Fly Fishing Music: “Old Pine” by Ben Howard
Ben Howard lives in the town of Totnes, on the west bank of the River Dart. Totnes is in the county of Devon in southwestern England. RG took at look at Devon here and here because of the remarkable convergence of good fly fishing and good music that’s occurred in the area of the West Country. Howard, indie folk singer-songwriter, is one more example of that convergence.
The River Dart begins its run as two rivers actually, the East Dart and the West Dart, high on the wild, upland moors of Dartmoor. The two rivers converge at Dartmeet and become the River Dart proper (or Double Dart to some). The river finishes at the sea, at Dartmouth. Along its journey from the moors to the sea, the Dart offers anglers opportunities to catch wild brown trout, sea trout and salmon, all on the fly.
Though he lives in Totnes, Ben Howard spends tons of time on the road. He’s scheduled to perform in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Boulder, and Salt Lake City in the next few months. Here is “Old Pine” from Howard’s new album, Every Kingdom.
Fly Fishing Music: “More Than Money” by Seth Lakeman
“In the West Country you can catch trout from after breakfast till sunset, and enjoy the open air and the country for as long as the sun is in the sky”
Dermot Wilson, Fishing the Dry Fly, 1957
This post is a companion to one from last week on British folk-rocker, Seth Lakeman. Last week’s post featured a favorite song from an older Lakeman album; this week’s features a song from his brand new album, Tales from the Barrel House. The Tales songs are rustic, authentic. They are filled with what Lakeman calls “dirty viola” . . .
banjo, bouzouki, a booming bass heartbeat from an old Salvation Army drum he rescued from a junkshop, and a jangling array of percussion made up from bits of old iron or discarded tools found down the mine and around the Morwellham workshops.
Lakeman actually recorded some of the album (including the song featured below) down in that old, abandoned mine, carved into the granite under Devon, England – Lakeman’s home. And, in fact, it was that West Country granite that inspired the new songs: “This album is like the granite bedrock . . . solid, hard and uncompromising.”
Here is “More Than Money” from Tales from the Barrel House.
(Also – since last week’s post – I learned that Lakeman is himself a fisherman of the rivers of the West Country . . . not necessarily with a fly, nor particularly avid . . . but a fisherman nonetheless.)
Fly Fishing Music: “1643″ by Seth Lakeman
Seth Lakeman, songwriter and purveyor of English folk rock, hails from Dartmoor . . . in the county of Devon, in southwest England. It’s an area of captivating natural beauty . . . characterized by moors – wild, windswept upland hills, covered with granite rock formations and low, hearty grasses. Dartmoor was the inspiration and setting for Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and is protected as a national park.
The area is also known for its fly fishing . . . for brown trout, sea trout and salmon. Unlike the famous English chalk streams, the rivers of this area – the River Teign, the River Taw, and the tributaries of the River Dart – are freestone rivers . . . fed not by springs, but by runoff . . . surface water flowing over hard granite. As a result, the rivers of Dartmoor are relatively less productive and fly fishermen and women must work hard for their grabs.
Annalisa Barbieri of the UK newspaper The Independent offers the following on Dartmoor:
It’s difficult, you can’t take it for granted and it can change in a moment from a place of gobsmacking beauty to one of brooding menace. Obviously, then, it is female. Every year, at least once, I come here to breathe pure air and gaze upon her wild, abandoned magnificence. Dartmoor brownies are also magnificent. Small, shaped like torpedoes and as wild as they come.
Here is “1643” from Lakeman’s album Freedom Fields.
Fly Fishing Music: “Streets of New England” by Have Gun, Will Travel
There is a sodden freshness to the morning that reaches through clothing and sets a man shivering, and the men talk in low voices in deference to the roar of the river.
The promise of rain had been fulfilled by the time I came to the river. The trees dripped moss and the moss dripped rain and the droplets formed rings on the river before the current snatched them away.
Steve Raymond, The Year of the Angler
The Trinity River Playlist is for steelheading . . . before and after winter steelheading, actually. It’s for the truck on a cold, rainy . . . maybe snowy . . . maybe solitary morning. It’s for the wet back roads of the far north of California, Oregon, Washington, or British Columbia after dusk. The songs are slower, more haunting, more contemplative. They are good for when you’ve got some time to think.
