Hiss Golden Messenger is Durham, North Carolina-based songwriter M.C. Taylor, in partnership with multi-instrumentalist and recordist Scott Hirsch, who lives in Brooklyn, New York. The pair have been playing a sort of off-kilter mystical country music together for nearly two decades, although it was only with the re-release of the excellent From Country Hai East Cotton last year that we became properly aware of them. They offer up classic back-porch folk and country with echoes of gospel and blues, which is often accompanied by warm organic sound effects such as cicadas or the patter of rain. [...]
Here is another collection of tunes we've gathered from our in-box and the internet - we'd like to have more time to do them justice, but nevertheless a cornucopia of pleasures awaits you we promise! First up is the consistently wonderful Damien Jurado with some authentic, strummed desert blues. Nothing Is The News is the first taste of his forthcoming album Maraqopa . Download Damien Jurado - Nothing Is The News mp3 (from Maraqopa) Indie-folksters The Dodos have made a previously unreleased track, So Cold [...]
Arrogance is a wholly unpleasant characteristic. Confidence, yes; arrogance, get ye out of my bloody space. Despite the urge to strike back, I pay homage to the way of the Mackerel: bide your time, wait awhile, then just wait for the penny to drop. As MM always says, much better to know, step back, remove from the payroll, metaphorical or otherwise. What goes around often does come around. Not always, but often enough not to ignore. I know he’s right. But just sometimes… A fin in the face is worth two in the bush? Go in [...]
A funny thing happened on the way back through Gloucester Cathedral this week. After a mesmerising 45 minutes watching Laura Marling perform an unaccompanied acoustic set, Pocket and I set off in hot pursuit in the hope of persuading Lovely Laura to write MM a Christmas exclusive. I would have course swum retrograde without Pocket chiming in my ears… faster, faster. It was an enormous personal achievement for me to even open my mouth and speak, let alone burble away nonsensically about Christmas. La la. Trouble is, I can imagine what it feels like to be [...]
Does anyone remember Mr Benn? Emerging from 52 Festive Road to embark on an adventure in his new guise. As I vaguely recall, many of the Mr Benn tales had a strong moral undertone. Everything always turned out well if Mr Benn was there, with his kind and reassuring avuncular manner. Good old Mr Benn. Old things, gold things. Just like friends. Saw some goldies but goodies this week. Friends that see you through the good times, the fat times and the nobody loves me times. R&J, Big Sare, Bingley D, Polly Pocket and Movie Mate, you are [...]
There’s only two and a bit months until the culmination of a hard year’s listening: the MM Top Tens. And what a year. How do we choose? What a bonanza 2011 has been. A certain song has dominated the school run this week. Let’s take nothing away from last week’s sing-a-long, Henry’s Funeral Shoe (Dog Scratched Ear is surely a top ten contender), but The Lovely Eggs have nailed it for surely some of the best lyrics ever, with Don’t Look At Me (I Don’t Like it) . [...]
It’s been an unfortunate week on the domestic front. Water continues to leak. Holes have been dug. In the right place and deep enough, who knows? If it carries on much longer I may jump in too. I wish Colin from Thames Water would understand that I simply don’t understand the mechanics and really have no desire to do the wrong thing. And football. I wish some one would bump off Agent Bruce, Smiley styley. I await tomorrow’s horrors with bated breath (and glass at the ready). Well enough whingeing for one Friday. Here’s a song. [...]
It’s a wash out. Bloody water everywhere. Surely someone, somewhere, realised that “Mackerel” was a pseudonym? Hurumph. Thanks go to the Young and Lost Club this week who sent me a very nice tote bag via MM. I like bags. A lot. And I’m often lost. Sadly, I’m no longer young. Sniff. But 50 per cent ain’t bad; it’s a bag of two halves anyway. Leading smoothly on to lost weekends (Lloyd) as the parental taxi kicks into action and we contemplate a little trip to the cinema for a spot of spying. Not [...]
Well tonight saw us Mackerels in down town, home town Charlbury (population circa 5,000) watching the annual egg throwing competition. It was great fun, if a little messy towards the end. An admiral performance from MM and son, with an awesome catch from darling daughter. Alas no victory toast for us, only an omelette. These strange southern customs. Happy Friday. Mrs Mackerel Download Adam & The Ants - Never Trust A Man (With Egg On His Face) mp3 (from Dirk Wears White Sox) Download Giant Sand - Temptation Of [...]
