Departure lounge ramblings on music, places, climate change and stuff outdoors

Posts tagged ‘Rough Trade’

Drinking from Israel Nash’s Sweet Springs

I haven’t written any ‘Album of the Week’ reviews for a while, primarily because every time I put on my headphones I just want to listen to Israel Nash. His latest offering, ‘Lifted’, is a hippy Americana chill-out album, that inspires relaxed smiles. I saw him perform at Rough Trade in Brooklyn a few weeks ago and it was an equally blissed experience, despite the inspiration for much of the album coming from Nash’s despair at the state of American politics.

Are guitar shops as good as record stores?

What I love about record stores is that you can walk in just to pass the time, get transfixed by a new tune, and walk out clutching the best new music you’ve heard in ages. Guitar shops are different. You’d have to be both very wealthy and obsessed to buy a new instrument on every visit. But the chat is often just as illuminating.

A midwest farmer’s daughter in Brooklyn

“How does a lead singer change a lightbulb?”, asks Margo Price’s harmonica blowing husband during a break between songs. “She just holds the damn thing up and waits for the world to spin round her and screw it in” he explains, to his wife’s visible delight. For this is a night of smiles for Margo Price, who despite introducing a new album full of true-life tales of bad men, worse choices, and trouble with the bottle, looks and sounds like there isn’t a happier person on Earth.

Field Day fiesta

I knew yesterday was going to be all about Ginger Baker, but a wonderful London Field Day also delivered the excitement of seeing Palma Violets at…

British Sea Power

Shepherd's Bush Empire, 17 April 2013 I first stumbled across British Sea Power at the Reading Festival when on a 20 minute break from working behind…