Richard Dawson (raucous experimental UK folk racket w/ intense picaresque realness vox)

Richard Dawson is an interesting one. Yes, there are similarities with other avant garde guitarists like Bill Orcutt and Derek Bailey, but those dudes strike me as being very deliberately deconstructionist to an almost academic degree whereas Dawson's playing style is 100% expressionist and very audibly so. His lyrical approach and the regional, historical and autobiographical references he incorporates into his work are truly unique. Also, the influence of art and world music in his work is as strong as any English folk music. Not to mention the way he amps his nylon string guitar through a Fender, which is considered highly unorthodox but achieves a very particular tone. There's a reason Wire mag has been going crazy over him this year.

― quinoa: how's it spelt? (dog latin), Friday, January 23, 2015 2:43 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

brilliant post that needs to go here, nice one dl

― my shoes are deception (imago), Friday, 23 January 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No it isn't.

LOL

I just responded to that in the EOY thread:

hey dog latin I am late for this but there is not one single thing about Bill Orcutt that is "academic", now please go listen to Harry Pussy's What Was Music and Ride A Dove.

it's a great post about Dawson, at least - I don't know Orcutt or Bailey

so you didn't know a few of the bits he was comparing it to - are you even going to start thinking before you type this stuff.

Place naming has always incited ire in my heart I guess since I heard some Canucks try and do it "she blew like a Chinook down Yonge Street" or something

If you like the raga guitar of Richard, search Eric Chenaux "Worm and Gear", it's on Soundcloud. Stompy vibe? "Sweetie" from the Cerberus Shoal split w Herman Dune (no Herman on it don't worry). Deep Dark United is my favourite band ever, seek "Zut".

Hey, I like Herman Dune. Grrrr.

omg I did not know about that Cerebus Shoal split, I love them, thank you!

I like Herman Dune too tbh! But for different reasons, different moods

Weirdly that CS/HD split is imo the best thing the Cerberus camp would do til Big Blood

yh cheers, stoked to hear these. micachu mixtape was gr8 btw so ty doubly

I agree that place naming can be irksome - claiming a sort of rootsy kinship in a play for perceived authenticity - but Dawson is playing with memory and its trappings, also he likes & revels in the sounds of the names a lot. Hogwhistle Hospital!

Didn't hear much Harry Pussy in the Dawson tracks I listened to; solo Orcutt is a different matter.

oh for sure, was just bringing up the HP albums is response to Orcutt's perceived "academic" qualities

Yeah they are pretty much the antithesis of academic albs (unless the Centre for Advanced Bill Harkelroad Studies has really taken off recently)

Hogwhistle?

OMG, it has been a long time since I listened to anything by Chenaux or Deep Dark United! Should dig some up. Has Dawson ever mentioned being aware of them?

For the record, the only Orcutt I've heard is 'A History Of Every One'. I will check out Harry Pussy. But yeah, IIRC that was an album of deconstructed standards and reminded me very much of Derek Bailey. I mean, I love and respect Bailey. He's a revolutionary and his ideas are incredible, but I listen to Dawson for very different reasons.

Respec' to Del

A gentleman and a scholar.

Not much of a singer though

Nobody's perfect.

Place naming has always incited ire in my heart I guess since I heard some Canucks try and do it "she blew like a Chinook down Yonge Street" or something

It's okay when Stomping Tom does it though, right?

we used to live there on vine st

feel like street names should be exempt bc there are so many repeats

Stompin' Tom does it just fine
Americans can get away with it usually but if you hear "Dayton, Ohio 1903" and get what I mean then good

I choose to take "Dayton, Ohio 1903" as a reference to first powered flight so that I can laugh at the narrator tbh

think I got that interpretation from a comment on songmeanings.com, though.

actually, I laugh with Randy at the person that asked Randy to write that type of song, i.e. "Sing a song of long ago"

listen not to belabor this orcutt stuff but listen to "judas iscariot" off the dawson album and not think of orcutt is pretty ridiculous imo

also i really do like this album good job richard dawson ilx poll season makes me combative for no good reason i'm glad this album exists and ppl are digging it

actually, I laugh with Randy at the person that asked Randy to write that type of song, i.e. "Sing a song of long ago"

Yes we're on the same page

"Robert Wyatt doing George Benson" is a wonderful observation.

yeah the first thing my wife compared "The Vile Stuff" to was Wyatt

An over-reliance on locations and names in lyrics is not to my taste. But: Dawson does it so much and so arrogantly I feel he's doing it deliberately to mock American songwriters who have interstates and national parks they'll namedrop without thinking about it. I mean, I think he's "taking the piss"

I think more specifically, the apocalyptic content of The Vile Stuff, wouldn't be as apparent if he didn't name all of the apostles [Thadeus, James and James Solicitors = James Son Of James, Miss Bartholemew…] so whether he's mocking or not, the list of names is kind of what the song's all about and it wouldn't work without them.

I dig this and I love the place-naming. His lyrics remind me of Nigel Blackwell although straining for a darkly surreal and wild poetic quality rather than Blackwell's comedy of the mundane.

amazing detail about the apostles - I totally missed that

well i'll be...

^

Listening to this record with a bit of a wobble on this morning, s'got me all over the place, am a mess

:)

think this might be my favourite music of the last few years. Nigel Blackwell gone art-folk makes sense as a comparison bit there's something more wide-eyed and Romantic about Dawson's outlook (not that Blackwell lacks these qualities entirely). I don't think Dawson would be overly given to snipe at things he disapproves of.

I like the press of accumulating, involuntary and unwelcome minutiae vs. and I don't care about these things
Why do they remain so clear while the faces of my loved ones disappear? That's life, kid, more and more: the memories you have vs. the ones you *should* have, even want to have. But there can be a liberation or release, relief, in submitting to that, in art, at least.

Although he doesn't sound relieved yet. Letting it spew, though.

The delivery and placement of that line is so great

Olllld karate trophies

just listening to The Ice-Breaker Baikal on the way home, magnificent

The theme of the apostles - and other religious matters - came up in an interview I carried out with Richard Dawson last week if anyone's interested.

god's work, doran

He knocked on the door and my brother answered. I was frightened so I hid behind the door. I peeped around and saw that he had come in a big old dragster car (we actually had a little dragster racing board game at the time). It was parked at the end of the drive and the engine was still growling. I remember I was really scared. The Easter Bunny understood this and leaned around the door to look squarely at me. He was very serious and not like a cartoon bunny. He was a very realistic looking rabbit, but human sized and wearing quite simple clothes. He looked at me and was very solemn. Then he slowly nodded and handed me a chocolate egg. I cannot stress how melancholy an air this giant rabbit had about him. Then he got back in his dragster and roared off.

brb going to create a sort of cultish wallchart with dawson, julian cope, cardiacs, oliver postgate, dylan thomas and some others until british pastoralia leaps forth connected as a sort of salvation

dawson on religion is as close to my own position as anyone i've read

he is beyond, a marvel

great great interview, thanks doran