Chris T Popper reviews Strand of Oaks at St. Pancras Old Church, London, Friday 22nd February 2013
Apparently the oldest place of Christian worship in England (it has believed to have existed since AD 316) St Pancras Old Church in central London was a beguiling if somewhat confusing venue for a music gig. Convinced we were in the wrong place we had almost turned to leave before three gentlemen who were sort of loitering in the foyer put us right, telling us to come on in… an intriguing start to proceedings.
With tins of beer purchased off a small table (once retrieved from a small fridge nearby) we wandered down the church aisle and took our seats on the front row. Drinking alcohol in God’s house felt a little odd but I managed to muddle through… along with a small but appreciative audience that had gathered on a bitterly cold February night for Tim Showalter and drummer Chris Ward aka Strand of Oaks.
Trap Door was one of my absolute favourite songs of 2012 so I was eager to see them in action close up. The support was Antonio Lulic (accompanied by John on Double Bass) with an enterprising performance and an excellent line in self-deprecating humour.
To warm applause Strand of Oaks entered the stage and quite simply produced a mesmerising set. Opening with tracks from his latest offering Dark Shores, we were treated to Satellite Moon and Maureen’s before Showalter explained he didn’t get too much publicity for his music as he didn’t write songs about flip flops and the beach… he preferred writing songs about killing John Belushi’s drug dealer.
Throughout the performance he was wonderfully humble and made an immediate connection with everyone watching. It should also be said for such an intimate gig the audience made sure Strand of Oaks were cheered to the Godly rafters after each song – and quite rightly. Personal favourites for me were the fabulous tracks from his Leave Ruin album, Two Kids and Sister Evangeline.
Other treats included tracks from Pope Kildragon, finishing the set with a rousing Bonfire before exiting to whoops and cheers. Re-emerging Showalter confessed he didn’t usually do encores but such was the feeling of mutual appreciation he kindly obliged us. Before finally leaving the stage Showalter offered to meet all of us in attendance for a chat before we left. Never one to turn down the chance of chewing the fat with an artist I managed to get a quick word with Tim as he talked amicably to the throng gathered in the holy foyer.
Once I had congratulated him on such a fine set and identified ourselves as Mad Mackerels, I couldn’t help but mention he left out Trap Door… (I just couldn’t help it okay, such was my heartbreak… and I didn’t even mention he also left out the sublime Alex Kona). But hey – with a back catalogue as good as his it really didn’t matter.
I genuinely have never seen the point of watching bands at massive arenas whoever they are (and that includes Radiohead… and I love Radiohead). Standing three miles back watching a video screen of Bono’s or Chris Martin’s cretinous fizzog isn’t my idea of fun. But then again watching either of those bands close up wouldn’t be either. Tonight was. A bizarre venue coupled with a totally compelling atmosphere, immediate, different and utterly fucking freezing, the music mattered not the pyrotechnics/dancers/costume changes. And I loved it. If you get the chance go and see Strand of Oaks, it’s good for the soul.
As well as our Top 100 tunes of the year posts over the past five days, each of the MM contributors have put together their own lists. Kicking us off is Polly Pocket…
This has been the hardest year ever to pick the best of – it has been a cracking year for top tunes but here goes…..
19. Zachary Cale, Mighty Moon and Ethan Schmid – Love In Vain
Download Zachary Cale, Mighty Moon and Ethan Schmid – Love In Vain mp3
18. Shovels & Rope – Birmingham
17. Strand Of Oaks – Little Wishes
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16. Ben Howard – Oats In The Water
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15. Mumford and Sons – I Will Wait
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14. Magic Arm – Put Your Colour Up
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13. Trampled By Turtles – Keys To Paradise
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12. Field Report – I Am Not Waiting Anymore
11. Grassfight – Nassau
10. Wild Nothing – Paradise
Well, this is way more retro electro pop than I was anticipating having in my top ten, but damn it, I just like it. Whenever I hear it I feel I have gone back about 20 years, sitting round the edge of a village hall hoping not to dance. I never thought it would end up at number ten, but I admire it for doing so.
9. Houndmouth – Penitentiary
Just when I thought I might have found a tune before MM I was of course put right, but I was happy to share my love of Penitentiary nonetheless. Its an old fashioned, whiskey drinking, tobacco chewing kind of a song, and its a song sung well.
8. Angel Snow – Lie Awake
This was a late arrival into my top ten and I am thrilled to have it here. Those beautiful haunting vocals stay with you long after listening – its a sad story perfectly told and I love it. Not the happiest song in my top ten but certainly one of the most beautiful.
