Native Harrow - Voodoo Rooms Edinburgh

 I should really stop writing about Native Harrow gigs but they are so good I just can't. It's February so it is Native Harrow in Edinburgh gig time.  

It's the Voodoo Rooms for tonight which compared to my first review of them is the perfect venue. The Speakeasy room allows the intimacy for their warm Laurel Canyonesque tunes to connect with the audience. This tour to promote the recent album 'Old Kind of Magic' obviously heavily features songs from that album. Devin Tuel introduces 'Heart of Love' as a rare love song and after it an audience member shouts out 'write more love songs'. he might have a point but really for me that song which was definitely a stand out on the night actually encapsulates what what Native Harrow do best. Their songs seem timeless - see the Laurel Canyon reference. While they do have an echo of the canyons there are a lot of other influences in there. Stephen Harms bass runs show to these ears a jazz influence in their melody something he confirms afterwards - Danny Thompson is an influence. They perform as a two piece with Devin on guitar and vocals and Stephen on guitar, bass, keyboards and they manage to make it look easy as they capture the essence of their recordings and present something really quite sublime to their audience.

Native Harrow are much greater than the sum of their influences by a long stretch and I look forward to catching them again, perhaps next February. 

Shout out too for Maz O'Conner whose accomplished support helped create the mood for the night - stand out for me was her protest song 'Can't get enough of what I don't need'.  She's got plenty of other songs that you should find time to hear.

https://www.nativeharrow.com/

https://mazoconnor.com/

Native Harrow live at the Hug & Pint Feb 1st 2022

Native Harrow have been my first gig of the year twice. Last time was in 2020 as the first in a clutch of gigs before the Covid lockdown paused live music. To be fair this gig was supposed to be in December 2021 but was postponed due the omicron variant.

It was a great way to open my gig year - a favourite band performing in the cosy cellar that is the Hug & Pint performance space. I have my favourite spot to stand so was set for a good night. And it was. Drawing mainly on their last album 'Closeness' - apt title in these socially distanced times and for an album that came out during the first lockdown. 

In their performance the songs seemed to me to have a tenderness, a softness that spoke of the distance that had been put between the band and the audience by the forced shutdown, and false starts of the last two years. That gentleness of tentatively getting to know one another again suited the songs made for an evening where Native Harrow seemed as assured as I've ever seen them. The music Devin and Stephen make together evidences as much as it hides of its influences and presents a music that is recognisable but also unique and quite itself. 

A wonderful start to my gig year.

As the Storm Broke: the gigs of early 2020 before Covid-19 shut down live music

Reflections on the live music that brought in 2020. Before the music stopped. These gigs took place between January 15th and March 1st 2020.

 

As 2020 started my gig going was mapped out through to the summer. Tickets were booked for a series of gigs by artists I hadn't seen before. Some thought was being given to going to a festival with costs being weighed up against the roster of artists performing. Then it all stopped, quite abruptly. Coronavirus was known and its potential to shut things down was known and being trailed. 

These are the performers I saw live before the lockdown and the end of live music as we knew it.

Native Harrow

A welcome return from Native Harrow the collective name of Devin Tuel and Stephen Harms whose music causes me to use the word mesmerising to describe it because it simply is. I'd seen them before in a badly suited venue where they'd soldiered on while the audience dwindled and the casual drinkers wondered why the football was not on the screens. I'd stayed to the end of that gig out of solidarity but was too embarrassed for them to stay and chat afterwards. I did pen a review and hoped they'd be back soon.

And they were. This time they were in the more appropriate surroundings of the Voodoo Rooms and played a wonderful set of songs drawn from their breakthrough album 'Happier Now' and the at that point unreleased follow-up 'Closeness'. I stayed and spoke to them thanking them for coming back so soon and sharing a joke about the previous gig. It was a great start to the gig year and I left full of hope for a great year of live gigs.

https://www.nativeharrow.com/

https://nativeharrow.bandcamp.com/album/closeness 

KT Tunstell

What a night! Part of the 'Burns and Beyond' festival where attendees ticket allows them access to various venues across Edinburgh for a night of music and poetry celebrating Robert Burns. I decided to stay at the assembly Rooms for the evening and catch 4 sets from KT Tunstell and band. It was worth it. Yes I heard some songs several times though thanks to some skillful rearrangements I was well entertained and got the jokes.

KT's all woman band played at full pelt throughout never lacking for energy. KT herself respendent in tartan encouraged the ever-changing crowd to join in. This was a party and eveyone was invited. As I said at the start what a night! 

Postscipt: I came down with a flu-like illness following the gig hich saw me take most of the week off and I slept mostly. A precurser for the Covid-19 pandemic to come? 

Ginger Cowgirl

I'd spotted the name Ginger Cowgirl on the listings of upcoming gigs at local bar the Leith Depot and was intrigued. Quick research revealed that Ginger Cowgirl was the stage persona of Stacy Antonel a young appropriately flame haired American singer/songwriter with a liking for honky-tonk music. I was in!

