Stand-Up Guy

You are always guaranteed an entertaining time when you go to see Pictish Trail and last night's Melting Vinyl gig at the Rialto Theatre in Brighton was no exception. A bloody good job, too, as it was sub-zero temperatures outside and by the time I got to the venue I was so cold I was desperately in need of some winter cheer.

Main man Johnny Lynch was on good form, regaling us with stories of drug-addled audiences in Hartlepool, near death experiences in Machynlleth (I will refrain from writing how he pronounced it) and eco glitter from Bristol (the latter made from unicorns' tears, natch). In fact, despite coming from the far-flung Isle of Eigg, there is a real sense of rootedness in the whole country that comes from the band's relentless touring of these islands.

There was a smaller group of musicians for this tour - "I'm just wringing the final drops from the last album" - with Lynch assisted by Suse Bear on bass and keyboards and John B McKenna (AKA Monoganon - who was also the support act and inexplicably started his set wearing a terrible wig and ended it wearing a rather fetching cloak-cum-habit) on guitar. And it was not just the band that was stripped down: there were some beautifully spare arrangements of Lionhead, Easy With Either and Dead Connection from last year's Future Echoes album, and earlier songs from the Pictish Trail repertoire of folktronica.

Despite some provocative audience comments about the nature of familial relationships on the Isle of Eigg, Johnny Lynch (almost) refused to be dragged down to our level and maintained his dignity and humour throughout. I laughed like a drain at his between-songs repartee and the only other performer I have seen who comes close to being such a laugh is James Yorkston. Those Fence Collective guys: what are they like? They should be doing stand-up.

Coast to Coast

At the De La Warr Pavilion last night, on a mild but typically breezy winter evening, the air of the eastern seaboard of the British Isles washed in to meet the southern coast of England. Record shop and music promoters, Music’s Not Dead, treated Bexhill to their final gig of the year with Fife’s James Yorkston, and his moving modern folk and self-deprecating anecdotes, supported by Lincolnshire’s Elle Osborne and her more traditional songs.

Osborne and Yorkston are both products of collectives: Osborne is part of the Nest Collective, a London-based network promoting musicians and events formed in response to the resurgence in folk music in the early part of the 21st century. Yorkston was a one-time member of the Fence Collective, the name given to musicians who were associated with Fence Records, an independent record label based in the coastal town of Anstruther and Cellardyke. A stellar roster of musicians were connected to Fence: KT Tunstall, Rozi Plain, The Pictish Trail and King Creosote who, in his more prosaic identity of Kenny Anderson, founded the label in 1997.

Fence Records no longer exists, but many of the acts can be found on other independent labels, primarily Lost Map and Domino. It is Domino Records that have released most of Yorkston’s albums and caused him to wear his “funky dude jumper”, last night. So named by his youngest child, it chimed with an early meeting Yorkston had with a Domino exec who wrote down a single word on her pad: “funky.” When he saw “Domino x 4” on last night’s guest list (they weren’t there), he felt there was only one garment to wear.

If that anecdote seems digressive, it is because it is typical of Yorkston’s rambling between-songs stories. There are tales of agoraphobia, recurring smoke alarms and a farcical episode, involving a painted-shut window and a pigeon in a Birmingham hotel room, that is worthy of inclusion in Lucky Jim. It almost seems as if there are as many stories as songs; but when he is singing, it is with all the poignancy and tenderness of the music I have been listening to for the past year on 2014’s The Cellardyke Recording and Wassailing Society album.

The beautiful Broken Wave (A Blues For Doogie), about the death of a friend and musician, is followed by Fellow Man, a song that Yorkston says began as advice to his son - “my fear is I may transfer my fears to you” - but ended up somewhere else - “I’m full of love for my fellow man.” Yorkston says that he would like to write songs about the terrible mess of the world but feels that others seem to do it so much better. As an example, he then performs a heartrending version of Eric Bogle’s anti-war ballad, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

Earlier in the evening, Elle Osborne had opened her set with an arrangement of another heart-breaking song, the traditional ballad, Annachie Gordon. Osborne was born to the folk tradition: her ancestors were fishing folk from Yorkshire and Suffolk who latterly congregated on Humberside and, when the fishing industry declined in the 1970s, came ashore and became folk singers. She taught herself to play the fiddle, growing up on Lincolnshire’s North Sea coast steeped in folk music. Everything sung by the people is folk music, she told us - football chants, hymns, carols – and, as if to underline the point, she sang a festive folk song, In The Bleak Midwinter, which the audience joined in with.