Tom Craven: Letter/Diary
Posted by jamie on Mar 20, 2012
Tom Craven
Letter/Diary – Self Released, 2012
20th March, 2012
Jamie
It feels, in hindsight, as if we’ve been waiting for that first full Tom Craven album almost forever, but the good news is that it’s worth the wait and then some.
The last we heard, Tom had set his heart on creating something that could define him, and his uniquely complicated recent musical, and personal, experiences in the space of one record.
That would have to span Tom’s solo, acoustic, singer-songwriter material, and all of its delicate, candid emotional sensibilities and disclosures, and the bigger, more ambitious arrangements, recorded by a full band, that shift from a sort of delicate, emotional indie, through alt-country, and end up as a sort of melodic, post-emo, almost-epic rock album.
Somehow, Tom has managed to pull all of that together on Letter/Diary, and to do it in such a way that, while powerful, isn’t ever bombastic or overblown, but calmly, assuredly gives each of this collection of songs exactly what it wants to shine.
Talking to him, or watching him perform, it would be easy to assume that Tom Craven takes himself or his music lightly: he affably downplays any instances of showmanship and is modest to the point of seeming insecure, but, on the inside, you can’t help but feel that he takes all of this very seriously indeed.
That much is clear in the incredible attention he’s given to musical detail here, delicately, patiently embellishing songs originally intended for his solo acoustic shows with extra intricacies in the guitar parts, or, as in the anthemic full-band recording of Heads Rule Hearts, a whole extra melody.
Chances, initially a fan favourite and staple of Tom’s early solo shows as a wistful acoustic number, is included with the backing of a full band, the vocal deeper and instantly more powerful. It’s got all its original charm, and now it’s got real body behind it as well, and is an instant personal highlight: existing fans will know and love this song already, and enjoy the album version as a variation on a much loved theme. If you’re new to Tom’s music, this rendition is just as adorable just as instantly: a vintage pop song that pushes all the right buttons at just the right times and is just waiting to be loved.
Letter/Diary is remarkable not just for its quality, or the musical breadth and versatility, but also because all of those potentially disparate parts have been brought together and arranged, recorded and presented in such a way that’s genuinely cohesive as an album as well, which, given that so many strikingly different influences, ideas and experiences have gone in to it, is an achievement in itself.
All this is evident in the way that the ballsy, bitter Factory Girl is sandwiched between the much gentler, A Last Time for Everything and Last Chance Romance.
Last Chance Romance, in particular, is wonderful, polished, emotional pop: it teases, for a moment, at becoming a full-blown power ballad, and then, just where the key change would have been, cheekily disappears in to a laugh and some off-mic studio banter, left in just in case this all got a bit too serious.
It’s a delightful little song, all the same: like so much of Tom’s best work, the real beauty is in the way it neatly crystallises the problems that we all wrestle with, but that the rest of us still struggle to articulate, and does so with an emotional honesty that’s unflinchingly candid. For that, on an emotional level, these songs are immensely satisfying and instantly relatable. Neatly moving on from A Last Time for Everything, Last Chance Romance gathers all those unfinished feelings from the breakdown of a relationship together, moves satisfyingly and assuredly on, and does it with a piano and percussion.
While Nights in Camden is based more around riffs, a more standard rock song, the best moments of Letter/Diary come after that, in the form of some wonderfully delicate ballads, in particular the duet Magpie and I Never Heard the Sirens Arrive. Magpie is incredibly soft, its melody based around a simple little piano part and percussion, and the male/female vocals in beautiful harmony telling the sad story of “the taming of Johnson and his legendary beast” (the mind boggles). On I Never Heard the Sirens Arrive Tom finishes the album alone. Initially, completely alone, as his vocal begins the song completely unaccompanied, before, eventually, a full band join him, notably with some brilliantly powerful stadium-style drums that come, go again, and then return with a vengeance and a full band.
Again, Tom sings the very last lines alone, and it’s a fitting finish to the song and to the album. Letter/Diary is a wonderfully mature and complete album, rising to the challenge of bringing together all the elements of Tom’s music and his experiences, and meeting that challenge very well indeed. It’s a very varied collection of songs, brought together to tell their stories in a uniquely candid fashion that will leave you feeling vulnerable and yet somehow vindicated, reassured, and deeply emotionally satisfied.
