Tag: Dylan Smith

Dylan Smith: Cruel to be Kind

Yeah, the title of Dylan’s debut album, Cruel to be Kind could be an insight into how we conduct our reviews, but being as I missed him yet again when he came to the Southgate, I should really be kind to be kind, asides, there’s nothing in this album to be cruel about….

My excuse was festival season, I was invited to The Devizes Scooter Rally the weekend his name was chalked upon the Gate’s blackboard. Looking for a skinhead friend of mine there proved impossible amidst a sea of skinheads! Without this turning pythonesque, dwelling on Dylan’s fantastic beard, the likes of which I’d have spotted him straight away with, should he have been there, allow me this brief Arthur Twosheds Jackson moment, and we’ll digress onto his music!

While listening I’m contemplating his very name suggests he comes from a musical family, or fans of the Magic Roundabout at the very least. It could be duly noted Dylan these days may well be a name given by parents with no clue to the legendary folk singer, a Dylan the age of Dylan Smith would suggest otherwise. This I haven’t asked him about, I’m making an assumption here, because this album is so eclectic, yet from whichever angle a track off it comes at you, it’s proficiently delivered with the seemingly ease to justify the notion Dylan Smith was born for this.

The title track opens this fifteen track musical marathon. It’s the nice, smooth and breezy folk-rock I was expecting, it’s Tom Petty, vocally, and with a similar hook. However the one time I did meet Dylan, which was when he was backing Becky Lawrence on guitar at the Female of the Species annual fundraiser in Seend, and I asked him to summarise his sound, he was rather generalised and heterogeneous about pigeonholing it. The intro of the second tune, Play the Game, was unexpected, until I recalled that conversation. I mean, through to its conclusion it holds a strong wailing guitar riff, but it kicks in as if I’m about to listen to Orbital, or some other nineties downtempo slice of electronica. It is at this conjunction you accept Cruel to be Kind is going to be a ride through musical influences.

Dylan with Becky Lawrence at the Female of the Species Halloween Party in Seend!

Then, we’re back into rock citing Nashville country by the third tune, with a drifting sound and a reminiscing theme. If you were a nipper in 1983, as is its title, you’ll nod, and perhaps think the witty cultural references are wicked (in the eighties ironic slang usage of the term!) younger listeners may need Google, but I’d predict the effect remains the same; this tune celebrates the diversity Of Dylan’s work, and his ability to apply ruminative narrative.

By now you’re immersed in Dylan’s world, and willing to accept whatever he deems appropriate to throw at you. Check You Out, is quirky and the tad saucy of ZZ Top in content, followed by a beautiful ballad, or two, but we’re only halfway through and anything could happen. Memory Lane again focuses on retrospective reminiscences, with a bouncy acoustic number, I’m awash thinking of classic influences, yeah, Dylan and Cash, but the experimental side of the Beatles and Beach Boys too, and this one finishes on a whistle akin to Otis sitting on the dock of the bay. 

In conclusion to citing influences, a Nils Lofgren of Trowbridge, and as a guitar teacher too I guess Dylan needs to be diverse, perhaps, but there’s so much going on here, stop the press; nine tunes in and Living Fantasy is funky electronica pop! Then whoa, bluegrass supersedes, and we’re back in Dylan’s comfort zone, this Tom Petty folk-rock rings throughout, but there’s no accounting where he’ll go next. A man after my own heart, I feel, as I couldn’t do desert island discs, couldn’t bear to reduce myself to a few genres, let alone a few albums!

But there’s thoughtful prose, genius writing, and adroit guitar work throughout this musical melting pot, even if Dylan can’t decide on moderating to a subgenre; his style is unique and detectable from whatever pigeonhole you care to plonk a particular tune into. The album drifts along in similar fashion to the close, it’s beguiling, yet as there’s a lot of it, you begin to take Dylan’s talent for granted, until it’s over. There is a pocket of variation when Lucie Reyonds vocals on a song called Something to Share. Now, if this one doesn’t standalone to prove the wealth of Dylan’s virtuosity in composure and writing, nothing will.