All of them are outstanding, I think – “Here I Go” by Leif James, “Wish It Was True” by The White Buffalo, “Lost and Found” by Chuck Ragan, “Home in the Woods” by Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons, “To The North” by Matthew and The Atlas, “One Lone Night” by The White Buffalo, “Out of My Own Way” by Matthew Dean Herman.
An appropriate addition to the list is a song by the band Have Gun, Will Travel. Here is “Streets of New England” from the band’s new album, Mergers & Acquisitions.
Fly Fishing Music: “Fairbanks” by Stephen Young & The Union
Stephen Young and his band, The Union, hail from Dublin, Ireland. The band’s bent is folk/rock/blues influenced Americana, deep in songwriting and story. Since 2008 – when the group formed – they’ve attracted critical acclaim and a strong local following. They regularly entertain patrons at various Dublin watering holes – Whelan’s, The Sugar Club, The Academy, Cobblestone Pub, The Spirit Store, Crawdaddy . . .
About 30 miles north of the pubs of Dublin, the River Boyne flows into the Irish Sea. The Boyne is 70 miles long and drains some of Ireland’s fertile plains. The river is premium wild brown trout water and one of the country’s primary game fisheries. Much of it is privately controlled by leprechauns, who require permits . . . just kidding. Sorry. I meant, much of the river is controlled by private clubs, which do require permits.
Fly fishermen have targeted the trout in Ireland’s rivers for hundreds of years. “The brown trout, or Breac Donn as it’s known in Gaelic, is native to these lands and can be found in almost every river and lough in the country,” according to site The Flies of Ireland. Breac Donn are challenging, selective targets, though. Not a whole lot has changed since 1899, when Lord Viscount Grey of Fallodon wrote the following about Ireland in his book Fly Fishing:
There were trout visibly and audibly rising, which had never seen an artificial dry fly . . . They were evidently also big trout. There was splendid sport to be had, and reputation and glory to be won in catching even one of them, and yet so shy were they . . . For two days they defeated me utterly. I walked and knelt and waded and laboured and perspired under August sun without success.
It would be hard to top a day on the River Boyne, targeting big, spooky, indigenous browns, followed by an evening in bustling Dublin listening to Stephen Young and the Union live. Here is “Fairbanks” from the band’s debut album, Wilderness Machine.
Fly Fishing Music: “Out of My Own Way” by Matthew Dean Herman
Matthew Dean Herman lives in Anchorage, Alaska. He’s the focal point of the Jack River Kings, an alt-country band that apparently “becomes irresistible when accompanied by a couple of friends and a pitcher of beer.” This according to the Anchorage Press newspaper. I haven’t seen them live myself, but that’s my kind of band. And, the JRKs are definitely the real deal. They have played with such outfits as the Whipsaws and Lucero. The group is currently working on a new album and I look forward to profiling the new songs, soon.
Herman’s last album was a self-titled one. I don’t know if the other Jack River royalty backed him on the album or not. I do know that the album is quite good. Herman clearly has talent, both as a songwriter and as a musician. Anchorage Press: “He refined his guitar skills throughout his adolescence and began seriously writing songs in his mid-twenties, drawing inspiration from the classic country and Southern rock of his youth, and from contemporary alternative bands like The Hold Steady and My Morning Jacket.” His album is entitled Blackbird – a “country-infused blend of rock songs about beer, fishing, run-ins with the law, and, predominantly, love gone wrong.”
Music from the album anchors the soundtrack of the fly fishing film Cast Alaska, which won Best Documentary at the 2012 Mountain Film Awards and is an official selection of the International Fly Fishing Film Festival (IF4).
Here is “Out of My Own Way” from Blackbird.
Fly Fishing Music: “One Lone Night” by The White Buffalo
No question . . . Jake Smith (a/k/a The White Buffalo) is a favorite around here. I can think of few artists I’d rather listen to over beers and whiskey in a bar with good buddies as the sun goes down on a long, great day on a Western river. And, I know I am not alone. I’ve had more comments from Reel Grease fans about el Blanco Buffalo than perhaps any other artist profiled here – and I’ve profiled some absolutely amazing artists.
