The Bonnevilles - Live and Loud at Sneaky Pete's

 

I can never get over just how much sheer rock'n'roll noise the Bonnevilles make. The economy of one guitar and one drum kit combined with powerful playing of Andy and Chris produces a visceral music that clears away not just the cobwebs but everything in it's path.

Opening their set with 'Down to the River' and 'Good Suits and Fighting Boots' their garage punk blues rock sound does not mess around - at one point Andy asks Chris 'what time is it?' and the answer comes back '20 past 9' which brings the retort 'what? fuck we're playing these songs too fast!' 

The set covers the run of albums so far released and these songs are more than road tested but still as fresh and exhilarating as when I first saw them in Leith Franklin Cricket Club years ago (when I  realised there were only two Bonnevilles making that incredible racket). 

Tonight was the opening night of their UK tour and the energy was incredible. They did pace themselves with a slow 'Kneel at the Altar' and a long story of two fan boys playing at Junior Kimbrough's Juke Joint during a US tour. There's some audience participation when Andy descends from the stage and some new songs from a forthcoming album and its a wrap. The Bonnevilles are easily one of the most powerful live acts you can hope to see - no pretention just maximum rock'n'blues. How was your Tuesday night?

https://thebonnevilles.co.uk/

The Bonnevilles at the Banshee Labyrinth 4th February 2022

This gig was a release - a release from Covid, a release from the isolation that the pandemic brought . This was a release from all of that anxiety. As Andy said 'What the **** was all that about?' 

The Bonnevilles are primal - a scream of the purest rock'n'roll that takes it to the maximum every time. I've never seen them and thought they were better last time. Andy and Chris always hit their mark and serve up a brand of garage blues punk that is such a full and joyous sound that is at once a nod to the past but a clear full steam ahead with a noise that is astonishing when you realise this is made by just two guys from Lurgan. Do yourself a favour catch the Bonnevilles live sometime. Really. Do.

Support was from the sublime Mudlow who produce a swamp or estuary interpretation of of punk blues and all the better for that. They created a joyous (that word again) racket that set the scene nicely for the Bonnevilles maelstrom to follow.

Suffice to say a very, very good night.

Frazey Ford at La Belle Angele...at last

 This was a gig that i thought would never happen. Tickets bought early in 2020 for a date in June that year. So before Covid 19 hit and closed down the world and live music with it. Even this rescheduled date at the end of November 2021 had that 'it might not happen' mood preceding it. A cancellation was only ever a positive Covid test away, for the band, the venue, or me.

I was grateful, then, to find myself at the venue duly masked, queued and reflecting on the last time I'd been at La Belle Angele to see Anais Mitchell weeks after that other disrupter Donald Trump had become American President.

Frazey Ford though was a balm sorely needed in these troubled and anxious times. She's been called Americana and she is but it was telling, for me anyway, that pre-show the music playing was Al Green. It seemed apt to me as Frazey's music now is a soulful and funky groove that the Rev. Green would be proud of. Mainly featuring the music from 'U Kin B the Sun' Frazey moved through her songs backed by a band (key players from the album sessions) that gave life to those songs with soul and sophistication. her songs reflect on life with all its nuances and affirm that life with joy.

As this gig turned out to be my last live experience of 2021 thanks to Covid 19's Omicron variant it was certainly a good feeling to leave with a smile on my face (obscured by a mask).

https://www.frazeyford.com/

*******

Another hook for this gig was the appearance of support act Gwenifer Raymond. It is not often I see an act that is purely instrumental and this one was mesmerising playing a punk folk blues inspired by 'American primitive'. One woman and a guitar that's all. The sound she creates reminded me of the folk guitar of Bert Jansch and Davie Graham but heavier and riffier. Well worth catching if you get the chance.

https://gweniferraymond.com/

American primitive guitar

Memphis '69

Fat Possum Records have posted  'Memphis 69' on YouTube - a film of the 1969 Memphis Country Blues Festival and you'd be well advised to give it a watch. Including performances by country blues masters Fred McDowall, Sleepy John Estes, Bukka White and Furry Lewis along with the Bar-Keys backing Rufus Thomas the film catches the time when the confluence of the the roots of black blues and r&b met the white blues wave with appearances from John Fahey, Johnny Winter, Jo Ann Kelly, Sid Selvedge and the Insect Trust. 

It shows a coming together, a shared communion through music of different races and cultures that could have signified a new American. The venue used had hosted a Ku Klux Klan rally only weeks before so came loaded with that racist view of America. The young white faces in the audience evidence a freshness and hope. Filmed over 3 days and two nights in June 1969 it captures a time long lost but one well worth revisiting to reflect on that opportunity and what was lost. 

Shadow Kingdom - Bob Dylan's live stream of sorts

 Bob Dylan's Shadow Kingdom 'livestream' adds like everything he does to his legend and his myth. Was it really a livestream, did the band play the songs live, did Bob mime the words hidden behind a vintage microphone, why the all new band, does the Bon Bon Club in Marseille really exist? 

Whatever the answers to those questions and the attendant conspiracy theories are is immaterial as the legend and the myth has been added to and then some.

Billed as the songs of a young Bob Dylan the selection of songs was definitely a choice of songs from a younger Bob Dylan - nothing from the recent 'Rough & Rowdy Ways' album. The 80 year old Bob reading his back pages was in my view a wonderous thing. The interpretations musically followed a format that that we've grown accustomed to recently a precise and simple blues with a smattering of rockabilly on the more up tempo tunes. Not a note wasted and not a note more. His voice is richer with age, and seems like the most important instrument. Songs of his younger days even his middle age take on a poignancy and truth that sure he was aiming at back then but age has given the wisdom to deliver them effortlessly. He is like an old bluesman knowing instinctively how to deliver these songs and catch that balance between recognition and freshness. He delivered that whatever the myths wrapped up and spun out of this livestream are or become.

In 2017 Dylan released  'Triplicate' a three disc set of covers taken from the great American songbook and watching Shadow Kingdom I came to the conclusion that Dylan has no real need for the great American songbook. It's pretty obvious really, his canon of work is its own great American song book with its own memories, myths and legends.  

The Bonnevilles at Leith Depot

The Bonnevilles are a phenomenon - a punk blues whirlwind of drums/guitar/voice that lifts the roof, blows out the walls and fills you with joy. This duo out of Lurgan purvey a form of blues infused rock'n'roll with the volume way past 11 that is irresistible, lacerating and life affirming.  If you are going to see a band play down and dirty rock'n'roll you'd be hard pushed, very hard pushed to find a better band just now.

I've been lucky enough to see the Bonnevilles four times and each time I am astounded by their visceral attack and the sheer enjoyment they display as they storm through their songs. Tonight they started at full pelt, with hardly time to take breath between songs reaching a frenzied height with a inspired cover of 'Money (that's what I want)' before slowing things down with live staple 'Kneel at the Alter'. And that was only halfway through the set! More power to Andy and Chris who make the Bonnevilles a must see band. They'll be back - don't miss them!

Shout out too to tonight's support Mudlow. The perfect support with their take on swamp blues with a funky (in a good and dirty way obvs) backbeat they groaned, moaned and howled through a high power set and won new fans. Fabulous!  

https://thebonnevilles.co.uk/

http://www.mudlow.co.uk/