Touring alone she was backed on some songs by members of the support acts for the night and performed a set centred on the country honky-tonk styles of her eponymous e.p. On the song '6 weeks in Nashville' you could almost smell the bourbon (it possible did help that she was performing in a bar in Leith). There was an infectiousness about the performance as she drew the audience into the songs. The songs had swing to them that showed that she'd absorbed the various styles that make up country music - swing, country blues, honk-tonk vis Bakersfield and more besides. This is a talented songwriter with surely more to come.

https://gingercowgirl.com/epk

https://gingercowgirl.bandcamp.com/album/ginger-cowgirl 

Ira Wolf/Izaac Opatz  

This was a first for me - an actual house concert. One of my newfound gig buddies Kendall had invited me and so a weekday journey to Stirling was undertaken. Ira Wolf is a singer/songwriter I'd found online and loved but didn't think I'd get the chance to see but here she was along with Izaac Opatz who again I'd found online (thanks to the random choices of Spotify).  

By its very nature this was an intimate gig audience and performers mixing beforehand like any house party, getting to know one another, laughing, exchanging anecdotes. 

To hear Ira and Izaac's songs so stripped back just voice and guitar was an experience I'll not forget quickly. Ira has a lonesome sound all of her own that no doubt comes from her solo touring round the states like a restless troubadour - another town, another audience, another set of songs, new acquaintances, thank you and goodbye see you later. 

Izaac Opatz songs are a mix of wry observations of life and the things that happen that induce a smile and the occasional nod of recognition of some insight.

The two worked well together and the night was a good one with some other gig buddies there to chat to before the drive home. 

Badge news: Ira wore an enamel badge that bore the legend 'Listen to Townes Van Zandt'. Good advice. She also had her own badges that say 'Ira Wolf made me cry'. True.

http://irawolfmusic.com/ 

https://irawolf.bandcamp.com/ 

https://www.izaakopatz.com/

https://izaakopatz.bandcamp.com/merch 

My Glass World

This gig was the surprise in my early year gig schedule. In fact it wasn't scheduled at all. I got a text from a neighbour as I was returning home from a day in Fife saying he had a spare ticket and was I interested. To be honest I had to look up the band and was intrigued. The leader had played with various bands and other members had been in a variety of groups. It was Sunday night and it as the Voodoo Rooms (a certain symmetry there) so why not.

As we travelled to venue we talked about Covid 19 restrictions and the possible threat to gigs not really knowing that this gig was likely to be our last of the year.

My Glass World are lead by Jamie Telford (who my neighbour knew from University days). Jamie is a musician who has had a varied musical career that includes playing on hits by the Jam among others which would explain the quality of a band that also includes Sean Read who's worked with Beth Orton, Edwyn Collins and Dexy's Midnight Runners.

This was sophisticated music that showed flashes of influence from across the decades but was and is its own sound and song writing. It said to me this is what live music should and can be - something you've not heard before played well with life and exuberance matched with lyrics that both amuse and make you think, played by a band steeped in music playing their tunes their way.

As my last live music event of 2020 this was an unexpected delight. 

https://www.facebook.com/MyGlassWorlds/ 

Spotify 

Where now? After the lockdown I joined the livestreams online at times finding it difficult to keep up with the various Facebook, YouTube and Instagram 'live' gigs. I started watching the pay to view gigs increasingly put on by many musicians but became choosy - I craved the event, entering a space with a group of musicians and sharing that space with them, the best of these gigs give you that albiet a strange distanced intimacy.

A Night to Remember - Native Harrow live in Edinburgh

You kind of know that you are likely to be in for a challenging night when you turn up to a gig and find the stage is taken up with a full stage television screen showing football.....

…...not just any screen but reputedly the biggest HD screen in Scotland. Ok.

Am I in the right place? On the right night? I check the bar staff - 'Is there a band playing tonight?' 'Sure they're on at 10' Noting my glance at the huge screen they add 'The screen rolls up.'

Suitably reassured but still slightly apprehensive I order a pint and find a seat. Scanning the assembled audience I make some demographic assumptions. Younger audience than usual at an Americana gig but who's here for the football on the big screen and who's here for the sublime sounds of Native Harrow?

Too many questions already for a Tuesday night. I spot a local promoter who looks as out of sorts as me but he does get into the football, a bit. I hear someone else ask if there is music on tonight. Napoli are playing a slow burn demolition of Liverpool so it's good to know that others are as confused I am.

Just after ten the screen rolls up as promised and Native Harrow take the stage to perform one of two sets of beautiful and mesmerising folk americana. The beguilingly gentle but strong vocals Devin Tuel manage to cut through the lifeless venue and reach the ears of the receptive in the audience. Which going from the polite but fairly enthusiastic applause which follows each songs gives me some hope that the band feel the same.

I'm not sure though and reckon that they have read the venue and audience and realise that they'll have to chalk this booking up to experience and just hunker down and get through the sets. Whatever, they do just that and with open ears I lap up the sound as is washes over the stage and through the audience catching me with its insistence and intense beauty. I'm glad I came.

It's a great shame that for their first appearance in Edinburgh that Native Harrow were in such a lifeless place with such a mismatched audience.

I tweeted them later to let them know that at least one member of the audience enjoyed their efforts and would want to see them again. Somewhere else though.

Author note: I'm not going to name the venue here other than to say that I used to come to it many years ago when it had another name and saw some packed and enjoyable gigs there from these bands - Goodbye Mr McKenzie, The Rubber Dolphinarium, the Shop Assistants, the Truth and others (ok, I did heckle a couple of those bands). The last time I was there was when I used to go to clubs that played Hip Hop and found that House music was not to my liking. 

https://www.nativeharrow.com/