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SONGDOG
Biography
Songdog's
latest album 'A Wretched Sinner's Song'
was released in January 2008 on One
Little Indian.
Coming originally
from Wales (Lyndon Morgans and Karl
Woodward) and Scotland (Dave Paterson),
Songdog are a trio who combine acoustic
and electronic instruments to create soundscapes for
singer/songwriter (and former award-winning playwright)
Lyndon Morgans's vignettes on life, love and loss.
Their last album 'The
Time Of Summer Lightning' received some great
press, and plays on Jonathan Ross's BBC Radio 2 show
and John Kennedy's XFM show amongst others. New fans
include Bruce Springsteen, who used their track 'Days
of Armageddon' (from earlier album 'Haiku') for "walk
in music" on his last European tour and personally
requested a copy of the last album.
They've had 4 tracks on Uncut
Magazine covermount CDs over the last couple of years
(including their cover of Dylan's 'Desolation Row' which
was commissioned for the Uncut 100th birthday issue).
Recent dates included shows at
the Roundhouse FreeDM Studio, Bush Hall (supporting
Duke Special), Union Chapel, ICA and Spitz, supporting
Joan As Police Woman at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, appearances
at the Wireless, Guilfest, TDK Cross Central and Secret
Garden festivals and supporting the Go-Betweens on their
last UK tour.
They have also appeared at international
festivals in Canada, Spain, Sweden, Holland and Russia.
INFLUENCES:
Lyndon reveres
Leonard Cohen, James Joyce, Joni Mitchell, Samuel Beckett,
Tom Waits, Marcel Proust, Bob Dylan and Emile Cioran
best. (Plus Roy Orbison and Franz Kafka, the Beatles
and Baudelaire). He doesn't really like to hang out,
but if these people were to book a coach and ask him
along for a summer-afternoon's chilling in the hills
he'd definitely go, because they're the people he grew
up reading and listening to, his role-models if you
like. (Some of them he's seen live, some of them he's
just visited the graves of. And he taught himself French
so he could read some of them in their own language).
For Lyndon, if it's not about
poetry (the shorthand of the heart) and great tunes
it's probably just a career move. Sure, poetry can encompass
anything from The Waste Land to Long Tall Sally but
just so long as it's there! In earlier bands Lyndon
used to yelp his stuff in front of Marshall-stacks and
big fuck-off bass-bins, but with Songdog he changed
tack and sold his gold-top Les Paul for a Martin. So
there's as much attitude in his songs as ever, only
now it's murmured sotto voce.
Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll and
Art might be a good slogan for a Songdog T-shirt. When
rock n roll pretends to disdain art, that's just its
inferiority complex showing, says Lyndon. Art-schools
have been the cradle for all the most important British
rock music, so we should just quit acting dumb and embrace
the A word. (A is for Animal Rights too. The way we
exploit animals is just .. heartbreaking).
Before Songdog, Lyndon wrote
plays and won the Verity Bargate award for one called
Water Music. He found the theatre world
a bit of a snake-pit, all farty and no arty. Only times
he ever goes now is for Howard Barker plays or Robert
Wilson extravaganzas. You can check out some of his
writing here or on his own blog at Lyndon's
Myspace
Karl paints,
went to St Martins for a while. You can check out some
of his stuff at the Podlean Gallery page of the website.
He'd probably pretty much praise all the same names
as Lyndon, but Neil Young would have to feature somewhere
very near the top-end of the list. Dave
went to music college and understands jazz. A photographer
thinking of taking up an instrument once asked Dave
what a key was and the explanation took twenty minutes
and the snapper just stuck with photography.
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