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London: Martin Carthy
In most classic senses, I actually -- despite the cosplaying and the fanfiction and my encyclopedic knowledge of truly random crap -- fail at being a nerd. I've never really played D&D; I don't give a crap about dragons. And yet, I have this deep, expansive love for old time and traditional music with British Isles & Irish stuff as a first preference, but with a fair amount of affection for Breton and Appalachian stuff too (because it all has the same roots).
I come by this as dishonestly as most Americans my age: my parents were 1970s victims of the British/Irish folk resurgence and so The Clancy Brothers were the music of my childhood and I never quite recovered. I've written about one of those childhood experiences here before, but I do have some stories about Clancy Brothers and other gigs that I should also tell at some point.
Anyway, long story short I listen to Martin Carthy and the ilk all day long at work at least several times a week. It suits my interest in things passing out of the world, in the awkward union between joy and mourning in certain types of fiction, and my probably unpleasant habit of viewing all narrative as ultimately personal.
So when hunting for something to do in London on Sunday night (after discovering that there just isn't really evening theatre there at the end of the week), when I saw the listing for the gig in Time Out, I couldn't really believe it. To me, Martin Carthy is a big deal, and not the sort of person I could just stumble on playing in a random vegetarian pub in Camden.
Yay, random vegetarian pub in Camden.
There are certain types of perfectly normal social activities I find very hard to do on my own, or even with people sometimes. Bars and pubs are at the top of this list for me. Everywhere, they have clear, unwritten rules that are often highly gendered and require a certain level of extroversion to properly execute. As I'm often inappropriately gendered and inherently introverted, bars Stress Me Out if I don't have someone to run interference for me, so between being tired and mentally churny from Bristol and my recent medical ordeal it was a bit hard to get out the door, but my hotel was freaking me out pretty badly, so eventually the taxidermied owl got me on the damn tube (photos soon!).
I got there early enough to manage a seat at the bar, although I would be preferred a table, and sat there gaping. 15 quid and a room that wasn't going to hold more than 40 people for Martin Carthy? Well, yeah, sure enough.
I hardly noticed him come on stage, but suddenly he was playing one of my favorites, "High Germany" (the version he sang was darker, far more forceful and slower than this, but this is the closest I can find), and then I knew that this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Really, it was somewhat remarkable the degree to which this entire trip found its theme and then stayed there for the entire trip, regardless of my pre-planning.
It was interesting to watch Carthy settle in to being on stage. He seemed shy at first, but was hilarious and charismatic and chatty, as you really have to be with traditional music, because a lot of the songs require ridiculously long set-up narratives, a couple of songs in. He told a few jokes I didn't really get about race and ethnicity as conceived in the UK, but it was the tone that mystified me as much as the contents. One joke, clearly at the expense of the Welsh was weirdly full of affection. UK culture seems constantly full of teasing in a way I just don't get, not just because I'm from here instead, but because teasing is something that my childhood has largely unequipped me to deal with. But with Carthy's humor I had the sense that the overwhelming message was that the machine of state shits on us all, so lets elbow each other in the gut about it and sing some songs.
This was perhaps most apparent in Carthy's rendering of "My Son John" which is one of those traditional tunes I've known forever. He's updated it though, to be about Iraq and Afghanistan, yet not completely. The traditional chorus about running a race with a canon ball is still there, even as one of the verses now talks about carbon-fiber legs. And it's angry and it's daring you to be angry with the mucking about with tradition. But "My Son John" was never meant to be an historical artifact but began as a contemporary song about the horror of war. Carthy makes it contemporary again.
He also played "The Famous Flower of Serving Men" which is one of those songs that's really interesting for all it's gender fuckery. He provided some background for it that I didn't previously know and I was struck, as I always am that anyone of any gender can assume the "I" of these great old story songs and it's of no note. For someone like me, it's always of tremendous note.
He did a few instrumental songs and a few a capella pieces as well, which he sang with his eyes closed. The bulk of my own guitar playing knowledge, which is not at all from this tradition, is an essentially transmitted tradition -- nothing is written down, it is merely taught and remembered. I don't know Carthy's process, but often I had that sense of him looking for the place where a given piece was stored before engaging in it.
The only other song I can remember by name was "The Blind Harper" which is of note because it's not about a bard, but a street busker/con artist. "The song made a lot more sense when I figured that out!" he explained.
Finally, after saying he was done he did an a capella song about a "jolly little tailor" who gets drunk, trades clothes with a chick at a pub (yes, exactly) and has his wallet, britches and pocket watch stolen. It was hilarious and the audience was roaring with laughter, and so was I, but I was teary too.
Everything wrapped up real fast then, so we could all get the last tube train to points elsewhere. But it was really perfect, and, no matter how much I tell you about it, largely inexplicable.
I come by this as dishonestly as most Americans my age: my parents were 1970s victims of the British/Irish folk resurgence and so The Clancy Brothers were the music of my childhood and I never quite recovered. I've written about one of those childhood experiences here before, but I do have some stories about Clancy Brothers and other gigs that I should also tell at some point.
Anyway, long story short I listen to Martin Carthy and the ilk all day long at work at least several times a week. It suits my interest in things passing out of the world, in the awkward union between joy and mourning in certain types of fiction, and my probably unpleasant habit of viewing all narrative as ultimately personal.
So when hunting for something to do in London on Sunday night (after discovering that there just isn't really evening theatre there at the end of the week), when I saw the listing for the gig in Time Out, I couldn't really believe it. To me, Martin Carthy is a big deal, and not the sort of person I could just stumble on playing in a random vegetarian pub in Camden.
Yay, random vegetarian pub in Camden.
