A girl could feel special on any such like.
Said James to Red Molly, my hat’s off to you
It’s a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I’ve seen you at the corners and cafés it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Boxhill they did ride
Richard Thompson’s ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’
It’s almost Spring today and we’re getting one of those rare days where the temperature is over twenty Celsius, there’s full sun and not a hint of a cooling breeze, so Ingrid, our Steward, has declared there shall be an outside feast under the stars followed by a contradance in the evening with fires going to keep everyone warm in the slate-covered Courtyard with Chasing Fireflies being the band and Gus the caller.
My staff has set up the outdoor taps — there’s a cask of Spring Peeper Ale, another cask of the Shut Up and Dance IPA and yet another of a three-year aged cider Bjorn, our Brewmaster, calls Cheddar Cider as its got a nice sharp bite like an aged cheddar. Join us if you can as it’ll be a lovely evening!
First is a Tenth Doctor Who story, ‘The Unicorn & The Wasp’ which Cat reviews: ‘One of my favourite episodes of the newer episodes of this series was a country house mystery featuring a number of murders and, to add an aspect of metanarrative to the story, writer Agatha Christie at the beginning of her career. It would riff off her disappearance for ten days which occurred just after she found her husband in bed with another woman. Her disappearance is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily answered to this day.’
An English country house murder mystery also gets reviewed by David: ‘As traditional as the genres he chose might have been, in Altman’s hand they were turned upside-down, and sideways. Warren Beatty and Julie Christie became anti-hero and opium addict in Altman’s “western” McCabe & Mrs. Miller, set to the music of Leonard Cohen! A laconic Elliott Gould became Raymond Chandler’s private dick Phillip Marlowe in an updated LA for Altman’s “detective” classic The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman has been the most American of directors, and now, in Gosford Park, he takes on the English country house murder mystery. Altman’s Agatha Christie film? What could this mean?’
Lory waxes about an unusual mystery in Farthing: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.
Evidence of political backbiting, personal blackmailing, and marital mismatches piles up as usual in such scenarios, but the most startling piece of all (and the most overlooked by the central characters) is that this Britain of 1949 has been at peace with Hitler for eight years, letting him take the Continent in exchange for leaving Britain a nominal independence.’
Michael looks at James Stoddard’s The High House and The False House: “Welcome to the House that God built. Evenmere, the High House, that unending ever-changing building which crosses and contains worlds. It is, and represents, all Creation, an enigma, a parable, a mystery. Within its halls and rooms, passages and basements, attics and terraces, are the undreamt worlds, the lands of dream, places like Ooz and Innman Tor and Arkalen. The House bridges upon our own world, but is far more than a house. It just Is.”
Lory notes, ‘In the early years of the twentieth century, A. A. Milne was a well-known writer of plays as well as humorous essays and poems. The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.” For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity — for Milne’s take on the genre was as breezily accomplished as any of his other pursuits.’
Robert finishes off a look at ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.) It’s a novel that is centered on a Place, a location that is a portal between worlds.’
Kelly had a splendid experience in Paris at Chapon Chocolatier, sampling their Chocolate Mousse made with a 100% Venezuelan chocolate bar. ‘For €5, a generous but not too large portion is served in a paper cone. The price is well worth the effects, not the least of which is taste.’
Debbie has a review of the four issue self-published The Book of Ballads and Sagas: ‘How do you add a new dimension to (and perhaps the enthusiasm of a new generation for) the wonderful world of folk ballads and sagas? One solution is to use an art form that is not usually associated with such things. In this case, I speak of the comic book, or as it is more usually known these days, the graphic novel.’
Gary here. This time I start my reviews with The Edinburgh Rollick, a delightful set by the American period music ensemble Ruckus, with Scottish American fiddler Keir GoGwilt. ‘The Edinburgh Rollick is highly recommended for fans of Scottish fiddling and Celtic songs and dance music in general. The combination of GoGwilt’s modern fiddle with the period instruments and superb arrangements is consistently appealing.’
The Denmark-based jazz label Steeplechase recently signed with a publicist who provides GMR with a lot of jazz and world music. Said publicist provided a big tranche of late 2024 releases, from which I selected four albums of modern straight ahead music to review: Kirk Knuffke’s Super Blonde, Steve Johns’s Mythology, David Janeway’s Forward Motion, and Alex Norris’s Table For Three.
Word came this week that Cuban American pianist and composer Aruán Ortiz is one of two “composers of extraordinary gifts” awarded with the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. By coincidence, I had just pulled from the archives my review of his 2012 release Orbiting, and you can read it here. ‘Ortiz, a native of Santiago, the second-largest city in Cuba, is equally inspired by the diverse sounds found there and the explorations of American and European 20th century classical composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Aaron Copland, plus the late 20th century funk of James Brown, Sly Stone and the like. Mix it all together in a big, hot pot and you get this Orbiting jazz fusion.’
