CD Odyssey Disc 791: Frank Turner

Sorry for the long hiatus, gentle readers. I’ve been away on a holiday and I just got back yesterday. We went to Seattle and then Nashville. I met lots of nice people, saw two bands and one football game.

Fortunately for you, this means bonus “CD Odyssey” content as my next two reviews will also include reviews of the shows I saw the artist perform at. Here is the first one – after the album review keep reading for the live concert review. So it is a double-length entry, with a lot more photos than usual.

Disc 791 is….Positive Songs for Negative People

Artist: Frank Turner

Year of Release: 2015

What’s up with the Cover? Frank Turner has a lot of great album covers but this one isn’t one of them. It looks like he couldn’t decide which way to go: portrait, symbolism or crowd shot, and squeezed them all in.

How I Came To Know It: This was just me buying Frank Turner’s new album when it came out. My friend Casey introduced me to Frank Turner on a music appreciation night. I seriously appreciated him and have bought four of his albums (including this one) in the last six months. I may be late to the Frank Turner party, but I’m making up for lost time.

How It Stacks Up: As I just noted, I have four Frank Turner albums with plans to get more. Of those four, I must regrettably put “Positive Songs for Negative People” at the bottom of the pile. It isn’t bad, but there is just too much brilliance soaking through the other three.

Ratings: 3 stars

Frank Turner is the best kept secret of the last ten years. As a recent convert to his music I zealously go about preaching his awesomeness but hardly anyone has even heard of him in North America. Those who have are seriously devoted fans, however – more on that in the concert review that follows this album review.

If you don’t know Turner, imagine a young Billy Bragg, who sings less about politics, more about drinking and about the same amount about heartache. “Positive Songs for Negative People” is his sixth full-length studio album and has a stronger rock vibe to it than earlier records that had a much stronger folk underpinning.

Turner sticks to pretty basic chord progressions in all his music, and the songs on “Positive Songs for Negative People” are probably even simpler than his earlier work. However, Frank is so good at working three simple chords into a song that it always sounds fresh even when he’s revisiting old territory.

Turner is the master of the anthem song; tracks that inspire you to sing along and shake your fist in the sky in unison. Previous albums gave us “Try This at Home,” “Photosynthesis” “I Still Believe” and “Four Simple Words.” “Positive Songs for Negative People’s” entry to the list is “Get Better” which reminds us “we can get better, because we’re not dead yet.” Turner’s message, as ever, is that you need to get out there and suck the marrow from the bones of life while you still can. In the case of “Get Better” the exhortation begins:

“I got me a shovel

And I’ve digging a ditch

And I’m going to fight for this four square feet of land

Like a mean old son of a bitch.

I got me a future

I’m not stuck in the past

I’ve got no new tricks, yeah I’m up on bricks

But me, I’m a machine and I was built to last.”

 I like that Frank doesn’t pretend to have any new tricks, seeming to understand at this point in his career his pre-existing tricks are excellent. While “Get Better” didn’t inspire me the same as fist-pumping tracks from earlier albums, it is still pretty awesome and always has me singing out “because we’re not dead yet!” at the appropriate time.

Other inspirational tracks “The Next Storm,” “Out of Breath” and “Demons” are OK, but I sometimes find the imagery a bit of a strain. For example, “Demons” is a clear play on the expression “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”  Frank’s suggestion is that if life gives you demons, make a deal with them (metaphorically) and accept life’s little imperfections in the process.

One of the heartache songs, “Mittens” also suffers from imagery overload, comparing a relationship to ill-fitting mittens, when the desire is to ‘fit like a glove’. It is a testament to Turner’s brilliance that he can take that writing exercise and make it work. In “Love Forty Down” he even manages to make tennis symbolism work – although that could just be the tennis fan in me.

The album ends with two truly heart-rending tracks, “Silent Key” and “Song for Josh.”

“Silent Key” is the story of the Challenger disaster, and proposes the last thoughts of doomed astronaut Christa McAuliffe being picked up by a ham radio operator. The Challenger explosion is haunting enough for those of us who watched the disaster live, and “Silent Key” brings all that emotion and helplessness back in a human and strangely inspiring way.

“Positive Songs for Negative People” ends with “Song for Josh,” a song about a friend of Turner’s who recently committed suicide. Sadly, I’ve experienced the same helpless sadness as Turner and while hearing the song is painful, it is also cathartic. It is an incredibly brave thing to write a song about, and indicative of the honest and fearless way he approaches his craft.

I have a special edition version of “Positive Songs for Negative People” which includes a second disc with all the tracks done acoustically (except “The Angel Islington” and “Song for Josh,” presumably because those songs are acoustic on the main record).

I like the acoustic version of most of the songs better, but I prefer Turner more folksy in general, so that is no surprise. If you like his punk edge more, then buy the single album version and save yourself $5. Regardless of how you like your Frank Turner, it is nice to see he is still delivering inspiring music with messages of hope and redemption.

Best tracks:  The Angel Islington, Get Better, The Opening Act of Spring, Mittens, Silent Key, Song for Josh

The Show – Thursday October 15 at the Neptune Theatre, Seattle

I would’ve missed this show if it weren’t for my friend Casey. Sheila and I were in the process of downscaling our holiday to the United States due to time constraints when Casey emailed me and asked if we wanted to join him in Seattle before heading on to Nashville. As it happens, there is a direct Seattle-Nashville flight so it was an easy decision to say yes.

