Francz V’s Neighborhood

Robert Fisher Interview

Interview: Lee Edwards

Photography: Keith Wheeler

The Garage, London UK September 18th 2009

Keith [Photographer] and I are led out the mayhem that is band load-in to a peaceful nearby local park by WGC helmsman, Robert Fisher. He seem on good form and as always is warm and friendly. Nursing a large takeout coffee he’s ready to talk.

Paper Covers Stone, the new album. Back to basics?
Yeah I guess kind of. I would argue that the last couple of years us touring as solo, duo, quartet kind of stuff. I been doing all that and mixing it with all kinds of stuff so I don’t think we’ve ever gotten that far away from it. But recording wise is quite interesting because it feels more like 3am [3am Sunday @ Fortune Otto's] than any other record. Part of that is the people on it. It’s the original guitarist Sean O’ Brian, the original viola player Dave Curry and myself and Pete Weiss was the engineer for this thing all the early stuff. It was done in Vermont in the woods. The first one was done in the woods in Massachusetts. As geography plays a fairly significant role in your surroundings, in the way you play and the way you relate to things, I guess that sorta leaks into the recording.

So whose the band for tonight?
Two members of the band are Iona and Paul from Doghouse Roses, plus Dave Curry and myself, just the four of us. Steve [Wynn] is off doing the Baseball Project with Minus 5 [with REM’s Peter Buck] in America at the moment. There was was no way he was going to pass on playing with Peter Buck. [laughter]

I’m pleased because its my chance to see Doghouse Roses live for the first time.
Oh Good.

This new album has a kind of intimacy that reminds me of seeing you and Erik Van Loo at the Thekla a few years back was that intentional?
Yeah Tom Bridgewater of Loose kept onto me about doing this type of record. He said I want you to do a show like the show you do with Erik. At first I kinda resisted the notion thinking that there’s probably all kinds of good reasons for not doing this. However the more I though about it the more it sorta made sense because its always been about there never been one perfect version of any song or one perfect version of the band, anything like that. Also The solo duo sets have this kind of lived in feel to them that I like a lot. We don’t need thesecurity blanket of 7 or 8 musicians. I can make the set’s up as a I go and whose playing may just inform the choices I make. There’s kind of like an immediacy to that, sort of like that lived in fell that I just mentioned. I wanted to capture that in the studio. Its not that easy to do. A lot of bands talk about it. But I always strive to do it, and I think we got close on a number of occassions, but I wanted to see how chemical kinetic connective we could make it feel. Still make it feel like it was a proper recording though and not just a live thing you know.So that’s what we did I went into the studio and just started playing without anything in mind as to what I was going to play. Try to keep a set in mind more that anything else. And in two days I think we did 18 songs, and that was it.

You have a substantial back catalogue. How did you make the choice of what went on the album? I believe there 3 new songs and the rest are not. How easy was it making the choice?  
It was just kind of instinctual. Kind of like how I would play a set. I don’t sit down and make a set list I just decide what to play after I’ve played the previous song. Some times I decide to play with my fingers and sometimes with a pick and sometimes with the back of my thumbnail. Different things, you just decide it in the moment depending on how you feel, and I like that. Risk taking, that feel that it may not work. Sometimes it doesn’t work you know. I think we’ve talked about this before. I like...the reason I make music is because when I was young and seeing music I love the notion that you were in the room with something that was temporal, that wouldn’t exist after that, it was gone. You were witness to something that was impermanent, that no longer exists afterwards. It only exists in your memory, and you shared it with however many people were there with you, and that’s it. I love that and I think that’s partially why this record works for me. This record has that feeling. You couldn’t sit down and reproduce that record again in front of microphones if you tried to because it was about the time, the day, people who were there, the studio, the woods, the coffee, the cheese, the cigars, the whatever. [laughter] It was about that stuff. It was also about where I was at at that particular moment. The songs. Something like Soft Hand on this record is totally different from the better know recording. I think that’s fun... and that’s in keeping with Willard Grant. Just a remix or re-work of our stuff didn’t make any sense to me. But to do it this way like it has the immediacy of a live set... decision making on the fly made sense because that’s very much about what the band is about. It also gave a me a really good excuse to work with Sean and Dave again.  

