Lloyd Cole Sings His Body (of songs) Electric

By Henry Lipput

Last Wednesday evening I had the great pleasure of seeing Lloyd Cole performing his solo electric show at City Winery in Pittsburgh. It was a packed house of like-minded and adoring Cole lovers.

Early on in the proceedings, Cole let us know he was working electric on this current tour because after 25 years of solo acoustic shows he felt the songs he had written were much better represented in an electric mode. He also let us know he hadn’t figured out how to play all of the songs he had played acoustic on the electric guitar. For starters there would be no songs that evening from his mid-90s output (which for me meant nothing from 1993’s Bad Vibes; later I thought ‘Which song from that album would I have chosen? Perhaps the single “Morning Is Broken”?).

What we did get was a generous helping of tunes from the first two Commotions albums, Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces. (Having listened to Easy Pieces for about 40 years I could never figure out where the title had come from but as Cole sang “Lost Weekend” and the lines ”I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it/Drop me and I’ll fall to pieces/ too easily” I finally got it.)

We only got two songs from the third and last Commotions album Mainstream but fortunately they were two of my favorite songs from the album: “Hey Rusty” and “Jennifer She Said” (but of course there’s also “Mr. Malcontent” and “Sean Penn Blues").”On “Jennifer She Said” Cole told us that because of his age he felt a bit awkward singing part of the song’s ending so he asks us to do it for him. Of course we would and so performed a rousing “ba ba ba ba da da da” as long as we needed to.

The other bit of audience participation came when Cole was about to sing “The Idiot” from his most recent album 2023’s On Pain. He told us there was a line in the song he couldn’t do as a solo performer because it was right on top of another line he was going to sing. Would we be game for singing “stop being drug addicts” in the right places? Of course we would! (Although we almost started again at the wrong time but all was forgiven.) We also got performances of the title track as well as “Night Sweats” and “The Loudness Wars” from the previous album Guesswork.

Cole did a deep-dive into his catalog with three songs from 2004’s Music In A Foreign Language: “My Other Life,” “Cutting Out,” and “No More Love Songs.” We also got “Like Lovers Do’ and “Baby” from Love Story. 

 From his self-titled first solo album we heard “Don’t Look Back,” “No Blue Skies,” and “Undressed” although only one song from the Don't Get Weird On Me Babe album (a choice that surprised me), “Butterfly,.”

It was great to see Cole again (I think this was my seventh time including with the full band for the first two solo albums). He was in excellent voice and his mastery of his songs on the electric guitar left nothing to be desired.

It appears that his concert in Boston on April 30^th is the last show in the US (so if you're anywhere near Boston this is you chance!) and then it’s off to Belgium, France, and then the UK. You can see all of the dates and how you can buy tickets here.

Bramwell Goes Pop

By Henry Lipput

“Problems” the debut single from the Cardiff-based band Bramwell is a 7-inch banger. It’s being released this weekend by Precious Recordings of London to accompany the band’s appearance at Wales Goes Pop.

Bramwell, made up of Tom Grogan on guitar and vocals, Avalon Vowles on bass and vocals, and Tom Drury on the drums, make a joyful noise on “Problems.”

But the B-side will no doubt get an equal amount of attention. Initially recorded by The Yardbirds in 1966 after Clapton left and before Page signed up, “I Can’t Make Your Way” was released on the album Yardbirds (or Over Under Sideways Down depending what country you bought it or Roger The Engineer what year you bought it.) The song’s original slow moving country lilt is a long way from the blues rock and psychedelic sounds for which the band was known.

Which makes Bramwell’s take on the song that much more of a treat. They take the Yardbirds version and truly make the song their own by turning it into what sounds like a mid-Sixties chart topping rave-up.

The Many Fazes Of John Andrew Fredrick

 By Henry Lipput

The always prolific John Andrew Fredrick (although he prefers being called a ‘"fuzzy janglepop genius”) and his excellent band of cohorts the black watch have been creating new music for more than 30 years. Their great collection of past triumphs, 31 Years Of Obscurity, was released in 2019 and is a must have for both old and new fans of the band.

Last year the black watch released the sprawling double album For All The World, a collection that seemed at times difficult to navigate (and I've been a diehard fan since 31 Years). This year we have been gifted with a single album, the terrific Varied Superstitions (digital: ATOM Records/Vinyl and CD: Blue Matter Records) and while more straightforward it’s also sprawling in its own way. The new album is a combination of “Rain”-like drones and the purest of pop (because like Fredrick I am also a massive Beatles fan you’ll find more than a few references to that group within this review).

“Faze” a song Fredrick would refer to as a “pop drone” and what I might call (and he might agree with) as having the influence of shoegaze.  There’s, along with electric guitars the sound of Indian music that’s been filtered through the music of a certain foursome. 

“Some People Will Believe” and “Living Backwards” has Fredrick and the band leaning into their love of pop. His affection for The Beatles makes the guitar centric “Living Backwards” a brother to the songs on Side 2 of Revolver ("And Your Bird Can Sing" perhaps?), 

It’s hard to make sense of “No I Shouldn’t” unless you have the album on vinyl (let's move some units!) and can play the song backwards like you can when you listen to “Revolution 9” on a vinyl copy of 'The White Album.’  On the other hand the album’s final track “Your Clothes, Sir” is gorgeous and melancholy made even more so with its beautiful guitar solo which brings to mind “And I Love Her.”