From the Archives, here’s a random grab bag of fine music reviews.
David liked a CD re-release of the first solo album from Texas Americana legend Doug Sahm, simply titled Doug Sahm And Band, with contributors that included Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David Bromberg and more. ‘Throughout the album the songs echo the kind of material he had done with the Sir Douglas Quintet (think “Mendocino”) and they foreshadow the work he would do with the Texas Tornados ’til his untimely passing. There’s blues, and Tex-Mex, a touch of folk and some ragged harmony singing to top it all off.’
I reviewed Laurie Lewis’s One Evening In May. ‘This live disc recorded in May 2013 at the famous Freight and Salvage venue in her hometown of Berkeley, Calif., is a good reminder why Lewis is so special as an entertainer. A big part of that is her band members, the superb Tom Rozum on mandolins and guitar and vocals, Nina Gerber on guitars, and Lewis herself on banjo, fiddle and guitar.’
Judith found the music on De Amsterdam Klezmer Band’s Limonchiki pretty zippy! ‘Looking for a spicy klezmer band? From Holland, De Amsterdam Klezmer Band might be the band for you. Assigned to Knitting Factory’s alternative sub-label, their music is at times so spiced up with Eastern European ingredients that it’s almost not klez.’
She also reviewed a couple of world music releases, Kristi Stassinopoulou’s Echotropia, and Ziroq’s Ziroq. ‘Both these discs are fun, but not quite the same. The production that makes Echotropia so effective weakens some of its ties with reality; the album is not so much centered on Stassinopoulou’s voice as it is on the atmosphere it helps create. On the other hand, though Ziroq seems thinner and lighter, the “American” music can be a little irritating.’
Mike went outdoors in January to review the Swedish folk band JP Nyströms’ Stockholm 1313 Km. ‘The tunes are great out of the gate, and I actually became nostalgic upon hearing the fourth and fifth selections, “Pojkarna pa landsvagen” and “Hambomazurka efter Blomqvistarn,” respectively. They recall ethnic music from the roadhouses of the American Midwest of the 1920s and ’30s, the kind of stuff that until relatively recently could be found only on 78 rpm records.’
No’am was pleased to be able to review Dave Evans’s The Words In Between, a beloved record from the Sixties, when it was reissued. ‘This is basic, almost unadorned contemporary folk — excellent guitar picking, slightly odd tunes with meaningful lyrics sung by a voice which is well-worn and can carry a tune, but would never find itself at the top of the hit parade. Think of the classic sixties British folk guitarists such as Bert Jansch or Davey Graham, and you have an idea of what this album sounds like. Probably because of the paucity of instrumentation, the songs don’t sound dated at all, even though hardly anybody plays in this style any more.’
Naomi was moved by the women’s vocal group Libana’s two albums A Circle Is Cast and Night Passage. ‘With Libana’s first release A Circle is Cast we are treated to music from France to Russia, from Renaissance England to pre-colonization America. It is a fascinating journey on many levels, that instilled a sense of wonder and awe in me.’
Stephen was pleased with Dick Gaughan’s Outlaws & Dreamers. ‘This is the 11th solo album from Dick Gaughan and to my mind it’s his best in years. I should perhaps qualify that statement by pointing out that there’s absolutely no such thing as a poor Dick Gaughan album. I’m just one of many who think that he sounds best “in the raw,” just voice and acoustic guitar, which in the main, is exactly what’s on offer here.’
Scott began his review of the American band Romashka’s debut self-titled album with a little background on the group. ‘In a little over a year, Romashka have built a reputation as one of the most exciting and energetic bands in New York City’s world music scene. Before converging on Brooklyn, the band’s eight members cut their musical teeth in different locations, including a number of Ivy League institutions. Lithuanian-born singer Inna Barmash co-founded the Princeton-based outfit the Klez Dispensers, wind player Jeff Perlman spent four years with the Yale Klezmer Band, and guitarist Joey Weisenberg served as musical director of the Columbia Klezmer Band.’
Lets finish off with ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’, a Richard Thompson penned song as covered by the all female Red Molly band. It was assumed when this song was released by them as there’s a red haired Molly in the song that they’d named the band after this song but instead it’s because there’s a red headed Molly in the band. We’ve reviewed several of their recordings including Love and Other Tragedies.
I'm the Pub Manager for the Green Man Pub which is located at the KInrowan Estate. I'm married to Ingrid, our Steward who's also the Estate Buyer. If I'm off duty and in a mood for a drink, it'll be a single malt, either Irish or Scottish, no water or ice, or possibly an Estate ale or cider.
