The Robsons

Barbican – Giant Sand plus special guests

The description on the Barbican website:

‘From the outer reaches of the country landscape comes the muse of Howe Gelb, the most prolific man in alt country (yes, even more than Ryan Adams) and head honcho with Giant Sand.’ BBC on Giant Sand’s Cover Magazine

2010 is the 25th anniversary of the [...]

Such sad news that Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse took his life this weekend.

I first heard him on stage at Howe Gelb’s Upside Down Home 2000 at the Barbican, and that was enough to get me to buy It’s A Wonderful Life. I got to see Sparklehorse as a band in 2006 when they played [...]

Efterklang – Magic Chairs

Remember Efterklang?  Their new album, Magic Chairs, is out on 22nd February, and is currently available to stream from both MySpace and Soundvenue according to this post from the Efterklang blog.

There’s a review of the album here.  I’m only a couple of tracks in so far, and it’s sounding very good [...]

Just came across this on the Giant Sand comments board – Mars, described as “[...] feature length,
animated romantic adventure MARS!”

The bit I’m particularly interested in (aside from it being a sf movie) is this:

With a sountrack written by Howe Gelb and including performances by Howe Gelb, Giant Sand, Neko Case, Victoria Williams, Jason Lytle, Kristen [...]

The Imagined Village

Last Friday we went to see The Imagined Village at the Reading Concert Hall.  I’d seen them on Later… last year, and was particularly impressed at the time with their song Cold, Hailey, Rainy Night, so managed to persuade a couple of (slightly skeptical) friends that it would be a good gig.

It [...]

Glitter And Doom Live

This morning, waiting on my desk at work, was a copy of the new Tom Waits CD, Glitter and Doom Live.  I’ve just finished listening to it, and it’s great – definitely better than the audience recordings I downloaded in 2004 after seeing Tom at Hammersmith, and which I still regard [...]

I hadn’t heard of Efterklang until ex-housemate-Vic mentioned that she and her other half were going to see this sort of Sigur-Ros-y like band at the Concert Hall in Reading.  He wanted to see the main act, Vic the support (Nancy Elizabeth).  Both acts sounded interesting, and since it was only here in Reading I [...]

Howe Gelb

Last night Howe Gelb played at the Luminaire in Kilburn (“London’s most agreeable live music venue”, apparently).  I can’t decide if it was 2 sets he played, or if he was supporting himself…  Buy One Get One Free, however you look at it!  Anyway, Howe came on a little after 8:30 and played [...]

Sno Angel Film

Last night I went to see one of my favourite musicians at the cinema.

Howe Gelb, the man behind Giant Sand (among others!), released an album in 2006 called ‘Sno Angel Like You, which he recorded with the gospel choir The Voices of Praise.  It was one of my favourite albums that year, [...]