New Roky Erickson

News filtered out a few months ago of a new Roky album backed by Okkervil River, a band from his native Austin, Texas. Today we can hear the first fruit of this union and thankfully its a winner. Pitchfork have posted an MP3 of a song “Goodbye Sweet Dreams” from the forthcoming album which will be called “True Love cast Out All Evil.” From the opening it’s vintage Erickson and the band play a wonderfully sinister off kilter beat with squalling guitars while his vocals which include references to Pentagrams are almost as good as they have ever been.
The album will come out in the UK on Chemikal Underground. Hopefully its all as good as this offering. Head on over to Pitchfork and grab a listen.

Radio Free Song Club

Isn’t the internet great. I had this sent to me, podcasts from a bunch of esteemed folk (Victoria Williams, Freedy Johnston, Laura Cantrell, Peter Holsapple included). You can download a set of songs and read comments on them by the performers. Sign up and get them in your mailbox on a monthly basis, free! The oh so American presenter might be a little bit too cheesy to start with but persist and there are some gems here. Peter Blegvad’s “I had A dream, assisted by Andy Partridge” for example is excellent.
Check it out here
Radio Free Song Club

Celtic Connections – Connections

It’s February and Celtic Connections is over for another year. By all accounts it was a success and it certainly gets great press locally. I only managed one gig (shame indeed) but as with almost everything these days the good old interweb allows armchair assholes like me to dip into the goings on for as long as the links last. So here is some video of one of the bands I did see, the Wiyos and a gig I did want to see, Robby Hecht.

Robby Hecht and Jordan Hamlin

The Wiyos

Finally, one I caught on the telly, Kenny (King Creosote) Anderson singing Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice.
Kenny Anderson