They do seem really right for this project. I remember going away after talking to Dave when he was on tour with Thalia Zedek and saying you and Robert Fisher wouldn’t that be fantastic. He said that you already had and I replied yes I know but do it again. Listening to him live it struck me how his style was so well suited to your songs.        
He’s kind of a wild card you let him do what he does. He’s unlike anybody else and its brilliant and amazing.

But that wild card suits you doesn’t it.
Oh absolutely. I love the notion of... a couple of sets of this tour he said to ‘I didn’t think you were going to be that noisy‘ and he adds ‘well it was kind of an acoustic thing right‘. And I’m going umm yeah. And keeps saying it was noisy. And I’m like yeah. I mean this idea of us as this kind of folk alt country thing is wrong, were far closer to Wire and The Velvets than we are to Hank Williams. I like Hank Williams but we share more in common with bands like Black Flag. So it shouldn’t surprise people to much.

I also notice, on the album, that you did The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me, a Tom Waits song.
It’s a really great Tom Waits song. I started doing it about a year or two ago with Erik, and it’s really fun with him because he gets really insane on his double bass. He’s like bowing against what I’m doing and I’m basically holding down two notes and the bass on the guitar. he’s just going crazy up against it and it’s great fun to do it’s really thing. I sort of change it to a swinging kind of thing. Tom’s version is spoken word and great and insane and dark and all that stuff, but I just try to add a little bit of me into it and see what happens, and hopefully it was reverential at the same time.

It seemed that it was the perfect closer for the album.
I agree. But its hard you know because CDs are not made for that sort of thing. Its much nicer if you’ve got a piece of vinyl that you’re sequencing. Its good it worked.

When I last saw you you were on the road with 11 other people. This must be easier to manage.
Well none of them needed baby sitting but there was a an element of crowd control. It also include my 16 year old niece who I was responsible for so...

But I was watching that show with great interest because there were a lot of players who I really like. But I was struck that maybe this might hamper what you can do with a smaller unit.   
The more musicians you have the more you have to plan the chaos, the improvisational elements, but you can still do it. Look at Sun Ra. We did 12 of those shows. I think if we’d done 40 it would i think it would have been a remarkable ensemble. We had things going on between the strings and the horns and piano stuff. Every night was different. That’s why it was great to have Howe [Howe Gelb] along because its different every time he sit down at the piano. With different audiences he has a different relationship. So that was another really wild card I really loved on that tour. An orchestra thing can seem a little arranged I guess.    

Like Howe you seem to like living vicariously on the edge.   
Well I thanked him for it. A few years ago in Boston we sat down together and had dinner together. I thanked him for providing me with a model and a bunch of other country and jazz players etc. A model that said you can do it this way. He said to me ‘you might want to hold on your thanks because its hard to describe what this is and sometimes it can confuse people’. I understand what he means by that but it doesn’t mean I’d change it for half a minute. The important thing to know is what he does is brilliant. We all share this thread. We’re all trying to live in the moment that we are in, musically and as writers and artists. We’re all trying to be the best crafts people we can be at that particular moment. We’re also trying to be the most present we can be. The most amount of directness and honesty. The most connectedness to why we are doing this. It doesn’t matter whether we are performing on stage or in the studio, sitting and talking with somebody or whatever. That’s something that the people I work with all share. That’s not common in music. A lot of music is about sustaining image and suchlike. Things that have very little to do with inspiration and clarity and in the present.

A new Willard Grant album is like what’s going to happen here.   
Yeah like you don’t know. Hopefully people who follow the band will know that it will be good. But I like that they will say ‘I wonder what he’s done now’. That’s our objective to be the wild card. I’m also accept responsibility for the notion that not everybody’s going to like everything. Pilgrim Road is an example of that. From what I gather, in this country at any rate, the record polarised fans of the band. Some people don’t like it at all. It’s a risky little record so that’s OK. I remember having a discussion with someone in New Zealand after a show and he was suggest that I had outreached my ability, but how he was such a big fan and all that. He had 5 of our records which is fine. The I asked him how many times he had listened to it and he confessed just the once. I suggested to him that maybe he should give more of a chance if he was such a big fan [laughter]. I remember when I first listened to Tonight’s The Night I thought mmm I don’t know this is uncomfortable but the more I listened to the more I discovered how stunningly brilliant that record was and how there is no more pure example of Neil Young on vinyl or recorded anywhere. It’s such a great instinctive record.           

