How many Wooden Shjips do you actually need? As someone who receives their records for free, I may not be in the best position to make that call. But as I was playing “West”, their third album, again this morning, at least a couple of songs began in a way which made me think of “We Ask You To Ride”, and I wondered: is it a blessing or a curse for all of your songs to be so instantly identifiable that they start blending into one another?
A couple of weeks ago on his blog, Ethan Miller announced that, after two years of pre-production for an album with Rick Rubin, Howlin Rain would be releasing a new EP to coincide with their forthcoming European tour.
The arrival this week of a second new Wooden Wand album prompted me into finally getting round to “Death Seat”, James Jackson Toth’s terrific return after what, for him, seems to have been a relatively quiet stretch.
Just remembered today that I should post this: my column from the last issue of the mag, devoted to Wooden Shjips and Ripley's awesome spin-off, Moon Duo. The new issue of Uncut is out this week, though my column on Sir Richard Bishop was necessarily spiked to make room for the Alex Chilton tribute; I'll run that here in the next day or two.
Thanks to everyone who made it down to the Wooden Shjips show last night, not least of course the band themselves. A very hot and ecstatic night at Club Uncut, and it was pretty clear that this is a band who are really - and deservedly - loved by their fans.
Nearly a year ago now, I posted a blog about Wooden Shjips live, when they played with Howlin Rain and The Meat Puppets in London. They were superb, and I’m pleased to say that their psychedelic dancehall schtick has been totally realised on “Dos”, their upcoming third album, which has burning itself onto my synapses these past ten days or so.
I know I wrote something a bit snide about the whole “Tips For 2009” business the other day. But then, when dutifully and only slightly hypocritically compiling my submission to the BBC poll, I found myself – hugely hypocritically, I suppose – tipping one of the doubtless most-tipped tips of 2009, Florence And The Machine.
