Tag Archives: Americana

10.01.14
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Police Dog Hogan – Thunderheads

I have a friend who knows everything that there is to know about clouds. He could tell you whether something was a nimbus, a curious or a bilious (I’ve made these up) and let you know what sort of weather we might be due as a result.

When I first heard “Thunderheads” by Police Dog Hogan, such is my ignorance that I had no idea that a thunderhead referred to a cloud formation. But, a little search of the good old internet, told me that a thunderhead is one of those clouds, a Cumulonimbus, associated with thunderstorms and atmospheric instability.

This is a song about resilience. It’s a statement about strength in the face of adversity. “You do not frighten me”, sings lead singer, James Studholme, as the song builds to climax and refrain. Whatever thunderstorm or instability might be on the horizon is of little consequence because resolve has already been built from years of the same.

There’s eight of them in Police Dog Hogan. They create a feast of folk well suited to festivals. Some have called it ‘urban bluegrass’ but I’m not sure that offers the full picture. This is Americana with a very English twist. With guitars, banjos, mandolins, fiddles and trumpets, there’s no doubting their musical expertise. They’ve an average age greater than 40, so have had a few years to perfect such talent.

I’ve been listening to a preview of Police Dog Hogan’s third album ‘Westward Ho!’ (Released October 6th) for some time now. As a young boy, growing up in Dorset, there are tunes on it that immediately resonate. ‘West Country Boy’ offers a very English insight into what it’s like as a musician to tour the village halls and cider pubs in that neck of the world. Any song that manages to name-check Melksham and Mere within a country-folk framework is fine by me.

This video for ‘Thunderheads’ has some truly gorgeous locations in it. As the summer passes and we face the onset of Autumn, it’s worth thinking how all of us are going to give a good, old two-fingered salute to those clouds on the horizon. This is as good a place as any to start.

 

09.27.14
by

Joe Sundell – The Hat Thief

A word of advice from Sonic Breakfast this morning for all hat wearers – Should you ever be at a party with Joe Sundell you might want to keep an eye on your hat. Better still, keep it on your head unless you want to be walking home, bleary eyed and smelling of last nights excesses, with your pate exposed to the elements.

Joe has a mighty fine new album out (you can find it at his website), titled ‘The Hat Thief’ and I thought I’d ask him why he called it that:-

“I had a show in Kansas City at a place called Davey’s Uptown Ramber Club. It was one of these nights where there are like five bands on the bill and no one knows each other, but this one actually turned out pretty well, fans crossed over and got into the the bands they hadn’t necessarily come to see, and I hit it off with a couple of the other groups and we decided to all go hang out at the house of one of the local groups (I guess I won’t name names here). You know what happens next, lotsa drinking, music making, and all that good stuff and everybody wound up crashing in various uncomfortable places like the floor. Well the next morning I woke up super early, everybody was still asleep and as I was taking off I saw this hat lying around. I had lost my hat the night before (I always wear a hat) and I thoughtlessly picked up this hat and wore it out. Didn’t hear anything about it until I was going back to play at the same club in Kansas City some months later and started to get the word out, and that’s when I discovered that KC was “abuzz” (in the words of one of my friends there) with the news that I had stolen a certain drummers hat. He was not happy about it as I guess I would’ve expected if I had thought about it. I gave the hat back and things worked out, sort of, although those guys aren’t too fond of me, again as I guess you would expect since I stole something that belonged to one of them.

Now as I was putting out the album and thinking about a title, I thought about what the album represented to me. For me, it’s all about this character who’s struggling to find his way in the world and who at times doesn’t even think the world is worth saving. He’s had bad luck with love, he’s down on his luck, but he’s still hoping for that chance at redemption. It’s sort of like my ultimate starving miserable misunderstood artist album. Not without worth, but I had to recognize at some point that in real life, being that character wasn’t really working for me. It may have been who I was at the time, but I just can’t go through life that way. So finishing the album and reflecting on all that, naming it “The Hat Thief” was a way for me to encapsulate that notion that it was time to move on. I guess the incident with stealing the hat was also sort of representative of that person who just doesn’t give a shit about making a good life for himself, so it made sense in that way as well.”

And so it seems that Joe is now a reformed hat thief. He’s also another of these hard working, incredibly talented musicians that we’re often featuring on Sonic Breakfast. I’ve been listening to ‘The Hat Thief’ a fair bit since Joe appeared on my radar. It’s an album that’s firmly rooted in Americana but one that draws influence from the array of genres within; we get out and out country, a jazzy swing thing, a bit of blues and some rock n’roll as the album twists and turns.

That character who’s down on his luck is clearly identifiable within the album but he’s not so morose that it makes for an uncomfortable listen. There’s a definite strand of quirky, positive humour and hope running through. ‘Mr Z’ and ‘All My Life’ are the opening and closing tracks. They’re pretty representative of the journey the album takes you on.