A new song on the album Preparing For The Fall has a real Armageddon feel to it. Do not listen to this in the dark [laughter]. For me it is really the centre piece of the album. It rose up and became my favourite track.     
It’s in the middle because it’s like a sneaky punch. I knew there were only 3 really new recordings, new songs on here and I. I mean the rest is new but familiarish territory for people. I was trying to balance it but by putting that in the centre I was giving people something serious meat and potatoes in the centre to deal with. It’s an interesting song because I wrote on drive down from my Dad’s house. My Dad lives in Carson City in Nevada, and I was driving very early in the morning down the Eastern Sierra Nevada's through the mists and all the stuff going on in the early morning. The Elk herds and all sorts of things. I wrote the song during the drive, it was about an eight hour drive. I just kept writing it while I was driving. I had it don e about the 5th hour and then it was just trying to keep all my memories as I kept driving. It was one of those songs that was almost an hallucination. One of those things that you’re just driving and it happens to you. I like it, it’s not an easy song to do or to sing and even to listen to. We were just talking about Neil Young and I like to think it’s a minor Neil Young song in a way [laughs]. It could have shown up On The Beach or something. It has that fuzzy, slightly out of focus, feel to it that I like a lot.

A bit like drugs.     
Our music's not like drugs it is drugs. [laughter]

Its now time for Robert to get back to the venue, which is just across the road. As we are about to set off we are suddenly joined by viola player Dave Curry who has been in the park all the time. Later Keith shows me a photo which has Robert blurred out to bring the background in focus and there, identity unknown to Keith at the time of shoot the pic, is Dave Curry sitting in the middle distance reading a book. The inset on the pic at the head of this interview shows that shot. So wishing Robert and Dave well for the evening, which will also include an opening set from Doghouse Roses plus a support set from The Duke and The King, we head off for some food.

Willard Grant Conspiracy Live

with The Duke & The King and Doghouse Roses 

Review: Lee Edwards

Photography: Keith Wheeler

The Garage, London UK September 18th 2009

When we first arrived we came in through the load-in area for bands. This time we enter through the front. For some reason, unlike last night (Richmond Fontaine) security has been stepped up and everyone is searched. Keith's bottled water is taken from him. The staff are polite but pedantic and Tom from Loose has to be called down when they appear not to have any record of a photographer being included in our passes. Eventually we are allowed in but informed that there are photography restrictions that limit the number of photos that can be taken. This doesn't look promising.

It is a typical Friday evening in at the recently re-furbished venue in Islington, North London. The mood seems pretty much like last night which was friendly enough.

First up are acoustic folk duo Doghouse Roses, who will also be playing with Robert Fisher later. They are Paul Tasker on guitar with the the formidably powerful vocals of Iona MacDonald. They are treated pretty much like most acoustic support acts and ignored. There is a groundswell of Willard Grant fans there who appreciate their set, myself included. My first chance to see them both live.

After a break The Duke And The King hit the stage. We reviewed and interviewed them on their first British visit back in May of this year at Bush Hall. Since then they have sorted out what look to be a permanent 4 piece band led by Simone Felice (The Duke). Robert Burke (The King) now plays bass, Nowell Haskins (The Deacon) is on drums. They are joined by the vivacious Sime Stone on violin. All four sing and they have a great four part harmony thing going from the start. Sime's sensuous violin playing reminds me of Scarlet Riviera's playing with Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Tour. They seem to have worked on their live set which is simpler and more dynamic. Whilst they concentrate on recent album Nothing Gold Can Stay they also include a fine Neil Young cover, Helpless. Its good to see them again and they acquit themselves well.