I'm a concertina player, and unlike my wife who has a fine singing voice, I do not have anything of a singing voice anyone want to hear!
More Posts
What’s New of 16th of March: A variety of mysteries; some new Scottish music by an old band, new jazz, and splendid archival reviews; ballads in graphic novel form; and chocolate in Paris
It’s almost Spring today and we’re getting one of those rare days where the temperature is over twenty Celsius, there’s full sun and not a hint of a cooling breeze, so Ingrid, our Steward, has declared there shall be an outside feast under the stars followed by a contradance in the evening with fires going to keep everyone warm in the slate-covered Courtyard with Chasing Fireflies being the band and Gus the caller.
My staff has set up the outdoor taps — there’s a cask of Spring Peeper Ale, another cask of the Shut Up and Dance IPA and yet another of a three-year aged cider Bjorn, our Brewmaster, calls Cheddar Cider as its got a nice sharp bite like an aged cheddar. Join us if you can as it’ll be a lovely evening!
First is a Tenth Doctor Who story, ‘The Unicorn & The Wasp’ which Cat reviews: ‘One of my favourite episodes of the newer episodes of this series was a country house mystery featuring a number of murders and, to add an aspect of metanarrative to the story, writer Agatha Christie at the beginning of her career. It would riff off her disappearance for ten days which occurred just after she found her husband in bed with another woman. Her disappearance is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily answered to this day.’
An English country house murder mystery also gets reviewed by David: ‘As traditional as the genres he chose might have been, in Altman’s hand they were turned upside-down, and sideways. Warren Beatty and Julie Christie became anti-hero and opium addict in Altman’s “western” McCabe & Mrs. Miller, set to the music of Leonard Cohen! A laconic Elliott Gould became Raymond Chandler’s private dick Phillip Marlowe in an updated LA for Altman’s “detective” classic The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman has been the most American of directors, and now, in Gosford Park, he takes on the English country house murder mystery. Altman’s Agatha Christie film? What could this mean?’
Lory waxes about an unusual mystery in Farthing: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.
Evidence of political backbiting, personal blackmailing, and marital mismatches piles up as usual in such scenarios, but the most startling piece of all (and the most overlooked by the central characters) is that this Britain of 1949 has been at peace with Hitler for eight years, letting him take the Continent in exchange for leaving Britain a nominal independence.’
Michael looks at James Stoddard’s The High House and The False House: “Welcome to the House that God built. Evenmere, the High House, that unending ever-changing building which crosses and contains worlds. It is, and represents, all Creation, an enigma, a parable, a mystery. Within its halls and rooms, passages and basements, attics and terraces, are the undreamt worlds, the lands of dream, places like Ooz and Innman Tor and Arkalen. The House bridges upon our own world, but is far more than a house. It just Is.”
Lory notes, ‘In the early years of the twentieth century, A. A. Milne was a well-known writer of plays as well as humorous essays and poems. The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.” For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity — for Milne’s take on the genre was as breezily accomplished as any of his other pursuits.’
Robert finishes off a look at ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.) It’s a novel that is centered on a Place, a location that is a portal between worlds.’
Debbie has a review of the four issue self-published The Book of Ballads and Sagas: ‘How do you add a new dimension to (and perhaps the enthusiasm of a new generation for) the wonderful world of folk ballads and sagas? One solution is to use an art form that is not usually associated with such things. In this case, I speak of the comic book, or as it is more usually known these days, the graphic novel.’
The Denmark-based jazz label Steeplechase recently signed with a publicist who provides GMR with a lot of jazz and world music. Said publicist provided a big tranche of late 2024 releases, from which I selected four albums of modern straight ahead music to review: Kirk Knuffke’s Super Blonde, Steve Johns’s Mythology, David Janeway’s Forward Motion, and Alex Norris’s Table For Three.
Word came this week that Cuban American pianist and composer Aruán Ortiz is one of two “composers of extraordinary gifts” awarded with the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. By coincidence, I had just pulled from the archives my review of his 2012 release Orbiting, and you can read it here. ‘Ortiz, a native of Santiago, the second-largest city in Cuba, is equally inspired by the diverse sounds found there and the explorations of American and European 20th century classical composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Aaron Copland, plus the late 20th century funk of James Brown, Sly Stone and the like. Mix it all together in a big, hot pot and you get this Orbiting jazz fusion.’
From the Archives, here’s a random grab bag of fine music reviews.
David liked a CD re-release of the first solo album from Texas Americana legend Doug Sahm, simply titled Doug Sahm And Band, with contributors that included Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David Bromberg and more. ‘Throughout the album the songs echo the kind of material he had done with the Sir Douglas Quintet (think “Mendocino”) and they foreshadow the work he would do with the Texas Tornados ’til his untimely passing. There’s blues, and Tex-Mex, a touch of folk and some ragged harmony singing to top it all off.’