There are certain types of perfectly normal social activities I find very hard to do on my own, or even with people sometimes. Bars and pubs are at the top of this list for me. Everywhere, they have clear, unwritten rules that are often highly gendered and require a certain level of extroversion to properly execute. As I'm often inappropriately gendered and inherently introverted, bars Stress Me Out if I don't have someone to run interference for me, so between being tired and mentally churny from Bristol and my recent medical ordeal it was a bit hard to get out the door, but my hotel was freaking me out pretty badly, so eventually the taxidermied owl got me on the damn tube (photos soon!).
I got there early enough to manage a seat at the bar, although I would be preferred a table, and sat there gaping. 15 quid and a room that wasn't going to hold more than 40 people for Martin Carthy? Well, yeah, sure enough.
I hardly noticed him come on stage, but suddenly he was playing one of my favorites, "High Germany" (the version he sang was darker, far more forceful and slower than this, but this is the closest I can find), and then I knew that this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Really, it was somewhat remarkable the degree to which this entire trip found its theme and then stayed there for the entire trip, regardless of my pre-planning.
It was interesting to watch Carthy settle in to being on stage. He seemed shy at first, but was hilarious and charismatic and chatty, as you really have to be with traditional music, because a lot of the songs require ridiculously long set-up narratives, a couple of songs in. He told a few jokes I didn't really get about race and ethnicity as conceived in the UK, but it was the tone that mystified me as much as the contents. One joke, clearly at the expense of the Welsh was weirdly full of affection. UK culture seems constantly full of teasing in a way I just don't get, not just because I'm from here instead, but because teasing is something that my childhood has largely unequipped me to deal with. But with Carthy's humor I had the sense that the overwhelming message was that the machine of state shits on us all, so lets elbow each other in the gut about it and sing some songs.
This was perhaps most apparent in Carthy's rendering of "My Son John" which is one of those traditional tunes I've known forever. He's updated it though, to be about Iraq and Afghanistan, yet not completely. The traditional chorus about running a race with a canon ball is still there, even as one of the verses now talks about carbon-fiber legs. And it's angry and it's daring you to be angry with the mucking about with tradition. But "My Son John" was never meant to be an historical artifact but began as a contemporary song about the horror of war. Carthy makes it contemporary again.
He also played "The Famous Flower of Serving Men" which is one of those songs that's really interesting for all it's gender fuckery. He provided some background for it that I didn't previously know and I was struck, as I always am that anyone of any gender can assume the "I" of these great old story songs and it's of no note. For someone like me, it's always of tremendous note.
He did a few instrumental songs and a few a capella pieces as well, which he sang with his eyes closed. The bulk of my own guitar playing knowledge, which is not at all from this tradition, is an essentially transmitted tradition -- nothing is written down, it is merely taught and remembered. I don't know Carthy's process, but often I had that sense of him looking for the place where a given piece was stored before engaging in it.
The only other song I can remember by name was "The Blind Harper" which is of note because it's not about a bard, but a street busker/con artist. "The song made a lot more sense when I figured that out!" he explained.
Finally, after saying he was done he did an a capella song about a "jolly little tailor" who gets drunk, trades clothes with a chick at a pub (yes, exactly) and has his wallet, britches and pocket watch stolen. It was hilarious and the audience was roaring with laughter, and so was I, but I was teary too.
Everything wrapped up real fast then, so we could all get the last tube train to points elsewhere. But it was really perfect, and, no matter how much I tell you about it, largely inexplicable.
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Thank you for sharing this story, and the delightful earlier one!
BTW, have you read Delia Sherman's Through a (http://www.amazon.com/Through-Brazen-Mirror-Servingmen-Library/dp/1885865244) Brazen Mirror (http://sfreader.com/read_review.asp?book=245&t=Through-A-Brazen-Mirror-Delia-Sherman) (Two links, for a reason.) If not, you might want to check it out.
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(Anonymous) 2010-07-14 02:16 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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What did Carthy have to say about the background for "The Famous Flower of Serving Men"?
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1. "The famous flower" is a local name (somewhere in England, I don't remember where) for what is also/elsewhere called the May flower.
2. May is a time of trickery (Beltane?).
3. "May" is also a colloquial form of "maid."
4. So "The Famous Flower of Serving Men" is about paganism/witchcraft, and trickery, and trickery specifically by a maid masquerading as a man.
Martin Carthy
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Along the lines of folk music, I'll allow as I learned The Dutchman from Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem between sets one Saturday at the North Texas Irish Festival back in the 80s. I'd been listening to them for years, of course, but didn't often get to see them live. They had a small afternoon show in a tent that didn't draw all that many people. I asked if they'd play The Dutchman, since I'd heard them do it before and liked it. Then after the show I was chatting with them at the back of the tent when Liam up and asked if I'd like to know the chords for the song.
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I always am that anyone of any gender can assume the "I" of these great old story songs and it's of no note. For someone like me, it's always of tremendous note.
I've always been fond of Cole Porter because he has so many love songs where not only can any gender assume the "I" of the song, most of them are sung directly to the lover, so the "you" of the lover can be any gender as well.
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The version of 'My Son John' is something he did for 'Empire and Love', the most recent Imagined Village CD. Which, if you like the kind of crossover between trad folk and new 'empire' they do, is just insanely good.
Also worth looking out for is the new CD by his wife and daughter, 'Gift', which is getting great reviews, but I haven't heard yet (it only came out on Monday).
In the spirit of 'if you like that you might like this', can I recommend 'The Bairns' by Rachel Unthank, which is awesome, award-winning, and still my favorite thing in the world two full years after first hearing it.
Random fact: it was on the same tour England of England that gave us 'Homeward Bound' when Paul Simon met Martin Carthy, who taught him 'Scarborough Fair'.
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