TO B&B OR NOT TO B&B
It isn't out for some weeks yet - so fans of their last record be still your beating hearts - but the forthcoming album from Austin-based five-piece Okkervil River is an absolute belter. Not only is it a charming, fully-rounded melodic alt-rock album, it is also a great B&B record!
B&B is all the rage! You can hardly go to a gig now without seeing its disciples (intent men, clasping copies of The Word or Mojo to their breast while diligently studying a band's lyricism or chord structure).
You might be thinking I've invented a new musical scene here because I've tipped over into my 40s and my hair is catching up with my memory in terms of loss - and you might have a point. But actually the older male's role in music has never been so easy to identify.
This came to me as I sat on the balcony watching the excellent Bon Iver support Iron & Wine a couple of months ago at The Forum in London. You could barely see BI for the glare of light reflecting off the heads of the audience downstairs. Which is when I realized that the Baldies And Beards had come to save the world. And in the process they'd helped create a new area of Adult Rock.
The pop teens and the X Factor - not to mention the increasingly Americanised Top 30 - might have its new wave of R&B. But where would Broadsheet Rock be without B&B?
And I'm not daft enough to try and have you believe that everyone who has bought The National's latest album is of advanced years, male and shaves their head more than their chin because there are B&B fans of all ages. But there is a serious point here.
Not since the '70s have so many rock bands begun forging careers away from the singles market; instead building their reputations through their body of album work and their live shows. Maybe it's the (now grown-up) 13 year-olds of that generation whose older brothers taught them how to loyally uncover and respect the likes of Led Zeppelin, who are powering this resurgence.
Or maybe, there is simply the space and the accessibility for people (of any age or gender) to find the new B&B groups such The Hold Steady and the aforementioned National. Certainly there is more written about this type of mature yet unfashionable rock band (Uncut magazine is another monthly which has subscribed to both outfits, while online, new website The Quietus definitely has B&B leanings).
It is also not that difficult to see B&B as an extension of journalist David Hepworth's well-observed "50-quid bloke" (a grown-up music and film fan who has the disposable cash to, not only afford to buy CDs and DVDS, but to also go to gigs and buy flashy bits of kit).
Or maybe there simply isn't the same stigma in going to gigs now as there was a decade or two ago (when anyone over 35 watching a band was clearly having a mid-life crisis or had come as a chaperone to their offspring).
The interesting angle here though is CD sales. In a year when the Industry has continued to panic about album sales (and they're right, most transient teenagers don't even want to entertain the concept of an album anymore) these bands have sold surprisingly well.
Mind you, not even the new Beck album (a Godfather of B&B?) can compete with the scene's biggest success story of 2008: Fleet Foxes. Although originally championed (we think) by the young American underground - the bloggers and hipsters - its subsequent sales in the UK have been at least part-fuelled by B&B. It is now the best-selling record ever released by the admirable UK indie label Bella Union, having sold in excess of 40,000 copies, which in this era of pop is a fantastic achievement.
And the B&B fans don't stop here! Interestingly I went to see the NME-championed Black Kids a while back at the University Of London Union and the audience - which you'd expect to be of a teenage/student nature - was virtually dominated by the over-25s and peppered with our friends from the B&B brigade.
Maybe this generation of 40-somethings are just more addicted to Rock or (like myself) learnt from punk and John Peel that new music was something you could obsess about regardless of age or appearance.
Seeing that we are now a country officially ruled by surveys, I'd quite like someone to find some truth in all this (feel free to post your thoughts). But in the meantime, as Talking Heads once said, take me to the River!
Out in September (or possibly October in the UK) the new Okkervil record is possibly even better than the last one The Stage Names! And that was a terrific piece of work in itself. The Stand Ins was always planned as the second installment of a two-part project, but - though it does work as an accompaniment piece - it also, very proudly, erm, stands alone. Frontman Will Sheff has the warmest of (emotive) voices, while the songs themselves are brilliantly detailed narratives trapped in a sort of moral maze of his own making.
For a sneak preview hurry to the group's myspace site and have a listen to Lost Coastlines which will be the single from the album. Then it might be time for a lie down.
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What I find interesting is what American bands with lively student audiences back home make of coming to Britain and playing to the B&B brigade. I wrote about the phenomenon of baldies at gigs on my blog a few momths ago. I go to quite a few Americana gigs - a genre with an incredibly large B&B following. Although Okkervill River have young fans I first saw them four or five years ago at Come Down And Meet THe Folks, a country flavoured club hosted by former Rockingbird Alan Tyler in a Kentish Town pub - a B&B haven if ever there was one...
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Steve, what a great blog, and it will certainly make some of my mates who feel they're under pressure to move towards Radio Quiet feel much better about their abiding love of gigs and new music!
Cheers.
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I am a baldie of 47 years old and still go
to as many gigs as time/money will allow.There was a time when I had worries about going to gigs as I was starting to look like a parent who had wandered in to pick up his kids.However I then thought why shouldn't I still go if I enjoy it? Now I find my two teenage daughters sometimes raid my cd's for music both old and new.
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