Slacker. Another week off as MM was down at End of the Road last weekend. I could have had a go, but the likely outcome would have been no website by Monday. Tsk. Nevermind, business as usual this week. I’ve needed to find a new route on the dog run after a close encounter with a what appeared to be some extras from Deliverance. Sadly for Monty and I, this has involved embracing the undulating gradients of some hills. But, personal safety versus knackered knees – well, I’ve always wanted to be bionic. Elsewhere, the sprats [...]
Well, it was a week off last week, for legitimate reasons, I hasten to add. Nurse Mackerel reported in for duty. Remembered quite a few things and a few people from my former Northern life. Still feeling a few pangs now. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, or how far you go… rekindles a little bit of something deep inside. Lot less money flying around up there. How refreshing that is. Lot more plain speaking. How very funny that often is. I gate-crashed a coffee morning of my mum’s. Topical discussions: the riots. No riots [...]
Without wishing to dwell on the enormity of the wider social subjects of this week, I’m looking elsewhere for some lighter discussion points. Well the football season has begun. Another eight months of disappointment; of blame from the sprats (“ Why did you have to be born in Sunderland and not Manchester? ”); of wanting to put my hands around Steve Bruce’s throat. And squeeze VERY tightly. Oh. I can’t. Wait. After missing Friday due to travelling back from our sunshine holiday in Ventnor, I was all too keen to dismiss Sunderland’s pre-season training in a [...]
We’ve taken the sea, the sunshine and a lot of sand. We’ve been outside. A lot. I’ve done a little bit of running, a fair bit of reading; eldest sprat has done a marathon of fishing, while the other two have spent quite some time splashing in the waves. It’s been very chilled, harmonious and sultry. The Ventnor wall lizards are basking and we count them every day, on the way out and on the way in. We watch the magnificent clouds and the shimmering horizon, and we search for little pockets of peace and enjoy them all the more [...]
It’s Friday – I’ve made it, just. All the sprats are very different, adorably different and utterly adorable. This week, Joe (the youngest at seven) has re-cast himself as one travelling troubadour. Guitar in hand, he travels as far as the living room, sometimes to the kitchen to perform his self-penned tunes, all strummed in G. From Try and Love Me If You Can (who could not love you, Joe?), to How Many Toys do You Have? to My Soldiers Are Dead and Down , and the classic in the making, Come [...]
After a brief absence last week, of which a lot was lost to a rather brilliant book I was enjoying ( Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter ); some of it was lost travelling from A to B to C to… Z; some of it to failing technology, and some of it to failing memory. Gained a little perspective on some matters and caught sight of a little light at the end of the tunnel. School’s out for summer and hopefully it will stop raining for more than a few hours and let us get on with enjoying ourselves. It [...]
The fair has come to Charlbury; had it been the circus, I could have run away to be… the miserable front end of the pantomime cow. Oh well, another day, maybe. Perhaps next week will be filled with fewer disappointments. Two more temporary interns into the MM menagerie arrived this week in the form of George and Teri, two warring terrapins. It turns out that George is a bit of a bully and Teri is a bit malformed and timid. Hmm. I have had more experience of malformed bullies and less of terrapins, but I’m hoping that we [...]
Happy Birthday Mrs Mackerel! I had to post this. Download Death By Crimpers - Obsessive mp3 (from Obsessive 73) Follow @madmackerel
So, five go camping. Well, not quite yet; we do need a tent first – or at least one that fits us all. The last time I went camping was with MM’s predecessor. Two nights in the Black Mountains of Wales in torrential rain. We awoke in water. That cured any affection I had towards life under canvas, and to him. Still, life moves on. I’m quite looking forward to a different sort of camping with the sprats. All previous excursions were (quite rightly) centred around music, namely festivals. Speaking of which, I was returning from a day [...]
What’s in a name? MM and I have been enjoying the new series of Luther with the rather magnificent Idris Elba. We’ve also been quite enjoying the music that goes with it. Bit of Massive Attack . Bit of Joan As Policewoman – speaking of which, do you think she has days when she feels a bit Joan As Saleswoman, or Joan As Veterinary Surgeon; Joan As Shopkeeper. Perhaps she’s really Mr Ben. Anyway, back to Luther and clown masks, and the rather sinister variety sported by the villain of the piece. MM has been [...]
Another Friday, another stream of consciousness, or pile of shite – same thing really. Body currently in a great state of disrepair, not helped by falling down a big flight of stairs. All I can marvel at retrospectively is the number of thoughts that crossed my mind before I hit the bottom. And the amount of bruises on my body. Currently wondering what sounds the hound would like if he could choose. He’s not fond of rain – torch songs? At bit of Antony and the Johnsons . Maybe a bit of early Supergrass , when [...]
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