After a break Willard Grant take to the stage. From the start this is a subdued set with material drawn from their fabulous recent album Paper Covers Stone. They are all seated except for Dave Curry. Excellent versions of Ghost Of The Girl In A Well, Soft Hand and a stately Fare Thee Well do nothing to engage parts of the audience hell bent on being rowdy. Even a slow burning Velvet Underground like Preparing For The Fall, with Curry's demented John Cale viola fills seems to help. The continued rudeness of parts of the audience is totally fucking annoying. Even protests from those enjoying the set seems to fall on deaf ears. Eventually Robert and co have had enough and cutting the set short leave the stage.

Post Gig Note 

Since then I have emailed Robert and he confessed that "I suspect it was one of the worst ones we've ever done in London. the crowd there was certainly more into themselves than us...a singularly bad pairing."

In a recent review from Uncut (It was a Club Uncut gig) Alan Jones, who seems to focus on The Duke And The King's part of the evening, gives short shrift to the protests whilst admitting that whilst he found "the racket" as "irritating as fuck" he doesn't seem willing to stand up for a band that they have previously championed. He protest that "But if these people are indeed prepared to pay that kind of money, what can you do?" Well Alan there was a significant part of the audience that also paid serious money to see Willard Grant. Don't they count?

If you were to go out to the theatre or cinema or an increasing number of respected music venues you would be thrown out if you made the kind of thoughtless racket that these morons seemed happy to indulge in. The venue whilst eager to have security checks didn't seem to care once the punters had parted with their cash. This is a venue that ElectricGhost will avoid in the future, if possible unless like other venues it gets its act together.

  

Willy Vlautin Interview

Interview: Lee Edwards

Photography: Richard Neuberg

The Garage, London, UK  September 17th 2009

I head for the gig ahead of time to catch some time post sound check with Richmond Fontaine frontman Willy Vlautin for an interview. This will be the first time I have met him and seen the band live. I am also due to meet musician Richard Neuberg, with whom I am staying for this extended London visit and who is doing the photography honours for the evening. I hook up with Chris Metzler who runs Richmond Fontaine's UK label Decor Records. He has arranged for us to use the upstairs area at the venue for the venue. I collect Willy and we head upstairs. He seems friendly and happy to talk.

I’m always interested in where bands got there names.
Ah... Richmond Fontaine was a guy that Dave Harding (bass) met when he lived down in South America for awhile, in Brazil. He met this ex-patriot guy name Rich Fontaine who was kinda an angry backwoods guys who ended up down there. He befriended him and got in a lot of trouble with this guy Richmond Fontaine. We thought it was really funny, the stories he told, so we named the band after him. You never think a band’s going to last more that six months and we’ve been going for fifteen years [laughter].

We’ll come to your music in a minute but I’d like talk a bit about your work as a novelist. I reviewed your first two novels (The Motel Life and Northline). Which comes first for you the writing or the music influencing the writing.
I started writing songs when I was fourteen pretty intensive. I’d also written some short stories as a kid. I was never very good at school, but I was always a fan of the novel. But I always thought that you had to be like Hemingway and have  fantastic life or you had to be really smart. Go to Cambridge, go to Yale. Be rich. I barely got through school. When I was 20 I found this songwriter called Kelly, Australian songwriter and he wrote a song based on a Raymond Carver short story called So Much Water so Close To Home. The song based on that was called Everything’s Turning White. It changed my life. I went down to the bookstore and bought a Raymond Carver book of short stories and when I was twenty on man I wrote all the time. I wrote story after story and my songs kinda reflected that. I used to write country punk short tunes and then when I started to write stories my songs got all story oriented. It freed me up. I wrote my first novel when I was 22/23. It was horrific and everything. I’ve always written I just never showed them to anybody. The band would beat me up enough. My hobby was writing stories. I liked keeping it to myself. But I eventually met an agent because the band was doing better and I figured that was a gift from God that I should show her one of my novels. She was smart enough to know how to sell it.               

