Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

[DotCommunist]

I almost feel offended that you believe they are actually a folk band

They can't be, I don't like proper folk bands.

 

[sojourner]

They can't be, I don't like proper folk bands.

I didn't realise you liked boy bands I'd never have guessed

 

[stupid dogbot]

They can't be, I don't like proper folk bands.

They do have nice hats.

 

[futha]

What the is 'real' folk music!?

 

[matt m]

you're asking a dangerous question there my boy...

I'm someone who listens to almost nothing but "the real folk music" (well, actually a fair bit of improv, noise, dancehall and dubstep too, truth told, but anyway) I'm currently on a bit of an Irish jag: I'm digging Paddy Tunney, Len Graham, Packie Byrne and Micho Russell.

I'm actually thinking of booking a space on a Shirley Collins unaccompanied ballad singing workshop in April. Hardcore.

(Actually, not very hardcore at all, as Jude Rogers, a "music" "journalist" from the Guardian, wrote an article a few months ago about doing precisely the same thing)

 

[matt m]

anyway, fwiw I think Mumford & Sons are dull dull dull, David Gray territory indeed.

I thought Johnny Flynn was kind of interesting - nothing I need to hear ever again of course, but, y'know, some musical ideas and stuff. Like a public schoolboy's idea of Tom Waits. Which actually makes him pretty shit then, on reflection...

I dunno. I'm not convinced by any of em: Mumfords, Leisure Society, Danny & the Champions, whoever. They all just seem a bit nothing.

I like Smokey Angle Shades. I like Moon Music Orchestra. I like Garden City Project. They're all pop done on folk instruments, and done much better than all the rest of that raggle taggle lot.

 

[Dillinger4]

anyway, fwiw I think Mumford & Sons are dull dull dull, David Gray territory indeed.

I thought Johnny Flynn was kind of interesting - nothing I need to hear ever again of course, but, y'know, some musical ideas and stuff. Like a public schoolboy's idea of Tom Waits. Which actually makes him pretty shit then, on reflection...

I dunno. I'm not convinced by any of em: Mumfords, Leisure Society, Danny & the Champions, whoever. They all just seem a bit nothing.

I like Smokey Angle Shades. I like Moon Music Orchestra. I like Garden City Project. They're all pop done on folk instruments, and done much better than all the rest of that raggle taggle lot.

I agree with you, re: Tom Waits. Stewart Lee got it right when he said:

Stewart Lee, comedian, on Tom Waits

There’s a sticker on the front of Tom Waits’s new album from a review of the acclaimed £100-a-ticket Glitter and Doom tour, reading: “ ‘The greatest entertainer on Planet Earth’ — The Guardian”. This beats even the Evening Standard’s “Russell Brand is the closest thing we have to Lenny Bruce” in the crazy quote stakes. For here Waits is just an actor pedalling a watered-down, glammed-up, version of the genuinely avant-garde artists that he’s co-opted, such as Captain Beefheart, but in a vaudevillian form that places his invented persona in inverted commas and ensures, rather than marginal cult status, commissions from arts houses and the adulation of thrill-seeking squares who’d be scared by the real thing.

And the extra disc of “Tom’s quixotic ruminations” is a load of precisely rehearsed, E-grade, fake improvised comedy riffs and prewar Catskills stand-up schtick, given the flavour of art by being underscored by piano doodles.

 

[matt m]

no, I think you might have misread me there. I wasn't suggesting Tom Waits was a bit shit; I was suggesting that a posho captain-of-the-First-Eleven West London public school take on Tom Waits is a bit shit.

Mind you, haven't listened to any of Waits' albums since the one that had that brilliant song that goes 'Tonight I shave the mountain'.

 

[Dillinger4]

I cant hear any Tom Waits in Johnny Flynn.

I do agree with you about the rest though, it is all a bit nothing really.

 

[matt m]

well, not a direct rip-off at all - I mean his voice is more Nick Drake than Tom Waits for one thing - but just someone who clearly quite likes the instrumental arrangements and lyrics of Waits and Nick Cave. There's some brass bandy song about dead dogs, or something.

I suppose I bothered to listen to the Flynn album on spotify - once - cos I detected a bit of Fairports in there.

 

[Dillinger4]

well, not a direct rip-off at all - I mean his voice is more Nick Drake than Tom Waits for one thing - but just someone who clearly quite likes the instrumental arrangements and lyrics of Waits and Nick Cave. There's some brass bandy song about dead dogs, or something.

I suppose I bothered to listen to the Flynn album on spotify - once - cos I detected a bit of Fairports in there.

ahhh yeh, actually, I can see what you mean now.

I only really like one or two of his songs (Leftovers and Eyeless in Holloway), the others are a bit patchy and I could give or take. Those two seem to end up on various play lists that I make though.

 

[stupid dogbot]

I'd normally say I love Tom Waits, but to be honest, I haven't played anything by him for AGES.

Except that wonderful track he's done with Kool Keith, but it's not *really* folk...

 

[futha]

I like Smokey Angle Shades. I like Moon Music Orchestra. I like Garden City Project. They're all pop done on folk instruments, and done much better than all the rest of that raggle taggle lot.

Cool, will check those artists out

no, I think you might have misread me there. I wasn't suggesting Tom Waits was a bit shit; I was suggesting that a posho captain-of-the-First-Eleven West London public school take on Tom Waits is a bit shit.

Not the class argument again I don't see why it matters.

 

[Roadkill]

Of course they are not 'real' folk music.

Its a modern version of it.

Nah, they're just pop - nice enough, but IMVHO modern folk music is Show of Hands, Eliza Carthy, The Oysterband, Bellowhead etc etc ... all of them way more interesting than Mumford & Sons...

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Just heard these on festive 50 on dandelion radio. I really like little lion man

 

[twistedAM]

I dunno. I'm not convinced by any of em: Mumfords, Leisure Society, Danny & the Champions, whoever. They all just seem a bit nothing.

I like Smokey Angle Shades. I like Moon Music Orchestra. I like Garden City Project. They're all pop done on folk instruments, and done much better than all the rest of that raggle taggle lot.

Disagree with you on Danny & The Champs; he's a great songwriter and can sing. It's more americana than folk anyway.

As for the others (admittedly not that familiar with GCP) I'll raise you Here Comes The Landed Gentry.

 

[rekil]