Stand-out tracks:
Chances
Last Chance Romance
Another Short Story..
Magpie
I Never Heard the Sirens
Note: the intro to Another Short Story reminds me of the guitar line from this song.
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New Tom Craven songs
Posted by jamie on Jan 24, 2011
Sensitive, introspective Tom Craven has “plenty o’ new shows”. His beautifully intimate live performances are not to be missed. Two new songs: A Last Time for Everything and Heads Rule Hearts might sneak in to the set. Click the titles for a little listen.
Tom Craven: Workshop gig CANCELLED
Posted by jamie on Dec 2, 2010
Another gig bites the dust. Tom Craven’s show at the Workshop in Hoxton has been cancelled by the promoter. Presumably snow. He’s just text that it “sucks”.
He has some mates who are playing the 100 Club for any snow-hardened Londoners.
Tom Craven: live at Proud
Posted by jamie on Sep 22, 2010
Tom Craven
Proud, Camden Town
20th August 2010
Jamie
The sheer joy and excitement that we all, doubtless, were feeling was evident in Tom Craven’s voice as he leaned forward and almost whispered: “I want this to be the most intimate gig I’ve ever played”.
That being the case, he’d picked a great venue: Proud in Camden, London. If you’ve never been, it’s pretty unique: a former stable hidden away by the *ahem* stables market. The cobbled floor and original stables are still there, but each one is now a private booth. It’s decent, if scarily expensive, to hang out with your mates, but absolutely spot on for the immediate, urgent, totally candid emotional intimacy that Tom dresses his music in.
In the half dark, gathered on the floor around “the smallest stage he’s ever played on”, we sit on bean bags, little benches, and the cobbled floor, gazing up at Tom’s feet and legs as the disappear, bean-stalk style, from the soft light and in to that darkness. It’s been said before, but he really is very tall. The soft lights, the patient hush and the comfort of a few old fashioned heaters act as one to create that perfectly intimate atmosphere Tom had intended, and he himself takes it one step further with a calm, yet urgently candid performance that’s as desperate for you to understand and share its emotions as it is to be appreciated and enjoyed. There’s something about Tom’s songs that’s telling you, constantly, that he urgently wants you to understand and to share, to experience the overwhelming emotions that he and his songs are experiencing.
Two new songs come out tonight, Factory Girl, written less than a week ago, is first in the set, and absolutely beautiful. Magpie follows shortly afterwards, similarly thoughtful and just as delicate. Amongst all this, he finds time to perform Cross My Heart, Strike Me Down and the wonderfully soppy, romantic cheese thing I Fell for You. Huddled up on the floor, we find ourselves gently swaying and wistfully humming and mumbling along.
Eventually, though, it’s the delightfully named If Friendship is Leaving, Leave Me Some Pie that steals the show. It was written for an old friend of Tom’s who’s actually in the stable with us tonight, and gets his little mention. Apparently the fluffy beard he’s got is new, and the butt of a few jokes that manage to ignore the fact that Tom himself has got some new fuzz, or at least a bit more than he used to have. Oh well. The song itself is wonderful: really poignant, but only ever so slightly sad. Up this close, and played without his band, it’s incredibly personal and obviously right out of his heart and in to the muggy darkness above our heads. Aside from the crisp, clear melancholy in his voice and that lush collection of songs, it’s that direct emotional immediacy that Tom puts in to his live performances that brings us back to watch him over and over. So reassuring, like when one of those really reassuring hugs that’s also a back-rub turns up right when you need it, and makes you sniff a little bit and think a lot but then realise that everything’s going to be Ok because someone feels just how you do.
It seems that it’s really what Tom’s looking for, but, in actual fact, everyone’s going to leave here tonight with that warm, comforting ..Leave Me Some Pie feeling on the inside. Tom lifts the mood with Matinée Epitaph, a spikier tune that he likes to play with his band, and then finishes his set with and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Angels and joins it in to Chances. He wasn’t going to, he says, but it has a habit of sneaking in to every set.
It’s darker outside than in, but, by the time we emerge from Proud we’re blinking the way you do when you come out of the cinema in the daytime.
