In 1985 Jason and the Scorchers arrived in England trailing two stand-out albums of Nashville country punk and surfing a wave of indie Americana that also brought with it REM, The Replacements and The Meat Puppets, among others. I was 15 when I saw the band play Leeds Astoria, on a balmy July evening. At [...]

I’m not going to be able to get through this review without mentioning Neil Young. So I’ll do it early. Neil Young. There we go.

The path from the back woods to the recording studio is so well trodden that it must surely have its own branch of Starbucks by now. Lately is seems that most [...]

There comes a time in every fêted young musician’s life. Not content with the lavish praise afforded his own work, he decides to take a tilt at the sacred windmills of traditional folk songs. He scours the land, building his new collective, a rag-tag bunch to be sure, but with a fire in their bellies [...]

Hazel Davis gets her Americana kicks in Beverley

When the recent expenses scandal hit the headlines, sales of ink at Billy Bragg’s local stationer must have hit an all-time high. Luckily we’re in folk festival season and that means a slew of willing audiences ready and willing to hear his thoughts on the subject. And, if [...]

Sitting somewhere between the kind of urban folk-punk that abounded in the wake of the Pogues and the Medway bedroom blues of Billy Childish, this accomplished 12-tracker paints a portrait of an England filled with love, loss and circus freaks.

On tracks like Cunny Ann they come on like early, full steam ahead The Men They [...]