Well I really enjoyed both of them and I’m really looking forward to the new one (Lean On Pete). I kinda hear Raymond Carver in there but there other American writers too. One that comes to mind is Cormac McCarthy.
Yeah I came to Cormac McCarthy later on. I’m a huge fan. I love his sense of the West. But Carver is the reason I started writing. Carver is like telling me my life story. Now I live 10 miles from where Carver was born. So Carver’s always been an inspiration. Another big inspiration for me is William Kennedy, the Albany New York Writer. He’s writer that I aspire to be although I don’t that I’m smart enough. Other guys I admire are John Steinbeck, Barry Gifford, Flannery O’Connor stuff like that. Writers like Jim Thompson, the great crime novelist. I love that stuff. My greatest love has always been those writers.

I have a favorite writer. An Irish guy who writes noirish American crime novels with a twist of the supernatural, John Connolly.
Yeah I met him before he’s a really cool guy.

I love people who mix music art and literature up.
You know the movie Paris Texas. I hadn’t watched that movie in 10 or 15 years but I listen to the soundtrack all the time. I kept that story, Harry Dean’s character [Harry Dean Stanton] alive for years. That’s what I wanted to do with Northline by putting the soundtrack with it. I figured that if you read a novel and like it and also you like the music. Then when you listen to the music maybe you’ll think a little bit about the story.

Moving onto the music I notice that you are play as a five piece, your fifth member is usually Paul Brainard. Is that the case tonight?
Tonight we’re playing with Ralph Huntley. He’s the piano player on the new record[We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River]. He’s played on a lot of our other records. He’s like out favourite piano player. We just took a chance to see if he would tour with us, we didn’t think he would because he doesn’t tour very often. But he said yes, and we’re very happy to have him with us. Its been an honour to play with him. 

I first got onto you musically with the album Post To Wire. It reminded me of the use of the word ‘The Wire’ in the movie The Sting. Do you stoll songs from your older albums.
Yes we always try to play songs from various albums. Somebody always like one record better than another. As a fan you always have your favourite one. So we got to play songs off all of them. Post To Wire was the first record we did with JD Foster. He’s a great producer and has been a really good friend to the band.

Taking a big leap to your current album like your two previous albums it has a rather long title, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River. 
Yes [laughs] I like really long titles.

When you started out a lot of publications like Uncut labelled you Americana, is that a label your still comfortable? You seem to have gone through a lot of changes. This new album sounds a lot rockier. 
Yes there’s not a lot of country in it. But we have a lot of pedal steel on our records. I can see why people see us as an alt-country band. I just don’t worry about stuff like that. We are who we are and we try to change as we want to. I always want to remain true to my heart and that works for us.

You mentioned JD Foster earlier he seem to be almost another member of the band.
When we met JD it was a stroke of luck. He took a chance on us. He didn’t have to. He’s a good personal friend of mine as well as being an amazing producer. For Thirteen Cities he said “man don’t you get tired of the weather in the north west”     and said yes ’cause it does rain a lot and quite miserable. He lives in New York City and said “man it drives me crazy living in New York City in the winter who wants to do a record in Tuscon”. I’m like alright we thought we could afford it and thats the whole reason we went there, because he wanted to. Then I thought now  I can write desert songs and maybe I can have Calexico playing on it. So I got obsessed with writing songs about the West. I’m in love with Calexico and I think they’re a great band, one of my favourites. I really like Howe Gelb, Neko Case and all that stuff. So going down there was really fun. When Jacob Valenzuela plays on a song and Joey Burns takes a couple days out of his life to help you on your little record, it mean a lot to me. So yeah JD is the reason for all that.

It seems to me that there are several bands out there now whose vocalist is also a writer.
Well I’ve always been a writer as long as I’ve been a musician. I’m in the band for the camaraderie and the social aspects, but I love the novel more that I love anything else. My heart and soul lies with the novel. But at the same time my heart and soul lies with Richmond Fontaine.  I don’t see myself being a solo guy, my focus and my heart is with then now. 16:00

So this cellomobo instrument that debuts on this album [laughter] tell us about that.
Our drummer Sean [Oldham] and his brother Collin, these are two guys who can fix anything. Car breaks down and they fix it. Electrical problems, they fix them. I’m really nice to them [laughter]. So they also invent things. Collin is a professional cellist and he invented this instrument called a cellomobo which is like a wooden box with a bunch of wires and a strip of metal and he plays it. It goes through a computer program. Sounds really cool too.

