There's time for a quick round of Six Degrees of Kevin Shields before we settle in for Christmas.
But I needed a Christmas link to get things going - something really tenuous would be good. Luckily I came up trumps as we start another journey of musical meanderings, through six (or more, or less) connections from Robin Pecknold to Kevin Shields.
My chosen starting point has actually given me multiple tenuous festive links. Robin Noel Pecknold has not one, but two Christmassy names to get us going. He formed the indie-folk-rock band Fleet Foxes in Seattle in 2006 with his buddy Skyler Skjelstad. They had some degree of success with their very first single, which provides yet another festive-adjacent link, the gorgeous White Winter Hymnal.
As well as the band, Pecknold has also released some solo work and been involved with writing two soundtracks. In 2014, he formed a temporary supergroup of sorts, Gene Clark's No Other Band, which included Iain Matthews (Fairport Convention / Matthew's Southern Comfort), Victoria Legrand (Beach House), Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear) and Hamilton Leithauser (The Walkmen). They performed a brief tour where they played all of the record No Other by former Byrd, Gene Clark. During a hiatus from Fleet Foxes, and music in general, he enrolled at the Columbia School of General Studies to do a degree in English, which it seems he never finished.
Fleet Foxes: White Winter Hymnal (Official music video)
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We jump from Washington state to Washington D.C., which is where Hamilton Leithauser hails from. His father had been a curator at the National Gallery of Art, his sister Anna is also an artist, and his uncle, Brad Leithauser, is a poet. Hamilton went to Boston University before transferring to New York University, where he graduated in philosophy.
He was in the band, The Recoys, with Peter Bauer, and when both that band, and another D.C. outfit, Jonathan Fire*Eater, both finished around the same time, various members merged together into a new band - The Walkmen, in 2000. There was Leithauser and Bauer from The Recoys, along with Paul Maroon, Matt Barrick (who co-incidentally also later did some session work for Fleet Foxes) and Walter Martin from Fire*Eater.
The Walkmen: While I Shovel The Snow (Official video - any excuse to share this beautiful festive-adjacent song)
Leithauser put out a solo LP, Black Hours, in 2013, and also worked with his friend Rostam Batmaglij from Vampire Weekend on a project in 2016, that resulted in the album I Had A Dream That You Were Mine.
The last album by The Walkmen was 2012's Heaven, which was recorded over the winter of 2011/12, and featured contributions from Robin Pecknold, Morgan Henderson (The Blood Brothers) and Simon Raymonde. Leithauser called the record, "big and optimistic and fun and grand", and there was a vocal influence from Frank Sinatra to it. The band reunited last year for a tour, after a decade long gap.
Hamilton Leithauser & Rostam: A 1000 Times (Offical music video)
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Simon Raymonde played bass in the post-punk band Drowning Craze, who released three singles in 1981 and 1982. Then, in 1984, he joined Scottish indie band the Cocteau Twins, replacing Will Heggie, and remaining with them to their end in 1997.
Along the way, he also contributed to the first two albums by the side project of 4AD boss Ivo Watts-Russell, This Mortal Coil. As a solo artist, he released Blame Someone Else in 1997, which included a contribution from former bandmate Liz Fraser. That same year, he also helped found the record label, Bella Union.
Cocteau Twins: Iceblink Luck (Official music video)
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Bella Union was formed in 1997 by Simon Raymonde and Robin Guthrie of the recently broken up Cocteau Twins, who were looking for a new place to release music, owing to their increasingly strained relationship with 4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell. When Guthrie moved to France in 2000, Raymonde was left in sole charge of the label. In yet another link within this journey - in 2007, the label was in financial difficulty and Raymonde was on the verge of calling it quits. Then he heard a demo of Fleet Foxes White Winter Hymnal and changed his mind, engaging in a fight with Sub Pop for the rights for European distribution of their debut record.
That self-titled album, Fleet Foxes, would give Bella Union its first UK platinum selling record in 2008. They have also won the Independent Record Company of the Year on four occasions; 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. Artists they have signed over the years include Baloji, Beach House, Ezra Furman, Father John Misty, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Phil Selway and Tim Burgess.
Beach House: Norway (Live at SXSW, 2009)
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The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City back in 1983 by brothers Wayne and Mark Coyne, with Michael Ivins, Dave Kotska, and the then Richard English joining in 1984. The first release, The Flaming Lips EP, was only to feature Mark Coyne on lead vocals.
By 1990 they had signed with major label Warner Bros, which led to several albums and some band comings and goings. Ronald Jones had joined in 1993, but left again in 1996 following concerns over drummer Steven Drozd's drug addiction. This means he missed out on the breakthrough that came with 1999s The Soft Bulletin, which was compared to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. Their fame rose again with 2002s Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, (number 13 on the UK charts) which brought them further success.
The Flaming Lips: Do You Realise? (Live at Glastonbury, 2017)
In 2014, they went to Ireland to headline the Saturday night at Dublin's Forbidden Fruit Festival, held at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. During their set they did a cover of David Bowie's Heroes, bringing on gust guitarist - you guessed it..... KEVIN SHIELDS.
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