Gecko: Zigfrid von Underbelly
Posted by jamie on Jul 1, 2010
Gecko
Zigfrid’s, Hoxton Square, London
30th June 2010
Jamie
Notification arrived, as is so often the case now, and so often the case with Gecko, via their facebook. In case anyone’s not seen Gecko before, it’s not an invitation to be passed up, so we mobilised pretty fast to get our crew over to Shoreditch, where this one was going down. Having sent enough texts in a short enough time to develop a new kind of cramp in my right thumb, the last one I received in reply was that my good friend, the Watford singer/songwriter Tom Craven (as opposed to the Yorkshure real estate salesperson of the same name) was playing at the Cross Kings.
Fortunately time and space conspired for the hardier among us to reach both shows. It’s hard to run too far in this heat, though, when you’re drinking vodka/cola from a large bottle at the same time, so we finished up catching only the second half of Tom’s set, for which he’d been missing a guitar string and had to change most of his songs to a lighter, more melodic set. We heard Chances, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Angels and I Fell For You (for which I’m in the video) as well as one new song, all delivered in classic Tom style, understated and wrapped up in casual, easy going, bubbly charm, and some enthusiastic thank yous to the other acts, his Mum and Dad, who had come down especially, and even to ourselves (thanks, Tom. Love you, man.)
The bus pitched us up in the heart of Hoxton’s fashionista territory, and we made a beeline for the absurdly named Zigfrid von Underbelly, which calls itself an “art bar” and spells sandwiches with a “t” -sandwitches- if you please, to arrive just in time, and descend a spiral staircase just as the band finished tuning up.
Hoxton is basically a place for scenesters who fancy themselves quite a lot and wear their trousers much too tight, and the sort of place where bars are called things like Zigfrid von Underbelly. In a place where a lot of folk and a lot of places like to think of themselves as somewhat cerebral and all arty and creative, it’s exciting to see an up and coming band, if you can still call Gecko that, who are genuinely innovative and very interesting and don’t think too much of themselves. In fact, their distinctive, idiosyncratic take on uplifting, acoustic ska-pop could have been made for this venue. We saw Gecko play the Troubadour in Earl’s Court, which is a similar venue, despite being in a wholly different part of London, in that it’s pretty upmarket, arty, and frequented by folk who like their jazz. That Gecko have managed to carve themselves a niche in a scene like this speaks volumes for the broad appeal of their sound and the quality of their songs, because they’re just at home at regular punk shows too, y’know. So, to the set. They step on to a round stage with a red velvet curtain behind them and another open, theatre style, at the front of the stage. Behind Si, on bass, there’s a large mirror in a giant gold Elizabethan-style picture frame. It’s a great setting, and so appropriate in so many ways.
With a trusty knot of loyal fans and some intrigued natives stopping in for a look, Gecko enter and wordlessly start straight in to Woke Up and What You Gonna Do? from their most recent EP, which, sadly, we’re told has now sold out. Still, I’ve got mine check that last link) and you can get it on iTunes. Tonight Gecko are a five piece, I saw Ben McKone play drums for them for the first time, and he’s actually very good. Will and Si are there of course, and Gabriel is in on keys. They’re always great live, but I do prefer them when Maisie joins in on vocals: the harmonies are excellent, really well conceived and perfectly executed, as ever, and the sound is that little bit rounder and warmer, which is ideal for the venue and the sultry, soggy warmth of a summer evening that’s desperate for an industrial sized thunderstorm.
The night starts off well the opening songs have all the feet tapping and the heads bobbing and the newbies are laughing along with us on the “jubilee line” and “frozen section” lyrics in What You Gonna Do?. Then comes the first gem: a cover that Will teases us to guess and then doesn’t announce its name. Will and Maisie share the vocals and as they hit the first vocal hook it’s one of those that dawns on you in a lightbulb-style all at once way and slaps a dirty great big grin on your face. It’s Ms Jackson by OutKast, and the cover’s as good as you’d think: the rhythm’s there, the bass is fat and it’s more than different enough to be exciting but still faithful enough to force you to sing it when they play it live. And Will nails the rap. Spot on.
