Pugwash - Home Concert, Dublin, Ireland, 6-20-2020 (Kinks Songs)

I just posted an album of Pugwash (a.k.a. Thomas Walsh) playing the Kinks' classic 1968 "Village Green Preservation Society" album at a home concert only a couple of days ago. He started by playing the songs from that album in order. Then he went on to play a bunch of additional Kinks songs. He did so many bonus songs that that portion of the concert was actually longer than the VGPS album. So I'm posting this as a separate album. It's 54 minutes long.

Please read the post I just made about him covering the VGPS album that explain Pugwash and the context of the home concert he's been doing. I mentioned a number of caveats about the sound quality, such as how he was winging it, doing these from memory, and sometimes making mistakes. Everything I said there applies here, including the problem of his cell phone ringing from time to time. After all, it's  the second half of the exact same home concert.

As far as the songs chosen, there doesn't seem to be any logic to them other than these happen to be the songs he loves the most and thus is able to play them from memory. Not surprisingly, the vast majority come from the Kinks' classic era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The only exceptions to that are "Set Me Free," from even earlier in the 1960s, and "How Are You" and "Quiet Life" from the 1980s. Note that "Quiet Life" is only part of the song, since that's all he could remember. But I included it anyway since it's an interesting rarity.

All the songs here are the order he played them. The exception is the last four songs, which don't come from this concert at all. As I mentioned in the other blog post, he's been doing one home concert at week since the coronavirus pandemic began, and from time to time he played Kinks songs. The majority of those were the same songs he did in this home concert, but these four songs were not repeats, so I've included them. They have the exact same sound quality, since they were recorded in the exact same conditions.

01 Wonderboy (Pugwash)
02 Days (Pugwash)
03 Two Sisters (Pugwash)
04 Lola (Pugwash)
05 Get Back in Line (Pugwash)
06 Victoria (Pugwash)
07 Set Me Free (Pugwash)
08 Mr. Pleasant (Pugwash)
09 How Are You (Pugwash)
10 Waterloo Sunset (Pugwash)
11 Apeman (Pugwash)
12 This Time Tomorrow (Pugwash)
13 A Long Way from Home (Pugwash)
14 Quiet Life (Pugwash)
15 Harry Rag (Pugwash)
16 The Moneygoround (Pugwash)
17 Death of a Clown (Pugwash)
18 Big Black Smoke (Pugwash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15267501/Pugwsh_2020_HomeConcrtDublinIrelnd__6-20-2020__KnksSngs__atse.zip.html

For the album I just posted, of Pugwash playing the "Village Green Preservation Society" album, I used the Kinks' cover art as the basis for the Pugwash version. For this album, I thought it would be fun to do something similar. I noticed that he played the most songs from the Kinks' 1970 album "Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part 1." I believe there are six songs from that album. Luckily, it turns out that album cover only had one person's head on it, of the band's main singer and songwriter Ray Davies, so it was easy for me to change that to the head of Pugwash's Thomas Walsh. Then I changed the text, using the same font color and type as the original album.

Pugwash - Home Concert, Dublin, Ireland, 6-20-2020 (Village Green Preservation Society)

I'm a big fan of Pugwash. That's essentially Thomas Walsh, since he writes and sings all the songs, and is the only current member. (From now on, I'll call Wash "Pugwash," since that's how he seems to prefer it, much like Gordon Sumner of the Police calling himself "Sting.") I've posted two albums here of the Duckworth Lewis Method, a band composed of Walsh and Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy that exclusively sings songs about the sport of cricket. But this is the first album I've posted just of Pugwash.

Pugwash has been releasing albums since the early 2000s, which makes that band a relative babe in the woods compared to the other musicians I typically post about here. But Pugwash is heavily influenced by music from the 1960s and 70s, most especially the Beatles, the Kinks, and Jeff Lynne of ELO. So to ease listeners in to hearing his own music, I thought I'd start with him doing covers by his musical heroes.

It turns out that Pugwash knows a remarkable number of cover songs on the guitar. He probably could do hundreds by memory. It also turns out that he's been extremely musically prolific during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. He's been putting on one home concert per week, every week since the lockdown began. And not short shows either. He typically has played between two and three and a half hours each time!

