#the second sons

[ravensword22]

Game of Thrones: Episode: “Mockingbird”

[gotcasting]

Mero

Linden Ashby - American, 57 years old.

(Braavosi accent. Busy red-gold beard.)

[gotcasting]

Brown Ben Plumm

Andre Braugher - 55 years old, American.

(Accent. Grey-white hair and beard.)

[themagicarchive]

Intro ~

Summary: Winx Club OCs, The Second Sons (Alistair, Royce, Vincent, Theodore, Mikhail, & Cyrus) host a game night...unfortunately, they're all obnoxious.

Word Count: 257

Warnings: N/A

Royce is the first to suggest group bonding activities, featuring one of his favorites hobbies: card games.

Though he prefers building houses with them, he knows it's a more childish card game…so instead, he suggests poker. 

Unfortunately for him, everyone else derails:

Alistair takes the game too seriously, demanding that the game is played fairly with no cheating…all while looking for loopholes himself…

Mikhail starts doing obnoxious card tricks behind Alistair’s back. Vincent has to suppress the quirk of his lips as Mikhail dramatically reveals a card from behind Alistair’s ear, pulling an exaggerated surprised expression as he reveals the king of spades.

Theodore shuffles the cards for everyone, but as the bickering ensues, he turns to silently muse over the cards. It irritates everyone to no end when he is able to catch who is cheating and how without even bothering to look up. 

Royce is scandalized and ends game night early when he realizes that Cryus had been drawing on his cards, giving the hearts little faces and poorly shaped limbs. Cyrus, despite his best attempts, made them look like disturbing medieval drawings–like a painter attempting to paint a cat, whilst never actually having seen one before. Mikhail was rather impressed, Royce…not so much. 

They all didn’t even notice that Vincent had snuck out half an hour earlier to head to bed, taking the wine bottle with him.

Game night, though chaotic and always ending with someone insisting that it was their last, became a frequent occurrence…much to the chagrin of anyone in close vicinity.

[plungermusic]

Everyone knows two heads are better than one…

… and they don’t come better than this Half Moon double-header with Du Bellows and Second Sons: two young London bands, both very much on the rise, both already recognised as special by renowned producer/engineer Chris Kimsey. Given Chris’ history its maybe no surprise there’s a thread of retro vibe running through both acts.

Du Bellows perfectly capture that complex folk-stained strain of dark bucolic rock purveyed by The Strawbs, Zep and across the pond early Airplane and late-era Mac, as in the dreamy waltz reverie of Silurian Woman and the jangly, spacious guitar and intricate bass lines of Black Wolf.

There’s always been a sinister side to the genre’s rustic idylls - the shadow in the water, the spirit in the forest, the bleak majesty of the hill, and Du Bellows supply that in spades: in the portentous Three Steps, its stately progress like a funeral march for a forgotten emperor building through monster fuzz chords, surprise harmonies and rafter-shaking wails to a thunderous drum and bass storm breaking in a dead silent stop; the melodrama of Any Old Time where Jade Danielle Williams’s breathy childlike vocal gradually hardened becoming more threatening over Richard Lee’s liquid bass underpinning and finally climaxing in spine-tingling harmonic and register shifts as the eastern flavoured juggernaut of a riff propelled the song to a close; the swirling seductive Nicksesque vision that opened Spin gave way to a simultaneously chilling and elating descending phrase chorus; while Jade’s near-a cappella mountain top invocation intro to Luminaire heralded a punishing guitar-and-bass unison Crimson riff, David Watkinson’s brutal drum beat topped with her ecstatic dervish outpourings.

New guitarist Sebastian Willis seems to have bedded in nicely, adding a touch more of rocky edge, in the punchy Airplane/The Cult hybrid of The Waking, in the tight angular automaton riff and thrashy break of The Killing Game and even letting loose with a twangsome fluid break topped in Collinsesque flurries on Paper Soles. A new song got an outing, (possibly called One Moment but don’t quote Plunger on that) that showed a rare, bluesy, soulful vibe, like an Etta-James-on-ketamine last-waltz-smoocher, Jade’s vox alternately vulnerable and defiant, ending with the last line left hanging tantalisingly unresolved.

