For Folk's Sake » Belle & Sebastian

Brian’s Mixtape #40: New York, New York

Brian — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:39:42 +0000

Brian’s recently gotten to thinking about how much of the music he loves is about the cities, suburbs and plains of the U S of A. He was going to do you a playlist about the whole darn country, but realised that that was biting off more than he could chew (which isn’t much – look at that beak). He’s decided to tackle the task city by city, instead. Wise owl.

Even after narrowing it down to the Big Apple, Brian struggled to keep the playlist to its proper length, so this week he brings you a feature-length compilation, complete with interval (during which he orders you to pop out for ice cream – if your boss won’t let you, RESIGN).

Here’s the tracklisting:

1. Leonard Cohen – Chelsea Hotel #2
2. Rufus Wainwright – 11:11
3. Suzanne Vega – New York is a Woman
4. The Mountain Goats – Lovecraft in Brooklyn
5. Jeffrey Lewis – The East River
6. Ella Fitzgerald – Manhattan
7. Bright Eyes – Train Under Water
8. New York Dolls – Subway Train
9. Vampire Weekend – A-Punk
10. Regina Spektor – Summer in the CityTom Waits – Coney Island Baby
11. Sufjan Stevens – The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
12. Kings of Convenience – Little Kids
13. Magnetic Fields – The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
14. Le Tigre – My My Metrocard

Intermission – The Carpenters

16. Stephen Fretwell – New York
17. Bishop Allen – The Chinatown Bus
18. The Wallflowers – 6th Avenue Heartache
19. Rufus Wainwright – Poses
20. Simon & Garfunkel – The Only Living Boy in New York
21. Interpol – NYC
22. The New Pornographers – Myriad Harbour
23. Stephen Malkmus – Vanessa from Queens
24. Sufjan Stevens – Chicago
25. Neva Dinova – Brooklyn
26. Belle and Sebastian – Piazza, New York Catcher
27. PJ Harvey – The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore
28. Thea Gilmore – Dance in New York
29. Nicole Atkins – Brooklyn’s on Fire
30. Jeffrey Lewis – The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song

And here’s the link to the whole dealio on Spotify: Brian’s Mixtape #40: New York, New York

Spotify is now freeeee. You can download it here for access to tons and tons of music. FFS has just splashed out for Spotify Premium and sadly admits that you really do notice the difference in sound quality. Vandross and Jackson are a pair of filthy liars.

Brian’s Mixtape #35: Leave the Animals Out of It

Brian — Tue, 25 May 2010 10:35:10 +0000

Following a delectable week of Joni Mitchell, Brian’s allowed his hippy side out of the oak tree for a pad around the forest floor. Now, don’t get Brian wrong: he’s not about to give up his beloved dormouse suppers. He has been thinking a lot about lentil-munching, Haribo-avoiding vegetarians a lot over the weekend, and for that reason he began to notice some interesting messages in many of his favourite songs.

Some are rather subtle, others (Morrissey, we’re looking at you) not so subtle, but all the songs in his playlist this week are in some way related to taking care of the animals, and not eating them. No need to follow the moral imperative though – Brian certainly isn’t – just enjoy the fact that, on top of sharing a theme, they’re all pucker songs.

1. Herman Dune – Pet Rabbit
2. God Help the Girl – Musician, Please Take Heed
3. The Smiths – Meat is Murder
4. Jeffrey Lewis – Life
5. The Beach Boys – Vegetables
6. Anton Barbeau – Quorn Fingers
7. Belle and Sebastian – Meat & Potatoes
8. Of Montreal – Vegan in Furs
9. The Pernice Brothers – Cruelty to Animals
10. Butcher Boy – React or Die
11. Willy Mason – Where the Humans Eat
12. Efterklang – Prey and Predator

Click the link for the Spotify playlist: Brian’s Mixtape #35: Leave the Animals Out of it

Spotify has finally heard Brian’s pleas for a free service and launched Spotify Open, which is rather lucky as the kind folk who’ve been donating their Spotify invites to you readers seem to be running out a bit now. Download Spotify Open.

Brian’s been making these playlists for as long as he can remember. If you’d like to catch up on his previous efforts, take a look at our mixtape section.

The Folk Artist Twitter Directory

Stephen W Thomas — Thu, 06 May 2010 08:30:09 +0000

Below is our attempt at a comprehensive directory of folk artists currently on Twitter – of course, we aren’t Twitter deities and as such will almost certainly have missed out on certain artists. Let us know if you can think of any tweeting folk musicians in the comments below.