So, this post is a special one, because the Buffalo just released his newest album, Once Upon a Time in the West. Once again, he does an amazing job. Listen below or catch Jake live. His tour schedule is always all about great Western towns, often towns close to prime trout water . . . Victoria . . . Vancouver . . . Seattle . . . Bellingham . . . Portland . . . Bend . . . Denver . . . Boulder . . . Fort Collins . . . Vail . . . Aspen . . . Breckenridge . . . Copper Mountain . . . Salt Lake City . . . Tucson . . . Phoenix.
Here is “One Lone Night.”
Fly Fishing Music: {FREE TRACK} “To The North” by Matthew and the Atlas
The chalk streams of England are, because of their ecology and geology, particularly suited to fly fishing . . . and especially to dry fly fishing. The reason is simple. Chalk is porous. It holds and filters rainwater. Chalk hills, therefore, act as big aquifers, with springs emerging down slope. As all aquifers do, they regulate both stream flow ( ~ constant) and temperature ( ~ 50°F). Chalk streams are also typically – like spring creeks, in general – relatively free from sediment and relatively rich in sources of food. All of these things combine to make great trout habitat.
The River Itchen, in Hampshire, England, is thought by some to be one of the ultimate chalk streams. It’s world famous for its clear water and its Brown Trout. Because of the extreme clarity, the game for the fly fisherman there is one of stealth and sight casting, either to rising fish or fish visible below the surface. And those fish, at or below the surface of the river, are all wild. There’s been no stocking of Browns since 1951.
The history of the Itchen goes a bit further back than that, though. It actually reaches deep into the annals of fly fishing. According to the guides at Go Fly Fishing UK:
G.E.M. Skues – the father of Trout nymph fly fishing techniques – fished the River Itchen in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Other famous fly fishing writers such as Sir Edward Grey and Frederick Halford also fished the river regularly during this era. Izaak Walton is buried in Winchester Cathedral close to the Itchen.
If you care about such things, that’s quite a pedigree indeed . . . Another Englishman who’s spent some time in the vicinity of the River Itchen (though this guy a little more recently) is Matthew Hegarty. Hegarty’s hometown of Aldershot is just 20-30 miles from the river. Hegarty is the heart and soul of the emerging Matthew and the Atlas. MATA brings us English folk rock with strong Americana and country influences. According to the website:
Hegarty filters his textured and dreamy take on Americana through a distinctly English folk sensibility, and – with his bruised and raw vocal to the fore – tells stories that sound like they’ve been handed down through the ages.
Listen to “To The North” and you’ll see exactly what all that means. It is the best song so far from MATA.
Fly Fishing Music: “Home In The Woods” by Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons
The Driftless Area covers 16,203 square miles in the American Midwest. Eighty-five percent of it lies in southwestern Wisconsin. The appellation – “driftless” – may not mean what you think it means. When glaciers retreat, they leave a lot of stuff in their wake – boulders, gravel, sand, silt . . . drift. Drift completely changes (read: buries) the former topography. Things are topographically reset. Surface waters must carve and create new steam beds.
The Driftless Area was named that because it actually escaped the grinding and grating glaciers of the last glacial ice advance, which occurred between 10K and 110K years ago. By escaping the glaciers, the area also escaped all the resulting drift. It is, therefore . . . driftless . . . and holds relatively less disturbed and more deeply carved topographical features. This is from driftlesswisconsin.com:
Never touched by glaciers, the Driftless Area is characterized by its beautifully sculpted topography. Forested hillsides reach down to valleys cut into limestone bedrock by cold-water trout streams.
Also carved into the limestone bedrock are numerous caves, aquifers, disappearing and underground stream beds, and springs. These features provide thousands of miles of consistently cold water, ideal habitat for aquatic insects, crustaceans and trout. The result is plenty of trout per mile and some of the best spring creek fishing in the world.
For anyone making the trip, another one should be made to see Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons, an Americana / folk rock band that has its origins in nearby Appleton, Wisconsin. Appleton is only two to three hours north and east of the Driftless Area. “Home In the Woods” is one of the best songs from the band.