I Got Time is followed by The Library from 2007’s Terrible Lizard and Too Much from 2008’s Songs in the Key of Lizard, neither of which I’ve heard live in a while and are the bonus in a relatively extended set tonight. The songs roll out with practices ease before the new song, which was just referred to as “the new song” for a while but is now called New Leaf, and features a wonderfully observed line about turning over a new leaf that says that it’s actually not a new leaf “it’s just the same leaf, but upside down”. Its genius is in its simplicity and the fact that the line is immediately so unarguably true, and it raises a big laugh. Falling Down and another older one, Daylight Done, follow as we all get slightly tipsy and start to sway a little in the dark and dense, sweaty heat, that isn’t from the pit or from anyone’s sweaty back or armpits, because there’s space on the dancefloor to roam around in, but just because, underground, even at eleven at night, it’s still an oven in this place. It’s a boozy, giddy, muggy, swayalong now, and Gecko wrap up, typically, with Guanabana Juice, though only when the sound guy insists that we absolutely can’t have another one. Will did try and wheedle another one, and the room really wanted it, but, in truth, we’re all pretty ready to flake out. The big sofas upstairs are unreally tempting. Phew.
2010: Tom Craven and the Chapter
Posted by jamie on Dec 20, 2009
Watford’s Tom Craven will play his first show with his new band, The Chapter at The Flag in Watford on 13th February 2010. He’s got members of lotts of big new local bands playing with him and they’re having a Traffic Light Party, or some such.
See it on Facebook here.
Free show!
Posted by jamie on Apr 21, 2009
All the free stuff on Bananatown these days. Credit crunch, schmedit schmunch.
Tom Craven is playing at Roadtrip, in London tomorrow night (Wednesday 22/April), and it’s free. Tom is on at 9.30 and the nearest tube is Old Street. The gig is for Festivaljam’s acoustic sessions. There.
Tom Craven, The Cuban Bar
Posted by jamie on Feb 20, 2009
Tom Craven
11th February, The Cuban Bar, Camden Town
If, like me, you’ve drunk in the Cuban before, but didn’t know that they put bands on, it might strike you as a little strange to go there for a gig – it did me. The Cuban is hidden away at the back of Camden stables and usually populated by South Americans and Camden Tourists rather than alternative types and music fans.
It’s a strange setting, then, for the acoustic emotive country/rock that Tom Craven plays these days: edgy, introspective and suggesting angst, he’s an odd choice for an easy going cocktail joint favoured by yabbering tourists and England-game-avoiders. That said, Tom’s amiable and laid-back stage persona offsets his music nicely, and he does a decent job of entertaining the crowd from his stage under a giant plasma showing a BBC 1 nature documentary about polar bears. Surreal? You bet.
Tom plays first, to a half-full bar and a knot of his own fans at the front, and opens with the excellent Cross My Heart, Strike Me Down and mysteriously named “Die, Elijah”, which is quickly becoming one of my very favourite Tom Craven songs, moody, powerful, almost epic in places, and constantly tugging on the heartstrings.
Midway through the set, the singalong I Fell For You gets a great reaction, singing, swaying and clapping starting and lasting largely throughout the rest of his set. I Fell For You is lush, a shamelessly sentimental, sugar-sweet lovesong as gooey as its name suggests but no less sincere for it, and perfect in its simplicity in a lovesong that is surely one of the best of its kind. Tonight, aside from Die, Elijah and the wistful, melancholic When We Were Kids, I Fell For You is a stand-out moment, yet totally different to the pints-in-the-air singalong that it’s become in Watford, where Tom is from and from where the song has borrowed its nickname, I Fell For Elton John: a reference to its Disneyishness as much as it’s Watford heritage, and that’s possibly the best way to describe it: as smushy a Can You Feel The Love Tonight? while at the same time having the substance of a Skylar, Bowling for Soup or Counting Crows lovesong.
By now some clown behind the bar has put Spain’s drubbing of England on the plasma next to Tom’s head, which, predictably, us being in the Cuban, has divided the room a little bit and taken the feelgood factor right out through the doubledoors at the far end. From this, Tom mistakenly plays his closing song, Chances, next and then is reminded he has one more. Chances is also a Tom Craven anthem and keeps the non-football-oriented crowd happy until Tom’s last last song, If Friendship Is Leaving, Leave Me Some Pie, which is written for a (male) buddy of Tom’s, who, by coincidence, is next to the stage drinking lager, add to the love-in nature that seems to appear at every Tom Craven show, and, in this instance, Tom is calling homoerotic. Ace. An big gay ending to a wonderfully surreal night.
