Songdog

Songdog are a Welsh folk noir band from the United Kingdom, active since 2000. The group centres on Lyndon Morgans and Karl Woodward, both from Blackwood in Wales, alongside Dave Paterson, who is originally from Dundee. Their music sits in americana and folk, and it is marked by stripped-down instrumentation, detailed narratives about life, love and loss, and lyrics that often focus on passing time, disappointment and defiance.

Style and themes

The band works in a quiet, acoustic-based style, with Morgans’s vocals and guitar supported by Woodward on electric guitar, keyboards, harmonica, mandolin and banjo, and Paterson on drums, percussion, keyboards, melodica, tablas and glockenspiel. Their songs are described through imagery of fading lives, lost love and hard-edged emotional realism, with a strong interest in poetry and literary reference. Morgans’s influences include Leonard Cohen, James Joyce, Joni Mitchell, Samuel Beckett, Tom Waits, Marcel Proust, Bob Dylan, Emile Cioran, Roy Orbison, Franz Kafka, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Baudelaire.

Recordings and label work

Songdog signs to One Little Indian and releases a series of albums that includes The Time of Summer Lightning, A Wretched Sinner's Song and A Life Eroding. The discography also includes Haiku on Evangeline Recorded Works and The Way of the World on Zara Records. Their other recorded work includes singles such as “Elaine”, “3:30am (Small Talk)”, “Pilgrim Hill”, “I’m Still Waiting To Start Hurting”, “Childhood Skies” and “Janie Jones”. The band also records a version of Townes Van Zandt’s “Mr Mudd and Mr Gold” with Jason McNiff for the tribute album Riding The Range.

Airplay, press and live work

Songdog receive radio play on BBC Radio 2 through Jonathan Ross and Janice Long, on BBC 6 Music through Gideon Coe, and on XFM through John Kennedy, as well as on Resonance FM and other regional and international stations. Their cover of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” is commissioned for an Uncut covermount release. The band plays venues including the Bloomsbury Theatre, Kings Place, the Borderline, the Roundhouse Studio, Bush Hall, Union Chapel, the ICA and the Spitz, and supports acts such as Martin Rossiter, Joan As Police Woman and the Go-Betweens. Festival appearances include Port Eliot, Analog, Wireless, Guilfest, TDK Cross Central and Secret Garden, and they also appear at festivals in Japan, Canada, Spain, Sweden and Russia.

Other work by Lyndon Morgans

Morgans also writes for the stage and screen. His work includes Water Music, which wins the Verity Bargate Award for Best New Play, Jitterbugger: a cartoon for the stage, a French monologue titled Conte de Fées, and a screenplay called Crazy House. His lyrics for “Cold Coffee & Ava Gardner” also appear in a book about Ava Gardner.

Reception and recognition

The band attracts praise from Robert Wyatt, Jack Douglas and Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen uses Songdog’s track “Days of Armageddon” as walk-in music on a European tour and requests a copy of A Wretched Sinner’s Song. Reviews describe the band’s music as dark, sinister and beautiful, with strongly evocative lyrics and a distinctive folk-noir sound.