Last Thursday saw the brilliantly modest Stornoway take to the stage to play a sold out gig at London’s ULU. Without fanfare they quietly assembled before our eyes amid a collection of tassled floorlamps, and began to create beautiful music…
Author: For Folk's Sake
Peggy Sue confirm UK and US tour and announce release of new single
The ever lovable folk trio Peggy Sue have returned from a European tour supporting Archie Bronson Outfit and without even pausing for breath, have announced both a headline tour of the UK and will also be off to the USA…
Live: The New Pornographers @ The Electric Ballroom, London
Last Wednesday, the New Pornographers took the stage of a packed Electric Ballroom for the first European date of their summer tour promoting new album Together, freshly released earlier this month. Together is the band’s first release since 2007 and…
Classic Album: Joni Mitchell – Hejira
“I’m traveling in some vehicle/ I’m sitting in some cafe/ A defector from the petty wars/ Until love sucks me back that way” Hejira represented a new peak of sophistication in Joni Mitchell’s writing when it appeared on Asylum Records…
Live: FFS @ The Great Escape
On paper, Brighton’s Great Escape is a rather extraordinary proposition. Take three hundred or so up-and-coming artists, sprinkle on a dusting of more established acts and spread them across a hotchpotch of 30 venues. While that’s bubbling away nicely, throw…
Classic Album: Joni Mitchell – Clouds
Clouds was Joni Mitchell’s second album and won her a Grammy for best folk performance in 1970. I didn’t know the album’s biography before I came to write this piece because when you come to an artist with a large…
Live: The Antlers @ The Scala, London
Kings Cross is an area lacking identity over and above being a major travel hub. The immediate vicinity is a tableau of inner city post-industrial decline and recent attempts at regeneration which have, in the main, failed. The venue for…
Joni Mitchell memories from a folkskeptic fan
Folkskeptic Alice Sage gives her heartfelt reasons why Mitchell’s music rules ok. When I was fourteen I bought a copy of Song To A Seagull for my mum’s birthday. But by then she had lost her singing voice to a…
Live: Babe Shadow @ Hammersmith Apollo, London
As I stood amongst the growing crowd in the opulent and massively-sized Hammersmith Apollo watching Babe Shadow take to the stage, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe about the place. Would The Babe Shadow, a small band…
Blog: Brian’s uncle Peter on the Joni/Bob rift
It’s been widely reported that Joni Mitchell called Bob Dylan a ‘phoney’ in a recent LA Times interview. Reading the whole of the article in question helps get the comments into context. The comments on Bob Dylan came after the…