I reviewed Laurie Lewis’s One Evening In May. ‘This live disc recorded in May 2013 at the famous Freight and Salvage venue in her hometown of Berkeley, Calif., is a good reminder why Lewis is so special as an entertainer. A big part of that is her band members, the superb Tom Rozum on mandolins and guitar and vocals, Nina Gerber on guitars, and Lewis herself on banjo, fiddle and guitar.’
Judith found the music on De Amsterdam Klezmer Band’s Limonchiki pretty zippy! ‘Looking for a spicy klezmer band? From Holland, De Amsterdam Klezmer Band might be the band for you. Assigned to Knitting Factory’s alternative sub-label, their music is at times so spiced up with Eastern European ingredients that it’s almost not klez.’
She also reviewed a couple of world music releases, Kristi Stassinopoulou’s Echotropia, and Ziroq’s Ziroq. ‘Both these discs are fun, but not quite the same. The production that makes Echotropia so effective weakens some of its ties with reality; the album is not so much centered on Stassinopoulou’s voice as it is on the atmosphere it helps create. On the other hand, though Ziroq seems thinner and lighter, the “American” music can be a little irritating.’
Mike went outdoors in January to review the Swedish folk band JP Nyströms’ Stockholm 1313 Km. ‘The tunes are great out of the gate, and I actually became nostalgic upon hearing the fourth and fifth selections, “Pojkarna pa landsvagen” and “Hambomazurka efter Blomqvistarn,” respectively. They recall ethnic music from the roadhouses of the American Midwest of the 1920s and ’30s, the kind of stuff that until relatively recently could be found only on 78 rpm records.’
No’am was pleased to be able to review Dave Evans’s The Words In Between, a beloved record from the Sixties, when it was reissued. ‘This is basic, almost unadorned contemporary folk — excellent guitar picking, slightly odd tunes with meaningful lyrics sung by a voice which is well-worn and can carry a tune, but would never find itself at the top of the hit parade. Think of the classic sixties British folk guitarists such as Bert Jansch or Davey Graham, and you have an idea of what this album sounds like. Probably because of the paucity of instrumentation, the songs don’t sound dated at all, even though hardly anybody plays in this style any more.’
Naomi was moved by the women’s vocal group Libana’s two albums A Circle Is Cast and Night Passage. ‘With Libana’s first release A Circle is Cast we are treated to music from France to Russia, from Renaissance England to pre-colonization America. It is a fascinating journey on many levels, that instilled a sense of wonder and awe in me.’
Stephen was pleased with Dick Gaughan’s Outlaws & Dreamers. ‘This is the 11th solo album from Dick Gaughan and to my mind it’s his best in years. I should perhaps qualify that statement by pointing out that there’s absolutely no such thing as a poor Dick Gaughan album. I’m just one of many who think that he sounds best “in the raw,” just voice and acoustic guitar, which in the main, is exactly what’s on offer here.’
Scott began his review of the American band Romashka’s debut self-titled album with a little background on the group. ‘In a little over a year, Romashka have built a reputation as one of the most exciting and energetic bands in New York City’s world music scene. Before converging on Brooklyn, the band’s eight members cut their musical teeth in different locations, including a number of Ivy League institutions. Lithuanian-born singer Inna Barmash co-founded the Princeton-based outfit the Klez Dispensers, wind player Jeff Perlman spent four years with the Yale Klezmer Band, and guitarist Joey Weisenberg served as musical director of the Columbia Klezmer Band.’
Lets finish off with ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’, a Richard Thompson penned song as covered by the all female Red Molly band. It was assumed when this song was released by them as there’s a red haired Molly in the song that they’d named the band after this song but instead it’s because there’s a red headed Molly in the band. We’ve reviewed several of their recordings including Love and Other Tragedies.
Reynard
I'm the Pub Manager for the Green Man Pub which is located at the KInrowan Estate. I'm married to Ingrid, our Steward who's also the Estate Buyer. If I'm off duty and in a mood for a drink, it'll be a single malt, either Irish or Scottish, no water or ice, or possibly an Estate ale or cider. I'm a concertina player, and unlike my wife who has a fine singing voice, I do not have anything of a singing voice anyone want to hear!
More Posts
About Reynard
I'm the Pub Manager for the Green Man Pub which is located at the KInrowan Estate. I'm married to Ingrid, our Steward who's also the Estate Buyer. If I'm off duty and in a mood for a drink, it'll be a single malt, either Irish or Scottish, no water or ice, or possibly an Estate ale or cider. I'm a concertina player, and unlike my wife who has a fine singing voice, I do not have anything of a singing voice anyone want to hear!