7. Tom Williams and The Boat – Too Young
For me, this tune has all the energy of being young with the class of being a little older! I have loved it for months and it does what a good song should – makes you smile, makes you get up and dance or certainly tap a foot. Lovely guitars and violins, with nice gentle vocals – great stuff.
6. The Tallest Man On Earth – Wind And Walls
Why this song? I guess it just makes me happy. When Kristian Matsson starts to sing, its hard not to smile, such a powerful voice. There is no place to hide with this tune – just a guitar, some words and a man telling a story. Nothing wrong with that combination in my mind.
5. First Aid Kit – The Lions Roar
This has been in with the best since the beginning of the year, and rightfully so. Brilliant vocals – all pure and clean and I still marvel at the number of words you can get into one sentence and still sound melodic. Certainly one of the best of the year.
4. Shearwater – You As You Were
I only found Shearwater this year, and what a lovely band to find. Animal Joy is a very fine album and to me, You As You Were is the stand out track. It a massive song, full of energy from start to finish. I kind of wish I’d had this song with me a decade or so ago, it would have suited me down to the ground.
3. Emil Friis – Sand In Your Eyes
A very elegant tune, a quiet beginning and then the dark and brooding piano arrives slowly building before the lyrics kick in. It feels like it should be the soundtrack to a very brilliant film (is it?) Any how, it’s worth several listens, especially with a glass of wine or a cocktail or two.
2. Alt-J – Taro
It was a hard to know which track to pick from (in my humble opinion) the album of the year, An Awesome Wave. In any given situation this song always sounds perfect. I understand none of it but love all of it, particularly the instrumental twiddly middle which always takes me to far away lands, even when stuck on the M4. This song, like much of the album creates something brilliant.
1. We Are Augustines – Chapel Song
This song certainly stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it earlier in the year and continues to do so – always something new to ponder over in those heartbreaking lyrics. Thankfully I am normally left feeling more upbeat than melancholy but its a close call. This has held the no.1 spot for many months now, and rightly so. A song of genius
You can find downloads, streams, or videos for all the other tracks above by checking out MM’s Top 100 tunes here: 100 – 81, 80 – 61, 60 – 41, 40 – 21 and 20 – 1.
Today we countdown songs 40-21 in the Mad Mackerel Favourite 100 tunes of the year. You can check out the previous days entries here: 100-81, 80-61, 60-41.
40 ALABAMA SHAKES – HOLD ON
Almost a head-banger done country style, love the underlying guitar rhythm. (SB)
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39 LOWER DENS – BRAINS
When I picked this song out in June I said it was like a child pulling at your sleeve after it’s seen the ice cream van. Incessant and under no circumstance will it be ignored. There is also a sense of chaos, which I always find agreeable – a feeling it‘s not entirely sure where it’s going but doesn’t actually care too much. A stalwart of the year’s playlists for me and still listened to as often as it was six months ago. Can’t give it a bigger tribute really. (CP)
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38 PATTERSON HOOD – 12.01
Great story song about a guy going across the border to buy liqor instead of going home to his empty shell of a relationship. The tune picked out on the guitar and the drums have that metronomic sound that reminds me of being in a car late at night with no music, say, around “12:01, The rain and the wipers play a spooky song”. The cello sounds like other vehicles morbidly passing, heading to where you have come from, or maybe where you should be heading? (DR)
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37 TUNNG – JENNY AGAIN (BBC SESSION)
Released from 2012′s BBC Sessions, this murder ballad is set to a really jaunty, cheerful tune and sees the deceased telling us about how he was stabbed and left to die whilst his girlfriend (the lovely Jenny) buggers off with the fella who killed him. He goes on to tell about how his Jenny and the murderous ‘other man’ go on to live perfectly normal lives whilst keeping their secret. I love the fact that Tunng have crafted a really sad story around a cheerful, jog-along tune. (BSF)
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36 FIRST AID KIT – BLUE So beautiful and so sad. Its about a girl whose only love dies in an RTA when he’s twenty-two and from that moment on she decides not to love anyone else. Yep, its another feel-good corker! (BSF)
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35 WAKE UP LUCID – FEEL IT
Loud, brash and all the better for it. Considering my changing (or is that evolving…) taste in music it genuinely fills me with joy that I still love a proper hard as nails guitar frenzy. The feedback is utterly magnificent, as is the drawled out vocals snarling over the fuzz. Sort of song I would listen to before I had to have a fight. (CP)
Download Wake Up Lucid – Feel It mp3 (from Feel It)
34 WE ARE AUGUSTINES – BALLAD OF A PATIENT MAN
This song was my live gig moment of the year, amongst many great gigs. Fantastic guitar wig out and drummy bit in the middle, sung with the emotional intensity that’s trademark Billy McCarthy. Awesome song, bloody awesome band. (Mrs M)