Akron/Family

Angus and Julia Stone

Asthmatic Kitty (Label)

Brian: FFS’s Mixtape-Making Owl

Broadcast 2000

Caitlin Rose

Cherbourg

Colin Meloy (Decemberists)

Damien Rice (PR Account)

Dev Hynes (Lightspeed Champion)

Divine Comedy (PR account)

Efterklang

Emmy the Great

Fanfarlo

FFS (Official Account)

Kurran & the Wolfnotes

Laura Marling (PR account)

Lisa Hannigan (PR account)

Lisa Mitchell

Lissie

The Living Sisters (PR account)

Local Natives

The Low Anthem

Midlake

Monsters of Folk (PR account)

The New Pornographers

Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy)

Peggy Sue

Rebecca Taylor (Slow Club)

Rufus Wainwright (PR account)

She & Him (PR account)

St. Vincent

Sweet Billy Pilgrim

The Swell Season (PR account)

The Swell Season (Glen Hansard)

For Folk’s Sake’s festival calendar

Lynn Roberts — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:28:17 +0000

We’ve gone through the folkier end of the festival calender, and hereby bring you our picks.

You won’t find any news on Glastonbury or Reading and Leeds, mind. We’re here to tell you about the things you might not have heard about yet.

And what a selection there is this year. You can see Bob Dylan and Laura Marling share a stage at one-day festival Hop Farm in Kent. The always wonderful End of the Road is bringing the legendary and elusive Diane Cluck over from the US as well as playing host to FFS’s favourite band in the world, The Mountain Goats.

For those who like their festivals crossed with city breaks, Open House is putting on an astonishing series of gigs in Belfast including Seasick Steve and Old Crow Medicine Show. And if you’ve got your tastes firmly set to folk of all kinds, the Divine Comedy, Donovan and Johnny Flynn play Moseley Folk Festival, which mixes traditional and new folk music in Birmingham.

Latitude is well on its way to getting the full folk set with Laura Marling, Noah & the Whale and Mumford & Sons all booked to play and also features chuckles from our favourite comedian Josie Long. Lounge on the Farm is putting on our live act of the moment, Cocos Lovers.

And finally, Green Man has got Joanna Newsom. That’s all I’m saying about that.

We don’t want you to have any nasty surprises when it comes to ticket costs so we’ve added booking fees and posting and what not into the prices below. Happy camping!

21-23 May
Wood Festival
Braziers Park, Oxfordshire
Peggy Sue, Cate Le Bon, Frank Turner, Tunng, Fionn Regan
Weekend ticket £72.74 (incl fees) link

3 July
Hop Farm Festival
Hop Farm, Kent
Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Mumford & Sons, Seasick Steve, Laura Marling, The Magic Numbers
Day ticket without camping £76.25 (incl fees) link

9-11 July
Lounge on the Farm
Merton Farm, Canterbury
Cocos Lovers, Fionn Regan, Jesca Hoop, Tunng
Weekend ticket (incl fees & postage) £103.95 link

15-18 July
Latitude
Henham Park, Suffolk
Laura Marling, Midlake, Belle & Sebastian, Richard Hawley, Noah & the Whale, Grizzly Bear, Jonsi, Mumford & Sons, Frank Turner and comedy from Josie Long
Weekend tickets £167.20 (incl fees) link

13-15 August
Summer Sundae
De Monfort Hall & Gardens, Leicester
Fionn Regan, Fanfarlo, Johnny Flynn, Laura Veirs, Lissie, Local Natives, The Low Anthem, Mumford & Sons, Tunng, The Wave Pictures
Early Bird Weekend tickets £96 (incl fees & postage) link

20-22 August
Green Man Festival
Glanusk Park, Brecon Beacons
Joanna Newsom, Flaming Lips, Field Music, Fionn Regan, First Aid Kit, Matthew & the Atlas, The Smoke Fairies, Caitlin Rose
Weekend ticket £131.45 (incl fees & postage) link

3-5 September
Moseley Folk Festival
Moseley Park, Birmingham
Donovan, The Divine Comedy, Sparrow & the Workshop, Beth Jeans Houghton, The Low Anthem, Johnny Flynn, Cut-A-Shine
Weekend tickets £83.95 (incl fees & postage) link

7-12 September
Open House Festival
Various venues, Belfast
Seasick Steve, Wilco, The Felice Brothers, Field Music, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Low Anthem, AA Bondy
Events individually ticketed, see website

10-12 September
End of the Road
Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset
Iron & Wine, The Low Anthem, The Mountain Goats, The New Pornographers, Diane Cluck, The Antlers, Deer Tick
Weekend tickets £135 (incl postage) link

This list will be updated when announcements are made.

Is there anything we’ve missed? Let us know below.

Brian’s Mixtape #25: Hello, Sunshine

Brian — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:15:39 +0000

Every discerning folk fan’s foul of choice, Brian Wilson II, is pleased to announce that spring has most definitely sprung. He’s spent most of the morning being dragged around a meadow by a fresh-born lamb in whose fleece his talons became most unfortunately entangled, and yet his pleasure in the changing of the seasons remains unassuaged.