During these shows, he's systematically played all of his songs from all of his albums, as well as a similar number of cover versions from a wide variety of artists. I plan on posting a lot more of that material in the future, but I wanted to start with his Kinks covers, because he did a concert of nothing but Kinks covers just a couple of days ago. He started by playing the entire classic 1968 album "Village Green Preservation Society," which I'm presenting here. Then he did even more Kinks songs, which I will soon post a separate album for.

As with all his 2020 home concerts, all these songs just feature Pugwash on acoustic guitar. I've removed all the talking between songs, because he tends to ramble a lot, and I don't find his comments that illuminating. However, there's one story he told during this concert that I want to pass on. Although Pugwash hasn't ever hit it big with commercial success, he's made enough notice to be able to meet many of his musical heroes, including Jeff Lynne and Ray Davies, the main singer and songwriter of the Kinks. He related a story in which he did some studio recording with Davies in recent years. Afterwards, he, Davies, and some of his band members retired to a nearby pub for some drinks. After everyone had a few pints, he offered to sing the entire "Village Green Preservation Society" album, start to finish, with Davies and the band members joining along. That's exactly what happened, and apparently Davies had a lot of fun taking part in that. My only comment is, what a lucky bastard, to be able to take part in that!

Anyway, before I finish here, I want to make a couple of caveats. Although Pugwash has put on very long home concerts each week, he's done them in a spontaneous manner, usually singing whatever song that pops into his head. Sometimes he's remembered all the chords and words, and sometimes he hasn't. He's often stopped midway and started again, or sometimes just gave up. He's also forgotten some chords or mangled the lyrics. Furthermore, he's had some health problems in recent years that included him partially losing his hearing, so he's occasionally gone off key without realizing it. Furthermore, he's Irish and speaks and sings with an accent that includes him pronouncing "th" as just "t."

Finally, I find it extremely annoying that he always does these home concerts with his cell phone nearby. And that damn phone rings a LOT! As in every few songs. Why he doesn't just put the phone away for the duration of the concert is beyond me. I've tried my best to fix the cell phone ringing sounds during songs whenever I can. I fixed most of them. However, on this album, there are a few instances I couldn't fix, because they happened during vocals that weren't repeated elsewhere. Mostly this happens in the last few songs. Sorry about those.

Anyway, please take this album in the spirit of someone just having fun winging it, much like singing songs around a campfire. This isn't meant to be a professional, polished sort of thing. If you take it in that spirit, and you enjoy the Kinks, you should enjoy hearing this solo acoustic version of what I consider to be one of the greatest albums of all time.

01 The Village Green Preservation Society (Pugwash)
02 Do You Remember Walter (Pugwash)
03 Picture Book (Pugwash)
04 Johnny Thunder (Pugwash)
05 Last of the Steam Powered Trains (Pugwash)
06 Big Sky (Pugwash)
07 Sitting by the Riverside (Pugwash)
08 Animal Farm (Pugwash)
09 Village Green (Pugwash)
10 Starstruck (Pugwash)
11 Phenomenal Cat (Pugwash)
12 All of My Friends Were There (Pugwash)
13 Wicked Annabella (Pugwash)
14 Monica (Pugwash)
15 People Take Pictures of Each Other (Pugwash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697027/PUGWSH2020_HomCncrtDblinIrelnd__6-20-2020__VGPSociety__atse.zip.html

Does the album cover look familiar to you? I hope it does. I took the Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" album cover and gave it a Pugwash twist. I added Thomas Walsh's head to the circle of darkness in the middle of the cover, and tilted it red to match the overall look. I also changed the text, including replacing the "Kinks" name at the top with "Pugwash" in the exact same font style and color.

The Duckworth Lewis Method - Gentlemen and Players - Acoustic Versions (2009-2013)

Some weeks ago, I posted an album by the Duckworth Lewis Method, a relatively obscure group that writes and sings songs entirely about the sport of cricket. That was no joke. I posted that because I think they great. I have no interest in cricket whatsoever, but it doesn't matter for me, nor should it for you, because they write excellent songs and perform them well. They're a relatively new band (their two albums (so far) were released in 2009 and 2013), but they're heavily inspired by the music of the 1960s and 1970s.