So even with this new stuff you’ve still kept the essential Richmond Fontaine sound.
Yeah but I worry sometimes because I can write depressing or story orientated songs all day long but I worry about the band. This record especially sounds like what I believe Portland Oregon sounds like to me. I also wanted to write songs that the band would have fun playing on. They’ve been really nice playing some of my weirder folk stuff and long story songs. So I’ve been really wanting to write a bunch of songs that seem pretty fun to play.

There are a lot of song-writers who write about their inner pain but you’re more concerned with narrative.
I always felt...I was always ashamed of myself for complaining. So when I wrote songs complaining about my life I always felt guilty. My mother worked really hard, she worked the same job for 30 years. Really tried her best, so I started writing story songs. I could say the exact same thing, the things that were haunting me or troubling me. So instead of beating up my poor Mom, or my friends, a girlfriend or whatever I would write a story about it. I would change the person to be someone totally different, I would turn them into a 50 year old man instead of an 18 year old girl say. I could still say the same thing. Also as a fan I’ve always admired songs that drop me into a world and told me a story. That created a world I could disappear into...so as a young fan I lived for movies. Live for novels and records that could make me disappear. Because it save my life. When I was a kid, 13/14, Springsteen killed me because he had this dark but very romantic world. As a kid I just lived in it. It was a great comfort to me. In my own stuff I’ve wanted to the same. Sadly I’ve never got to the romantic part as much as Springsteen. I’ve been trying really hard. I want to write on the edge of disillusionment and hope. When I was younger and surlier and drunker would get really dark and now I’m beggin‘ ’em to get a little lighter [laughter], so this record really...I was really into a guy called Richard Holly when I wrote these songs. I was listening to a song called Coals Corner at least once or twice a day. I really wanted to write a song like that. Then I wrote We Used to Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River and to me that sounds like a love song. In my own way...as close as I can get I guess.

What you write about is what you know, primarily the North West of the USA. How much does where you live influence what you write?
Like I said you you could transplant me anywhere I just want the listener to feel they’re there. When you listen to a Drive By Truckers record you’re in the South. Sometimes the succeed magically like Decoration Day, a great Southern rock masterpiece in my opinion. When they do good at that they tell you these stories and you believe ’em. Suddenly by putting a record on you’re in the South living with these guys and these relationships what have you. That what I tried to do with Thirteen Cities and thew SouthWest and the desert and with The Fitzgerald it was a casino town where I grew up, Reno Nevada. Just to create this world. In We Used to Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River I was struggling to find a home you know. When I was writing these songs my mother died...I have a brother but I don’t really have a hometown or anything like that. So I was trying to answer some of that with the record too. But yeah sense of place has always been important to me. Sometimes I over do it and sometimes I fail at it but when it works I think it makes the listener believe they’re really there. Like I said earlier Calexico does that great. They create a world for it. If you want to go to where they live all you gotta do is put a record on and you’re in Tuscon. The desert and great Mexican music.

I think they’re absolutely magical...
...yeah me too.

So you’ve got the new novel Lean On Pete coming out at the end of the year.
Actually it comes out February 2010. Its on Faber again. You can’t say enough great things about Faber. They’re really nice people. You go there and I think they’re all really proud to work at Faber. Its a badge of pride that they work there. Everyone there has been really good to me.   

So what are your future plans then.
We’re touring then we go home and pay a few shows. The we come back and play Ireland and Spain, and then we take a break and me and and one of the other guys is going to go in the US. Just a lot of touring. I’ve just finished the draft of another novel. Then next year we’re probably touring till the summer and then I’ll probably take a year off and hide out. What I do best [laughs].

So what about locking yourselves in a cabin, like Fleet Foxes and The Duke and the King and working on something.
I think all we’d if we did that would be to drink [laughter]. When we drink we don’t like playing music we just like hanging out...and we like to listen to music. As a band we don’t work well when we drink because all we want to do is to listen to other people’s music and drink more. We’re kind of a professional drinking band when we drink, we drink. So when we work together it’s always best that everyone goes home to their wives and girlfriends to yell at them if they get too crazy, then we work a lot harder that way.