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33 GRAVENHURST – THE FOUNDRY
The Foundry is played out over a backdrop of acoustics so profoundly beautiful that the sourness of the lyrics pack an even greater punch. “And you won’t know when evil comes, evil looks just like anyone, and I blame, I blame, I blame anyone but me“. Like having your first French kiss and finding your tongue’s been bitten off. (MM)
Like a modern-day story from The Brothers Grimm, the whole song carries with it a threat and a sense of foreboding. I think the meaning might lie in the rise of Nazi Germany and how ordinary people can get swept up in a rising tide of violence and persecution. That’s my interpretation but I’ve been known to be wrong. Anyway, have a listen and heed the message well. Just in case you had it in mind to burn some books and persecute some unfortunate section of our society. (BSF)
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32 HOUNDMOUTH – PENITENTIARY
An old fashioned, whiskey drinking, tobacco chewing kind of a song and its a song sung well. (PP)
Such a great intro to this song. The melody picked out on the guitar and a Hammond organ providing the chords that pull you into this tale of a man who much like Fletcher from Porridge “Accepts arrest as a occupational hazard”. Throughout what is not to beezer a time, the song never once turns melancholy, if anything it rouses the spirit with its beautiful harmonies and soporific melody. A sort of Country, I Fought The Law? (DR)
31 TWO GALLANTS – BROKEN EYES “Hey there girl with the broken eyes”, this startling imagery starts Two Gallants most nostalgic song on The Bloom And The Blight. Poignant without ever being cloying, it is a perfectly judged slice of wistful Americana. (MM)
30 JAKE BUGG – LIGHTNING BOLT
Awesomely twangy guitar and a Sun-era rockabilly rhythm. The ghost of Johnny Cash is alive and well and comes from Nottingham. (MS)
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29 FATHER JOHN MISTY – WRITING A NOVEL
Carried along on a jaunty, rolling rhythm and spewing forth a lyrical stream of consciousness that borders on genius, and contains one of the years simplest and best lines, “I”m writing a novel, because its never been done before”. (MM)
28 BAND IN HEAVEN – SLEAZY DREAMS
I am a 50p head when it comes to musical tastes: I like to mix it up big time. Heavy, bassy, pounding rhythm, wall of guitar noise, this is my (kitchen) dance floor number of 2012. Rock on. (Mrs M)
27 ALT-J – TARO
It was a hard to know which track to pick from (in my humble opinion) the album of the year, An Awesome Wave. In any given situation this song always sounds perfect. I understand none of it but love all of it, particularly the instrumental twiddly middle which always takes me to far away lands, even when stuck on the M4. This song, like much of the album creates something brilliant. (PP)
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26 KING CHARLES – LOVE LUST
This great indie-pop song always has me dancing. I love the lyrics and the fizzing, funky beat it has going on. My favourite song off one of my favourite albums of 2012. (MS)
25 MONUMENT VALLEY – THE VERY FIRST ALARM
I adore the hopeless feel to this song. I could write endlessly about my love for this song but honestly It’s simplicity, beauty, deftness of lyric and the mesmerizing sound of Ned Youngers voice that coats the lyrics of this bitter song with a sweet syprupy glaze (for the Masterchef fans out there), that keeps pulling me back to it over and over again. (DR)
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24 STRAND OF OAKS – TRAP DOOR
I’ve fallen through the Trap Door that Tim Showelter sings about many, many times. I’m getting home late again, been looking for old friends, been looking for anything… He obviously has too. It builds to a fabulous vocal performance leaving me a bit spellbound every time I hear it. The repeated cries of ‘giving it all away’ at the end can find me with eyes screwed tightly shut while mouthing along in a ‘we’re brothers in arms’ kind of way! And that’s when I’m sober! (CP)
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23 THE WALKMEN – SONG FOR LEIGH
The phrase chiming guitars was invented for this song. And boy do they chime, setting a hypnotic pace to the song before the pleading, soaring, chorus threatens “I’ll sing myself sick, sing myself sick, sing myself sick about you”. I hope its enough. (MM)
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22 LORD HURON – TIME TO RUN
An epic Western of a tune: a story song with a foot-tapping rhythm that mimics the flight of yer man and a great mid point when the bells of doom literally ring for our outlaw friend on the run. He did it all for love, silly boy, ‘cause when they catch him, he’s toast. (Mrs M)
21 BETH JEANS HOUGHTON – LILLIPUT
A storming phantasmagoria of a song, guided by the soaring vocals of BJH, a sweeping string arrangement and a drumming tattoo of percussion. When I grow up I want to be just like Beth Jeans Houghton. Lili put your hands in mine and let’s dance: hoof power rules. (Mrs M)
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Check back tomorrow for the final countdown (as Europe might say). The favourite twenty songs of the year according to the MM contributors - Mrs Mackerel (Mrs M), Chris T Popper (CP), Barry-Sean (BSF), Polly Pocket (PP), Dr Roddy (DR), Starbie (SB) Middle Sprat (MS) and Toy Steve (TS).
