I don’t want to give anyone the impression that all I do all day is sit around, browsing through YouTube files and watching fantastic footage of my favourite bands – that’s Steve Sutherland’s job, after all.
I do need, however, to bring your attention to a video of Richmond Fontaine live in Amsterdam, which is absolutely brilliant. The set is taken mainly from the recent ’13 Cities’ album, with four songs from Post To Wire, the record that brought them to Uncut’s belated attention – including a storming “Montgomery Park” and fiercely glowering “Western Skies”.
There are a few unreleased gems here, too. I missed the band’s last London shows, and after watching this performance I am even more pissed off than I was at the time that I couldn’t go. They seem here to be in the form of their lives.
Anyway, here’s the link to the 16-song set:
http://www.fabchannel.com/richmond_fontaine
I was just talking, by the way, to Chris Metzler, who looks after the band in Europe and puts out their records here. He tells me that the follow-up to Willy Vlautin’s debut novel, The Motel Life, will be out early next year. It’s called Northline. There’s also a possibility of a DVD package in October. Willy will also be playing a solo show in London, at the Luminaire on May 22.
Chris has also turned me on to a fantastic new record – World Without End, by Bob Frank and John Murry, a dazzling collection of blasted country folk and grimly haunting murder ballads, shot through with harrowing images of death, damnation and eternal suffering.
Legendary producer Jim Dickinson describes the record as “timeless as death” and Frank as “the greatest songwriter you never heard”.
On the evidence of this, Jim’s right on both counts.
I’ll try to find out some more about Frank and get back to you.