So last question. You write these amazing stories and songs. How much are the band a part of this. I take it that its not just here’s some songs now lets write some music around it. 
What happens usually is that I’ll write the basic song, and I’ll have it as a folk song say. Then I bring to the guys and then we just try different things with it. At this point I check my ego at the door. Some songs I’ll fight for to the end, but those are usually songs the guys like anyway. But if I play a song and the guys don’t like it or get bored then I just chuck it. I might keep the lyrics but I move the melody. We work well that way and we’re getting better at that. They’re really nice to me about my lyrics and my songs. I’m pretty fortunate to be with a bunch of guys like that.

On that note, thanks Willy it’s been a pleasure to meet you.
Yeah man its been really good for me too.

At this point we are joined by Richard. He and Willy spend a bit of time talking and then with Willy off to prepare for the gig Richard and I head off to eat. He's not seen Richmond Fontaine before but is a fan of English singer songwriter Peter Bruntnell who is playing support tonight with his band.

Richmond Fontaine Live

Review: Lee Edwards

Photography: Richard Neuberg

The Garage, London, UK  September 17th 2009

Returning to the venue after our meal Richard and I get ready for the evening's music. Guitarist Dan Eccles comes up and hands me a set list for Richmond Fontaine's set. Willy had promised this but I'm really touch that they took out time to actually do it. I am still buzzing from the the interview with Willy. He had been warm, friendly with not a trace of rock star bullshit. The natural storyteller in him had made the interview really interesting.

Peter Bruntnell and band take to the stage. I have mostly seen videos of him in an acoustic setting. Playing with a band seems to work well for him and it's a good introduction to his music. I'll have to explore his recorded work more as up until now he's kinda passed me by as quite interesting but not someone I'm hugely taken with. The electric set also seems to enhance the Neil Young influences that affect his work. The crowd here tonight are obviously fans and they give him a suitably enthusiastic welcome.

After the break Richmond Fontaine amble on stage. Tonight the core band of Dave Harding, electric and upright bass; Sean Oldham, drums, percussion, backing vocals; Willy Vlautin, guitars, vocals and Dan Eccles, guitar are joined by their favourite piano player Ralph Stanley who has played on several of the albums including the new one We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River.

First up is White Line Fever and early song which is closely followed by We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River title song from the new album. What is obvious is that this is a band at the height of their powers. I've always been told that they they are fantastic live and hell they are amazing and on fire tonight. Between songs Willy talks about the songs in the same friendly easygoing way that he was in the interview. On occasions he is difficult to hear because sections of the crowd are obviously not interested in anything but themselves. Wankers!! As I will discover tomorrow at the Willard Grant gig this can only get worse, much worse!!

The band take us on a musical journey through their albums and all the usual favourites are there, Post To Wire, El Tiradito, The Gits and Lost In The World. The encores include Ruby and Lou, Barely Losing and 4 Walls.

The new album has some of the strongest work to date and this is reflected in a new confidence in their live work. They could have played all night as far as I was concerned. Utterly magnificent!!                               

Here is the latest addition to my growing collection of Christmas images on istockphoto.com. 

Here is another Christmas image on its way   Available NOW!  to be sold as royalty free on istockphoto.com.  Still a work in progress... but I'll post the finished product and updates for when its available to download.

The two newest files uploaded previously have been approved and are available on istockphoto: flamehead santa, here and beanie santa here.  

Some new images hopefully to be approved soon on Istockphoto.com.  I hope you'll enjoy them and many of you will find a use for them as Christmas comes closer...  First up is my design of FlameHead or sometimes called Flameboy, decked out in Santa clothing.  I thought he'd look great as Santa's helper,  what do you think?

Next is another revamped design (I didn't like him as much before, as he had a lot of weak lines in him and I beefed them up.  I thought a biker-style young Santa would be cool.  Well maybe not too young, after all his goatee is still white, but hey... The idea for the slogan "Sleigh to Live" just hit me and I went with it, so if its way stupid, deal with it :P  People can always just remove it if they buy the art once its approved.