career, made up the bulk of the evening’s set list, interspersed with often very funny stories about his life so far.

You can read the rest here.

There's a song on the new album called "Silver King/Dustdevils" which is, unfortunately, not a tribute to that no wave band we all like so much...but it's pretty good anyway. Check it out. The link will work until November 21, 2008. After that, you're stuck with the Myspace.