Second Sons are a much more straight forward quantity: if Du bellows bring spiritual chills, Second Sons deliver the physical thrills - the energy they imparted to the Half Moon crowd was like being wired directly to the national grid. That was instantly apparent from the moment they appropriately opened with Light It Up, a louche barrelling Brown Sugar-meets-Jumpin' Jack Flash swagger slathered with sumptuous side orders of  slide and sax courtesy of Marco Cinelli and Dominic Thatcher. Letter To Harvey kept up the high energy assault, with its Madchester tom-shuffle from Alessandro Cinelli and a nice bit of twin dual duelling soloing from Marco and Chris Harding and  the Street-fighting 20th Century Boy strut of Best Of Me, the punchy sax and guitar perfectly matched by Nick Harding’s belligerent laddish vox and Jaggeresque stage prowling. Nick also displayed no mean harp skills on the southern-flavoured Tumbling Dice shamble of Sick Of It All.

Sons, but they make it wholly their own, exemplified in the perfect Exile-era distillation of Ain’t It A Shame: a slinky raw-edged lope, temple-block-and-cowbell and luscious slide backing hair-raising vocals from Nick and the guesting Jade, and featuring a sublime classic 70s moody mid-break. Brooding, trippy bass from George Price and cymbal-rich drumming affording space for some fantastic psychedelic discursive noodling from Dominic’s sax and both Chris and Marco, joined by Nick’s harp for a storming bluesy close complete with lung-busting contributions from Jade.

Two incredible singers, two killer bands, playing honest-to-deity-of-choice, real music is about as good as it can get for Plunger. Long may it last.

[plungermusic]

Clicky Fingers at the Liggers Banquet...

… it was all a bit ‘clash of the ages’ at Cambridge Audio’s London offices, as louche laddish 70s rock met the Instagram generation (while Plunger looked on from the sidelines…)

The first #Stageside event organised in Southwark by Instagrammers @London (#yesIhavenoideawh@Imtypingnow) was probably the most photographed in town so far this year, with an invited audience of 200 lucky folks taking pictures of themselves taking pictures of other people taking pictures of the DJ’s turntables…

In amongst all that were The Second Sons, officially Plunger’s ‘Find Of 2017’ (yes, they’ve been going since 2015 but we’re a bit slow on the uptake) with Nick Harding on vocals, Chris Harding on guitar and vocals, Alessandro Cinelli drums, Marco Cinelli guitar and George Price bass.

As their look might suggest, Second Sons owe a lot to a bygone era but (much like past ‘Finds’ Rosco Levee, Du Bellows, Maker, Mike Ross) they make it all their own. And they have totally nailed that late 60s/early 70s testosterone-fuelled street-fighting braggadocio… From the barrelling boogie of Down The Line with its sassy, brassy slide to the driving snare-led Stax soul cover of Homer Banks’ (via Taj Mahal) Ain’t That A Lot Of Love, the band positively vibrated with energy and aggression.

There’s no escaping the observation that The Second Sons do bear more than a passing sonic resemblance to Dartford’s finest, which is just fine by Plunger. Nick has all the belligerent sneering inscouciance of Jagger and Chris and Marco evoke the guitar-glory days of Keef and Mick, all evident in the in-yer-face vox, rolling-toms-and-power-chords and southern-fried interjections of Letter To Harvey; in What You Need Is Love’s Some Girls southern soul with its ‘Oooh-ooohs!’ and the punky whiplash Jumpin Jack Flashery of Can’t You See.

That feel was enhanced by the addition of two guesting musicians: Jade Danielle Williams’ stunning voice supplied the rafter-shaking 20 feet From Stardom backing vocals and Dominic Thatcher’s punchy sax brought meaty texture to Lend A Hand’s fast Tumbling Dice-vibe with Chris and Nick sharing vocals, the Brown Sugariness of Light It Up and a particularly fine solo on the bustling rock’n’roller Best Of Me. The sax also had a very brief lyrical outing to close the hazy come-down acoustic-led Wild Horses country rock of There Comes A Time, which was also adorned with sublime soaring Bettsesque guitar.

Plunger favourites on the night were the slinky, southern swagger of Sick Of It All, with gutsy harp and a classic 70s false ending, topped with an extended rocking coda punctuated by spine-tingling vocal interjections from Jade, and the slinky Exile-tinged lope of Ain’t It A Shame, the essence of the night in one song: luscious slide, blaring sax, and hair-raising front-of-stage vocal exchanges between Jade and Nick, plus another echt 70s ‘jazzy-drum-quiet-bit-with-discursive-guitar-noodling before a full band return for a lengthy blow-out coda.

Fantastic entertainment from a brilliant band: It may only have been rock and roll, but we liked it.

Liked it,

Yes we did.

[starkistan]

+Who told you you take the navy?

-No one.