I’m glad I did, because Frank Turner was one of the better concerts I’ve ever seen.

As a venue, The Neptune is awesome. I would guess it was built around the turn of the century, but it has been modernized – basically they’ve left the bones of the building and removed most of the seating in favour of a big concrete dance floor. Here’s a cool detail of Neptune’s head on the roof, which has been given glowing eyes because – rock and roll!

 

The theatre has fake stained glass pictures of Neptune, along with (inexplicably) Aphrodite. Someone should tell them that Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus and mostly fools around with Ares, not Poseidon (or Neptune). That said, I love Neptune riding on a dolphin. I took a separate picture of me giving the Miami Dolphins “Fins Up!” pose in front of it, but since this is a music blog, and not a sports blog, I’ll spare you.

 

Beans on Toast

There were two opening acts, both from England. The first was “Beans on Toast” which is actually just one diminutive fellow with a beard. Beans on Toast strums guitar and sings political and social activist songs. He is funny as hell and a great entertainer. Here’s a song about ourfascination with eating chicken.

He also sang a song called “Fuck You, Nashville” which was pretty hilarious given we were heading there the next day. Sorry B on T, but I mostly liked Nashville – you just need to know where to go and where to avoid. I’ll save that for the next review.

Skinny Lister

The second opening act was “Skinny Lister” who felt like an English version of the Pogues. They sing high energy British folk-rock and are awesome entertainers. Here’s an example – a song called “Trouble on Oxford Street.”

 

Bass player Mike Camino was uncharacteristically active, spinning his bass around and throwing it up into the air regularly (it was his signature move). Later he crowd-surfed with the bass which was brave and brilliant in equal measure.

 

Fun fact: Camino’s bass has “this machine kills dubstep” written on it. I found this particularly awesome, since I also dislike dubstep.

Lead singer Lorna Thomas was also awesome and later crowd-surfed as well. Given that she was wearing heels and a short dress this may have been braver than Camino’s foray.

I liked them a lot, but the songs would sometimes fall into that clashing sound that a lot of modern music does in place of resolving the melody. Also, when they did this the room’s sound got a bit hot and distorted despite the venue generally having good acoustics.

Frank Turner

By the time Frank Turner took the stage, I was already happy having only seen two really good opening bands. With the energy they had built up, Turner had a significant challenge to match it, but he did so. Here’s a picture that captures the visceral quality of the performance.

He played for a solid two hours and the energy level never dipped. As I mentioned earlier, Turner is blessed with a ton of anthems and the whole show was a sing-a-long extravaganza.

In fact, I’ve never encountered more knowledgeable fans than Frank Turner fans. They weren’t just singing the chorus (which is all I could manage) they often knew the entire song. At some shows, the audience singing can be annoying, but at a Frank Turner show it is awesome.

Turner did songs from throughout his career, with the right mix of rare old stuff, old favourites and songs from the new album. He threw in a solo acoustic set halfway through which was a highlight for me.

 

Again, when the band was all going hard there were times when the vocals were drowned out and the sound bounced a little. Not too bad overall, though, and easily forgiven since the energy was so powerful.

Turner told the story behind “Song for Josh”, his friend who committed suicide and it was genuinely touching. He listed every venue he’d played at in Seattle, and worked the town’s name into a few songs which is a cheesy trick performers do to curry favour, but still fun.

He also mentioned it was his 1,759^th show and then talked about some of the things that happened in 1759, which appealed to the amateur historian in me.

Even though for about half an hour of the show there was a giant dude blocking my view I didn’t get mad. Remembering Frank’s admonishment to be nice to everyone, I just felt sad for him. He was awkwardly aware of how damned tall he was and that no matter where he stood, he’d block someone’s view. It would be hard to be that big.

Frank pointed out some Germans who had been following the show around the world with a friendship flag, which was pretty much a microcosm of the whole “be nice to others” vibe that was in the room. As crowds go, I’ve never seen one better. We even sat with a lovely couple from Redmond. They were awesome and I’m sorry I didn’t write their names down but I gave them a card so if you’re reading along – hello!

Basically, the show was a hell of a good time, went on for four hours and left me still wanting more. It was loud and awesome but not painful on the ears (I had no ear plugs but could still hear at the end, which was nice).

My friend Casey went on to see him in Portland, and reports back that the acoustic set is different each night, and based on fan requests, which is awesome. The Portland show had the better songs (“The Next Round” and “Casanova Lament” as opposed to “To Absent Friends” and “The Angel Islington” in Seattle) but all were good.

Casey also advises that:

·         Skinny Lister’s bassist crowd-surfed again but singer Lorna did not.

·         Turner admitted he was on the wagon, which makes sense given his songs about booze.

·         Turner knew all the Portland venues he’d been at as well, and gave historical facts about 1760.

·         The show was just as awesome and energetic.

So to summarize, if Frank Turner comes to your town and you don’t go see him, you are an idiot. This is a show not to be missed. If possible – go with a friend, like we did!