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.