Frank Turner & Franz Nicolay Sing Noel Coward

While English folk-punk Frank Turner has never hid his love for the theatricality of Queen front-man Freddie Mercury, on this Asbestos Records' split single with Franz Nicolay of The Hold Steady and The World/Inferno Friendship Society, he's going even more music hall by paying tribute to British playwright and song-smith, Noel Coward.  While Nicolay does a sad piano take on "Sail Away", Turner strips down and speeds up "There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner", a clever 'the-country's-going-to-Hell' broadside, to dizzying effect.





FRANK TURNER

FRANZ NICOLAY

The Donots ft. Frank Turner: So Long (2012)

On their new single, "So Long", German pop-punk band The Donots have joined forces with English folk-punker Frank Turner (more HERE). Together the bros have turned in a full-blooded folk-rocker that could be like a 21st century Big Country song!




Let us know what you think of this Anglo-German folk-punk festival in the COMMENTS section!


DONOTS

FRANK TURNER

Frank Turner: Daytrotter Sessions

A brand-new all-acoustic 2011 session from England's folkie road warrior, Frank Turner. On this session you get three tracks from England Keep My Bones'; a dramatically quieter, solo take on "One Foot Before the Other",  a fine, if not dissimilar, version of  "Sailor Boots" and an excellent  B-side, "Balthazar, Impresario". In addition, you get the Bragg-esque "You Can’t Choose the One That You Love", which is, I believe, previously unrecorded.







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Frank Turner: Song to Bob Dylan (Maida Vale)

Frank Turner is a fierce performer. He combines the self-deprecating word-play and vocal style of eighties Billy Bragg, with the myth-building grandeur of seventies Bruce Springsteen and that lone finger-pointer with an acoustic guitar attack of early sixties Bob Dylan. But for all that history, he remains every bit a part of the binge-drinking, text-sending Britain of the 21st century. Dismiss him as another damn singer-songwriter or saddle him with the Voice of a Generation Curse (as CNN foolishly tried to do) or you can just accept Turner's self-designation of his work as, "campfire-punk". After all, when he played in Winnipeg in September, bottom-billed to Murder by Death, the Loved Ones and the Gaslight Anthem, he drew a tightly-packed crowd who were singing along within moments, as if there was a roaring fire right there in the room.



On this BBC session, Turner, backed by a full band, twists one of Dylan's earliest originals, "Song To Woody". Here, Turner revises the lyrics to turn the tribute back on Bob as well as "Springsteen, Cohen and Neil Young too" (as Dylan name-checked, "Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too"). Maybe Turner chose those names, song-writers who successfully shook off Dylan comparisons, to state that he has no intention of living in the shadow of any other performer.

(Frank Turner - Song to Bob Dylan)

Also in this session you get raw version of the anthemic single, "The Road" from his new album Poetry of the Deed and a faster, electric take on the poignant death-bed mediation "The Queen" from his break-through album, Love Ire and Song.

{MRML readers leave us a comment with your opinion on the whole Frank Turner phenomenon.}



D/L Frank Turner Live at Maida Vale


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