Get Up, Get Down, And Get Outside--Frank Turner on US tour--Love Ire & Song & First Three Years



We Live To Dance Another Day!!!



English Folk Punk Frank Turner is on tour in America right now, headlining for veteran California punk rockers Social Distortion. Sounds like a great bill to me. He is a terrific songwriter, and you would be well rewarded by picking up some of his recorded catalog. In these uncertain times, I would recommend the Love, Ire and Song/The First Three Years econopack. Certainly speaking as an American, the Billy Bragg comparisons are obvious. But he is far too talented, intelligent, and passionate a performer to overstate things because both parties are English, play acoustically, and write moving songs about love and politics. To be so dismissive about his music would put me in the same category as people who consider Robyn Hitchcock to be a mere Syd Barrett imitator, even after 20 plus albums. There is no small amount of Joe Strummer influence here also, but he takes all his influences and brings his own individuality and personality into the mix.

Frank Turner originally was a member of the hard core band Million Dead, who split up after two good albums. His solo career has gone off in a different but no less great direction. I was looking at his blogspot, which I would recommend people have a look at. He appears to be a very socially aware and principled individual who does his part to promote charitable causes. But if you listen carefully to his lyrics, you probably would have recognized that already.

The First Three Years is an odds n sods compilation of singles, demos and live cuts. There is a small amount of throw away material here, but overall this is very very strong. For this type of record, it holds together well. The first 7 songs are terrific particularly Nashville Tennesee, Thatcher Fucked The Kids, and I Really Don't Care What You Did On Your Gap Year. There are some unusual acoustic cover songs here, Bad Brains' Pay To Cum, Abba's Dancing Queen, and Woody Guthrie's You Are My Sunshine. Also on this record is the ode to coming home drunk Sea Legs. There is a lot on this record to love.

Love Ire and Song is Frank's first album and it's a corker. The songwriting I.Q. here is high, and the album starts with the powerful I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous. On a song like A Love Worth Keeping he sings with such raw emotion, it tears at your heart. You can't just listen, you feel like he is making you get involved. And this album is diversified. There are full rocking band tunes, acoustic ballads--the final song Jet Lag is a moving piano bar ballad. Photosynthesis is a jaunty defiant folky sing-a-long. "Won't Sit Down, Won't Shut Up, Most of all I won't Grow Up". Anyone who has ever been dumped can't help but be transported into Frank's lonely shoes in the desolate Better Half. The emotional center of the album is the autobiographical title track, where he compares the great enthusiasms and failures of past history with living in the present. Long Live The Queen is another extremely poignant tune with its "walk away Renee" chorus, one of my personal favorites.

So if you haven't been introduced to his body of work don't hesitate. Though I think that his best work is yet to come, there is no excuse to wait. If he is coming to a town near you try to get out and support him. And as a bonus you get to see the great Social Distortion. I'm sure Frank Turner must be fantastic live--he tours incessantly, as working musicians do. His more recent studio albums Sleep is for the Week, and Poetry of the Deed are also highly recommended. I haven't heard his recent live import, but I bet it is pretty awesome.

This video is for my friend Burn-Z.