Songdog

Songdog are a Welsh four-piece folk noir band noted for their intelligent lyrics and sparse (often acoustic) musical arrangements.

Background

Band members include Lyndon Morgans (vocals, acoustic guitar and songs), Karl Woodward (electric guitars, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, keyboards), Dave Paterson (drums, keyboards, accordion, percussion), and Jasper Salmon (violin).

Lyndon Morgans has also been a playwright. He wrote a play entitled Water Music which won the Verity Bargate award in 1991 and was performed at London's Cockpit Theatre in 1992 and starred David Ryall (Outnumbered, The Singing Detective), Dervla Kirwan (Ballykissangel, Goodnight Sweetheart), Linda Baron (Open All Hours) and Elizabeth Estensen (The Liver Birds).

The band’s debut album, The Way of the World, was self-released. Nevertheless, it received some positive press, including a four (out of five) star review from Martin Aston of The Times in June 2001. Morgans "is smitten by that old salty Belgian dog Jacques Brel, as shown by the sparse, candlelit arrangements and tremulous vocals".

In 2003 the band’s second album, Haiku, was released on Evangeline Records. The album received a four (out of five) star review in Uncut.^[1] "If 2001's superb 'The Way of the World' was a fittingly damaged, literary affair for a songwriter in thrall to the Beats, Brel and Dylan, 'Haiku' ups the ante with more extreme, nerve-jarring tales of love and sex in all its obsessive, voyeuristic, clammy glory".

By the time of the third album in 2006 the band had signed to One Little Indian Records. Again the album received some positive press, including a 4.5 out of 5 star review in The Sun newspaper. "There's a raw honesty to Morgans' acute insights set in sparse, intimate musical surroundings... The Time of Summer Lightning is one of those albums you can get lost in for weeks. Another example of why quiet might just be the new loud".^[2]

2008’s A Wretched Sinner's Song was a double album released to mixed reviews. The NME wrote that Lyndon Morgans’ "storytelling hints at a real gravity".^[3]

On A Life Eroding, the band’s fifth album, "Lyndon Morgans’ lyrics are as evocative as ever, but his graphic, oddly magical songs haven’t previously enjoyed such well-plotted arrangements".^[4] Mojo awarded the album four (out of five) stars.

Sixth album "Last Orders At Harry's Bar" was released in 2013 and was awarded 8/10 by Uncut's Nigel Williamson, who called it "..a set of darkly melancholic songs reflecting on a life of lust, pain, reckless hedonism, betrayal, lost opportunities and "good times... pissed away"." Nick Toczek, R2 Magazine awarded the album 5 stars, and Gavin Martin in the Mirror awarded the album 4 (out of 5) stars, as did Jeremy Searle in Maverick. Track 'St Lucy's Day' also featured on an Uncut covermount CD.

Songdog's most recent release, in 2016, was a download-only single called "It's Not A Love Thing", which was produced by Nigel Stonier. The track received plays on both BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music. Songdog's next album, "Joy Street" is due in 2017.

Celebrity fans include Bruce Springsteen, who used Songdog's "Days of Armageddon" (from 2003 album Haiku) for "walk in music" on his European tour and personally requested a copy of their third album, The Time of Summer Lightning. Haiku, the title for Songdog's second album, means a Japanese verse of three short, unrhymed lines. Tracks from the third album received radio airplay on Jonathan Ross' BBC Radio 2 show and John Kennedy's XFM show, amongst others.

Songdog have performed at the Bloomsbury Theatre, St Pancras Old Church, Kings Place and O2 Indigo, and supported Martin Rossiter, Joan As Policewoman, Ed Harcourt, The Handsome Family and The Go-Betweens, Australian indie rockers.

it is as a live act that Songdog come into their own, in tune with each other and the audience they at once conjure up the seedy back rooms of Weimar Berlin or Montmartre and smoke filled pubs in Glasgow, London or Cardiff, the perverse beauty of their tales will have you leaning forwards on the edge of your seat.

Key songs

• 'Goodbye Isabel' and 'I Love My Angel's Plastic Wings' from 'The Way of the World' (2001)
• 'The Girl on the Escalator at HMV' and 'Days of Armageddon' from 'Haiku' (2003)
• 'The Waitress from Yorkville, Toronto' and 'Childhood Skies' from 'The Time of Summer Lightning' (2005)
• 'St Lucy's Day' from 'Last Orders At Harry's Bar'(2013)

Quotes from Lyndon Morgans

• "If I could create a record as powerful as mid-period Joni Mitchell, or Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, I'd die happy".
• "I'm not a great believer in this idea that rock music is cool because it's disposable, it's chewing gum - enjoy it then throw it away - I think when you write music you should strive to endure, like a great writer or painter. All the great rock music that I value is on the same level as any other art forms - when I try to write a song, I try to write it as if it's forever (although I'm not claiming that any of our stuff will live beyond tomorrow..) I wouldn't be happy just stringing together a cliched set of chords, saying this'll be energetic and get people's rocks off tonight".

Discography

Albums

• The Way Of The World (Self-released, 2001)
• Haiku (Evangeline Records, 2003)
• The Time of Summer Lightning (One Little Indian Records, 2005)
• A Wretched Sinner's Song (One Little Indian Records, 2008) Leaked on 16 January 2008.
• A Life Eroding (One Little Indian Records, 26 Apr. 2010)
• Last Orders At Harry's Bar (Junkyard Songs, 7 Oct. 2013)

External links

• Whisperin & Hollerin, June 2005

References