This album consists of acoustic versions of songs from their two albums, with a couple of non-album cover versions thrown in. So this plays much like an acoustic version of their best songs. If you want one album to be introduced to the band, this is a good way to go, probably more than the other album of their that I posted.

By the way, the link to that one is here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-duckworth-lewis-method-on-with-show.html

All the songs here are officially unreleased, but the sound quality is consistently very good anyway. About half of the songs were recorded in the studio, sometimes for radio shows. The other half were played live, but from intimate appearances at record stores on or TV.

This and the above link are all I have to post from the Duckworth Lewis Method. However, I'm very impressed with the music of Thomas Walsh (who writes and sings about half of these songs) and his band Pugwash. I hope to post a lot of Pugwash stuff in the future.

01 Flatten the Hay [Acoustic Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
02 Meeting Mr. Miandad [Acoustic Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
03 Norwegian Wood [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
04 Mason on the Boundary [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method with Matt Berry)
05 The Age of Revolution [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
06 What Becomes of the Broken Hearted [Acappella Mix] (Duckworth Lewis Method with Matt Berry)
07 Gentlemen and Players [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
08 Out in the Middle [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
09 Test Match Special [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
10 Boom Boom Afridi [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
11 Third Man [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
12 It's Just Not Cricket [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method with Henry Blofeld)
13 The Nightwatchman [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328237/DuckwrthLwisM_2009-2013_GentlemnPlayrsAcoustic_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a band publicity photo. I think it dates from 2009. I took the text of the band's name from some other publicity material.

The Duckworth Lewis Method - On with the Show - Non-Album Tracks (2009-2013)

This is a strange and obscure album, but I really hope you give it a try, because the music is great.

The Duckworth Lewis Method (DLM) is a band made up of Thomas Walsh of Pugwash and Neil Hannon the Divine Comedy. Both of them are from Ireland. I appreciate Hannon's talent, even though I'm not really a fan of his band. I've only recently discovered Pugwash, and I'm really getting into them. I hope to post a lot of Pugwash stuff in the future. Pugwash is extremely influenced by the Beatles and ELO, and other 1960s and 1970s artists. But unlike most derivative bands, Walsh has considerable singing talent as well as songwriting talent.

As good as the Divine Comedy and Pugwash are on their own, they're even better working together as the DLM. But there's a very strange thing about the DLM: all, and I do mean ALL, of their songs are about the game of cricket! As an American, I know very little about cricket, and what I do know doesn't interest me in the slightest. And yet, I love these songs about cricket, even though I have no clue what they're about most of the time. That's because it's simply really excellent music.

The DLM have put out two albums, one in 2009 ("The Duckworth Lewis Method") and the other in 2013 ("Sticky Wickets"). I don't want to post either of them here, since you should support the artists by buying them. So instead this is compilation of stray tracks. Only three of the songs are versions of songs on their studio albums. But hopefully you'll see the quality level is so high that you'll want to get the albums too.

Many of the songs are covers. Some are cricket-themed, such as "Soul Limbo," which is a classic soul instrumental hit, but one that apparently was used as a theme song for cricket on the BBC for many years. Others appear to just be songs the band loves. Check out for instance their version of ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky," which they nail despite only being a small band.

There are a couple of non-album originals here too. One example is "Ireland, Ireland." Strangely, the band was commissioned by an Irish newspaper to write a new national anthem for Ireland, and this is the tongue-in-cheek result.

By the way, the band's strange name is a mathematical formulation relating to cricket. Again, I don't know or care much about cricket, so I can't explain it. But the name shows that they are extremely dedicated to their cricket obsession.

01 Gentlemen and Players [Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
02 Pedalo (Duckworth Lewis Method)
03 Test Match Special [Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
04 The Age of Revolution [Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
05 Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime (Duckworth Lewis Method)
06 Ireland, Ireland (Duckworth Lewis Method)
07 Mr. Blue Sky (Duckworth Lewis Method)
08 Soul Limbo [Instrumental] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
09 When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease (Duckworth Lewis Method)
10 What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (Duckworth Lewis Method with Matt Berry)
11 On with the Show (Duckworth Lewis Method)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328230/DuckwrthLwisM_2009-2013_OnwithShw_atse.zip.html

I made the album cover using a screenshot from a DLM video. The man playing guitar is Thomas Walsh, and the man playing accordion is Neil Hannon.