Last week, we celebrated part two of my belated concert gifts with my friend Mark…Lloyd Cole. Here we go as always, who? Well, I was in the same camp around 2003. The short answer, Lloyd is a singer/songwriter from the Eighties or so in the same vein as John Wesley Harding and Billy Bragg…English, not very elaborate and esoteric lyrics. I had often known about him in the background because Matthew Sweet joined his band the Commotions as the bass player between his albums Earth and Girlfriend.
Recently Lloyd put out a new album via crowd-sourcing called Standards and we caught him on tour. It’s his first in several years but many old-time fans say it’s more of a return to form.
The Cactus Cafe was the perfect venue to see him. Just him and a couple acoustic guitars. Lloyd covered his hits over the decades with Standards material mixed in. He would tell funny stories while tuning his guitars. If you’re curious about Lloyd’s material, start with this greatest hits compilation. It contains his most famous song “Rattlesnakes.”
After the show, I got in line to get an autograph and face time. Lloyd is a really funny and friendly guy. I told him I was really happy to meet him being only a fan since 2003 plus I became one through Matthew Sweet. He said he always loved working with Matthew (Sweet played bass and contributed backing vocals on Standards), while they were recording the new albums, Lloyd said Matthew loved all the songs, praised them for being brilliant.
Next up, really digging deeper to find Lloyd Cole’s back catalog. How did I miss out on his much earlier work?