For that reason, this week’s playlist is quite the joy-fest. If you’ve just been dumped/fired/treated rather rudely by the young man who made your afternoon coffee, this’ll perk you up. Either that or the unbounded exuberance that spring inspires in Brian’ll annoy you so much you’ll want to stick daffodil stalks in your eyes.

Let’s hope for the former. Here’s the tracklisting, with the Spotify link below. Happy spring!

Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring
Monsters of Folk – Dear God (Sincerely M. O. F.)
Belle and Sebastian – Another Sunny Day
Adam Green – Bathing Birds
The Lovin’ Spoonful – Daydream
Erland and the Carnival – One Morning Fair
Efterklang – Natural Tune
Air – Cherry Blossom Girl
Emmy the Great – The Easter Parade
Fairport Convention – Chelsea Morning
Giant Cloud – Rainbows
Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard – Bugs & Flowers
Eels – Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues

Link: Brian’s Mixtape #25: Hello, Sunshine.

If you’ve not got yourself registered on Spotify have a look at their website to learn more. And, if you need an invite (so you can use Spotify for free) let uncle Brian know in the comments section below and he will bestow one on you.

Have a flap around our mixtape section to find Brian’s previous efforts.

Brian’s mixtape #24: Because We Want To

Brian — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:03:54 +0000

Readers, we’re a little worried. After his absence a couple of weeks ago, Brian’s been acting a bit strangely. He used to be such a lovely tidy, polite owl but now Brian’s stomping about like a petulant teenager, his roost is an absolute shambles and he’s taken to shouting “boring” whenever he loses interest in a conversation. Frankly, it’s alarming.

We think you’ll be able to see the change in Brian in this week’s mix. It’s thematically rather messy, and he’s chosen to call it “Because We Want To”. He’s stopped short of including Billie Piper’s 1998 atrocity of the same name though, thank goodness.

Despite Brian’s waywardness, he’s certainly not lost his wonderful taste in music. Every tune is a gem. FFS is going to be listening to this for a long time to come.

Stars – Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
Eels – Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living)
Regina Spektor – Fidelity
Amadou & Mariam – Mouna
Joni Mitchell – Night In The City
Field Music – Them That Do Nothing
Belle and Sebastian – Roy Walker
Alela Diane – The Pirate’s Gospel
Band – Up On Cripple Creek
Jackson C. Frank – Blues Run The Game

And here it is in all its rebellious glory on Spotify (which Brian says should be renamed Spotif-awesome – he’s not good with puns…) Brian’s Mixtape #24: Because We Want To

Have a flap around our mixtape section to find Brian’s previous efforts.

Brian’s Mixtape #21: An Education

Brian — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:53:09 +0000

Although his primary love is, obviously, all forms of beautiful music, Brian’s a bird with more than one string to his bow. He likes nothing better than curling up in his nest on a grey winter’s day with a good book. He’s not fussy – fiction, non fiction, myth, legend or Modernist tome. He’s read them all.

That’s why this week, he’s bringing you a mixtape with a difference. Each of the songs in Mixtape #21 is either about or inspired by a novel, play or story Brian has enjoyed in recent years. He’s even gone so far as to make you all an accompanying reading list, which comes as highly recommended as the music.

Enjoy broadening the ol’ brain boxes…

Noah and the Whale – Jocasta (Sophocles - Oedipus Rex)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Lyre of Orpheus (Pindar – Pythian Odes)
David Cronenberg’s Wife – A Bad Feeling about Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy – Anna Karenina)
Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights)
The Smiths – Cemetry Gates (John Keats – Complete Works and W.B.Yeats – Complete Works).
The Low Anthem – Charlie Darwin (Charles Darwin – Origin of Species)
The Divine Comedy – Our Mutual Friend (Oscar Wilde – Our Mutual Friend)
Laura Marling – Your Only Doll (Sigmund Freud – Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria)
Belle and Sebastian – Marx and Engels (Marx and Engels – The Communist Manifesto)
Emmy the Great – First Love (Samuel Beckett – First Love)
Klaxons – Gravity’s Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon – Gravity’s Rainbow)

Here’s the Spotify Link: Brian’s Mixtape #21: An Education

Have a snoop around our mixtape section to find Brian’s previous efforts.

For Folk's Sake » Belle & Sebastian

Brian’s Mixtape #40: New York, New York

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Brian’s Mixtape #35: Leave the Animals Out of It

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The Folk Artist Twitter Directory

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For Folk’s Sake’s festival calendar

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Brian’s Mixtape #25: Hello, Sunshine

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Brian’s mixtape #24: Because We Want To

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Brian’s Mixtape #21: An Education

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