Coxon goes 'folkie'

Subject: Coxon goes 'folkie'
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 06:34 AM

There may not yet be a 60s-style folk revival but there does seem to be more media coverage. (Dylan, Carthy, even Utah Phillips have been rediscovered by the UK press in recent months.)
This from today's London Evening Standard is not free from the usual journalistic stereotypes but may be of interest:

Blur boy turns to folk

by Will Hodgkinson
The Blur boys have been taking diverse routes recently. Damon Albarn is off with the Gorillaz. Alex James is living the louche life in Soho drinking clubs and planning a mission to Mars with the help of fellow Blur member Dave Roundtree. Guitarist Graham Coxon, meanwhile, is making stripped-down solo records that are increasingly edging towards that most maligned of musical forms - folk. In his Camden local, 100ft or so from Dylan Thomas's old house, Coxon explains how the real-ale-tinged breath of folk passed over his third solo album, Crow Sit On Blood Tree, which was recorded over five days and is entirely self-played.

"I'd never really gone beyond Nick Drake before in terms of folk music - in cool circles they don't talk about Steeleye Span. But I bought an album recently called Rave On, which is a compilation of early 1970s folk with people like Shirley Collins, and there's a wonderful resonance to all the songs. They're enduring. Of course everyone knows Steeleye Span's All Around My Hat, but that was rather like their Song 2 - the cross they had to bear."

An initial listen to the record doesn't conjure up a leafy idyll of banjos, beer and beards - opener Empty Word descends into a punk thrash, I'm Goin' Away sounds like Mississippi blues and the single You Never Will Be has a Hendrix-style guitar solo - but the confessional spirit of folk music courses through every song.

"The Unplugged Nirvana album is folk in that it is telling stories and it's based on emotional rather than intellectual reactions," says Coxon. "And this is the same. Just before the recording I went through something of a spiritual change, and I know it's clichÈd to say it, but it was cathartic. I did get to the core of myself in the songs, I shone a light around the darkest corners and it's made me an awful lot happier now. Strange how music can do that."

That spiritual change was preceded by a deep depression in March, the causes of which make up the themes on the album.

"I think my depression was a culmination of the years from 29 to 32," says Coxon, an amiable, nervous and quietly serious man. "I had a fight against acknowledging myself as a good father, a fight against hitting 30. Ultimately the record's about that, and a lot of good music is a confession-of how you are because it helps the listener relax about themselves."

Then there was the example set by Billy Childish, the phenomenally prolific artist, musician and writer, whose philosophy is that to create something - anything - is better than nothing at all. "People say they can't sing. Well, I can't, but I've got records out and I'm singing on them. Billy's outlook on life has been an inspiration in that way."

The cottage-industry aspect of the record - Coxon owns the tiny label it is released on, drew the cover art and made five short films to accompany it - is a long way from the mega-selling proposition that is Blur. How do the experiences compare? "They don't. Studios are the most horribly boring places to be if you're not doing anything," he says of his Blur recording days.

"It's like an audition in which you're waiting in the queue and stressing, then the producer says, 'You're next!' and you have an hour to do something good. With my own album I had been mulling over the songs for months, then went into the studio and translated exactly what was in my head onto tape in a few days."

Our conversation turns to folk music once more, and it's strange to hear the guitarist of the band that summed up the spirit of Britpop talk about how Martin Carthy taught Paul Simon Scarborough Fair in the Three Horseshoes in Hampstead. But Coxon was always the band member who looked most uneasy under fame's distorting spotlight. "My entire twenties were given over to endless gigging, recording and promotion, of going out in a gang which was surrounded by another gang. I like the idea of no schedule now, of working when you're inspired, rather than forced."

The Blur days aren't over yet, though. The band's sound, which is made up of four very different personalities and tastes, is about to come together once again. "We're having some activity next week in the studio with Marianne Faithfull," he confirms. "It'll be a good test to see where we all are in our outlooks. My current outlook is so different from anywhere I've been before. It's going to be interesting."

Graham Coxon's single, You Will Never Be/Thank God For The Rain, is released on Transcopic. His solo album Crow Sit On Blood Tree is released on 6 August.
(c)Associated Newspapers

RtS

Subject: RE: Coxon goes 'folkie'
From: JulieF
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 07:37 AM

He was so keen on Kate Rusby's stuff that he asked to present present her nomination for the Mercury award a few years ago. Its nice to see someone widening their musical tastes. I think, although they would not call themeselves traditional, far less folk, there is definately an undercurrent of relatively accoustic bands about. I also think that it will not be a revival in the accepted sence but is the byproduct of how things emerge nowadays from many different sources.

Julie

Subject: RE: Coxon goes 'folkie'
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 09:08 AM

I think it is a revival of sorts , but, it is a result of "how things arise from so many diffrent places" like Julie said. Roots music is popping up everywhere you look, but, I am not sure if the market is expanding.
I think here in the states it has something to do with the absence of Garcia and the Dead. When I was younger while I was listening to Deep folk and blues , my friends with similiar tastes were just listening to the Dead. Without the Dead corning the popular market for roots music others are getting more attention. My friends are going to Del Mcoury shows and buying Doc Watson albums now.