{Note: I also want to give a shout to the folks at the Wisonsin Fly Fishing Forums. They were early RG fans and are great guys.}
Fly Fishing Music: “Lost And Found” by Chuck Ragan
Homebase for Chuck Ragan is the Gold Country of Northern California. Gold Country is also the name of his second solo studio album. That area, which drew the attention of the world, and waves of fortune hunters, more than a century-and-a-half ago, lies on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It runs roughly north-south from Sierra County down to Mariposa County and is dotted with former mining camps, now small and medium-sized towns, such as Sierra City, Downieville, Rough & Ready, Nevada City, Dutch Flat, Auburn, Fiddletown, Drytown, Railroad Flat, Copperopolis, Chinese Camp, Knights Ferry, Mariposa and Oakhurst. And, actually, there used to be many more dots on the map – many more mining camps. But, those others faded into history when the gold ran out, places with names like Hell-out-for-Noon City, Gridiron Bar, Jackass Gulch, One Eye, Whiskey Bar, Tin Cup, Graveyard, Hell’s Delight.
The Gold Country is also striped horizontally with fly waters – freestone rivers and creaks flowing out of the Sierra Nevadas, with a number of dams and resulting tailwaters. The rivers include the North Yuba, the South Yuba, the Lower Yuba, the forks of the American River, the forks of the Stanislaus, the Lower Stanislaus, the Mokelumne, the Tuolumne, and the Merced Rivers – as well as many, many smaller rivers and creeks that feed these larger rivers. The area is also dotted (though much more sparsely) with quality fly shops – Nevada City Anglers in Nevada City, Yosemite Rivers in Oakhurst, Mosquito Creek Outfitters in Placerville (formerly “Hangtown” in the Gold Rush days), and the small Blue Heron Sports in Mariposa.
The Gold Country is a beautiful area with some good fly fishing. Chuck Ragan’s brand of acoustic Americana just seems to capture the place – the texture and history, the sounds and the feelings. Here is “Lost And Found” from his newest album, Covering Ground.
Fly Fishing Music: “Wish It Was True” by The White Buffalo
Tonight The White Buffalo plays in Vail, Colorado – in the Vail Village. This will be one of his first shows since the release, earlier this week, of his newest EP, Lost and Found. That EP is simply more outstanding music from the Buffalo: more deep, hard, filled-with-emotion songwriting; more of his one-of-a-kind voice; more of that extreme-western sound. I wish I could be there in Vail tonight – though, I confess, not only to listen to The White Buffalo . . .
Vail is also a great fly fishing town (and, actually, the one near which I caught my first rainbow, when I was in my early teens). The town’s got all the boxes checked: (1) Outfitters: There are multiple award-winning fly shops in close proximity – Fly Fishing Outfitters in Vail Village and Avon, Minturn Anglers in Minturn, and Breckenridge Outfitters in Breckenridge. (2) Live Music: There are also many solid venues for live music nearby, such as Three20South, Goat Soup & Whiskey Tavern and The Dillon Dam Brewery. And, last but not least, (3) Natural Location: Vail is located right in the heart of Rocky Mountain trout country. Gore Creek twists through the town. The Eagle River flows right past the nearby towns of Avon and Minturn. And, the Colorado River, the Yampa River, the Gold Medal designated portions of the Roaring Fork River are all within an hour’s drive.
If you cannot make it to Vail Village tonight either, “Wish It Were True” is one of the best of the five new songs on Lost and Found.
Fly Fishing Music: “Here I Go” by Leif James
Bend, Oregon, was named long ago after a “bend” in the great Deschutes River. Along with the Metolius and Crooked Rivers, the Deschutes makes the town of Bend a renowned fly fishing destination. If that weren’t enough, the town also has a lively music scene, with more than a dozen live music venues. A leader in that scene is Leif James. James regularly plays the taverns, bars and pubs of Bend.
He has a good voice for this kind of thing – “the kind of voice that drives an audience to chain-smoke and binge on coffee. It is smoky, deep, raspy, and soulful, and has that roughness that brings to mind the most compelling blues legends,” wrote Matt Wice of Muse Magazine about James.
He also has a good background for this kind of thing. The wisdom and perspective he brings to songwriting only comes from a life of struggle. Interestingly, that is actually the name of his band, Leif James & The Struggle. That deep, solid songwriting is on best display with “Here I Go.”