It is fair to say we’ve got ourselves pretty excited about the release of the new Strand Of Oaks album Dark Shores. If you want to know why, just sit back and listen to the full album stream below and then head here to buy a copy.
Today the brilliant Timothy Showalter aka Strand Of Oaks releases new album Dark Shores. To celebrate that fact, he has also made previous album Pope Killdragon available for free download in its entirety via Noisetrade.
This is what is says on the Noisetrade page about Pope Killdragon: “In Strand Of Oaks songs, lovers get divorced, murder John Belushi’s drug dealer, go bowling with mythical giants, and watch their youth slip away and commune with John F. Kennedy’s illegitimate son. Obviously, Showalter has allowed himself many liberties with what constitutes the truth, and his commingling of fact and fiction, of humor and heartbreak simultaneously distinguishes him from the bearded, acoustic-toting singer-songwriters he’s so easily compared to: immerse yourself in a Strand Of Oaks record and confessionals turn into metaphor, autobiography transferred into tall tales.“
Pope Killdragon is a stunningly good album. Download the sublime track Alex Kona from it below, or just click here to get the whole, brilliant album for free.
You can also just click here to buy Dark Shores from Strand Of Oaks Bandcamp page, stream the title track below too.
Download Strand Of Oaks – Alex Kona mp3 (from Pope Kildragon)
A short while ago we postedMaureen’s, the first taste of Strand of Oaks new album Dark Shores.
Now we have Trap Door, which is, if anything, even better. Timothy Showalter is a man at the peak of his songwriting prowess, and this track of plaintive heartbreak and yearning sits companionably next to some of the very best work that Mark Linkous, Vic Chesnutt or even David Berman have given us over the years. This begs to be heard alone on a dark night with rain rattling the windows and a glass of whiskey and regrets your only company.
Wonderful.
The album is available from July 24th. Pre-order the album right now from his Bandcamp page and you can get an immediate free download of this track.
Picked this up from the excellent Hear Ya blog, and as it was about Timothy Showalter, better known as Strand Of Oaks (and a big MM fave), we figured it was well worth a re-post. This is Maureen’s, the first taste of his forthcoming album Dark Shores, the follow-up to the outstanding Pope Killdragon.
Apparently this album is going to rock out more – the Beatles meet Springsteen according to the aforementioned Hear Ya. We’re liking it a lot from just the first listen, so why not download and judge for yourself.
Can’t quite understand how we missed this, but thankfully picked it up from the ever excellent Folk Hive blog and thought you may have missed it too. Either way it was definitely worthy of a repost.
Shaking Through is a documentary series about bringing a song to life. Each year, ten of the most exciting songwriters around are given a challenge to write and record a song in two days from first take to final mix. MM fave Strand Of Oaks provided the February edition with his song Spacestations.
Download it for free below. More information can be found about Shaking Through here.
There is a nice free digital mix currently available from American Songwriter that features some of MM’s favourites including Deer Tick, The War On Drugs, Cass McCombs and Real Estate.
Here are a couple of our favourites from it – the sultry folk of the Smoke Fairies and Strand Of Oaks aka Timothy Showalter’s outrageous elegy for John Belushi from a certain Ghostbusters star.
Alternatively just click here to go and get the whole thing.
Download Strand Of Oaks – Daniel’s Blues mp3 (from The Muse, An American Songwriter Sampler)
Download The Smoke Fairies – Strange Moon Rising mp3 (from The Muse, An American Songwriter Sampler)
For anyone that has browsed the MM 2010 Top 10s page you will have seen Strand Of Oaks appearing with their superbly surreal tale of the giant Alex Kona. Just by chance we happened upon this cover by purveyors of ethereal, dream pop Bad Temple on Soundcloud. Its not new, but for anyone who hasn’t heard it, it is well worth a listen.
It can also be found on the compilation GRRRIMIXXX – 02. Download it for free from here.
Can’t quite understand how we missed this, but thankfully picked it up from the ever excellent 
There is a nice free digital mix currently available from 
For anyone that has browsed the 
