Here Comes the Coda: Green Man and Silver Jews
The popular culture website PopMatters.com has published a piece I wrote on the Green Man Festival and the Silver Jews, along with two new photos. Have a look:
The piece was edited rather against the grain of my sensibilities, and as soon as it’s a week old or so I’ll publish it here in the original. Meanwhile, I can bring you a part that didn’t make the cut - my overall verdict on the Green Man - along with another new festival picture. Read this once you’ve finished with PopMatters (it was supposed to have ended the piece):
Coda: In Memoriam Green Man 2006
Clearly, this festival was a great success from my perspective – which is nothing if not hopelessly rose-tinted. What did others make of it? Certain grumblings can’t be denied. The weather was appalling, especially on the Friday and Saturday. Nothing anyone could do about that, but it bears mentioning that nobody notices the weather at truly exceptional gigs. Next, there were few welcome distractions to augment the queuing for food and drink, the standing in the rain waiting for music, and the watching of music. Mind you, the food was good – how many Pie Minister pies did I eat in three days? – and that’s a significant consolation. But when there was no music, or any you were interested in (Circulus!), and you’d already surveyed the few merchandise stalls and their paltry wares – no, for the thousandth time, I do not want a candle-powered steamboat for my bath – another Pie Minister pie was all that remained, and even good, hot pie can grind you down.
The acts who didn’t appear on the main stage, meanwhile, had cause for complaint. The second stage was housed under a tent, which sharply limited audience numbers: you couldn’t see the musicians unless you were inside. And the third “stageâ€? hardly counted at all. It was half a bandstand stuck near a thoroughfare where pedestrian traffic was busiest. Appearing on it must have been like playing the Tube during rush hour.
As for the acts themselves? Apart from the Jews, you could find many items to appreciate. So here is your Autumn listening (Northern Hemispherians), courtesy the Green Man, in order of appearance. Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid: electronica and hard graft on the drum set combine into a kind of acid funk that would have caused Miles Davis, circa Get Up With It, to crack a smile. Juana Molina: a truly revelatory one-woman symphony, who turns her own riffs and scat into sumptuous backtracking before your very eyes, then sings over it like an Argentinian Dusty Springfield. And Alasdair Roberts, who covers traditional Scottish death ballads, won his audience over with a rendition of “The Inchwormâ€? (from the musical Hans Christian Andersen), and told me, on the subject of being produced by Will Oldham (as he recently was), “His production technique is more about presence than anything else.â€? No kidding? Let’s hear it for the engineers, then.
Engineering was one department that the Green Man had well-covered. Everything sounded good that I liked, but I didn’t like everything that sounded good. Meaning – everything sounded good. That’s no small achievement after three days in the rain.
- Here’s Steve West backstage at the Green Man getting acquainted with a few new beats:
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:49 pm
I actually thought the original PopMatters piece was edited pretty well. Nice story.
October 5th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
This is why I religiously go to your blog every day and repeatedly click on those ad links, so that in some small way I make my contribution to your “pop”ular adventures. And yes we can all agree that it’s “pretty crap” sharing your favourite band but at least you can rightfully stake a claim and say that you were there first.