It’s wonderfully enchanting, as is the album, an interestingly diverse treasure you’ll return to and discover more to, like gags in an Airplane movie! Now who’s taking us back to 1983, and if we could, Dylan, just return to your fantastic beard for a moment?!

For more info on Dylan Smith and to buy the album, see Dylan’s Website HERE

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Female of the Species; Deadlier in Seend!

A glass half-full or half-empty scenario, to be at Seend Community Centre. The optimist in me ponders least it’s central, bang tidy between the Sham, Vizes and Trowvegas, or even if it matters if it is a wholly Seend affair, whatever; their Community Centre sure is a village venue to be proud of.

Neither am I here to dabble in petty town council politics. What’s been held at Melksham’s Assembly Hall for so many years and raised so much wonga for apt local charities, the local all-female supergroup Female of the Species’ outing now packed out the new place last night for their annual extravaganza, and as always, it’s a beautiful, highly entertaining shebang.

This time in aid of teenage advice organisation TeenTalk, the girls were adorned in costumes in a manner superior to anything gone before. With corresponding stage decor, they were looking absolute dynamite; gothic halloweenish, to suit the theme, and they knocked a series of sublime covers out of the park.

I mean yeah, with the look of celebrity divinity they charged the stage, opened with a more Bangles’ Hazy Shade of Winter than Simon & Garfunkel’s, followed it with Sledgehammer, but stars really came out on the third tune, with saxophonist Karen Porter’s matchless riff of Baker Street. Here the penny dropped for those not-in-the-know; Seend was aching towards a party in a calibre of magnitude, though I suspect many there were fully aware and prepped, the anticipation was positively buzzing.

The lesser capacity of this hall only breathing more atmosphere into their performance than ever previously. Yet either way in either hall, the frontwomen of these local bands, Jules of Trowbridge’s Train to Skaville, Nicky Davis from People Like Us and The Reason, Julia Greenland from Soulville Express, Claire Perry from Big Mamma’s Banned, and solo artist Charmaigne Andrews, never have a Jagger and Bowie moment of Dancing in the Street. That upstaging yearning simply doesn’t compute with them, and with every year which passes sees them more harmonious and in solidarity, save perhaps the customary saucy banter! It’s the reason why it’s as firm a fixture on my calendar as Christmas.

A covers night it maybe, but one of the highest qualities, with each singer adding their own genre preference into the cauldron. The method is this combined acquaintance, the magic is in the pop diversity they nimbly execute together. An example came quickly, when Jools led a floor-filling blast of Dawn Penn’s reworked rock steady classic, No, No, No. Through slight Halloween themed Hungry like Wolf and People are Strange, each tune was building into a continuingly improving pop compilation, arriving at an apex with a breathtakingly soulful version of The Faces’ Stay with Me, verging on Aretha-level of greatness.

But none of this happened before a superb support set of originals by young Trowbridge country-pop singer-songwriter Becky Lawrence, who, donned in a tiny witch’s hat and accompanied by warlock-looking guitarist Dylan Smith (more on this chap at a later date) treated us to her crystal-clear vocals and acute observational wordsmithing. Particularly poignant was her single, Loud and 17, even if seventeen is a long-vapourised recollection for me personally! Such was the performance; both these musicians are bleeping promptly on my radar.

With the thought of Jools returning with her band, Train to Skaville for New Year’s Eve this year, as The Female of the Species blasted through their catalogue of wonderful covers, it draws a double line under Seend Community Centre as a seriously contending venue and their lively and diverse range of events. Quality night, as to be expected based on past experience, but with an added bonus of a Halloween spooky theme and in a new venue; enough for me to don some zombie slap, which promptly melted off my face in the heat of the dancefloor moment!

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